How To Firmware

Note: this is NOT an advert. Could careless which product you buy. Moving on. ¶Wouldn’t you know it. Wait for the right moment and it never comes. Unexpect that moment and it does come. Recent debacle with planetary über-corporation Samsung lead to a firmware update (almost) debacle. As worst-stated in this post, Samsung’s IT Volk need to seriously reconsider how they update their printers. In short, Samsung thinks that in order to update a printer you must first have a windows PC, preferably something XP or better. If you don’t have a WinXP device then you are shit out of luck or you have to get your silly new-school ass to some rinky-dink retailer’s support window so they can do the update for you. Luckily I’m as resourceful if not more resourceful than the global IT Volk at Samsung–and I happened to know someone who could lend me an old WinXP device so that I could update the printer myself. (It was actually kinda cool cause the situation gave me a chance to look over a laptop that still had a serial port on it. ;-)) The problem is, Samsung’s IT Volk seem to think you have to update their products with a .exe file. To prove that that’s not the case, I just did a firmware update for my new DSL modem from D-Link. All I had to do was download the firmware update, which is in a .zip file, unpack it, read the “how-to” .pdf file, then access the update file, which is a .rar file, using any browser and… Boom baby! Update done. And it was done using a 2010 MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard (cause SL is the way I roll). ¶And so. You see goliath Samsung. It’s totally do-able. Bet you guys did’t know that. Now go learn something and update the outdated innards of your IT departments and your laser printers. Rant on. -t