COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Big Kev]

I have some graphite suppressors you could try (they might work), they just clip around the cable. It may suppress the interference if the cable is acting as an aerial...

[Stanley]

You've reminded me of a related problem Kev. I am not an expert on this matter and once had the job of recording a band playing some out of copyright music for an AV installation we were putting into Pendle Heritage. I took advice from the experts at the College and they set me up with a very high quality Sony recorder, microphones and leads and helped me to install it at the old Grammar School where we were doing the recording because its isolated position meant that we could avoid extraneous noise. In other words we did the best we could.
Came the evening of the recording and I decided to take my Uher recorder and one microphone and do a back up recording at 7" per second.
We did the recordings and the following day had a play back. We found that the recording done on the college Sony was useless because we were getting a broadcast from Nordwest Deutche Rundfunk! The Uher recording was OK and we used that. It turned out that the experts had fitted us up with an unscreened cable and of course I knew no different. A learning curve!

[Big Kev]

Someone I used to work with lost his wifi connection whenever he run a tap. Turned out the water supply was from a well via a pump and the power supply, to the pump, caused interference at a certain frequency. Altering the length of the power supply cable fixed the problem.

[plaques]

Both Ian and Kev could be right on this one. It was late last night when just by coincidence we plugged the laptop in while this channel was running. Up til then the picture break down had been a mystery. All the others working satisfactory. I'll try different mains sockets and try shielding some cables. It could be the Ethernet cable is picking up some interference. Apparently you can check signal strength to a particular channel via the settings, this may give some indication what is going on. The simple answer is to unplug the PSU when viewing this channel and use the laptop battery. Thanks for the advice.

[Stanley]

At Lancaster I was once shown how to pick up the University radio station using a metal waste paper bin. I forget the details but it worked. No power supply at all.....

[Stanley]

Now the future looks a bit clearer I am seriously thinking about a major upgrade to the FM3. Not that I have any problems, simply because I believe in good maintenance and investment in machines that are important to me. So, Pluggy, give it a coat of thinking. What would you recommend, an upgrade or a new box and what would it involve. The aim being not to achieve the ultimate gaming machine but a general upgrade to the latest chips and technology. Include a screen as well if there is anything better than my present iiyama Prolite E2773HS 26" diagonal measurement. This is a good screen but can affect my eyes. I have been saving up so feel free to go for your dream machine! We can always roll back a bit....

[Tizer]

We've encountered a printer problem with our Ubuntu 18.04 machines. We can print office docs to our Brother printer OK but when we try to print a PDF document a note comes up on screen saying printing, then another saying printing complete. The printer light up as if it's about to print but then nothing, it just goes back to sleep. It's the same printer we used OK on 16.04. We tried many times, and with several PDF files, but can't get them to print. We used to print them OK from the default Document Viewer on the old Ubuntu. Now I've tried that and all the other PDF readers in the ubuntu reps, including Okular which is reckoned to be the best reader for linux. None work with PDFs. I've reinstalled the two Brother printer drivers from the Brother web site (cups and lpr debs) but this hasn't solved the problem. I'm lost for anything more to try. I can't find any useful solutions on the web. Any ideas, anyone?

[Stanley]

I've just tried a .pdf on my HP printer Tiz and it's OK. Bear in mind this is the machine that Pluggy and I couldn't find a driver that worked on scan to file, I.E., a picture.

[Big Kev]

I am seriously thinking about a major upgrade to the FM3...

What are you planning to use it for? The spec you have already exceeds some of the country's top IT systems

[Tizer]

I agree with Kev, and it's the law of diminishing returns, you get to a point were any further upgrading doesn't make much difference in practical terms.

Our PDF printing problem continues. I've found that it also doesn't work with JPGs although it's fine with office docs. I tried printing PDFs from in command line from the Terminal and from other apps such as Firefox, Gimp, Libre Office etc. None of it works. Could it be possible that it's the printer that's at fault? When the PC has the recommended drivers for the model I would have thought the printer wouldn't distinguish between the type of file sent to it. Maybe I'm wrong? I guess now I'll have to borrow someone else's printer to test that possibility.

[PanBiker]

When I was making a living system building, my first question was always "what do you need a computer for". I would agree that chucking more money at it for minimal gain is pointless. Buy some more castings Stanley, something proper complicated that will keep you going in the shed for a few years. Good job you don't bother with mobiles or you would be swapping them every six months.

[Pluggy]

Does the .pdf/.jpg disappear from the print queue when it doesn't print ?. Have you tried forcing another application to open the file rather than the default ?, Chrome/Chromium / Firefox should open and print .pdf for example. Have you looked for the latest driver for the printer ? It will almost certainly be some interaction between he application and the printer driver, but a solution is a different matter. Rereading your first post suggests you've tried the above . Revert to 16.04 ?

I'd tend to side with the naysayers Stanley, you've already got a machine a lot faster than the majority of people.....

[Tizer]

Yes, I've tried all those things. When we try to print a PDF a note comes up at the top of the screen saying it's printing, followed a few seconds later by one saying `Printing completed'. At the moment the workaround is to ask my cousin to print our PDFs on her PC!

[chinatyke]

Are you sure you haven't overlooked something simple like <print to file> or whatever the pdf box says when you just intend saving the picture? Or got the settings wrong when it asks what is the default for a .pdf file?

[Tizer]

Not those problems China, but thanks for the suggestions. I'm pleased to say that just this minute I've solved the problem. I'm going for a cup of tea and a slice of cake to celebrate and I'll relate the tale tomorrow. Phew!

[Stanley]

Ah, I see the House vote is against me.... In that case Pluggy just advise me on the screen. Are their better ones now that are easier on the eyes?
Glad you've sorted the printer Tiz. Now pop up here and persuade mine to scan colour pics!

[Tizer]

My PDF printing problem. One of my biggest dislikes of the digital world is that there are often too many options and only one of them works. This seems to be the case here. Early on in the problem solving process I'd gone through my Ubuntu printer settings to re-set the driver. It offered me one for my Brother `HL-L2300D' laser and I chose it but I still couldn't print PDFs or JPGs (and office docs still printed OK). Then I'd tried downloading the driver direct from the Brother web site but still no solution. So I went on to installing other PDF reader apps etc, all to no avail.

PDFs wouldn't print, no matter which of our two PCs the printer was attached to. When I tried re-setting the driver it was on Mrs Tiz's PC. Yesterday I switched it over to mine and before connecting I deleted the Brother printer from the printer settings menu. When I connected it, up came a list of Brother printer drivers to choose from - and it was different this time. There were two identical entries for `HL-L2300D CUPS'. I'm familiar with the acronym CUPS (I think it's something like Common Unix Printing System) so I chose the first and, bingo! - it now prints PDF, JPG and office files OK. I swapped the printer back to Mrs Tiz's PC (she uses it the most) and went through the same steps and it works on her's too. The first time I tried re-setting the driver (when it failed) the list had offered one HL-L2300D and it didn't have CUPS in the name - I think it had something like `brf' which meant nothing to me. So the moral is - don't try simply re-setting the driver. Delete the old printer entry first and you'll get offered a driver that works!

One other difference I've noted is that our printer settings window now shows `Tray 1' instead of `Auto select'. Back on 16.04 it was on `Auto select' by default. However this difference couldn't account for the problem I've just had because we could print office docs OK while it was on Auto select.

Stanley, what scanner and software are you using? My scanner is a `Canon Canoscan LIDE 25' which does all I need and has never let me down over many years. I've always, and still, use the XSane software program which is in the Software Centre. When I upgraded to 18.04 I went to the Centre, clicked Install, then Launch. Then I right-clicked the new XSane icon (R.H. side bar) and clicked `Add to Favourites' so that it stayed in the side bar. I then clicked it open but the Preview window seemed corrupted. After closing and re-opening it's been OK ever since.

[Pluggy]

Ah, I see the House vote is against me.... In that case Pluggy just advise me on the screen. Are their better ones now that are easier on the eyes?
Glad you've sorted the printer Tiz. Now pop up here and persuade mine to scan colour pics!

I don't know is the the honest answer Stanley. What you mean by 'easier on the eyes' ? You have from memory a 27" monitor with a resolution of 1920 * 1080. Whixh is par for the course for a monitor which is on the large size already. In laptop/tablet/phone land screens are smaller and harder to read if your eyesight isn't 20:20. When I bought my laptop last year I paid more for a higher resolution screen, I needn't have bothered the eyes aren't up to seeing stuff so finely detailed. Its easier to run it at 'standard' resolution because I can see it. The really top end stuff now are big (40" ?) ultra high resolution which isn't going to do you any favours and curved which is going too far in my book.

Sample : https://www.scan.co.uk/products/40-phil ... -vga-2x-5w

It wasn't long ago when having a telly that size was considered extravagant.

Probably the bees knees for a 20 year old high end gamer.....

It possible the 'HPLIP' scanner and printer driver has been updated and will now work with your scanner. 'Its possible" being the important bit- It may just as well make it worse.

[chinatyke]

Just a thought, Stanley, do you want to make the text bigger and easier to read? Pressing Control and + will do this.

[Big Kev]

Anyone in need of a 1GB graphics card?

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[Stanley]

No China, I knew that but that's not the problem. I suspect it's more like something to do with refresh rates.....
Thanks Pluggy.... It looks as though I shall have to soldier on as you lot won't let me 'improve' anything!
(Actually you are all talking good sense.... just an old man's fantasy..... Something to with being given a reprieve on the Cancer front I suspect....)

[Tizer]

Stanley, consult your optician, they `know your eyes' and would be best placed to advise on what might help you in the way of screens or different specs. I have two pairs of specs, one normal varifocal for general use and the other are fixed focal `reading' specs - but I have the lenses in the latter set primarily for screen viewing although they are fine for reading too. Specs optimised for reading or general use are not necessarily OK for use with a screen. Measure how far your eyes are from your computer screen and take note of your sitting position in relation to the screen. You can tell your optician all of this to help them advise you. Also try adjusting the angle of your screen in relation to the desk and your eyes. Slanting it back or forward makes a big difference, so does the height above the desk.

[Stanley]

Thanks Tiz but I have done all that. It's only a problem when I have done far too much screen time.... I think actually it's because of the damaged retina in my right eye. My left eye has to establish dominance before the image clears, same thing happens when I am reading. Fascinating to watch the conflict resolving itself, it's all involuntary and in the brain!

[Tizer]

In that case your eyes are telling you when to stop.

[Stanley]

!