What Have You Done Today - (Computer Version)

[Jezza819]

This was actually last week. I bought a new HP Envy 7855 All-in-One printer to replace the old Photosmart 5510d. With this new printer I went ahead and did the HP Instant Ink thing where they send you ink when they see that your levels are getting low and they tell how many pages you print.

HOWEVER, according to HP that means it needs to stay powered on and connected to the internet at all times so they can monitor the ink levels and such. Ok so the first day I had it was Sunday and I installed it, left it powered on all Sunday night. Came home for lunch Monday and it still looked normal. Only the power button and the wireless indicator were lit up indicating it was sleeping. Came home from work about 6 hours later and every light on the control panel was flashing like it was going crazy or something. The LCD screen was all blue except what looked like a power button was on the screen. None of the other buttons would respond. I finally hit the LCD screen and the printer gave me the option of starting up the printer. Did that and immediately powered it off.

Now here is where it gets good. Contacted HP support through private message since they had been working with me on the old printer. I tell them what happened and I get a response from a tech telling me that for the Instant Ink that HP recommends that the printer remain powered on but then they say but it's not required that you keep it powered on. ???? Well which one is it? Does it have to stay powered on for Instant Ink or not. They respond back with the same thing. HP recommends.....blah, blah, blah but it's not required and they say to hard restart the printer and check for the latest software. Well it's a brand new printer and it got it's latest software when I installed it and I'm not going to hard restart it because that's what killed the last printer. After the hard restart the PC never recognized it again. Plus it wouldn't printer clearly anyway. So now they respond back a 3rd time but this time they say "HP recommends that you DO NOT leave the printer powered on". The last two times they said it is recommended to leave it on.

If it's not going to flip out again and do all the flashing lights then I don't mind if it stays on and just sits there sleeping. Because I don't see how the instant ink thing is going to work if you just keep turning it on whenever you need to print.

 

[eran0004]

Yesterday I started working on a Python application to convert GT6 course maker tracks to Wavefront .obj files. Haven't started on the mesh construction yet, but it looks good when it comes to building the path.

Well, as long as the track turns left, that is. My NASCAR-driver of an algorithm doesn't like to turn right for some reason, they are all rotated by 180 degrees it seems



Edit: Fixed



Edit 2: It's alive! Only as a 2D mesh so far, but adding elevation and bank angles should be a piece of cake.

 

[sesselpupser]

I got SSH working on my PC, as it turned out all the guides on the internet are out of date so when I was looking for "SSH server" and not finding it, I should've been looking for "OpenSSH server" instead. I'm not really sure what I gained from this, especially considering how little I know about CMD commands (wouldn't mind replacing it with a UNIX shell), but it was a learning experience I suppose? The only useful command I've bothered to remember is "shutdown \s \t 0" at this point.

 

[BobK]

I got SSH working on my PC, as it turned out all the guides on the internet are out of date so when I was looking for "SSH server" and not finding it, I should've been looking for "OpenSSH server" instead. I'm not really sure what I gained from this, especially considering how little I know about CMD commands (wouldn't mind replacing it with a UNIX shell), but it was a learning experience I suppose? The only useful command I've bothered to remember is "shutdown \s \t 0" at this point.

Have you tried enabling the bash shell for windows 10? Not sure if it'll do what you want, but perhaps it's worth looking into? A quick web search for "windows bash shell" will find a number of articles on it.

 

[Sonygamer455]

Ripped two CD's to my computer earlier today, then I remembered I needed to do some rearranging. So I moved all the songs I ripped to a folder I typically keep most of my music because I prefer to have it all in one place. Since the links to them in iTunes were obviously broken from where I moved them, I figured adding the folder again would fix them, it created duplicates instead and I had to go through and delete them all. I eventually got it taken care of though.

Was planning on restoring my iPod Classic since I made a lot of changes in my library that would take to long to fix by hand, but then I had yet another episode with it. Plugged it in and then I safely disconnected it because I forgot to look at something on my device, none of my music was showing. So I plugged it back up and tried to multiple times to restore it in iTunes, but I couldn't even get to it because iTunes would freeze every time I plugged it in and my computer was even acting weird because of it. Was beginning to think I was having the same problem from 2014 again, but thankfully I fixed it by using Windows to format it since iTunes was being uncooperative and once I did, I was able to restore it through iTunes once again.

I love my iPod Classic, but man is it fickle sometimes!

 

[BobK]

I set up an old Pentium IV system with FreeDOS, and am re-learning how to get around in the system. It has a whopping 20GB hard drive, which is ten times the space I had on my old 486 back in the day. It also has 512MB RM, up from the 16 I used to have.

The packet driver I need didn't come on the FreeDOS installation disk, so I had to track it down online from a linux box. Not a problem, but transferring it to the DOS system was an issue. I ended up buying an external floppy drive and a box of diskettes.

I still need to get the sound system working.

 

[JohnBM01]

I finally got to buy some external storage for my Google Nexus Player. I bought a two-pack of 32GB SanDisk USB Flash Drives. One of them I am using to enhance the storage on the Nexus Player. Out the box, the Nexus Player features a paltry 8GB. So I have more than added four times the memory to my Nexus Player. I just wish external memory wasn't so fidgety with external storage with the Nexus Player. Unless I get a Xiaomi Mi Box or the NVIDIA Shield, I am going to make the most of my space with the Nexus Player. I plan to use the other USB Flash Drive for my basic usage with my PC to port over data to my Android devices. Possibly for sideloading Android programs.

 

[sesselpupser]

Have you tried enabling the bash shell for windows 10? Not sure if it'll do what you want, but perhaps it's worth looking into? A quick web search for "windows bash shell" will find a number of articles on it.

Not yet, no, but I'm aware it's a thing. I might just not, though, as I feel like I should learn Windows command line.

I've already found my first useful application for SSH though; Virtualhere only lets you connect one device at a time but it's got a full command line API, so I can SSH into the PC to switch devices between, say, the Xbox wireless dongle and Logitech unifying receiver. I want to eventually make a physical remote control to do the switching so I won't have to do it manually, which I could quite easily do with the Raspberry Pi that's running the USB server.

 

[TenEightyOne]

...Pentium IV...20GB hard drive,...512MB RM,...external floppy drive and a box of diskettes.

I had to check the post date

I still need to get the sound system working.

Hasn't been invented yet

In seriousness: do you have a soundcard or native onboard?

 

[BobK]

Hasn't been invented yet

Lol. Well the sound setup is copied from my old long-gone 486 system which had IIRC a SB16 or SB Pro or some such.

In seriousness: do you have a soundcard or native onboard?

It's onboard, haven't checked to see what the mobo manufacturer is yet. I haven't really begun to look into it, I just know that I'm not getting any sound playing Doom. Just a matter of figuring out the right I/O port, IRQ, etc, etc I think. I don't even know if FreeDOS has any sound utilities yet.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Lol. Well the sound setup is copied from my old long-gone 486 system which had IIRC a SB16 or SB Pro or some such.



It's onboard, haven't checked to see what the mobo manufacturer is yet. I haven't really begun to look into it, I just know that I'm not getting any sound playing Doom. Just a matter of figuring out the right I/O port, IRQ, etc, etc I think. I don't even know if FreeDOS has any sound utilities yet.

If you can get hold of one it's probably as easy to re-source an SB16 or Pro - most legacy software will support them iirc and there should still be a stash of drivers knocking around somewhere.

 

[JohnBM01]

A fairly awkward moment happened last night. I was playing a classic PC game when I somehow pressed some button combination that ended up in my display being rotated! The game was in 640x480 resolution and full screen. It ended up going to that resolution and rotated. I think it was some combination of CTRL + ALT + Up arrow that ended up in the display being rotated. I since remedied it and resized certain windows to get everything back to normal. As for that game, I changed the controls so that I don't use ALT to operate it.

 

[TB]

Computer related, I suppose...

I just purchased a new switch (went from an 8 port gig to a 24 port gig)
The 8 port moved out to the TV to replace a 5 port 100meg switch for the PS4 and Tivo.
The 5 port then went into my bedroom for a wireless bridge for a scale my wife bought and the Tivo Mini.

With having a gig switch at the main Tivo, preliminary tests show that transfer time for moving a one hour SD show from the Tivo to my desktop, stripping out the commercials, putting the files back together and saving it in a folder for Plex to do its thing dropped from 2:12 to 1:20. Transfer speed was show as going from 94.5 to 220 megs.

Now I need to find more stuff to fill up the rest of the 24 port...

 

[Grippy]

Installed GIMX, because the version I had was outdated...didn't fix my issue but led to finding another way to fix it...that's a win

 

[Rallywagon]

I went trips finally!!!

Still gotta get the VGA sorted out with a port rep for my wife's laptop. Only thing I've done so far with it is a few sessions of Rimworld spanned across them, but they are mostly for productivity since anything I play that would benefit from trips I use a Rift for.

 

[eran0004]

A quick morning programming exercise. I read about L-systems on Wikipedia and came across an L-system for fractal plants that I decided to translate into Python code.

There are two main functions:

1. Generating the fractal string (which is basically a set of drawing instructions).

2. Generating line coordinates from the fractal string.

from math import*

def fractal_plant(n=2):
    '''Generates an n level fractal plant string'''
    def iterate(s):
        output = ''
        for c in s:
            if c == 'x':
                output += 'f+[[x]-x]-f[-fx]+x'
            elif c == 'f':
                output += 'ff'
            elif c in ('+', '-', '[', ']'):
                output += c
        return output
 
    s = 'x'
    for i in range(n):
        s = iterate(s)

    return s



def draw(s, turnangle = 25, segmentlength = 10):
    '''Generates line coordinates for fractal plant string s'''
    def draw_forward():
        end_x = x+segmentlength*cos(radians(angle))
        end_y = y+segmentlength*sin(radians(angle))
        return (end_x, end_y)
          
    angle = 0 #degrees!
    x = 0
    y = 0
            #   x,  y,  angle
    storage = [(0,  0,  0)]
    lines = []
 
    for c in s:
        if c == 'x':    None
        elif c == 'f':
            end_x, end_y = draw_forward()
            line = ((x, y), (end_x, end_y))
            lines.append(line)
            x = end_x
            y = end_y
        
        elif c == '+':  angle -= turnangle
        elif c == '-':  angle += turnangle     
        elif c == '[':  storage.append((x, y, angle))
        elif c == ']':  x, y, angle = storage.pop(-1)

    return lines

I haven't tested actually drawing the lines yet, but quickly looking through the output it seems alright.

Edit: It works! (Note that I flipped the Y-coordinates and the rotation, since screen coordinates are negative up...)



Edit 2: Added some leaves and some randomness to the algorithm.

 

[Lewis_Hamilton_]

Didn't realise how long it had been since I gave the PC a good clean out and fresh thermal paste.

CPU full load temps went from the 80s back down to the 60s. The old thermal paste was basically like Blu-tack.

 

[Grayfox]

Didn't realise how long it had been since I gave the PC a good clean out and fresh thermal paste.

CPU full load temps went from the 80s back down to the 60s. The old thermal paste was basically like Blu-tack.

Was it cheap OEM stuff?
I once didn't change AS5 on my 2nd PC for 2 years of hard use and it was still some what runny

 

[eran0004]

Cleaned up the L-system algorithm and reverted to a more clean design. The only randomness in the construction system is that the turn sign (+, -) has a 50/50 chance of being flipped each time an x is redrawn as f+[[x]-x]-f[-ax]+x.

I also redefined the leaf shape and doubled the number of leaves drawn at "a" from one to two. The leaf colour is randomly picked from a list of green shades and leaves also have a 50/50 chance of being drawn on top of the branches, instead of below the branches.

Below is an n=6 fractal plant:

 

[Sonygamer455]

Spent most of my time reading about Spyro related stuff on the wiki site. Lately I have been incredibly obsessed with looking at a lot pre release material for Spyro Year of the Dragon and learning a thing or two about the changes the game went through during it's production. I have to say, some of the things on written about the game on TCRF are quite fascinating to me.

 

[eran0004]

Returned to the project of exporting GT6 course maker tracks to .obj 3D files. Exporting the road itself had been solved already, so this time I focused on the landscape. Below is one of my Andalusia tracks exported to .obj and imported in Blender.

The next problem will be how to combine the road and the landscape in a good way, because right now they are two separate objects.

 

[JohnBM01]

Tonight, I tried to use my wired keyboard to work with my Google Nexus Player. Using one of my USB hubs, I now have the external storage and one of my two USB keyboards connected to it. Using a USB Keyboard can be better than trying to use the remote or some other controller to type in text. For example, I can actually type better watching Twitch streams. The one problem I do have is that the Google Keyboard will sometimes go to Korean text or something as I'm trying to type sometimes. Typing is not really as intuitive in this regard using this device. It is still fairly decent.

 

[JohnBM01]

I found the AC adapter to my Logitech Driving Force Pro. As I connected it to my PC, I have been unable to play any real games with it or get it to function properly. I am guessing this wheel needed to have some sufficient juice. Having put in the AC adapter, I was able to rotate the wheel the whole 900°. If I can get everything going again, I could properly be deep in the sim racing game again!


[UPDATE] I got the steering wheel and stuff to work again! The main steering wheel unit probably needed some good AC power. The longer I kept it in, the more I was able to recharge it. I even noticed the wheel doing its usual auto-rotating of 900° to show that it works. The only gripe I had was that the pedals sometimes not working when I started a race. The controls otherwise work just fine. The PC finally recognizes it and everything. So when I want to do some fancy racing, I got my wheel set up. I just need to have a controller profile for games that have steering wheel support. Otherwise, I am not dead in racing games, at least with those that can use a steering wheel.

 

[Sonygamer455]

Found out today I can save all of my messages from Facebook Messenger, so that's what I did. It seems to work very well and it's nice and organized! Only catch is:

• One of my more meaningful conversations only had photos I had sent to her and not what was sent to me. Meanwhile the other conversations I looked at didn't seem to do this.
• One of the conversations would say "*insert name here* sent a photo", but their would be no photo there. It mainly happens earlier in the conversation, but the later messages to the same person did not. Which is a problem given how some discussions revolve around a photo and it wouldn't make much sense unless you can actually see it.

So I requested another download, this time with more than just my messages, to see if it would be more complete, but it seems to be exactly the same as before. As far as text goes, it seems to have gotten it all just fine though. However, me being the anal person I am, I will probably go through and try to insert all those missing photos into the conversations they're missing from as well as saving the ones it failed save. Luckily Facebook has timestamps for when the photos were posted, so finding out where and when they're posted should be easy, but it'll take a while since I have so many. Haven't done any HTML editing in a while, so I may need to brush up on it a bit in order to insert the missing pictures. I wish I knew about this earlier!

 

[Grayfox]

I got my steam account hacked, then waited a few hours for steam support to resend a reset password.

I feel dirty, I am normally vigilant about my accounts and I lost it due to having only 3hrs of sleep.

I hope valve wont VAC ban my account

 

[Robin]

At my wits end with ASUS . Can't even do a simple thing like send customer support an email because actually giving real email adresses is seemingly illegal these days!

Thier customer service form doesn't actually work, as in the webpage has a fake 'Send' button. Despite filling everything out and clicking it it then turns grey and nothing happens. They can't even code a webpage properly, I have tried for 3 days to get it to work, every browser on every machine in my house.

Looked on Trustpilot... wow just wow.

Does anyone know how to message them?

 

[sesselpupser]

I got my steam account hacked, then waited a few hours for steam support to resend a reset password.

I feel dirty, I am normally vigilant about my accounts and I lost it due to having only 3hrs of sleep.

I valve wont VAC ban my account

You don't use 2FA? I didn't know that was even an option. I had my Uplay account hacked, oddly they didn't change the password, all they did was add some friends and play Ghost Recon Wildlands for 2 hours after changing the language to Russian. I use 2FA on that now, although I haven't logged back in since the day after it happened so who knows, maybe it's gone again.

Found it weird that Uplay didn't warn me that someone on the other side of the world got into my account, Google warns me every time I log in to anything...

 

[Grayfox]

You don't use 2FA? I didn't know that was even an option. I had my Uplay account hacked, oddly they didn't change the password, all they did was add some friends and play Ghost Recon Wildlands for 2 hours after changing the language to Russian. I use 2FA on that now, although I haven't logged back in since the day after it happened so who knows, maybe it's gone again.

Found it weird that Uplay didn't warn me that someone on the other side of the world got into my account, Google warns me every time I log in to anything...

I have steam guard enabled so they didn't take any items due to the 15 day wait.
I just need to wait till next friday to trade my items to another account incase this one gets VAC banned, but it is unlikely since no games were started up.

At my wits end with ASUS . Can't even do a simple thing like send customer support an email because actually giving real email adresses is seemingly illegal these days!

Thier customer service form doesn't actually work, as in the webpage has a fake 'Send' button. Despite filling everything out and clicking it it then turns grey and nothing happens. They can't even code a webpage properly, I have tried for 3 days to get it to work, every browser on every machine in my house.

Looked on Trustpilot... wow just wow.

Does anyone know how to message them?

One of the reasons I stopped recommending them as a brand.
Sure they make good hardware but they lack customer support.

In austraria they wont supply you with spare parts, you have to send the unit into them.
Even if you are a PC tech.
Sounds like they took a page out of apples playbook on customer after sales support

 

[Robin]

One of the reasons I stopped recommending them as a brand.
Sure they make good hardware but they lack customer support.

In austraria they wont supply you with spare parts, you have to send the unit into them.
Even if you are a PC tech.
Sounds like they took a page out of apples playbook on customer after sales support

Yeah, that seems to be the general consensus, decent products but if something goes wrong or they have messed up... oh boy! I've been out of the computer building game for quite some time and were surprised at how Asus has become. I can't believe they run customer service like that.

I have never had an issue with a company where the online support form doesn't even physically work, I haven't even been given the chance to sample their terrible customer service!

 

[Grayfox]

Yeah, that seems to be the general consensus, decent products but if something goes wrong or they have messed up... oh boy! I've been out of the computer building game for quite some time and were surprised at how Asus has become. I can't believe they run customer service like that.

I have never had an issue with a company where the online support form doesn't even physically work, I haven't even been given the chance to sample their terrible customer service!

I had a good asus laptop best laptop I have used, and a decent one to even today, I needed a part they would not provide it.
This part was Recovery DVDs.
All you do is insert them and click next.

I told them I do not care about warranty, the laptop is out of warranty, I can install it myself as I am a PC tech.
They would not sell me the part, they just kept going "You have to send it into us."

Yeah pay $30 to ship a laptop, then pay $500 for them to reinstall the OS as the recovery partition was corrupted, even the recovery disks I made were corrupted which means the recovery partition was screwed from factory.

Since I worked in a computer store as a PC Tech and by sheer luck a customer brought in the same laptop for a damaged LCD screen, I booted it up and made recovery disks and fixed my laptop.
Otherwise I would've used a standard windows 7 HP image.