alexpgp | All sorts of stuff...

I managed to catch a pretty good movie last week on the streaming version of Netflix. It's called Mongol, and purports to describe the early years of Genghis Kahn. The cinematography is excellent, and I think the subtitles (the dialog is in Mongolian) actually add to the experience of viewing another culture at another time. (Of course, that comes with the caveat that what one sees has been "prefiltered" by the cinematographic process; still, the story seems plausible.)

* * *I tried to install OpenOffice the other evening, and something happened at the beginning of the install that caused the progress bar to actually reverse itself in Windows 7. The installation continued, but OpenOffice complained of not having a Java environment to work with.

I don't mind not using OpenOffice, but immediately afterward, I tried using FineReader 9, and it complained of internal file corruption, and while post hoc reasoning always has its pitfalls, it is not entirely useless in diagnosing computer problems, especially since the same FineReader installation on my computer will work if I log in as Administrator.

The ABBYY knowledge base is almost as bad as Microsoft's. When I ask about FineReader file corruption, I get hundreds of links to pages that talk about other company products and have nothing to do with corrupted files. Looking at that page caused me to recall that the last time I had a problem with an ABBYY product, it took a phone call to resolve it.

* * *I managed to get three of an immediate six to-do items done today, but in terms of percentage time and effort, my accomplishment knocked off maybe 30%-40% of what had to be done.

Tomorrow, I need to finish a one-pager that should have been done today, the last 8 pages of the big job due Monday, and then the "Gordo Despeckle" of the big job.

If I'm lucky, I might even take Monday off.

Cheers...