Axis sucks

I've got this Axis 560 printserver which I was allowed to take home when I still worked at DHL's global headquarters (then in Diegem, now being relocated to somewhere in Germany).

Only the bloody thing gives me headaches. About one in two times I try to print, it doesn't work. If I then check the printserver's web-interface, I'll usually see the job queued, with '0 bytes printed', or '1 byte printed' or so. Totally useless. Rebooting and/or powercycling the printserver and/or printer(s) usually helps, but not always.

Finally sick of this, I went to Axis' website and tried to find whether I could upgrade the device's firmware or something. Ghaah.

  1. You can't download firmware from their support site unless you first register. I hate required registration, but oh well.
  2. The registration form has the 'Company name' field as a required item. WTF? I'm not a company! I'm a home user with a network. Yes, axis, those exist!
  3. The registration form has the 'Please spam me' field enabled by default. Nothing new or spectacular in itself, but see below.
  4. After registration, I went on to download the firmware. Turns out there are two separate, incompatible, versions of this device, and I have the choice to download firmware for 'axis 560, version 1' or 'axis 560, version 2'. Of course, axis provides instructions on how to find out which version of the device you have. They say to look at the product number; if it is of the form '0053-xxx-01', you have version 1; if it is of the form '0053-xxx-02' you have version 2. My printserver's product number is '0053-<many spaces>10'. Now what?
  5. On the page that lists the available firmware versions, there is a link 'Online Helpdesk'. Following that link gives me 'Page not found'.
  6. On the 'Page not found' page, there's a link 'Write & ask us'. Following that link gives me a form which allows me to enter a message to them. Dunno whether that ends up with their support people, but anyway; I put a question in there regarding my problem. Hopefully they'll reply. However, below the <textarea> where I've entered my question, there's a section called 'Personal Information'. With exactly the same information they asked me to enter in their registration form, including the 'please spam me' checkbox. And yes, I'm still logged in.

That did it. Axis sucks!