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computer help
- Thread starter colin dainty
- Start date
Richard Dye
master brummie
Had a strange strange happen this week with my my trusty HP office pro printer. It just shut down. Did all of the right things diagnostics, HP directed diagnostics etc. it keep saying “failed to update”. Shut it down unplugged etc etc. Of course did this right in the middle of an important consulting job for a non profit humanitarian project. I unplugged it and went to a local place for printing. The morning I was going to take it to be repaired and plugged it in one last time & it started to work and has worked just fine since. It’s a wireless printer and I am happy it’s working, just wondering why/how?
Any insight would be appreciated.
Any insight would be appreciated.
Brummie a long time ago
master brummie
I have an office pro (inkjet). Is yours registered with HP? I use the instant ink programme, and if I leave it turned off for a while, I get a whingeing email that HP could not communicate with the printer. I get sporadic updates, but mine is ethernet connected, and they seem to go OK. The irritating thing is that an update will take priority over printing or scanning, and I just have to wait for it to happen. Maybe yours just got caught in that update focussed state, couldn't make it, and just needed to have a snooze for a while and reboot to try again.
Andrew.
Richard Dye
master brummie
Yes and yes to your first questions! I didn’t get the email but did when we moved it was off line for a few days.
An$ I think yes I do think that i5 got caught in the update because everything seems fine now. HP web site was NOT helpful at all!
I find printers and printer driver software just hard work at times. I have an HP too who occasionally decides it does not want to play ball anymore. I fined that you have to unstill the printer on the device manager and well as uninstalling the driver software to get them working again.
Richard Dye
master brummie
Ann, you are certainly not left out! This is my first time it’s messed up, and yes it does a very good job on all different print media. I use 24# paper, it’s a little thicker and never jams. I had a Panasonic printer that jammed very well.
mw0njm.
A Brummie Dude
i was thinking and wondered if ALL this info on the forum could be saved some way that it can it be replayedby machines 100 years or more in the future
Assuming microprocessor manufacturers can continue to live up to Moore's Law, the processing power of our computers should double every two years. That would mean computers 100 years from now would be 1,125,899,906,842,624 times more powerful than the current models. That's hard to imagine. or is pete being daft as usual
Assuming microprocessor manufacturers can continue to live up to Moore's Law, the processing power of our computers should double every two years. That would mean computers 100 years from now would be 1,125,899,906,842,624 times more powerful than the current models. That's hard to imagine. or is pete being daft as usual
How powerful do they really need to be?
Stokkie
master brummie
Over 35 years ago I asked the IT manager if our shared desktop PC could be connected to the internet. The response was 'not yet' - but what do you want to use it for, or do you just want to surf the web. We were working in literature and linguistics.
In truth, we didn't know, but we guessed that the internet might be important. As it turned out computers have altered the working lives of most people in the developed world. The mobile phones in our pocket or bag isn't really a phone but the most powerful pocket computer which can connect wirelessly to the web.
Internet banking depends on the calculation of large prime numbers for security. I don't think we know what we might need computers for in the future and so it isn't possible to know how powerful they will need to be.
It would be good to have access to all the pages of the web historically, then we could search this site and Mac Joseph's Ladywood site which is only partially archived. And I'd like access to all the printed books. As an ex-academic, I'm aware that there's a lot of material I can no longer access in professional journals because of cost. (On nailmaking in the Midlands for example.) It would be good to be able to pay to access or download for what I'd like for a few pennies or a pound. The digital humanities are only just emerging in the UK, but their potential is immense. I'm a words rather than a numbers person.
Digital mapmaking is another revolutionary technology. Imagine being able to see a map of Birmingham grow historically. The free maps on the National Library of Scotland site are brilliant, but they are hard to navigate at the moment. I'd like to create my own overlay and share it.
As cheaper more powerful computers become available then we will see what they might be used for... Some things might be community projects. I spent some of lockdown adding keywords to digitised photographs taken in Siberia so they could be accessed outside of the libraries which held the negatives or prints. Potentially anyone with a computer might see them. There are many such crowd projects https://www.zooniverse.org/projects
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Richard Dye
master brummie
I rember IBM saying they will never put sound on their computers and that they always be upgradeable. That lasted for awhile, the truth is we dont know the limit and it seems like not in our lifetime!
Richard Dye
master brummie
More like being humorous
. I think in computer speak 100 years is 50 lifetimes. It depends where you are in the cycle or scheme of things. I remember building a line in 2012 controlled with facial recognition, we installed in 2013. If you watch TV FR was not around until 2018!! certain development lab and universities were ahead of that. There are beta test cells all over the place. What I want them to do is get rid of "operator error" 
Yes. I see that there are lots of possibilities. The concern for me is what does it mean for our quality of life? I have read that the processing centres use huge amounts of energy. How will we deal with the unsupported computers going to waste? Are computers being used for beneficial purposes?
Richard Dye
master brummie
Particularly Apple upgrades to your phone that make it worse!
Richard Dye
master brummie
Tinpot, unfortunately it's not really just the computer, maybe in our sphere. In the world that I retired from HMI's are mission critical, Human Machine Interface (which is a computer). When I started in industry working on factory automation, there were many things we could not do because the computer controls were not available. Today control engineers are amongst the highest paid and sought globally. The average car for example has 11 or 14 computers on board. When your say computers, its more than that thing that sits on you table or desk, that it's the tip of the iceberg.
This past week I had a heart monitor put in about half the size of a pencil and 1" long, the battery lasts about 10 years, and its output is measured wirelessly by a computer globally that will alert my cardiologist if my heart gets a little silly.
So yes, I would say they are being used for beneficial purposes.
Stokkie
master brummie
Tinpot, we have them in all aspects of our lives and it is up to us to use them beneficially. Because of my background, I'm particularly interested in the social and digital humanities. This very forum enables us to exchange information which we couldn't do so easily meeting once a month in a pub and showing each other old photo prints. And some of us live a very long way from Bham!
As for unwanted computers, there are schemes to wipe the hard disks and reuse them in less intensive tasks. Some computer companies will give you a discount for returning your old model, or if it isn't working take the broken machine for free. The valuable materials are reused. Derek
Stokkie
master brummie
One emerging project that will interest people here is The National Burial Grounds Survey. https://www.churchofengland.org/resources/churchcare/churchcare-news/national-burial-grounds-survey
This will map visible gravestones and potentially link to information about the deceased. It was interrupted by COVID and so far there are two pilot sites. But imagine what the volunteers at Key Hill might do when the scheme comes to them.
https://kirkburton.burialgrounds.co.uk/mapmanagement/#/
shelley.burialgrounds.co.uk
This will map visible gravestones and potentially link to information about the deceased. It was interrupted by COVID and so far there are two pilot sites. But imagine what the volunteers at Key Hill might do when the scheme comes to them.
https://kirkburton.burialgrounds.co.uk/mapmanagement/#/
Burial Ground Management System Map Management
shelley.burialgrounds.co.uk
I am glad you are able to have such a monitor to keep your ticker going! Strangely as I write this electronic message this morning I have just heard the whistle sound of a passing steam engine returning from a rally! I used to weave. Even on a Jacquard machine. Then I designed for textile machinery running on 8 track paper tapes. Gradually the textile industry was computerised and automated. Lots of good things came from that. A simple example would be reducing waste using computerised systems to plan cutting fabrics for garment construction. At the end of the day skills were easily transferred to other countries and our textile industry collapsed. Benefit or disadvantage?
I know both places Stokkie. Both in Huddersfield where I worked in Textiles until I was made redundant. TinpotOne emerging project that will interest people here is The National Burial Grounds Survey. https://www.churchofengland.org/resources/churchcare/churchcare-news/national-burial-grounds-survey
This will map visible gravestones and potentially link to information about the deceased. It was interrupted by COVID and so far there are two pilot sites. But imagine what the volunteers at Key Hill might do when the scheme comes to them.
https://kirkburton.burialgrounds.co.uk/mapmanagement/#/
Burial Ground Management System Map Management
Stokkie
master brummie
Sorry about your redundancy, Tinpot. Potentially the mapping could contain more information than the simple Find a Grave sites. Stokkie
Eric Gibson
master brummie
I'm using a laptop at the moment because the blasted desktop won't boot up, spent hours trying to fix it but it just won't have it. Asked the guy in the local computer shop, he said "Bring it in, there'll be an £85 service charge whether we fix it or not" \it was working fine on Sunday wouldn't boot up on Monday
richardinwales
master brummie
You need to make a USB boot drive on your laptop then try and boot your PC with it (if you don't have one you can pick one up from Argos or bigger supermarkets). £5 on a USB drive is better than £85 and in reality its the first thing the shop would try. Git it a go and report back
devonjim
master brummie
Had similar event with my laptop. But our local shop, TechOut "fixed it" absolutely for free. OK he was honest enough to admit that all he had done was switch it on and it had worked and even more important it has kept working, but he could have given me any tale when I went back to collect it.
Eric Gibson
master brummie
Tried that and many other tips before I went to the shop Richard, all without success, still dabbling with it.
Richard Dye
master brummie
Great point on the reuse of computers, when I bought a new one last year, they gave me $156.00 for my old one. I was very pleasantly surprised and thankful.
Richard Dye
master brummie
That is one of the downsides of these things Eric, we are at the mercy of some of these places!
Eric Gibson
master brummie
Sorted, a different SSD and a fresh download of Windows has it fixed, after a lot of time and infinite patience., just got to get some of the tat that comes with windows off and salvage stuff from the old hard drive.
jukebox
Engineer Brummie
That should keep you busy till Christmas