From: "Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Computer problems at work
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 22:55:23 -0400

----- Original Message -----
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 10:13 PM
Subject: [WSFA] Computer problems at work

> As promised, here are some of the computer problems I have had at work.
>
> First, the one that isn't really work-related:  I asked on this list a
> few weeks ago how, when I telnet to Panix, each return I type acts like
> return followed by linefeed.  I eventually learned that there was
> a simply solution:  Type control-right-square bracket, followed by
> "unset crlf" then two returns.  (And people still claim Windows isn't
> intuitive!)  (I use this mostly to read email and newsgroup postings
> during lunch, and to check my email just before I leave each evening.
> I did use it for work today, since I knew on my Panix account I had a
> bookmarked site that does "soundex" lookup by name of any American who
> has died in the past half century or so.  I successfully used it to
> look up the correct spelling of an unusual name of a lawyer who had
> been practicing in a particular city forty years ago.)

This topic must upset you; you've made an unusual (for you) number of
typos.

> As I mentioned here a couple weeks ago, the program that plays audio
> was filling a hidden directly on the disk with enormous "temporary"
> files.  The solution is, when you're done listening to a file, don't
> select "done," but "delete".  It will warn you that if you go ahead
> and delete, you'll never be able to listen to the file again.  It
> lies.  It doesn't delete the file you're aware of, but only the hidden
> file that you don't want.
>
> One morning the Total Eclipse program that I do most of the editing
> and proofreading in, said it couldn't find its "network key".  After
> rebooting and re-seating everything attached to the computer didn't
> fix the problem, the outside consultant had to be called in once
> again.  After several *hours* she figured out that the program had
> *expired* -- it was a 30-day license.  It would probably have been
> faster to break security than to jump through all the hoops the
> program's owners had her jump through.
>
> On Friday, one important file in Total Eclipse, a lengthy transcript
> of a hearing, lost its colors.  It's supposed to be various colors on
> the screen, not just black and white.  What's worse, any attempt to
> print the file resulted in blank pages, except for text in italics,
> which printed normally.  All other files were fine.  Changing various
> settings didn't help.  Reading manuals didn't help.  Copying the file
> to a different PC didn't help.  The consultant wasn't available.
> Finally, I had it export to a plain-text file, then used Emacs to turn
> that file from output plain-text format back into input plain-text
> format, and had Total Eclipse import it into a completely new Total
> Eclipse file.  Without Emacs, I don't know what I could have done,
> as those formats are very different, but in a formulaic way.

I dunno.  Seems as if you could have opened the Eclipse plain text file in
Word, saved it in word as plain text, and then reconverted it to Eclipse
via the usual plain text conversion menthod.  (Files begin as Word files,
get saved as plain text and are converted to Total Eclipse files routinely
when we proofers begin a job.)

> The program that plays audio has a very low maximum volume setting.

It's normally adequate -- cranked all the way up.   I threatened to go by
Radio Shack and pick up a preamp; I'm still considering it.

> Also, if you pause the playback beyond the three-hour mark of a file,
> when you restart you'll be back at the very beginning.
>
> I've also had to do proofreading in Microsoft Word.  Which often
> crashes.
>
> So those are a few of the computer problems I've had.

As I told you, you inherited Mary Catherine Gallagher's computer -- and
she'd been having problems with it.  It's probably haunted by her
malingering ghost....

--Ted White