1) My daughter left her SanDisk iPod-type mp3 player plugged into a USB port on my machine. When I tried to boot, the machine would not even do a normal memory check and stopped short. Multiple times. When I finally noticed the dern mp3 player and unplugged it, everything was fine. On occasion I have also seen that a plugged in flash drive has messed up the boot. Just curious--why would this happen?

2) A friend has a Canon Pixma IP 1500 printer that he's trying to get working on his Ubuntu 9.04 installation. Although the IP 2000 is supported, the 1500 is not. He's managed to find, download, and install drivers for it (quite impressive for someone that is very new to Linux) but is now stumped by a "missing filter" message. I've never had to jump through the hoops that he's already done and don't really know what sort of a filter could be missing. Any suggestions?

From the specs, the (unsupported) IP 1500 seem to be the same basic engine as the (supported) IP 2000, just degraded slightly in speed & memory. I've faked out systems before by telling the add printer wizard that I really had a similar--but supported--printer, but that was with an LPT connection. How does one do something similar with a USB connection? (I'm hampered here in that I'm trying to help via phone and haven't actually seen his box or the choices on his screen.) This should be the easiest way to get him up & running.

We'll both greatly appreciate any help.

Mark Jarvis