(no subject)

[camwyn]

Went to DMV yesterday. Presented six points' worth of ID, as NJDMV more concerned with people proving who they are than State Department is when one applies for a passport. Birth cert = four points, SocSec card = one point, NJ digitized driver license = four points really but damn it they want to see the birth cert too so the DL only counted for one point... Also had to show them a utility bill 'cos I was there for change of addr purposes.

Ran into some trouble when the computers came up with an error code next to my SocSec. Would not be worried about it only the error was for 'this person's name is not the same as it was when the card was issued', which is bupkis. I haven't changed my name or used another name in the real world. Told DMV ppl. it was probably failure to insert a space between the Irish prefix and the main body of my last name. This seemed to do the trick.

Renewed registration and DL as long as I was getting my addr changed. The resultant photo is not bad at all although I probably should have tucked the loose hairs into my ponytail. Oh well.

Went down to Central Avenue & got proper parking permit instead of piece of yellow paper. I will remove the permit before my next vehicle inspection as I am not sure they allow you to have stickers on the rear window for that.

Dealt with stuff last night. It seems to be dealt with now and I am hoping it stays that way because work is more than enough stuff without having friend problems as well. Like I said, it's dealt with, or I hope it is. If it's not I may have to book a one-way trip to Inuvik before the passport regs go through.

Work stuff- our file server has refused to allow installs for the better part of a month now and it's gotten to the point where Microsoft's escalated us so far up the chain that frankly we are losing more money by trying to repair it and failing and trying again than we would if we just ordered another damn ten thousand dollar server. I hope it gets fixed but at this point the prospect makes me want to laugh like Zim. At least the VPN is working. That makes me happy. That makes the office happy too. I have to remember that most of my job is actually going pretty well and that I shouldn't let one thing like this scare me, since the rest of the office thinks I'm doing a really good job. Perspective is a little hard for me sometimes. But on the other hand IT'S A GODDAMN SERVER IT SHOULD ALLOW THE ADMINISTRATOR TO INSTALL THINGS OKAY???

*pant pant pant*

Tonight I am going to go home and sit in the bathtub with my nice little bath pillow for a while, and then maybe attempt to henna my hair and watch either Ghostbusters 2 or a really stupid movie. One of the two. I will deal with the server issue today as best I can but I am not going to let it get to me. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not.

Also I have to write the next bit of Who Ya Gonna Owl? since the outline is done and I'm pretty sure the scene with Mr. Weasley will unfold itself as I get there despite my fretting over exactly how to accomplish what I'm trying to do. You guys don't mind if I bounce a Ghostbuster off a wall briefly, do you? I mean, he'll get better.

Comments

[telophase.livejournal.com]

The new library catalog database program at work, which controls *everything* we do here, decided yesterday out of the blue that my password, which worked pefectly the day before, was not good enough for the Cataloging module. And that the default admin password was not good enough to actually reset my password. Reinstalling my client solved everything (er, related to that problem - I've still got loads of problems trying to set up the spine-label printing to test this other process that the Cataloging department wants to try).

It probably had something to do with the main company, which pushes out patches and updates regularly which replace our customized files without asking. Last week we managed to send out a whole load of overdue notices using the default template instead of our nicely customized template with much softer language because we didn't realize that any update to the templates from the main company would replace our version.

[ymfaery]

...

You're not using Voyager, are you?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Nope. Aleph. We were using DRA but after the company got bought out and the purchasing company decided not to support it any longer, the decision was made to go to Aleph. Overall it's not bad - our main problem is that my boss has been tweaking DRA for 14 years, so it was perfect for our needs, and there's no way an out-of-the-box system is going to perform anywhere near that good.

*My* primary problem is that I've been thrown into this headfirst and I have to come up with an answer for Cataloging about spine label printing while at the same time learning how this thing works. *kicks Aleph*

[ymfaery]

Heh. Just checking: at one point it seemed like almost every time a new patch from the main company was installed I have to bug the techie guys to reinstall the settings and templates. I would have thought the techies would have learned from the first few times this happened, but they are students and seem to have a fairly high turnover rate.

I thought libraries were supposed to switch systems every 10 years or so?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Heck if I know how often everything's supposed to be switched. :) We figured out that having Version Check installed on startup was the worst problem, and took it out of the startup folder, accompanied by dire threats from my boss if anyone runs it without express permission from On High. Doesn't help *me* since I had applied an approved update. *sigh* So I shall lurch along behind-the-times until next week because my boss is out of the office for much of tomorrow.

[vivian-shaw.livejournal.com]

Huh. And I thought I had it bad because MS Word apparently has entered into a business relationship with Calamus and is gleefully fucking with every bit of careful formatting I'm doing on a project which should not be done in bloody Word in the first place but because Nigeria apparently does not have a single copy of MS Publisher in the entire country I am not allowed to give the final files in Publisher format but must needs re-do the entire HAART adherence brochure in Word and it's not letting me aaargh.

This incoherent complaint brought to you by the Institute of Idiot Virology.

[camwyn]

Puts me in mind of my high school literary magazine, in reverse. Publisher was still new then and drove all of us so bugnuts insane that we wound up doing most of the page layout in Word. It was just simpler.

[vivian-shaw.livejournal.com]

I misses Word 97. I loved that program. It would LET me do layouts and move images about and so on; Word 2000 thinks it knows better than me, so I have to undo all its fatheaded autoformatting and so on. Publisher will let me actually put things where I want them to be. Plus, it has handy-dandy templates for doing things like this wretched brochure, for which I know I will receive exactly 0 credit.

I miss Pagemaker, which is what we used to put together the school paper at college. Now that was a user-friendly interface.

[camwyn]

... Pagemaker. I meant pagemaker. Dammit.

*baps self*

Okay, they're rerunning one of those Brownco commercials again. I think it's time to go stab someone in the eye with a pen.

[mephron]

Here is my fountain pen. It is old and cloggy but still sharp. Go forth.

[camwyn]

Huzzah!

[mephron]

Why use a bic when you can use something that can go all the way to the back of the brain?

[vivian-shaw.livejournal.com]

Because you want it back afterwards without bits of occipital cortex all stuck in the nib? That stuff is the very devil to get out.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Also, if you need another pen 'cos you've blunted his? I have a Harley-Davidson fountain pen you may borrow, because the cognitive dissonance was too frellin' cool not to buy it.

-- Lorrie

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes. PageMaker. Got replaced in the Adobe catalogue with InDesign, but with the right magic words it'll speak PageMaker well, I'm told.

It's nice to have a hosting customer who's the spouse of an Adobe employee. I can feel all legal and stuff!

-- Lorrie

[lwood.livejournal.com]

All that crazy stupid autoformatting stuff can be turned off -- which I do with glee because SmartQuote and MSFT's long dashes are the very DEVIL (add flames to taste) of uninteroperability, and I must speak both Mac (pre-X!) and PC.

Anyway, it's under your Tools menu, with the AutoCorrect crap, IIRC.

-- Lorrie

[vivian-shaw.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know. It's just that I have to do this on several different computers as well as my own, and it's a bitch to remember to turn off a) spellcheck, b) grammar check, and c) autocorrect in EVERY SINGLE ONE.

Argh.

[aberrantangels]

I'm pretty sure the scene with Mr. Weasley will unfold itself as I get there despite my fretting over exactly how to accomplish what I'm trying to do.

Based on your prior record, I'd say so.

You guys don't mind if I bounce a Ghostbuster off a wall briefly, do you? I mean, he'll get better.

If it's necessary to the story, you don't need to ask my permission.

Oh, and GIP! (I upgraded to 50 icons the other day and have filled several of my new slots.)

[camwyn]

Hey, nice! Man, I wish they actually made legos that customized.

[aberrantangels]

*nods* Me too. But until they do, there's the Mini-Mizer. ^_^