Sunday, June 19, 2016

How to Fix Linux Printing Problem



How to Fix Linux Printing Problem


When printing in Linux do you get a zillion blank pages or tons of pages with lines of weird nonsense across the top? Does this happen especially with Word documents that have images inserted in them and PDF files?


The fix is totally easy:


1. Go to Menu > All Programs > Printers.

2. Right click on your Printer and select Properties.

3. In Printer Properties select Printer Options.

4. Change "Print Quality" to something other than what is already selected.

5. Click Apply.

6. Click OK.








That's it! You don't even have to reboot to printer or computer.

My printer was set to "Normal Greyscale" so I changed it to "Normal" and all of a sudden everything worked fine.

Most printers have a bunch of settings to choose from.

For what it's worth I have an 8 year old Dell Inspiron with an ancient black and white Dell 1700 printer that makes the lights in the room dim every thirty seconds whenever it's turned on.

My printer driver is just the "Generic PCL 6/PCL XL Printer Foomatic" generic driver.

I needed to get a bunch of stuff printed for a job interview: nothing but hieroglyphics were coming out of the printer. A text-filled Word document printed fine, but when I pasted in a photo of my degree and transcripts I got 20 pages of garbage printed out. The same when I tried to print a PDF of my last pay stub. I got sick of jumping from computer to computer and rebooting into Windows Vista (one of my desktops if dual boot).

Some people have to try a few different print quality settings before they find one that works. I lucked out on my first try.

Hope this helps, pass it along!





Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Settings Doesn't Work In Windows? Here's the Fix!





Settings Doesn't Work In Windows? Here's the Fix!


In Windows 10 there is a message notification center button in the lower right corner:


If there is a certain type of file corruption, when you click on this button to open the notification center and then click "settings" the settings window opens for a split second and then closes. In many other places clicking on "settings" gives the same result.

Microsoft's answer is unhelpful as it involves "going into settings" which you cannot do, obviously. Updates do nothing either. Here is what finally worked. It's easy to do, even if you've never used command lines in Windows before. As always set a backup/restore point before doing anything.

Here's what you do to get settings to work:

1. Click on the Desktop of your computer. This gets you out of any programs. Shut down any running programs. This fix will involve rebooting a couple times.

2. Click CTRL + ALT + DELETE to bring up the task manager. There a around a dozen different ways to bring up the task manager.

3. In task manager choose:  file > run new task.

4. In the window that pops up CHECK the "Run as administrator box". 

5. Type  cmd  into the box labeled "open". This will open up the command line option. If you choose to bring up the command line in a different way (and there are many, many ways to bring it up), make sure to choose to open or run it as administrator. None of this works if you're not running as administrator!

6. Click "OK" and a black window with 1980s style computer type will open up. This is the command prompt. We're going to type some SIMPLE codes to fix your computer in here. It is very important to type EXACTLY including any weird spacing in the simple code or else it won't work.

7. Type  sfc/scannow

8. Sit there and do nothing, even if it looks like your computer is doing nothing. This operation scans and FIXES problems. Don't touch anything. It may take 15 minutes or more.

9. Your computer may reboot itself a couple times or prompt you to ok the reboot. Go ahead and let it reboot. At some point sfc/scannow will finish and probably say "Found problems but could not fix all of them" or something like that. Cool.

10. If a reboot left you back at your desktop, do steps 1-6 again to get back to the black prompt window as an administrator.

11. In the black prompt window type this last code:  DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth    You will notice each part has a SPACE before each / mark. Pay attention to what is capitalized and what isn't. You have to be EXACT!

12. It will start scanning and seem to GET STUCK AT 20%. This is normal. It gets stuck at 20% and again at 40% for like 5 minutes. Do nothing! Just wait! This will take a long time.






13. Your computer may reboot. Let it.

14. After rebooting one of our computers did a HUGE Microsoft update that took 45 minutes, but afterward clicking on "settings" worked and brought up the settings window! Nice.

15. Enjoy all the settings you can customize now (like turning off all those annoying notification center and upgrade Office popups)!



This fix worked after all the other fixes failed me. Microsoft's solution (still on their website as of 6-15-2016) says to go into settings...which is impossible. Another MS solution involves downloading and forcing a security patch from 2015 to load. Obviously your computer already has that.

Another failed fix involves going into user settings (again: impossible) and deleting yourself as a user and making a new user (both impossible because settings doesn't work and those options are greyed out). Downloading various things with names like "K0934834" did nothing, and may get you a nice virus.


Before doing the above you should do a few things: set a system restore point/backup. Search around the web for "windows 10 settings dism" and "windows 10 settings sfc" which will give you other ways to do the same thing (bring up command prompt as admin, run sfc and dism to fix, not just scan problems).

This process takes about 2 hours, but only about 3 minutes of typing slowing and clicking. You can go drink a RedBull and watch TV while the computer does the actual scans and repairs.


If this bricks your computer it's your problem, not mine. Be careful! This did fix a brand new Windows 10 running Dell that arrived non-functional (in terms of settings) from the factory. The user was amazed at all the settings available afterward!




I helped by meowing incessantly.






Monday, June 6, 2016

Eddy Current Anti-Gravity



Eddy Current Anti-Gravity




The electromagnetic force: magnets induce electricity, electricity induces magnetic fields.

As the magnet falls through the copper pipe (since magnets won't stick to copper but the copper will carry electricity) it creates an electric field which creates magnetic forces which swirl (eddy) around and slow the magnet down.

This is how a shake up flashlight works (along with a battery h to store the created electricity).

The magnet also tends to not touch the pipe as it goes down. It just slow motion tumbles.

This is the same look that satellites have rolling in orbit.

Here's a (not) perpetual motion machine: a magnet pendulum. Adding more magnets on the top and underside of my glass chair increases the swing time:


With slightly larger rare earth neodymium magnets the time on motion nears half an hour! A smoother, flatter piece of glass decreases the friction and also increases swing time.

Saturday, June 4, 2016

Inverse Square Law



Inverse Square Law 


Similar to my post "Galileo Galilei Square Cube Law" is this quick entry will deal with a simple law: the Inverse Square Law. 

The Inverse Square Law states that energy measured from twice as far is spread over four times the area, and so on. The farther away from a point source of energy, the less its intensity. 



I = 1/Distance²

I = Intensity 

Distance = the radius of an imagined sphere around the point source

As you can see in my drawing, every arrow is one unit of distance. Square the unit and divide into one and you get the area. For example:

2 Distance² = 4
3 Distance² = 9
  4 Distance² = 16

This is similar to Galileo's Square Cube Law: if you take a cube and dice it into smaller cubes: the total volume stays the same, but the surface area keeps growing the more cubes you dice. The Inverse Square Law is definitely more intuitive.

With radiation, the farther away you are-the safer you are. Gravitational fields lessen in intensity. The same with electromagnetic fields.



My intensity never diminishes...unless there's catnip around.