Laptop: Printing (9th December 2011)

Fiona has a Kodak ESP 7250 which has WiFi support. Windows Explorer shows it in the Network location, listed in both the Computers group and the Printers group. Strangely, Firefox has no idea it exists.

After some searching, I found the page for KODAK All-in-One Printer Home Center Software (including drivers) - WINDOWS Operating Systems [sic]. But we were helping a friend move that evening and there were some other errands to run.

So I’d already spent half an hour to reach this phase, so I had to abandon it for another time.

Since I wanted to print a returns label to a package, that means it wouldn’t make this evening’s post. At least it wasn’t urgent.

Installed the Downloaded Drivers

The interface is rather pretty, with a great CGI-style image of each printer model. I managed to pick the magic options at the start which actually let you turn off the bloatware and marketing opt-ins later on. I suspect using the default choices early on prevent that. Which is a pretty lame form of evil.

Sadly it added an icon to my notification area. It also adds a process called EKAiOHostService.exe described as EKAiOHostService Module for Kodak AiO Printers.

The good news is now Firefox knows I have a printer and I can use the Properties button for it. This opens a window called KodakESP7200+0258 Document Properties. Obscurely. Also obscure is how crazy the layout is and how mis-aligned the controls are. Standard controls with Windows theming (to its credit) but they’re in mis-sized frames all over the 3 tabs.

Tomorrow I’ll find out how well it prints. I had to hack the returns label web page so that it would fit on one side of A4. Happily, this laptop sleeps and wakes impeccably.

Printed Fine

Phew. That’s a relief.

  1. Laptop!
  2. Received It!
  3. File Transfers with USB Stick
  4. Full Administrator Account!
  5. Installing Firefox
  6. Installing Games
  7. Reducing Processes
  8. WiFi Gaming
  9. E-mail
  10. Backups, Old & New
  11. Desk Arrangements
  12. Migrating Music
  13. Mobile Phone Archive
  14. Web Developer Setup
  15. Printing
  16. Putting Old PC Out To Pasture
  17. Stopping the Magical Edges
  18. Disk Cleanup
  19. FTPuse Integrates Seamlessly
  20. Laptop Performance