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dr_phil_physics) wrote2015-01-22 02:54 pm
dr_phil_physics) wrote2015-01-22 02:54 pm
Entry tags:
Go OUEST, Once More, Into the Beast
Last Time in Office: 38 days ago (Monday 15 December 2014)
So... although I am on my "sabbatical" right now, it is important to get some work done. I could have left one of my own working computers at the office, but it was really time to get OUEST, the College of Arts and Sciences laptop that they so generously provided in the Fall, and turn it into a fully operational battle station.
Of course OUEST wasn't here in time to set up for the beginning of the Fall semester, so I didn't haul it out much after a brief set up. At home, I was dealing with Wendy's Windows 7 Home Premium laptop ZEPPELIN, so in a sense I was prototyping what I needed to do for the Windows 7 Enterprise Edition OUEST. And it was a real help, because in under 2½ hours I had actually done several real pieces of work and got most of the updates in place. It didn't hurt that I was on the very fast hardwire network connection, not WiFi or even WiFi+DSL, as in home
Complicating matters was I actually had a student appointment at 1pm -- application recommendations for postgraduate work. I always like to have the student in situ when I write these things and upload them, so they can see exactly what I said about them -- and they learn a little about the process. First real time I had to deal with Word 2013, ugh, but at least four months of heavy writing in Word 2010 has helped that learning curve.
I had planned to leave home between 9 and 10, to try to get in between 11 and Noon, but alas, I had One More Thing To Do at home, namely updating files on SUMMER and the Zip files on the 8GB Swiss Army Memory. And I had to stop by the one lot over at GVSU and steal back my nifty new sunglasses from atop the dashboard of the Bravada, leaving miniature heffalump tracks in the snow with the four-footed cane. So it was noon before I got into the office and off to the restroom.
The first step was determining what the password on OUEST was... (grin)
Didn't get to start updating files until 12:20pm. But I'd left OUEST in a "wild state" -- it immediately began updating Windows and with the fast dataline, updating Symantec Endpoint Protection, the corporate/university version of Norton Anti-Virus, took no time at all. Green indicators by 12:37.
Found the control to turn the touchpad off at 12:45. I don't think it's as much a problem on OUEST, which isn't a small laptop, than the two netbooks LARA and KATNISS or Wendy's giant widescreen laptop ZEPPELIN, where I kept brushing my thumbs against the surface of the touchpad, which makes Word 2003/2007 do crazy things.
Then my student came and we wrestled with the wording and with Word 2013 -- naturally none of the "real" working directories were yet in the defaults. Plus all the good files are on an 8GB microSD card stuck in the SD adapter in the SD card slot -- and had been removed and locked up over the break. They want me to protect the files on their computer? Fine, they won't even be on my version of their computer.
Still, we started on that and were done by 1:45, which was good because my student had a 2pm class. This even with the common application recommendation uploader warning that you might have trouble uploading a PDF -- and although OUEST doesn't have the Full version of Adobe Acrobat XI, my work with Word 2010 pointed me to have Word 2013 write an acceptable PDF file -- using IE or Chrome, it went fine with Firefox.
Oh, another country heard from. Adobe is automatically updating Acrobat Reader XI.
2pm and Windows has finally updated, so I shutdown Windows, which gives me the DO NOT TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER OR YOUR LIVER WILL FALL OUT and starting 1 of 28 Updates. Time to eat lunch. Reboot, 28,000 plus updates updating... and before it even gets to a login prompt, Windows reboots. Fine. Do some email on the Kindle Fire HD...
28,509 updates to go,
28,509 updates,
if one of the updates
should happen to load,
28,508 updates to go... Fuzzy phone picture from LG Cosmos 3 -- I think it had trouble focusing on the LCD screen, which was rapidly scrolling through the updates.
©2015 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)
Simple re-size of picture in Windows 7 Paint. Oh, have to download and install WinSCP 5.5.6, since I need an SFTP program to upload things to my WMU webpages anyway.
Meanwhile, I fired up Amazon Music and downloaded all the music files I'd added in the last few months. In the middle of this, Amazon Music wants to update. Fine, because I'd just discovered that the version I installed in September didn't have the nifty little miniplayer icon in the lower right corner. That took about twenty seconds and the only issue was I had to restart the song I was in the middle of playing.
3pm. Time to eat my clementines and write up a blog report. I imagine Symantec is doing a background scan, but otherwise, I'm in decent shape. Yeah, it's a Windows 7 machine, which means that Write/WordPad has gotten stupid and doesn't read .DOC files anymore, only .RTF and .TXT. And Word/Excel 2013 are even dumber than 2010 in producing giant big splash screens for file opens which CONTAINS NO INFORMATION OR FILES. Geez, guys, have you ever USED a computer?
My student was watching me doing some steps before we started on the letter of recommendation, and wondered what kind of program I was running. It's old school -- it's called an MS-DOS command line. (snicker) They'd never heard of such a thing. (sad-grin) And even THEY are not contemplating the switch to Windows 8 on their next machine. (cries-for-a-whole-generation)
3:40pm. Finish this first draft, edit, post, crosspost to Facebook, call it a day and get out of here a little after four.
A good half day of work. Hey, it's not like they're paying me. (evil-grin)
Dr. Phil
So... although I am on my "sabbatical" right now, it is important to get some work done. I could have left one of my own working computers at the office, but it was really time to get OUEST, the College of Arts and Sciences laptop that they so generously provided in the Fall, and turn it into a fully operational battle station.
Of course OUEST wasn't here in time to set up for the beginning of the Fall semester, so I didn't haul it out much after a brief set up. At home, I was dealing with Wendy's Windows 7 Home Premium laptop ZEPPELIN, so in a sense I was prototyping what I needed to do for the Windows 7 Enterprise Edition OUEST. And it was a real help, because in under 2½ hours I had actually done several real pieces of work and got most of the updates in place. It didn't hurt that I was on the very fast hardwire network connection, not WiFi or even WiFi+DSL, as in home
Complicating matters was I actually had a student appointment at 1pm -- application recommendations for postgraduate work. I always like to have the student in situ when I write these things and upload them, so they can see exactly what I said about them -- and they learn a little about the process. First real time I had to deal with Word 2013, ugh, but at least four months of heavy writing in Word 2010 has helped that learning curve.
I had planned to leave home between 9 and 10, to try to get in between 11 and Noon, but alas, I had One More Thing To Do at home, namely updating files on SUMMER and the Zip files on the 8GB Swiss Army Memory. And I had to stop by the one lot over at GVSU and steal back my nifty new sunglasses from atop the dashboard of the Bravada, leaving miniature heffalump tracks in the snow with the four-footed cane. So it was noon before I got into the office and off to the restroom.
The first step was determining what the password on OUEST was... (grin)
Didn't get to start updating files until 12:20pm. But I'd left OUEST in a "wild state" -- it immediately began updating Windows and with the fast dataline, updating Symantec Endpoint Protection, the corporate/university version of Norton Anti-Virus, took no time at all. Green indicators by 12:37.
Found the control to turn the touchpad off at 12:45. I don't think it's as much a problem on OUEST, which isn't a small laptop, than the two netbooks LARA and KATNISS or Wendy's giant widescreen laptop ZEPPELIN, where I kept brushing my thumbs against the surface of the touchpad, which makes Word 2003/2007 do crazy things.
Then my student came and we wrestled with the wording and with Word 2013 -- naturally none of the "real" working directories were yet in the defaults. Plus all the good files are on an 8GB microSD card stuck in the SD adapter in the SD card slot -- and had been removed and locked up over the break. They want me to protect the files on their computer? Fine, they won't even be on my version of their computer.
Still, we started on that and were done by 1:45, which was good because my student had a 2pm class. This even with the common application recommendation uploader warning that you might have trouble uploading a PDF -- and although OUEST doesn't have the Full version of Adobe Acrobat XI, my work with Word 2010 pointed me to have Word 2013 write an acceptable PDF file -- using IE or Chrome, it went fine with Firefox.
Oh, another country heard from. Adobe is automatically updating Acrobat Reader XI.
2pm and Windows has finally updated, so I shutdown Windows, which gives me the DO NOT TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER OR YOUR LIVER WILL FALL OUT and starting 1 of 28 Updates. Time to eat lunch. Reboot, 28,000 plus updates updating... and before it even gets to a login prompt, Windows reboots. Fine. Do some email on the Kindle Fire HD...
28,509 updates,
if one of the updates
should happen to load,
28,508 updates to go...
©2015 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)
Simple re-size of picture in Windows 7 Paint. Oh, have to download and install WinSCP 5.5.6, since I need an SFTP program to upload things to my WMU webpages anyway.
Meanwhile, I fired up Amazon Music and downloaded all the music files I'd added in the last few months. In the middle of this, Amazon Music wants to update. Fine, because I'd just discovered that the version I installed in September didn't have the nifty little miniplayer icon in the lower right corner. That took about twenty seconds and the only issue was I had to restart the song I was in the middle of playing.
3pm. Time to eat my clementines and write up a blog report. I imagine Symantec is doing a background scan, but otherwise, I'm in decent shape. Yeah, it's a Windows 7 machine, which means that Write/WordPad has gotten stupid and doesn't read .DOC files anymore, only .RTF and .TXT. And Word/Excel 2013 are even dumber than 2010 in producing giant big splash screens for file opens which CONTAINS NO INFORMATION OR FILES. Geez, guys, have you ever USED a computer?
My student was watching me doing some steps before we started on the letter of recommendation, and wondered what kind of program I was running. It's old school -- it's called an MS-DOS command line. (snicker) They'd never heard of such a thing. (sad-grin) And even THEY are not contemplating the switch to Windows 8 on their next machine. (cries-for-a-whole-generation)
3:40pm. Finish this first draft, edit, post, crosspost to Facebook, call it a day and get out of here a little after four.
A good half day of work. Hey, it's not like they're paying me. (evil-grin)
Dr. Phil
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