Well, even though my Apache issues with Snow Leopard were a bit frustrating, Snow Leopard has redeemed itself. First of all, it is noticeably faster. But second, printing and scanning is awesome.
When I bought a MacBook a while ago, I got an HP C4580 printer/scanner for free. I didn’t really need a printer, but the idea of a wireless scanner enticed me. Well, once you get the printer out of the box and start reading HP’s instructions, you quickly just give up on ever even trying to set it up. The instructions are so vague, that I wasn’t sure that I would even be able to scan wirelessly if I got it set up correctly. So the printer has been just sitting there ever since I got my laptop.
After I read that Snow Leopard would download printer drivers automatically, I decided to plug the printer into my laptop just to see. It did recognize the printer immediately, but since I have no need for clunky wired printing I just looked around for a way to set up the wireless. There wasn’t a way that was immediately apparent.
I guess for some reason I decided to do a Google search to see if there was a way I just wasn’t seeing. It turns out there was, but you never even need to use the USB cable. The way is shown in this video.
I followed these instructions and never downloaded a driver or installed any HP software. In fact some instructions I read said “please do not try to install any printer software you may have.” Next thing you know I had the printer set up to print and scan wirelessly from two computers. No clunky HP software installed!
The scanning in Snow Leopard is truly awesome. Wireless makes it so much better. I always said I would never scan, it’s too tedious. But now, I might just scan some photos in. It’s not painful, for the first time in my entire life the process of scanning photos is not painful. Good job Snow Leopard!
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