December 14th, 2016 | 
Author: I have a Brother HL-L2340DW, which has consistently been Lifehacker’s user-selected best printer. I love it, but today ran into a major issue. After realizing that it is advertised as being a Google Cloud-Print Enabled device, I decided to link it directly with my Google account. The advantage to doing this instead of setting it up in the traditional way that Google Cloud Print uses is that it does not require a connected computer to be on, with Chrome’s background service running, in in order to print to the device remotely.
The issue I ran into was that, whenever I attempted to link my Google account, I would receive the error “Unable to connect. Please check your network settings.” After playing around in the devices other settings, I realized that I would receive the same error when attempting to check for firmware updates. Since I was accessing the device via its HTTP interface, and have had no issues printing to it over wi-fi, I knew that it was not having problems connecting to the internet. This told me that the device was simply failing to connect to outside servers, despite a successful network connection, and that threw up a flag for me, based on experience with computers that have given similar errors. I guessed that the date and time on the printer were not correct, causing it to reject valid security certificates from outside servers due to the disparity.
So, simple fix, right? Well, not quite. After failing to find a setting on the devices web interface on onscreen LCD panel that would allow me to edit, or indeed even view the time settings, I was puzzled. Many Google searches brought me to solutions, both from official Brother troubleshooting and elsewhere, with step-by-step guides on how to set the device’s date and time. All of these supposed that my printer had an LCD color touchscreen on-board, but it does not. The official Brother guides all gave a list of applicable models, inclusive of mine. I found one Google Help page with a discussion going on for two years, with dozens of individuals chiming in with the problem, but the “best answer” which was locked in from an administrator amounted to nothing more than “call Brother support.” The thread was locked, so I couldn’t chime in with the solution I found (D’oh!). Hence, I bring my insights here, to my own humble corner of the internet, in the hopes that Google will index it for the benefit of others struggling with this same predicament.
So, what’s the fix?
Well, I was right, it’s a certificate issue caused by the device clock. And to my knowledge, if you have this model or a similar Brother model with a single-line, monochrome LCD interface, you cannot set the clock manually. It appears to pull its clock settings from the DNS server. If you’re like me, you probably know where this is going now.
DNS is, by default, provided by your ISP. It may or may not provide an accurate timestamp. And particularly lately, DNS has been a bit, well, unstable. But fear not, Google can save you! As you may already be aware, Google offers their own free public DNS service. I recommend anyone who is adept enough to do so, to set all of your computers to use these DNS servers over the ones provided by your ISP. Anytime you can reduce the control your ISP has over you, I’m all for it. Changing the printer’s DNS settings to use Google’s Public DNS solves this problem, allowing for firmware updates and other outside connections to third-party servers.
To do this, go to your printer’s HTTP interface, by typing the device’s IP address into your browser’s address bar, on a computer connected to the same network. You can find your printer’s IP address on the third page of the settings printout accessible from the LCD menu controls, or via “ipconfig /all”. If you need help on this, hit me up in the comments.
- You should initially land on a page similar to this:
- From here, click on the “Network” tab, then the “Wireless” sub-menu.
- Then click on “Advanced Settings>>”. Notice that the primary and secondary DNS servers are both set to “0.0.0.0”.
- Change those to “8.8.8.8” and “8.8.4.4” respectively (these are Google’s Public DNS servers).
- Click “Submit”. After a moment, you should see “Submit OK” appear in green near the top of the page.
- That’s it. You should now be able to update firmware and connect to outside services such as Google Cloud Print.
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When precisely did the Pepsi Perfect first appear in Back to the Future: Part II? I set out to answer that question definitively.
It is 4:29 PM 10/21/15 at the 4:45 mark of the film.
Marty receives his Pepsi Perfect at the 13:40 mark.
That is 8 min 55 sec after we see the time as 4:29 PM in the DeLorean. There do not appear to be any time-jumping cuts in the action of the film during this period, except for possibly in this cut:
When the Doc exits the skyway and descends over the city area, the camera cuts to a view from the alley below. It is not entirely clear whether he flies above the city for an unshown period before finding the place he chooses to park. However, this seems unlikely, as there is no skyway above the city streets, so that would probably be a moving violation. It is apparent that he did not drive around the city on the ground, however, because in the shot where he is parking the DeLorean, he is still descending from the sky. So if there was any time skipped here at all, it was probably only a few seconds.
Therefor, it seems reasonable to assume that the time at which Marty receives his Pepsi Perfect in the Cafe ’80s is 4:38 PM Hill Valley local time.
According to the railroad map seen in BTTF 3, Hill Valley is located in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Northern California. All of California is in the Pacific Time Zone.
Both in the year of the film’s release (1989) and in the year 2015, October 21st falls inside of the Daylight Saving Time period. In 2015, due to changes made to US guidelines on DST in 2005, time changes on the first Sunday in November. In 1989, the guidelines dictated that DST end on the last Sunday in October. Of course, the last Sunday in October of 2015 is on October 25th, four days after Marty visits the future. Since the Uniform Time Act of 1966, California and its localities have never deviated from federal guidelines on the observance of Daylight Saving Time, so it is reasonable to assume that the October 21st 2015 depicted in the film was during Daylight Saving Time.
Therefor, I can say with some confidence that Marty received his Pepsi Perfect at 4:38 PM PDT.
If Pepsi is being really clever, this could be when the product will become available for purchase online.
As many have already noted, Sherlock’s fantastic “The Hounds of Baskerville” episode featured a cameo by the Doctor’s iconic Tardis, seen below just above a cluster of caves.
Well, compare that image to this screenshot from today’s Doctor Who episode “Robot of Sherwood.” Look familiar?
Now, am I saying that this connection was intentional? Man, I’m not saying anything. But it is interesting, isn’t it?
I just got it from the horse’s mouth, the long-awaited return of Arrested Development will be online at Netflix in less than one hour.
I couldn’t find the information online, so I struck up an chat session with Netflix support, where I was connected with a very friendly and helpful representative who investigated and informed me that the show would be online when clocks on the West Coast chime midnight.
Check after the break for a full transcript of the chat…