Three Computer Problems Solved!

Cue the Hallelujah Chorus! Today I managed to solve three problems that have been bugging me for MONTHS. In case you were suffering the same symptoms, here are the solutions:

1. Does your Nvidia video driver crash if you do a print preview for your Epson printer from Photoshop or Lightroom in Windows 7 64 bit? Mine did! Here's the simple fix from Epson (courtesy of a discussion forum): 
• Click on the bottom left button and choose devices and printers
• Right click on the Epson printer that has the problem
• Click on printer properties
• Select the advanced tab
• Unclick the "enable advanced printing features" check box
2. Are you having REALLY SLOW RESPONSE TIMES from your Epson printer driver running under Windows 7 64 bit? It was taking MINUTES to navigate the driver to do stuff like changing the paper type and set properties. I called Epson support on this and they acknowledge a bug. There is a file in an Epson folder that keeps growing larger and larger and slowing down the driver. They don't have a fix, but they do have a workaround -- you can just delete the file and the driver instantly speeds up. Over time, the file grows and the driver slows down and you have to do it again. Here is the path to the file: c:\ProgramData\EPSON\PRINTER\EPAUD01.AUD. Mine was over 40 MB and it is now sitting at 3 KB.
   
3. Do you have a DPR-1260 printer server from D-Link? Does it work in fits and starts with Windows 7 causing you to tear your hair out when you get communication error after communication error? Here is the fix:
• Launch your web browser and enter the IP number of your printer server. 
• You should get a dashboard for the device.
• Click on the SETUP tab 
• Choose the Firmware option from the left side. You'll be prompted for a password - leave it blank and press enter
• Open another browser tab and go to the support site for the product: http://www.dlink.ca/products/?pid=482
• Choose the Support Resources tab and download the latest firmware version
• Go back to the device tab and follow the instructions to install the firmware
• The device will reboot
• Call up the Windows 7 Devices and Printers Dialog and delete your current DPR-1260 printers
• Go back to the device browser tab after allowing a minute for it to reboot. Select the Setup tab and follow the instructions to re-install your printer.

Hopefully those of you who have one or more of these problems will find this post. I saw hundreds of discussion forum postings on these topics with only a handful of actual answers. If I have time, I'll go back and post the answers in some of the forums.

The Rock Paintings of Kolo

Kolo is a small village in the middle of Tanzania just north of the town of Kondoa. Kolo is unremarkable as African villages go. It has a dry river that runs through it and the villagers tend herds of cows and goats. However, if you climb the walls of a canyon just outside the village, you come across shallow caves that have long been inhabited by bushmen. These are the caves that shelter some very nice rock paintings as we shall see.

Here is a picture of one of the larger caves. You can easily tell the four tourists from the Kolo guide and our driver by the extensive Tilley garb. Many thousands of years ago, bushmen lived in these caves and hunted in the valley below. They decided to paint pictures of the animals that they hunted on the cave walls using a red ochre paint. The paint has lasted centuries, although the onslaught of modern civilization threatens to ruin the pictures. I was reminded of visiting Stonehenge when I was a youngster, playing tag with my brother as we ran around the stones. Today, the stones are protected by a stout barricade and tourists are kept well away lest the stones be ruined. In Kolo, we had full access to the paintings and could touch them if we wanted to. How long will it be before these are guarded by plexiglass to preserve the paint? Will they create faux caves with faithful copies of the artwork like they do in the caves of France?

If you are interested in the artwork and wish to visit, I suggest that you start off by reading Mary Leakey's book "Africa's Vanishing Art, The Rock Paintings of Tanzania". It is out of print, but can be ordered through used book stores or Amazon.com.

Here are my best pictures of the artwork:

The men are depicted with large dreadlocks and straight bodies. Here they are carrying a spear. The women are depicted with curved bodies as you can see below.

Here's the famous abduction scene with two factions vying over the woman in the middle.

Two male figures, a giraffe and a skinned animal.

Close-up of a figure carrying a basket

Close-up of a stretched out animal hide.

More basket carriers. These were painted with more orange in the paint indicating a later time period.

A Figure

A pair of animals

An animal about to get into a trap.

More animal traps

The Road to Kondoa

Perhaps the highlight of our trip to Africa was our journey to Kondoa to view the rock paintings at Kolo. It all seemed pretty simple when we were planning this part of the trip on the Internet. The distances looked quite modest and the logistics of putting up four adults in "semi-luxe" camping style in the middle of the African countryside were not particularly daunting. In other words, I had no idea!

Take the trip as an example. Our tour company, Bush2Beach, had to arrange for two vehicles and a half dozen people to drive our camping equipment and ourselves down a pothole-filled road with enough dust to fill the Air Canada Centre ten times over. We just went along for the ride. Here's a photo of the road:

As you can see, the buses whiz by you at a high rate of knots leaving you choking on the dust. The Chinese government is assisting with the job of building a better road, but they decided to put down a fine dust layer for 80 kilometers before they paved it. By the time they get to paving the roadway, the dust will have blown away!

The roadside viewing gave us a terrific insight into rural Tanzanian life. Here are some photos from the car:

The young boys are in charge of taking the herd to the watering hole

A roadside seamstress is a common sight in Tanzanian villages.

We saw a lot of carts being pulled by bullocks, donkeys and even humans.

Here are some kids with the ubiquitous plastic water containers getting water from the village well. They are fortunate to have a well in the village.

A pair of bullocks ready to pull a load.

Just like the tinker in the olden days, these men move from village to village selling their wares. Plastic instead of tin, but the same idea.

We saw many markets, large and small.

At the suggestion of some friends, we had brought along some gifts suitable for school children. This gave us an excuse to call on a school and see what Tanzanian schools were like. Three of our group had some teaching experience, so we were very interested finding a school. Our driver managed to find a school in a small town and we arrived with our gift of World Cup soccer balls for the kids. The teacher was very helpful and, as you can see, the kids thought the sight of four slightly chubby, slightly old white folks was just a riot.

Young boys are the same the world over.

Here is the head teacher with her beautiful baby.

Proud owners of world cup soccer balls (yes, we did give them the little valves so they could pump them up).

This young girl was one of my favourites. She had a huge grin!

Here's Deb surrounded by kids. One of the little girls was bolder than the rest and reached out and touched her shoulder.

Here's the little girl with the big smile.

We reached our destination of Kolo, a small village just outside of Kondoa and the crew had already set up our camp. We camped on the very spot where Mary Leakey had stayed in 1953 when she documented the Kolo rock paintings. As you can see, we had all the luxuries of home including a bush toilet. 

Here is Rick with our friend James who was in charge of setting up the camp. Our camp was on the bank of a dry river.

Here we are with our drinks. As you can see, we had a cast of thousands looking after us. Running a tour company takes a lot of organization. 

Our bush toilet!

Our tour company hired a local guard to make sure we were kept safe at night.

We went for a great walk down the dry river. Deb found a cracked gourd that had been used to dig up water that was just below the surface of the river bed.

Rick and Deb pose in front of some interesting formations caused by water erosion. Can you look any more Canadian than these two?

These three boys lived nearby and were our constant companions. They watched us with great fascination.

The following day, we went to the guide office to meet our guide for the rock paintings. Pascali (probably spelled incorrectly) turned out to be a treasure. He showed us through his small museum with great pride and then marched us up the hillside to view the rock paintings. 

Pascali, Kolo rock painting guide deluxe, in his office

Pascali shows us the rock paintings (coming in the next post)

To get to the caves containing the rock paintings, you have to climb up the side of a large valley. Here you can see the view from an outcrop.

On the way to one of the caves, we passed through fields of crops. Here Pascali demonstrates something (I forget what) with great passion.

On our trip to one of the caves, we came upon an empty school house. As you can see, there are no windows or doors. The teacher has a blackboard and chalk and the kids are lucky to have paper and pencils.

Here we have a lesson on dhows. We were going to see a lot of these boats in Zanzibar.

In the next post, I'll show you some pictures of the rock paintings and discuss the technical difficulties I faced in trying to get decent prints of the rock art.

Cathedral of the Transfiguration

Let's take a break from Africa for a moment and reflect on a bittersweet photograph:

The Cathedral of the Transfiguration was built by a multi-millionaire called Stephen Roman as a Slovak Byzantine Rite Roman Catholic cathedral. It was started in 1984 and was never really finished. Roman died in 1988 and the air went out of the balloon. In 2006, the cathedral was de-consecrated and it now sits in limbo.

For years, it stood out against the sky in the middle of farmers' fields visible from a busy highway north of Toronto. Now, not only is it crumbling and neglected, but a subdivision of houses called Cathedral Town is surrounding it. Soon, it will only be visible as three steeples poking above junior starter mansions.

I was driving down Woodbine Avenue in a dense fog and caught the cathedral in a rare moment of isolation. The approaching driveway is starting to grow potholes and the concrete on the steps leading up to the doors looks to be in rough shape, but the gold domes are still standing tall and looking pretty fine!

Arusha

We landed in Arusha airport, a classic mid-African airport with lots of small planes taking off and landing and a bunch of miscellaneous tin-roofed buildings masquerading as airport terminals. Each small airline had its own little waiting room and operations centre and you walked from your airplane, through the waiting room and out into the busy parking lot. There were dozens of safari jeeps waiting for their passengers and we were greeted by Ingrid from Bush2Beach along with Omari, our driver and guide for the next portion of our journey.

Before we embarked on our first bit of sightseeing into the Tarangire park, we stopped off in Arusha to do some banking and find a cell phone sim card for Rick. Driving along the streets of Arusha was a marvellous experience because of the sheer colour and vitality of it all. Here are some pictures taken from our Land Cruiser as we drove through the town.

It's Kili Time! 

 Kilimanjaro is a popular Tanzanian beer. Tanzania is a land of very few brands. you see Coke and Pepsi, the four cell phone companies and that's about it.

Construction Zone.

 Tanzanians have a wonderful ability to ignore chaos and dirt and live their life in peace.

Hair Dressing Salon

 A hair dresser waits for walk-in business while a passerby loads her sack.

Come inside!

 Bars in Arusha are plentiful despite Tanzania being a Muslim country.

Tanzanian industry

 A roadside bed factory shows the Tanzanian taste for elaborately carved wood.

Fresh Fruit

People bring food to markets like this from far away in the countryside. Women usually carry the fruit in baskets that they carry on their head.

Fast Food, Ice Cream and Internet.

What more could you want in life? Internet service in Tanzania is based on satellite transmission, so it is leisurely at best and too expensive to penetrate the market. With a dearth of wiring infrastructure, but a large investment in cell technology, wireless Internet will probably overtake from satellite-based Internet before too long.

Street Vendors

Life in Arusha reminds me of how I imagine life in New York would have been like in the 1920's and 1930's. Anyone with hustle and chutzpa can make a living on the street selling fruit, cell phones or jeans.

Junk Yard

The variety of storefronts was breathtaking. A clothing store could be next to a junk shop, a bar next door to a bank.

Nuts and Bolts

Tanzanians must be chronically short of nuts and bolts. There were many nut and bolt shops along our route. The state of the roads must shake everything up and loosen nuts and bolts by the millions.

Chairs for Sale

Tanzanians favour elaborate furniture styles as demonstrated by these chairs. There seems to be a disconnect between the size of the average Tanzanian house and the size of the average Tanzanian chair. I'm not sure how one of these behemoths would even fit through the average door.

Table Shop

The workers take a break. The cell phone ads are ubiquitous. We were there in the middle of winter, hence the hats. The temperature was over 25 degrees Celsius.

Bicycle Overload

Everywhere we went, we saw overloaded bicycles carrying everything from logs to entire families. Here's a typical example of a large load being carried on the typical Chinese-manufactured bike.