CompleteFusion

About a week ago, I saw a great deal online for a 2008 Infiniti M35 with ~15,000 miles, from a dealer in southern California.  I hadn't previously given much thought to getting an Infiniti, but the discounted price caught my attention.  I went down to a local Infiniti dealer in Vegas, and eventually convinced them to give me an even better deal — a 2008 M35 with 11,000 miles for $20,000 less than the MSRP on a similarly equipped new 2008.  Also, the original factory warranty (4 years, 60k miles) still applies, which is great.

On the handling and power side of things, the M35 is nicely equipped.  Overall, the handling seems to be a bit sharper than my previous car, a 2007 Audi A4.  Speed-wise, it's hard to tell if the M35 accelerates faster than the A4, or not.  It seems like it accelerates slightly faster, although the comparison is difficult because of the A4's turbocharger.  The acceleration in the M35 is more smooth, instead of the "turbo lag" you experience in the A4.  Either way, it's plenty of speed and performance for everyday driving, and can also definitely come through when you need it.

As far as technology goes, even my base model 2008 M35 has quite a bit of integrated technology features.  So far, one of my favorite features has been the car's bluetooth integration — when I make or receive a phone call, the audio for the car is automatically switched to handle the call.

Since it is just the base model, I don't have GPS navigation, ipod integration, etc.; however, the 2008 base M35 has rear auxiliary inputs (RCA composite video and left/right audio), which will allow me to add all those features and more, by putting a computer into my car.  I'll be posting the initial parts list and project outline next, and keeping everyone updated on my progress with additional posts after that.

Here are a few pictures of my new 2008 Infiniti M35 (and one with my old car, a 2007 Audi A4 in the background):

I recently switched a Windows server over to Linux, and needed a way to use the Digital Filing feature of an HP Officejet Pro 7680 (C8189A) to continue to provide users with the ability to scan to PDF.  Samba is a great tool which allows Linux machines to offer file and print services to SMB/CIFS clients, including any version of Windows.  I've used Samba frequently in the past, but had a hard time getting the Digital Filing feature on the L7680 working with it.  When I tried to initiate a scan to pdf with Digital Filing, I would get an error that the HP L7680 was unable to write to the Samba share, even though it was easily accessible and writable from any Windows XP or Vista desktop.

I tried changing various Samba configuration settings, including turning off oplocks (setting oplocks = false, and level 2 oplocks = false in smb.conf).  Unfortunately, none of those changes fixed the problem that the L7680 claimed it couldn't write to the Samba shared drive.

Finally, I decided to try changing from share-based security to user-based security in Samba ("security = user" vs "security = share" in smb.conf), which fixed the issue.  It seems the L7680 expects user-based security, and refuses to function under share-based security.  After changing the security type, setting up a Linux user, and running smbpasswd for the user, the L7680's Digital Filing worked as expected.