Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 00:06:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Computer problems at work

Mike Bartman wrote:

> Telnet originated on Unix a long time ago...well before anything
> resembling "windows" on a computer screen.

Telnet is far older than Unix.

> "directly" should be "directory" I think... ;-)

Yes.  Sorry.

> It would have been even nicer if the program had just done the more
> usual "your license has expired" message, with info on how to renew
> it if you wanted to use the program some more.

Indeed.  A misleading error message is even worse than one that
doesn't mean anything at all to you, e.g. the *enormous* hex dumps
that Windows generates when it apologizes for having to "close".

(Can an non-conscious entity really apologize?  Isn't being sorry a
state of mind?  If so, doesn't it necessarily require a mind?)

> Of course, if that's the main program you are using at work, running
> on a 30 day trial license seems...odd.

I think it was one of the hoops they had to jump through.  Getting a
*permanent* license requires one's firstborn, and that typically takes
nine months.

Software registration is like countries -- the smaller and crappier
a country is, the more draconian, slow, elaborate, and onerous the
paperwork necessary to visit there.

> ... or at least buy a copy for each employee.

Only the proofreaders use this software.  There was actually an
additional license a few months ago, but it seems to have died with
the PC it was on.  If it was me, I wouldn't pay twice for one license,
but I'm not in charge.

Ted White wrote:

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

Sorry.  I have less free time these days, so at home I write faster
and spend less time proofreading casual messages.

> 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.

The Eclipse plain text output file has a hard return every 50 columns
or so, has line numbers as part of the text, has every other line
blank, indents everything, turns tabs into multiple blanks, and has
footers on every page.  This was easy to undo with Emacs.  Maybe it's
easy to undo with Word, but if so I have no idea how.  Does Word even
have macros in the Emacs sense?

> (Files begin as Word files, get saved as plain text and are
> converted to Total Eclipse files routinely when we proofers
> begin a job.)

Yes, and those input plain text files look completely different:
Every paragraph is on just one long line, there are no blank lines,
there are no footers, there are no line numbers, and there are tabs
before and after each speaker identification or Q or A.

> 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....

If a computer (or house, or person) must be haunted by a ghost, the
malingering kind is best.  "I'm not going to bother haunting today;
my ectoplasm has been aching all week."

> Total Eclipse is a highly specialized court reporting system that
> can take direct input from steno machines, and makes extensive use
> of the F keys.

I wonder why we use it, when we never make use of that functionality.
Indeed, it gets in the way when I hit a wrong key and it starts
waiting for steno input, or pops up an image of a steno keyboard,
presumably for me to type on with the mouse.  And most of the
documentation presumes that the reader understands steno terms.

> It is also prone to a variety of glitches.

Indeed, but printing 200+ pages, and having every one of them come out
blank except for a single italicized "et al." on page 1, that really
takes the cake.  Especially when nobody has any idea why this
happened, or what to do about it.