I’ve sent a total of one child off to college. In blogosphere terms, that makes me an expert in the in’s and out’s of getting your kid into college. As such, here are SuburbanWife’s three basic Don’t rules for helping your child choose which college to attend:

ONE: Don’t Do It For Them

As over-obvious as this might sound to some of you, this is absolutely my Número Uno not-to-broken rule and the one that a lot of parents are going to ignore (at everyone’s peril). No matter how brilliant little Johnny is, if he can’t get his stuff together to do the research, write the essays, and fill out the applications himself, he will not be ready for the rigors of college.

BabyDoll, about to go off for her sophomore year at college, did all the work of selecting and applying to schools herself with very little input and almost no help from us. Ignatz, about to start as a high school junior, will most likely find the process a little more challenging. In spite of, and honestly, a little because Ignatz has Asperger’s, I’m determined that he will be responsible for all of the heavy lifting related to his college search and applications. If he can’t get the job done of coming up with a list of colleges and figuring out which school needs what, and when, then he’s unlikely to be able to handle the stresses and academic demands of his freshman year. I’d much rather know that he’s not ready for school before I spend $24,000 (give or take) on his freshman year; I’d like some assurance that he won’t just be flushing my money down the toilet.

I have a nephew whose only task was to make sure than an already addressed, stamped envelope containing his college application, filled out by his mother, was put in the mail. When she returned from a road trip nearly two weeks later, that envelope was still on the kitchen counter. My nephew did mange to get accepted and did survive his freshman year. He even passed all of his classes but he’s living at home and still needs someone looking over his shoulder to make sure he doesn’t register for classes that overlap or are on two separate campuses across town from each other. My sister and nephew are making it work but it’s not a scenario I’m interested in duplicating.

Ignatz thinks he wants to follow in his sister’s footsteps and leave the state. As much as the thought of my baby going off to school terrifies me, I’m absolutely open to the idea but he’ll have to prove his readiness for such an adventure by making it happen himself.

TWO: Don’t Assume You Can’t Afford Private School

Back in the mid 80’s when My Love was putting his first kids through college the joke was they could go to any school they wanted … as long as it was “in-state.” Back in those days, as a middle class white collar pencil-pusher, the conventional wisdom was he made too much to qualify for aid but not enough to pay private college tuition. Three years ago when we started having serious discussions about what college options were open to Baby Doll I managed to convince My Love there would be no harm in letting her apply to some private schools. Baby Dolland I were both very clear on what our annual budget was and she understood that the numbers were firm; no college, no matter how she loved it, would be in the running if the numbers didn’t line up. Well, when everything was said and done and the acceptance-letter and merit-scholarship-offer dust had settled we were amazed and delighted to find that we could send her to a small private college with an excellent reputation, small classes, no TA’s, and fabulous study abroad opportunities for less than what it would cost us to send her to the humongous local state university with a national party-school rep. Even after you factor in the cost of flying her back and forth for Christmas and her trip to China last year (Brazil and Argentina this year), we’re still paying less than her former classmate’s parents are paying for that big party school just up the road.

THREE: Don’t Choose A School You’ve Never Visited

This one seems almost too obvious to need mentioning but you might be shocked to find out that kids (usually under the influence of parental pressure) sometimes enroll in a college they’ve never even seen. I know that some cultures still practice arranged marriages and I know that sometimes such relationships are long and happy ones but, in all honesty, I find the concept a little barbaric. And I find the idea of choosing a college sight-unseen just as barbaric.

If there’s one thing I learned on our summer college tour two years ago it’s the fact that a college on paper can be drastically and dramatically (sometimes, dare I say even traumatically) different than it is in reality. This college is where your child will spend the next four years of his or her life. It’s where you’ll be sending all of your money. The other students will not only be your child’s friends, roommates, and classmates but, if all goes right, their life-long friends and support system. Don’t you think a step like that deserves a face-to-face meeting beforehand?

Baby Doll did apply to colleges she had not yet visited but based on her acceptances, none of those made it to the final stages of consideration. Her decision finally came down to two schools — both of which she had visited and toured. The school in the Midwest paid most of her travel expenses for her to fly out for a 2-day prospective-student weekend where she had a great time, attended a party, went to a movie, attended some classes, and made new friends. The school on the West Coast encouraged her, but didn’t offer to pay, to come for an overnight visit where she attended classes, made friends, and studied in the library. It was the opportunity to see what student life was really like, to meet a few professors and sit in on classes that made the decision a clear and easy one. Without these visits Baby Doll might very well have chosen the Midwest school; that’s the direction she was leaning. It was being on campus and experiencing the difference in mood, the dramatic difference between the highly-diverse West Coast school and more homogenous Midwest school, and the dynamic professors and exciting West Coast school’s classes versus the same-old, same-old feeling of the Midwest school’s classes that helped make her decision a strong, positive one. Could she have, would she have chosen the Midwest school and had a good time and gotten a good education? Undoubtedly. Even she admits that she could have been happy there (and it was a couple grand less expensive per year) but for me and My Love, a couple grand is well worth the extra degree of love and enthusiasm she has for her studies and the school that will one day soon be her alma mater.

If your household is anything like ours, you’ve got multiple “i” devices floating around the house. In our household, we’ve managed to collect an impressive number of these App Eaters is the past year.  Baby Doll was the first with the free iPod Touch she received as part of Apple’s Back To School promotion last summer when we bought her a MBP as a graduation gift.  Then we gave Ignatz an iPod Touch for Christmas.  I scored a first-generation iPad when Verizon put them on sale a few days after the iPad 2 was released.  And, most recently, Baby Doll finally decided she what she wanted for her 19th birthday — an iPhone.

Even though we’ve been sharing computers for years, the kids and I have always maintained our own iTunes accounts.  Naturally, with this scenario of maintaining individual iTunes accounts but sharing computers, we’re well familiar with the different means of sharing music. But sharing purchased apps is a relatively new issue for us. I’ve known for some time that sharing apps within the family was both technically and legally possible but I wasn’t quite sure how to make it happen.

I avoided the issue for a couple of weeks but recently had a situation where I either had to figure out how to share a purchased app or give in and buy a second copy. Since I had so much trouble finding a clear, concise (and correct) set of instructions for how to do this, I thought I’d share my newly gained knowledge with anyone else trying to figure this out.  If you find this post helpful, I hope you’ll leave me a quick comment (nothing like a little positive feedback, huh?).

Prep

Consider what method of transferring the app will work best for your situation.  Even if you’re copying an App from one iTunes account to another on the very same computer, you’ll still need a way to move a file.  I’ve heard that this can be accomplished by attaching the file in an email but I went the old fashioned route and used an external device.

I keep a portable hard drive at hand for file/music backups, etc. so I used it to move the app from one computer to another. You could use a hard drive or a jump drive, or if you’re living with one foot way in the past and one in the right-here-and-now, you could burn the file onto a disc.

Step 1

Log into the “giving” iTunes account. In the Library => Apps section, locate the icon for the app to be shared.

Step 2

Click on the desired app icon then drag and drop it — either onto the hard drive or jump drive, or on your desktop. It really doesn’t matter at this point where you drop it just as long as you drag it out of iTunes as that’s what creates a copy of the app file.

This drag ‘n drop action will result in a new file being created — one with an .ipa extension.  If you put the file on your desktop, move it to your portable drive or email it to yourself.

Step 3

Once you have the file transferred to your hard drive, thumb drive or emailed, log into the “receiving” iTunes account (on the second computer or separate user account as the case may be).  Now reverse the process — grab the .ipa file and drag ‘n drop it onto the “receiving” iTunes Library => Apps.  As you drag the file and hover in the iTunes Library, you can release the mouse and drop the file as soon as you see a green “+” symbol appear.

When the new App file has been added to the iTunes Library, the App’s icon should appear in the proper section to the right (the App icon section is divided into three categories depending on whether it’s a universal app or if it’s specifically formatted for the iPhone/iPod touch or the iPad).

Step 4

The final step is to give the “receiving” iTunes account permission to use this App.  If you’re already sharing music purchased on different iTunes accounts, your individual iTunes accounts might already be authorized to play purchases from the “giving” account.  If not, you will need to have the “giving” iTunes account holder authorize the “receiving” iTunes account.  This is done by going to Store => Authorize This Computer in the “receiving” iTunes menu.

For the past few years I’ve been volunteering more and more of my time to Ignatz’s school (Baby Doll’s former school).

The nature of my volunteer work has ranged from the simple warm-body anyone-could-do-it task (like driving on field trips) that makes up the vast majority of school volunteerism to more specialized, fairly-skilled IT work (web design, graphics, payment integration, and 3rd-party Special Event software customization).

Back in March, when we were elbow-deep in customizing our Spring fundraising event website, I was informed that it had been agreed that I should be paid for my more technical endeavors. As much as I liked the idea of contributing a little cash to the family’s coffers, what really thrilled me was the explanation of the argument used to convince the Board that I should be paid. It was reasoned that the skills I brought to the table were specialized enough that the school could not reasonably expect this job to be filled with volunteer labor.

As a middle-aged middle-class suburban housewife with a self-taught techno-geek alter ego who hasn’t been gainfully employed for the better part of 20 years, this was a huge boost to my otherwise sagging sense of self-esteem. Oh, and the check was very welcome boost to my checking account.

Here’s one for the “I’ll be damned! Did you know?” category.…

Did you know that you can lend a book only once?!?

I found this little gem of info buried deep within the Amazon Kindle help forums. No where on all of Amazon’s Kindle Help pages or their FAQs do they mention this particular fact. No where was this fact mentioned on the page when I filled in the form to lend my book.

I am not an unintelligent person. I understand that eBooks and eReaders (Kindles, iPads, and other tablets) are new territory. I understand that those in the publishing business need to make a living and I believe that authors deserve to make a living. So my shock and dismay are not necessarily directed at the fact that a book can only be lent once but rather that that information was not clearly and unequivocally communicated to me at the outset.

The anticipation builds. The release date for the much anticipated (by me, at least) iPad 2 has been announced and I’ve found it difficult to think of anything else since the announcement. What size should I get — 16, 32, or 64GB? Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi + 3G? Believe it or not, I’ve actually pondered the question of AT&T or Verizon (okay, maybe this was a pretty easy choice but I did give it consideration). And, of course, the obvious question: Black or White?

Decisions, decisions.

I’ll tell you what though, one decision that was very easy to make was which case? I’m not kidding when I say that a major driving factor in my desire for an iPad is my desire to own a DODOcase. If you’re not familiar with their flagship product and the company’s backstory, do yourself a favor and take a minute to watch their videos and their “about” stories.

In this morning’s emails I received notification from DODOcase that an iPad 2 version is available for pre-order. I was all over that! The email arrived at 7:15am. My order was placed at 8:04am. [I had to take a little time first to research the DODObag by Rickshaw (yeah, I bought one) and the three charities to which DODOcase will donate 10% of the proceeds of every pre-sale order.]

In case you’re drawn to the classy, outside-the-box look, feel, and design of the DODOcase, I have a coupon code to share. The code will expire 10 days from now and it’s good for 10% off at checkout (I’m assuming it’s good for your entire order but it isn’t clear in the email I received). Click here and use the code displayed on the site when you check out. [Full disclosure: if you use this coupon, DODOcase will send me a coupon for $20 off my next DODOcase purchase but as I can’t see myself needing an additional iPad case anywhere in the foreseeable future, be assured that my gesture of sharing this code is for your benefit, not mine. Enjoy!]

Last Sunday I got up and, like I always do, turned on my iMac to check my email. After giving my programs a minute to load, I returned to find a message saying that my preferred network could not be located. Hm.

This type of message, though not common, isn’t unheard of. My home wireless network consists of a Linksys cable modem and an Apple Time Capsule. Every once in a while the modem freaks out or locks up which, in turn, screws up the Time Capsule. A quick reset usually sets things right. But on Sunday morning, when I poked my head around the corner to check the status light on the Time Capsule expecting to see a flashing yellow light, I saw no light at all. Yup. No happy, steady green light. No blinking yellow light. Nothing. Nada.

The first thing I tried was a reboot. I unplugged the Time Capsule and plugged it back in. Still nothing. At this point it was patently clear, my Time Capsule was dead. Done. Toast.

Bummer.

In retrospect, actually even as it was happening, my reaction was rather comical. I had a few minutes of mental panic. What do I do now? How will anyone know I’m in trouble here, I can’t go online and tell anyone? I can’t even call Apple Support because I don’t have the number written down and I can’t go online and find it! I can’t go online and make a Genius Bar appointment! I’ll have to go all the way down there and make an appointment and then go back down again for the appointment!

Finally my head cleared. I grabbed the laptop from Ignatz’s room and hooked it up via ethernet cable (good lord, how long has it been since I’ve been hard-wired) directly to the modem. Once online, I was able to make a Genius Bar appointment for later that morning (sure, I’d have to play hooky from church but a girl has to keep her priorities straight, right?).

By this point I’d stopped hyperventilating and the world had stopped spinning. I realized that I hadn’t actually lost any data because the only data on the Time Capsule were the backups of the iMac and the MBP laptop. As long as we didn’t lose a computer hard drive in the next 12 hours we’d be fine. As a precaution, I grabbed the Western Digital My Book external hard drive and got it started on a full iMac backup.

With the Genius Bar appointment made and the iMac started on a full backup on a backup disk, I started thinking about the likely outcome of the Time Capsule situation. I wasn’t surprised that the Time Capsule had died. This was the second one I’d owned; the first one blew its hard drive less than a year after I bought it. And as much as I’ve loved the concept and the convenience of the Time Capsule, I’ve spoken with an awful lot of Apple employees over the years who have not shared my enthusiasm for that particular product. In fact, Apple employee feedback has been pretty unanimous in recommending an Apple Airport Extreme coupled with individual external or portable hard drives over the Time Capsule. So by the time we left for church on Sunday, I’d decided that I would not be replacing the Time Capsule with another TC but that I’d buy an Airport Extreme instead and pick up a portable hard drive for Ignatz in the next couple of days.

By the time I got to the Apple Store I was wondering if it was even worth my time (and theirs) to wait for the Genius Appointment. After all, the unit was dead as a doornail. Apple doesn’t sell Applecare warranties on the Time Capsule and this one (given as a free replacement for the first one I’d bought) was probably around 2 years old — there was no way it would be covered. Still, clinging to that thread of hope that somehow the Geniuses could pull off a miracle, I waited my turn at the Bar.

Finally my name was called. I explained that the TC had been faithfully working when I went to bed, and even further into the night until Ignatz had called it a night but that I’d found it lifeless just that morning. The Apple Genius plugged it in, held it up to his ear, and pronounced it officially dead. He appeared glad to hear that the only data contained on the drive were backups (relieved, I think, that he wouldn’t have to deliver the bad news of irretrievable data). But then, instead of just expressing his condolences, he spent quite a few minutes doing something on his computer. Eventually I said something to remind him of my presence — I thought perhaps I’d missed his dismissal and maybe he was ignoring me until I went away. But no, he was trying to figure out if the computer was telling me I was eligible for a replacement. A replacement? It’s well over a year old, I said. Apparently, based on a serial number, this unit was from a batch of TCs that had a bad batch of power supplies. My particular TC was within a week of the dates covered by a replacement policy — would I mind waiting while he found a manager to discuss it with?

Would I mind waiting to see if I’d get a free replacement? Right! Like he had to ask?!

I waited. Patiently. After a minute or two someone came over and typed briefly on the tech’s laptop. Another minute or two later and the tech came back with a cardboard box. He handed over a brand new Time Capsule and my old power cord. Then he passed over a piece of paper to sign. And I was done. I had a brand new 1TB Time Capsule, free of charge.

Before I left I asked if the new unit would have the Guest Network feature. The tech couldn’t say for sure but probably if the old one didn’t have it (it didn’t) then the new one probably wouldn’t either. Oh well. I had kind of been looking forward to that feature — not that we get a lot of guests towing gadgets that need Internet access — but just because it seems like a cool feature. Even so, I wasn’t about to feel anything but incredibly lucky to walk out of there with a functioning router and hard drive and not a penny out of my pocket.

And that, my friends, is just another reason why I’m a 46-yo suburban housewife Apple FanBoy.

Okay, I’m unhappy — as in an unhappy consumer.

No big surprise, Verizon finally announced that they’ll be carrying the iPhone starting February 3. I’ve been waiting for this day for years. And now that it’s here, I stunned at the customer service gaffe Verizon is making right out of the gate.

I came to the whole cell phone party a little late. I’m sure I wasn’t the last suburban housewife to get a cell phone but by no means was I a “first adopter.” I was also a bit of a holdout in adding texting to our cellphone package. And here it is, 2011, and I’m still carrying a dumbphone (if it’s not a smartphone, it must be a dumbphone, right?).

Of course I’ve been coveting an iPhone, I’m a all-American red-blooded Apple FanBoy after all. In fact, two months ago I was all set to pull the trigger. An iPhone was clearly in my immediate future.

In late November, 2010, I announced to My Love that I was sorry but my will was just too weak; I’d decided that if the Verizon iPhone rumors turned out to be true I’d be getting one and, by default, the kids would each get one as well. He didn’t have much of a reaction to my announcement and I hadn’t expected one. After all, I wasn’t asking for his input, I was merely informing him of my decision Then maybe a week later I announced that I’d changed my mind. He offered no more commentary on this announcement than he had upon hearing the first one. Anyway, what it came down to was that I simply could not justify the monthly expense of three data plans. Shoot, I’ve never even paid for a phone before (the kids always get to pick out whatever phone they want — just as long as it’s free). And here I was having decided to buy three phone plus pay the monthly Family Share 700 plan plus commit to three monthly data plans. I knew that he knew that I’d never go through with it.

That does not stop me from being incredibly upset with Verizon today. All I can say is that this decision puts them on par with Comcast and I can assure you, that is very much not a compliment.

What did they do? They are screwing over their loyal customers and if I hadn’t talked myself out of three iPhones a few weeks ago, I would have been one seriously depressed Suburban Housewife just about now. I’ve been a very loyal and vocally supportive Verizon customer upwards of 5 years. In all of my daydreams and speculations and anticipations of when the iPhone would eventually be available to Verizon customers, it never occurred to me that they’d make such a bone-headed customer service gaffe as this. But here they are — Verizon is not, I repeat not (as in N-O-T) offering any iPhone promotions to existing customers who are not, just by happenstance, eligible for contract renewals when the iPhone goes on sale. What I mean is, I’m about 14 months into a 2-year contract. If I decided I did want an Verizon iPhone I’d have to pay the full retail price for the iPhone and put it on my existing contract.

I’ve spent way more time and energy following the Verizon iPhone rumors than anyone else I know. I’ve spent a lot of time speculating when it would happen and how it would happen and if you were unlucky enough to bring up the subject with me you weren’t going anywhere until you’d heard all of my opinions and guesses and prognostications on the matter. The one thing I was sure about, other than the fact that the iPhone would eventually come to Verizon, was that Verizon would do right by their customers and offer service contract extensions and promotional phone pricing to all of the existing customers no matter where they were in their contract cycle.

Boy was I ever wrong. Boy am I ever disappointed. Shame on you Verizon.

Sure, I was excited to check out the new Mac App Store on Thursday (don’t try to tell me it was a coincidence that the store launched on Epiphany) and like a hard-core Black Friday shopper I knew my intended destination before the doors even opened — iWork ’11.

We bought my 24″ iMac in July of ’08. It was my birthday gift that year and it cost us a pretty penny — certainly way more than we’d ever paid for a computer before. It was also my first Mac. [We had purchased a 1st generation, lowest-model-possible Mac Mini for the kids a couple of years earlier so the iMac was my first Mac but not the first one in the house.]

Naturally, the iMac shipped with iLife ’08 but in researching the purchase I had determined that I wanted to buy the iWork ’08 suite with the computer. At the time this was a big deal for me — in all the years I owned PCs I don’t think I purchased over 1/2 a dozen software programs (most of them various Ulead products) and I’d never even considered buying the bloated and overpriced Office suite.

A few weeks into exploring Pages and Numbers, I upgraded to the Family license so I could install the iWork suite on the Mac Mini for the kids. Now I had my expensive and incredibly wonderful 24″ iMac and the kids, a high school Junior and 8th grader at the time, had their shared Mac Mini and we both had the incredibly versatile and intuitive iWork ’08 suite. Our computing lives had never been better.

When iWork ’09 was released about 4 months later I was familiar enough with Numbers to be envious of the upgrades in the program but still suffering sticker shock from the iMac and extra software purchases. Then, by the time I was in a position of really wishing I owned Numbers ’09, I figured iWork ’10 couldn’t be too far away. Since I was fairly new to Mac and even newer to Mac’s software, I was disappointed to find out that Apple didn’t offer upgrade pricing on their software packages. Figuring that with my luck a new version would be released just outside of the grace-period for free upgrades, I decided bide my time but be the first in line to buy a new release.

But January of 2010 came and went and no new iWork releases were announced. What the heck?! At this point there was no way I was going to spend the money on iWork ’09 — after all, it’s not like I create spreadsheets every day. Sure, the few times I have created spreadsheets I inevitably want to do something that Numbers ’08 couldn’t do but Numbers ’09 can — but that’s nothing that a little pity party wouldn’t cure. The disappointment was never large enough to justify actually spending money.

Finally, in October, iLife ’11 was announced. I ordered my copy on October 23rd. I was thinking, any day now.… And there were plenty of rumors to fuel my burning wish for an iWork upgrade including the certainty that iWork ’11 would be part of the big new Mac App Store.

That’s why on Thursday, January 6, after getting Ignatz to school and spending the morning at the Toyota dealership waiting for my third key to be programmed, I dashed home and plunked my middle-aged butt down in front of my iMac and went straight to work. First step, upgrading to 10.6.6. The first time I ran the update check my computer told me I was all up-to-date. Ugh! I was working on a time-limit here; I didn’t think that Ignatz would be particularly happy with me if I was late in picking him up because I was trying to update my computer so I could access the new Mac App Store. I tried the updater again and this time it worked. But every Comcast customer within 100 miles must have been updating at the same time — I probably could have downloaded the updates faster on a dial-up.

Finally, finally I had 10.6.6 installed and I could get into the Mac App Store. I immediately went to Numbers. I was a little surprised when I didn’t find any mention of the changes of this new version and I was a little surprised that there wasn’t a little more splash surrounding the new iWork suite. But there it was, clear as day in the right hand column: Release date: Jan. 3, 2011. What more proof did I need? I clicked the “buy” button, entered my username and password, and true to my promise to myself, Numbers ’11 was my first Mac App Store purchase.

But wait, what’s this? I opened Numbers and it very clearly said Numbers ’09. WTF!?! I immediately turned to my Number 1 source of Apple info, TÚAW, and found this article. Suddenly I didn’t feel quite the numbskull but I did still feel quite taken advantage of. Where’s my Numbers ’11, Mr. Jobs? And if I have to pay another $19.99 for it I’m going to be an awfully unhappy Apple FanBoy.

I’ve been researching and preparing to buy a laser printer for about 5 years now. I finally pulled the trigger on Monday and bought a Brother HL-2270DW along with an extra toner cartridge from Amazon. Using Baby Doll’s Amazon Prime account (she signed up this fall during their promo offering free Prime accounts to college students), I received the printer on Wednesday.

My old printer, a HP PSC 2200xi All-in-One, has seen better days. My stepson managed to break off the little tab that keeps the printouts from shooting across the room as they exit the printer. The flatbed scanner has long-since been abandoned in favor of a Canon Canoscan 8800F. As for faxing, well I haven’t sent more than a dozen in all the years I’ve owned the PSC 2210xi and I don’t recall ever being in the position of receiving a fax.

All that said, my intent was not so much to replace the HP All-in-One. After all, it still works. The biggest consideration in buying the Brother was the astronomical cost of keeping the silly HP in ink.

Sure, the HP prints in color whereas the new Brother only prints in B&W, but the truth is I haven’t been able to bring myself to buy a new color cartridge for the HP beast in well over a year. And when I do buy a color cartridge, all it does is sit there drying up. In all the time I’ve had the HP, no less than 99.999% of what I’ve printed has been in B&W and I’d guess that a good 75% of all color printing that was done — it was done in error.

Printer Specs

Model: Brother HL-2270DW The “D” designation refers to auto duplex which means that the printer is capable of two-sided printing (a big bonus to anyone concerned about the price of paper and/or environmental issues). The “W” designation refers to the fact that the printer is wireless; it can be hooked up to an existing wireless network as a stand-alone peripheral. No cables necessary (other than the power cord, of course). That means that proximity to a computer or router is not necessary; you can locate the printer anywhere within wireless range as long as you have access to a power outlet. Gotta love that! [If wireless access isn’t available or desired, the printer can also be connected via Ethernet cable or traditional USB cable.]

Other features:
• 250-sheet paper capacity (that’s half a ream)
• 27ppm (pages per minute)
• prints up to 2400x600 dpi (dots per inch) for high-quality printouts
• straight-through paper path via manual feed slot for thicker paper

The Printer Arrives

The USP delivery guy came while I was out but Ignatz was at home so I found the packages in the front hall when I got home. I immediately unpacked the printer and went to work getting everything all set up. The process was incredibly easy and straightforward.

Like all printers, the unit shipped with only a power cord; no USB cord included. I did end up buying a 10′ Belkin USB cable even though I intend to take full advantage of the printer’s wireless capabilities. Mostly I bought the cable because of the incredibly low $3.85 price tag and because, you never know, I might need it someday. Also, I admit, I was kind of on autopilot.

I also purchased a high-yield replacement toner cartridge — mostly because a few Amazon reviewers warned that unlike earlier generations of the Brother laser printers, the 2270 ships with a smaller, demo-sized toner cartridge. I have no idea of how long this initial cartridge will last but I figured I might as well be prepared. The replacement toner cartridge did not arrive with the printer and USB cable; I should receive it separately in another couple of weeks.

Set Up

Following the pictograph instructions, it was pretty easy to figure out how to open the unit, remove the plastic brace designed to keep certain parts stable during shipment, and remove the toner cartridge and give it a good shake (I assume to shake up and spread out the toner), and then replace the cartridge.

Next I moved on to the Quick Setup Guide booklet that was surprisingly coherent and easy to follow. I was leery at first to use the included installation disk (I haven’t done much of this type of installation on my iMac but back in my PC days, installation discs always contained all sorts of extra “bonus” (read: bloated, invasive, and unnecessary) software. To my great pleasure, this installation disc did not try to install extraneous software — just the necessary printer drivers.

The instruction booklet described three different means of connecting the printer: via USB cable, via Ethernet, and via Wireless. Even though the plan was to be wireless, I did the initial network setup using the Temporary USB cable method as described in the Quick Start manual because it looked the least complicated method.

Since I am the household’s IT Department, I was already in possession of the necessary Network Names and Network Key passwords. Hooking the Brother HL-2270DW up to my password-protected Apple Time Capsule-powered wireless network was as easy as selecting my network’s name from the list of available networks and typing in the Network Key. Bada-bing, bada-bang, bada-boom and done.

The final step was to take the installation disc upstairs and install the drivers on My Love’s new MacBook Pro and the old beat-up MacBook Pro that Ignatz uses.

First Impressions

Naturally, I tested the printer once I had it networked. The first thing I noticed was that it’s a bit noisy. I’m particularly sensitive to noise. Luckily, this noise I can live with — mostly because it’s not a constant noise.

When a job gets sent to the printer, the first thing it does is kick on what sounds like a fan. Then it prints –somewhat noisily though it’s very different from the clanky noise of the HP Deskjet. Then, after the printing is done, the fans stay on for another minute or two. After that, the HL-2270DW goes back to complete silence.

If I were in a situation where the printer was going to be under almost constant use I’d certainly look for a place far away from my desk in which to keep the printer. As it is, however, even one as sensitive to noise as I am shouldn’t have any trouble working in the same room with the printer.

Never having actually seen a laser printer in action, much less one capable of duplex printing, I was surprised at how the duplexing was done. I sent a two-page print job to the printer and left the duplex printing default checked (see screenshot). The printer powered up, sent through a sheet, printed one side, and then rolled the paper out onto the discharge tray. Then it grabbed the same paper, sucked it back inside, printed the second side, and once again rolled it out onto the top discharge tray. I don’t know why but the interim step of sending the paper to the top tray surprised me; I expected the duplex printing to happen as one step.

In Conclusion

I’ve had the printer for two days and, so far, have printed one 2-sided document. To recommend this printer right on that info alone would be silly (and you’d be equally silly to base to make a decision based on such flimsy experience, but so far I’m very pleased with my purchase. I plan to check back in after a month or two after I’ve put the printer through a few paces and let you know who things are going. In the meantime, if you’re trying to decide whether or not to purchase a Brother LH-2270DW printer for yourself, I’d recommend you check around for more informed opinions. Amazon.com had quite a few product reviews; indeed those reviews are a large part of what helped me decide to finally buy a laser printer.

I’ve got a new four-letter-word in my vocabulary: Vais. As in Vais Technology. It’s their stupid $200 iPod Interface Kit that is screwing up my enjoyment of my new Toyota Corolla and my general sense of all-is-well-in-the-world.

I’m not an audiophile. My stereo is a relic of the ‘80s complete with turntable and a set of Baby Advent speakers. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy music; it’s just that I don’t consider it a high priority in my life and it’s definitely not something I’d spend any large chunk of disposable income on. So when I was car shopping I could have cared less about the watts or the volts or the amps put out by the stereo system; I didn’t care how many speakers the car had; and I certainly wasn’t going to spend an extra penny on a 6-CD changer.

That said, I am a pragmatist. I’ve got two teens and if there’s one thing I’d bank on it’s the fact that they’re going to be listening to their iPods in the car. That why I insisted that both Subarus had iPod Interface Kits installed immediately after purchasing them. The built-in Auxiliary jack? Come on. Let’s be real, please. Have you ever seen a teenager in action with their iPod attached to the Auxiliary jack? Why not just build in a wet bar and cut out the seat belts? Their hands leave the wheel, their eyes leave the road, and their hormone soaked brains are even more distracted than usual because well.… where is that darned thing.… I know it’s here somewhere… oh, I’ve buckled over it and it’s fallen down between the seats… wait, I can almost reach it.….

Yeah, not a pretty picture.

To me an iPod Interface Kit — one that hooks up through the glove compartment and shows the iPod text displayed through the stereo head unit and can be controlled through the stereo buttons (or, better yet, with the audio controls on the steering wheel itself) — that’s the most important piece of safety equipment a car can have.

As I mentioned, I’ve purchased two such iPod Interface set-ups before — one on each of our Subarus. I know that the technology is far from perfect. In the Impreza we went with an after-market product from Car Toys. It was an entire in-dash stereo replacement and it had it’s quirks (like the fact that when you turned off the car your iPod kept right on playing and playing until the battery was gone) but it worked. When we bought the Outback, which had the newer one-piece dashboard that didn’t lend itself to simply removing a stereo and sticking in a new one, I went instead with Subaru’s own Interface Kit. This one had some quirks too, though not the same ones: turning off the car also turned off the iPod but if you were looking for a specific artist or album, forget about it. If you had less than a dozen artists in your iPod it might have been feasible to scroll through them but on my iPod I never even made it past B.B. King, there was no way I’d ever make it to Warren Zevon. Still, it worked.

Therefore it should come as no surprise that I had an iPod Interface Kit installed in the new Toyota before we picked it up. But I made a huge mistake; I didn’t do my research. The salesman I was dealing with said he could have an aftermarket Kit installed for $250 and it was much better than the Toyota Kit. Sure, I said, do it.

Explain to me how or why anyone in their right mind would design an iPod Interface Kit that does not allow “hot swapping.” Picture this: you’re in your car and for one of a thousand different reasons, you disconnect your iPod and either hook up a different iPod or reconnect the same iPod. Well you can kiss your iPod pleasure goodbye for the duration of the trip because once you remove that iPod, baby, it ain’t working again until you turn off the car and restart the engine. Oh, and better make darned sure that it’s hooked up again when you do start the car because, yup, if it wasn’t you’re S.O.L.

Sure, all of you bachelors out there are thinking what’s the big deal? Here’s the big deal: teenagers change their iPods more often than they change their minds. Get four 18-yo girls in a car and there are going to be 5 iPods. I can just picture Baby Doll on a road trip: a friend says, hey, let’s listen to my iPod for a while. Baby Doll, somewhere on the highway zooming toward Vegas says sure, let me just pull over so we can switch. Yeah, right, like that’s gonna happen. Want a more everyday scenario? Ignatz and I will be sharing the Toyota for the next 2.5 years. While we certainly have overlap in our music tastes (we’re both Death Cab for Cutie fans), just how far would you expect this overlap in tastes to go between a 16-yo boy and his 46-yo mother? Sorry, but I can listen to about 30 seconds of Nelly’s Ride Wit Me before I start feeling another gray hair growing in.

An Ipod Interface that can’t be “hot swapped”? Come on guys, what in the world were you thinking?

Bottom line: if you want my opinion, you’ll stay far, far away from Vais Technology’s SoundLinQ2 SL2i iPod Interface Kit. I can’t speak to any of their other products but in my mind this bone-headed oversight doesn’t bode well for anything Vais designed.