As certain persons of my acquaintance would say, this is just wrong. Especially the special offer for funerals and wakes.
[By way of Jen Segrest's Very Big Blog.]
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Monday, August 30, 2004
What I hate about Word, part 2
What I typed:
GAGEtrak lets you create IDs for users.
Word automatically corrected my capitalization, so the sentence read:
GAGEtrak lets you create Ids for users.
This changes the meaning somewhat.
GAGEtrak lets you create IDs for users.
Word automatically corrected my capitalization, so the sentence read:
GAGEtrak lets you create Ids for users.
This changes the meaning somewhat.
What I hate about Word, part 1
It's exasperatingly slow: I can type ahead of it easily, and I don't type any more than 50 words a minute. Hit the delete key and it's even slower, as if it's thinking real hard about whether it really wants to do it.
Friday, August 27, 2004
I'm officially fried
Ron woke me up at 5 this morning because he wanted to start work early so he could finish work early, and after about half an hour I gave in and started work myself.
Good thing, actually. I've plowed through about half of the feature list for one product brochure after struggling for three days with it and now, at just before 2 pm, I feel justified in stopping here and now, dead in the middle of some statistical information I find very confusing. I'll handle it much better when I'm rested.
The other product brochure will be much easier.
Good thing, actually. I've plowed through about half of the feature list for one product brochure after struggling for three days with it and now, at just before 2 pm, I feel justified in stopping here and now, dead in the middle of some statistical information I find very confusing. I'll handle it much better when I'm rested.
The other product brochure will be much easier.
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Sir George Martin's coat of arms
From the College of Arms, via Anton Sherwood:
Some references are less obviously explicit in America than in England. As a native speaker of American, I didn't immediately recall that the type of crosswalk the Beatles are seen in on the cover of Abbey Road is known as a zebra crossing in English. Inobservant as usual, I also didn't realize that the musical instrument under the bird's wing isn't a clarinet (as I first supposed) but a recorder.
Among many other achievements, Sir George Martin was producer to the Beatles. The shield, crest and badge make various more or less explicit references to the group as well as to music and the recording industry in general.
Some references are less obviously explicit in America than in England. As a native speaker of American, I didn't immediately recall that the type of crosswalk the Beatles are seen in on the cover of Abbey Road is known as a zebra crossing in English. Inobservant as usual, I also didn't realize that the musical instrument under the bird's wing isn't a clarinet (as I first supposed) but a recorder.
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
The spam just keeps on comin'
I, or one of my e-mail avatars, just got an "Urgent Message" from someone who styles himself "platitudinous Jefferey."
Holy disappearing act, Batman!
From Ron S. Bell's evocatively named Bear Left On Unnamed Road: "The Invisibility Cloak"
Too Much Tech?
John Edison Betts, Jr., on how equipment proliferates:
Huh. Ron and I have no other workplace than our home office, and together we have less stuff than John has individually.
Of course, that could change. Possibly on the horizon: a laptop so I could surf the web in the living room while Ron watches TV, and some sort of Windows box for testing web sites and creating screen shots.
I have an over-abundance of electronics in my office. No, not my work office… my home office. Compared to my home, my workplace is technologically barren.
Huh. Ron and I have no other workplace than our home office, and together we have less stuff than John has individually.
Of course, that could change. Possibly on the horizon: a laptop so I could surf the web in the living room while Ron watches TV, and some sort of Windows box for testing web sites and creating screen shots.
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
My Mom packs for moving
When we moved into my folks’ house in Kerrville, we found all kinds of items my mom left behind when my parents downsized and moved into a retirement community. Mom didn’t just leave us the odd item here and there, or even the odd sofa; there are many, many boxes, some of which were packed in 1984 when they moved out of the house in Houston that I grew up in. And my mom really knows how to pack.
Mom’s of the thrifty Depression generation, so everything’s worth saving and preserving: bags, foil, boxes, plastic bags, jars, old rags—everything. This is doubled, in spades, for anything durable and potentially useful. You name it: if my mom didn’t take it with her, chances are that it’s in the garage somewhere, as likely as not in its original box. I can go out there right now and grab headphones from 1972, an answering machine from 1990, a screwdriver or two from 1960, and my dad’s foot locker from his postwar stint in the Merchant Marine.
Much of it, as I say, is wrapped up as only my mom can wrap things. Usually, boxes are double-taped; once inside, the unpacker is confronted with vast amounts of old newspaper protecting the actual contents, which are themselves labeled and individually wrapped. At a bare minimum, unwrapping an item involves cutting through heavy box tape to take the newspaper off; however, if the item is remotely breakable, it’s usually wrapped in paper, taped, then wrapped in a plastic bag and taped again.
Naturally, the more breakable an item is, the better wrapped. To get to an 18” glass table top, we had to take off the outer plastic bag, then the inner paper bag. Below that was a layer of bubble wrap, which protected a layer of newspaper, under which we found aluminum foil, then an old ragged towel, another paper bag, and another layer of newspaper. Each layer was individually and thoroughly taped, all the way around, crosswise.
Mom also has a mania for documentation. I opened a box the other day. The outside was labeled in Mom’s graceful handwriting:
BILL
Household Items
VERY FRAGILE
A note on the inside flap of the box provides an inventory: “Clara’s bowl; Aunt Willie’s plate; Mama’s silverware; NSD costume jewelry; knickknacks; bric-a-brac.” Weirdly, this isn’t complete enough. Not that I don’t know a bowl from a plate or silverware from costume jewelry, but damn if I can tell knickknacks from bric-a-brac.
Mom’s of the thrifty Depression generation, so everything’s worth saving and preserving: bags, foil, boxes, plastic bags, jars, old rags—everything. This is doubled, in spades, for anything durable and potentially useful. You name it: if my mom didn’t take it with her, chances are that it’s in the garage somewhere, as likely as not in its original box. I can go out there right now and grab headphones from 1972, an answering machine from 1990, a screwdriver or two from 1960, and my dad’s foot locker from his postwar stint in the Merchant Marine.
Much of it, as I say, is wrapped up as only my mom can wrap things. Usually, boxes are double-taped; once inside, the unpacker is confronted with vast amounts of old newspaper protecting the actual contents, which are themselves labeled and individually wrapped. At a bare minimum, unwrapping an item involves cutting through heavy box tape to take the newspaper off; however, if the item is remotely breakable, it’s usually wrapped in paper, taped, then wrapped in a plastic bag and taped again.
Naturally, the more breakable an item is, the better wrapped. To get to an 18” glass table top, we had to take off the outer plastic bag, then the inner paper bag. Below that was a layer of bubble wrap, which protected a layer of newspaper, under which we found aluminum foil, then an old ragged towel, another paper bag, and another layer of newspaper. Each layer was individually and thoroughly taped, all the way around, crosswise.
Mom also has a mania for documentation. I opened a box the other day. The outside was labeled in Mom’s graceful handwriting:
BILL
Household Items
VERY FRAGILE
A note on the inside flap of the box provides an inventory: “Clara’s bowl; Aunt Willie’s plate; Mama’s silverware; NSD costume jewelry; knickknacks; bric-a-brac.” Weirdly, this isn’t complete enough. Not that I don’t know a bowl from a plate or silverware from costume jewelry, but damn if I can tell knickknacks from bric-a-brac.
Monday, August 23, 2004
Defending Our Skies Against the Elderly
Diane Dimond, from MSNBC:
I'm as shocked and appalled as anybody else that this kind of thing happens, but in truth I'm not surprised. (A couple of years ago in Albuquerque I saw security folks hand-search the bags of an elderly Mexican nun not once but twice.) My mom (who'll be 86 in October) was lucky to have been treated respectfully and courteously by everyone she dealt with in the two airports she went through last week. I'm glad I was there to escort her, and that I was allowed to do so.
The last I saw of him, a burly airport screener was forcing my frail and faltering 78-year-old father to stand at attention—arms spread—for a wand search. As I watched from the other side of the security gate I saw the man in the uniform point to my father to sit down and take off his shoes.
I'm as shocked and appalled as anybody else that this kind of thing happens, but in truth I'm not surprised. (A couple of years ago in Albuquerque I saw security folks hand-search the bags of an elderly Mexican nun not once but twice.) My mom (who'll be 86 in October) was lucky to have been treated respectfully and courteously by everyone she dealt with in the two airports she went through last week. I'm glad I was there to escort her, and that I was allowed to do so.
More on QuarkXPress
Pariah Burke holds forth on QuarkXPress again:
Interesting. The prevailing sentiment I've seen recently about Quark--understandably so--is that Ebrahimi will never let Aulakh do anything substantive to reverse Quark's long-brewing decline among the individual designer and small business markets. This feeling is based on the fact that several years ago that very thing happened: Ebrahimi relinquished control, changes were announced, and then Ebrahimi fired the new managers and reverted to status quo antebellum before any real progress could be made.
Aulakh's done well so far, reducing upgrade prices, restoring the user forums, seeking user input, and improving customer service. If Aulakh's Quark can deliver a usable product with features comparable to InDesign's, that may slow the bleeding enough to keep Quark viable outside its strongholds while giving printers and other service providers a reason to upgrade.
But don't expect me to buy a copy unless I absolutely have to.
Kamar Aulakh has taken charge and pointed Quark in a very different direction from that long travelled by Fred Ebrahimi. Pretty much since day one, Aulakh has recognized that Quark is no longer the dominant layout application in many of it’s former key markets.
Interesting. The prevailing sentiment I've seen recently about Quark--understandably so--is that Ebrahimi will never let Aulakh do anything substantive to reverse Quark's long-brewing decline among the individual designer and small business markets. This feeling is based on the fact that several years ago that very thing happened: Ebrahimi relinquished control, changes were announced, and then Ebrahimi fired the new managers and reverted to status quo antebellum before any real progress could be made.
Aulakh's done well so far, reducing upgrade prices, restoring the user forums, seeking user input, and improving customer service. If Aulakh's Quark can deliver a usable product with features comparable to InDesign's, that may slow the bleeding enough to keep Quark viable outside its strongholds while giving printers and other service providers a reason to upgrade.
But don't expect me to buy a copy unless I absolutely have to.
It's good to be back. Or here. Or something.
We've been busy with the relocation from Phoenix to Kerrville, resulting in a prolonged hiatus since my last post. We're almost done now: the furniture is (mostly) in place, we're (generally) unpacked, the cats are happy in their new home, and we are too.
None of it was as smooth or as easy as we would have liked, but we came through okay. Warning: U-Haul will not rent any kind of towing equipment for use with a Ford Explorer. (Mercury Mountaineers, for some reason, are okay, even though--to paraphrase Monty Python--a Mountaineer's an Explorer with the word "Explorer" crossed off and "Mountaineer" written in in crayon.) My name was misspelled on some of the closing documents, and the resulting delays sorely tested our patience and particularly my dad's endurance.
RP's mom and sister were here Thursday and Friday and were able to meet my folks on Saturday before they left. Everybody got along well--not that I was in any way surprised about that. We're very pleased with how the house is turning out and everybody else who's seen it so far has said the same.
None of it was as smooth or as easy as we would have liked, but we came through okay. Warning: U-Haul will not rent any kind of towing equipment for use with a Ford Explorer. (Mercury Mountaineers, for some reason, are okay, even though--to paraphrase Monty Python--a Mountaineer's an Explorer with the word "Explorer" crossed off and "Mountaineer" written in in crayon.) My name was misspelled on some of the closing documents, and the resulting delays sorely tested our patience and particularly my dad's endurance.
RP's mom and sister were here Thursday and Friday and were able to meet my folks on Saturday before they left. Everybody got along well--not that I was in any way surprised about that. We're very pleased with how the house is turning out and everybody else who's seen it so far has said the same.
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