I am constantly gobsmacked at how hard some “professional” applications make things.

Take for example something as obvious as a shape with a dotted line.

I want to make some buttons for a website. Ordinarily I’d just create a shape in something like Keynote or Powerpoint with the appropriate line, cut and paste into something like Seashore and cut the bits I need. No it’s not the “ideal” way to do this, but it consistently works and takes me ten minutes, tops.

But I’ve recently become a Photoshop person. I like the layers, which PS will do. But try getting a dotted line on a shape. Really.

Finally after hours and hours of searching, I found how to do it here.

Surely they can make something like this simpler? Or is this the now standard “exclusive” approach rather than “inclusive”? After all, we can’t have just *anyone* doing graphic design can we? There’s lines of demarcation to worry about.

What goes around, comes around.

Proposed intellectual property agreement

It occurs to me that this is the modern equivalent of the restriction of information and free-thought that existed during the Dark Ages.

Remember that fun time, where the church was all powerful, they could do what they liked and anyone they didn’t like was harassed and if you spoke up, you were tied to a tree and burned to death.

Perhaps they won’t do the burning this time around. But they can — if this monstrosity gets up — do these:

- ex-officio authority to take action against infringers  (i.e. authority to act without complaint by right holders)(my note: anywhere, any time, they can grab you and start searching. Nice one)

- authority to order ex parte searches and other preliminary measures (my note: right to be notified of a search, presumption of innocence, etc, etc?)

- remedies against circumvention of technological protection measures used by copyright owners and the trafficing of circumvention devices (my note: well, there goes the ENTIRE computer industry, and the Medical industries in one fell swoop)

And perhaps the scariest of all:

- Special measures for developing countries in the initial stages (my note: what exactly does this mean? Whitey cracks the whip and says you can’t do this anymore?)

What’s scary about all this? Well, suspension of the presumption of innocence for starters. And, of course, the ultimate issue that if a whole country — say an african country which is breaking copyright by producing its own anti-retroviral drugs in an attempt to stem the spread of AIDS — is breaking this “law”, then what happens then? Do the armed forces of another country fly in and bomb them all to smithereens because they’re breaking copyright.

And how exactly are they going to stop China?

In my opinion, and this is my blog, so I can say stuff like this, the proposal is a massive can of worms which could be used to justify anything from the suspension of the presumption of innocence to all out war.

And again, it’s another attempt to stifle the creativity and information exchange afforded by the net and other technological advances.

Long live freedom of thought.

War, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war,war,war,war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war,war,war,war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war, war, war, war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war,war,war,war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war,war,war,war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war,war,war,war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war,war,war,war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war, war, war, war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war,war,war,war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war,war,war,war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war, war, war,war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war,war,war,war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war, war, war, war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war,war,war,war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war,war,war,war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war,war,war,war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war, war, war, war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war, war, war, war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war, war, war,war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war,war,war,war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war,war,war,war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war, war, war, war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war,war,war,war,war,war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war, war war,war,war,war,war,war…

Bored yet?

I sure as hell am.

Every damn thing is War.

War on Drugs.

War on Terrorism

War on Science

War on Obesity

War on poverty

I know The Chaser’s War On Everything is a piss-take of all of this, but it doesn’t actually make it any less boring and a waste. I’m so sick of hearing about wars of any kind. Sick of the mindset behind the concept of war, sick of the over-use of a word which equates to death, destruction, abuse and mindless agression, sick of hearing it used for everything from terrorism to overweight people. Sick To Bloody Death.

There are thousands of words in the English Language; are we so short-sighted, so lacking in intelligence, so devolved that we can only get attention by declaring WAR on it?

<rant>

See, this always happens.

Oh, this is a Technical Writing blog entry by the way. Sorry, forgot to mention that; was preoccupied swearing protracted and extensive revenge against my document reviewers.

Documentation seems to be something that the IT industry has marked — unconsciously and astonishingly — as something that anyone can do right at the end with no preparation whatsoever.

I’ve been around for long enough to have this simple irritating fact proved time and time again.

And reviews; don’t get me started.

Well, that’s what this entry is about, so I shall get started.

I give my reviewers a fair suck of the sav, a reasonable amount of time to do their work; I leave them alone when they’re busy, I step away when they’re in meetings or kicking out code like a posse of kangaroos kick lost tourists who think the route from Perth to Melbourne will only take a couple of hours. Hello!! It’s over a thousand kilometers Morons! This is not Europe!

Where was I?

Reviews.

So earlier this week I said explicitly in a meeting that I needed review comments through by Thursday afternoon, so I could spend Friday putting them in ready for the release on Monday.

Three people in the meeting of 10 actually made an effort and  put the review comments in. I had to harass another one who I met in a meeting and sorted that out.

So it comes to Thursday arvo (that’s Afternoon in Australian for all you foreigners), and there’s nothing new. Good, I thought.

Then I decided — in my idiocy — to go around and ask the people in question if they’d mind Getting Off Their Arses And Review The Documentation Like They Said They Would And Were Reminded To In Not One But THREE Email Messages.

Well, I didn’t put it like that, the same as I didn’t take my preferred method of positive reinforcement and grab them by the hair and smack their foreheads against the desk repeatedly to make the point.

As I sit here, there’s fifteen additional comments been added to the page. And it’s Friday afternoon. And I am Not Fucking happy.

Yes, I understand that people get busy. Yes, I understand that they’ve got their own jobs to do. Yes, I understand that there’s a fine line between serious assualt and gentle reminders… but seriously, it’s bloody annoying to have all this CRAP dropped on you at the last Fucking minute.

</end rant>

Well, it’s official: iiNet Sucks.

I’m sick of being on hold to these guys. It’s like being with bloody Hellstra or Opt-Arse for frig’s sake! What IS it with companies.

No amount of “Your call is important to us” and “Our staff are experiencing higher than average call volume.” cuts it anymore in this world.

Neither do constantly being told “it’s time to go naked with iiNet…” and “…are you experiencing slow download rates with your dial-up connection..?”

I don’t care. I don’t want to be advertised at. I don’t want to be constantly told how hard it is for you to receive calls because the three people that are left in your call-center after your last hatchet-job on staff that actually do the freaking work can’t handle the volume of calls!

It reminds me of an ex-employer who, during one of the regular 6-monthly retrenchment cycles, fired the guy responsible for building the one application that the CEO of the company had declared was the best thing since sliced bread and would make the company bigger than Ben whatsisname.

Stupid!

So is being on hold for 15 minutes!

iiNet used to be a good company, easy to deal with, quick turnaround on service calls, connections and anything you needed really. Now they’re just like every other damn company out there: happy to take your money, happy to provide a bit of contractually obligated service (ie. phone/net connection) and CRAP at everything else that’s actually necessary for running a business.

Bottom line: if your staff can’t handle the number of calls coming in, then HIRE SOME MORE!!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ-lJpL2oVg]

w00t for the power of the citizenry.

But that’s not the reason I’m posting this entry.

I’m posting the entry because of the apparently slack standards of news services. This — and many other reports I’ve seen lately — appears to have been either:

(a) written by several different people and not copy-edited

(b) cobbled-together from several reports around the world and not copy-edited

(c) not copy-edited

Notice the common-denominator in the above points.

Seeing the same piece of information repeated several times in the same report smacks to me of apparent laziness.

And in the award for Shameless repetition, we have:

“…Qian Xun was nicknamed Pumpkin, after the Pumpkin Patch-brand clothing she was wearing when she was found in Melbourne…”

“…She was nicknamed Pumpkin, after the Pumpkin Patch-brand clothing she was wearing when she was found in Melbourne…”

The award for the most gratuitous use of the same fundamental points goes to:

“…Murder suspect Nai Yin Xue was found by police with his pants around his ankles and his hands tied with his own belt after being captured by a group of angry Chinese Americans…”

“…”They had basically taken his pants and tied his legs up and taken his belt off and tied his hands up, so he was very much in custody by the time our officers got to the scene,” he said…”

“…”Local authorities got wind of the incident and arrived on the scene only to find the suspected murderer hogtied and detained by a number of men.”…”

The award for emotive geography goes to:

“…The abandonment of Xue’s daughter caused outrage in Australia and New Zealand, and led to the establishment of the Little Pumpkin Trust in both countries…”

“..Qian’s half sister helped establish the Little Pumpkin Trust in Australia and New Zealand…”

The award for television over-exposure is for:

“…Authorities in America had recently said they were closing in on the fugitive, and his image had appeared on America’s Most Wanted…”

“…The website for the America’s Most Wanted television program says Xue was caught after Chinese-American locals recognised him…”

“…”The arrest was based on the news reports and the internet and America’s Most Wanted,” Hession said…”

The Where’s Wally award goes to:

“…Xue had now been transferred to the Dekalb County Jail where he will be held until US Marshalls take him into custody…”

“…Xue is now in custody while it is determined what legal jurisdiction he faces….”

The Stating-the-bleedingly-obvious award goes to:

“…Murder suspect Nai Yin Xue was found by police..”

“…He is accused of Liu’s murder…”

“..Xue, who is suspected of killing his wife, has been charged with being a fugitive and for being wanted in New Zealand…”

I’m sure there’s more, but the point is well and truly made: it’s an abominable news report and the “with Staff Reporters, stuff.co.nz and Agencies” is little more than a disclaimer rather than giving proper credit to the sources of the report.

This is really sloppy journalism, but I’m up for alternative interpretations (other than a 5-minute deadline, which is just tommyrot on an online newspaper).

Okay, thanks to this article, the treo might just be syncing properly…

I deleted all the windows sync settings from the treo, and have paired the computer and the treo once again.

If this works, I might just call it a night. It’s only been 4 hours. All right, 3 and a half at this point (I arrived here at about 6.30pm).

Well, it kind-of works. There’s still more contacts on the Palm than on the PC.

The addressbook seems to have synced properly though, so that’s nice.

Screw it. It’s after 10pm. I’m going home.

Okay. Success: it installed.

Now for the hard bit: getting the thing to (a) recognise there’s a treo connected, and (b) getting it to perform a full sync without crapping-out halfway through with some incomprehensible error message that not even the programmers in Redmond understand.

Restart time: here we go again…

I just had a heart-stopping moment there: straight after the PC manufacturer rubbish (Press F8 to do unspeakable acts to the BIOS), there was a black screen and a blinking cursor.

Phew, Windows hasn’t suddenly turned into a turgid pile of horse droppings infested with the worms of a thousand parasites. Well, no more than usual.

(By the way, before anyone complains how much I’m bagging windows tonight, consider, I’m well into my fourth hour on this sodding thing. I’m entitled to feel a little annoyed).

Okay, sync-time!Well, we’re back to what we had before the uninstall/reinstall loop.

Activesync refuses to accept there’s a Treo connected, while Windows syas there is.

Found New hardware it keeps saying, like a small dog with a sudden unabiding love for your leg.

Okay, I’ve waited a bit, and restarted the treo. Activesync seems to think it can deal with it now. And we’re Synchronising……with another sodding status bar that does NOTHING!

Let’s see what happens next…

Well, a post was just lost because Firefox suspiciously couldn’t connect to wordpress.

In my vanity I wondered if MS Fankiddies were performing a DoS attack on my blog.

No, it was just a glitch. Even the MS PC I’ve been working on could connect.

Now I’m in Safari.

Oh well.

There has been progress; while the scan button on the officejet won’t work, and the officejet purpose-built software doesn’t work either, the MS Office scanner utility detects there’s a scanner connected (on the officejet multifunction) and will scan from the plate.

Good.

A minor mishap with multiple installations of the same printer, and a quick delete of the offending party later, and the printer worked fine.

Even when connected to the PC via a USB hub.

Similarly, suddenly the HP laserjet 5L will now print.

It looks very like the ultimate issue was MS all along: Service Pack Two in fact (though why HP didn’t issue an update to their drivers and software is beyond me; but I’ll let it go for now).

Now I have a new quest: get the palm treo to sync with addressbook.Wish me luck.

Fucking hell, it’s still going.

I’ve just gone into the house, chatted briefly with G, the owner of the PC, hunted for a teabag while the kettle boiled, found the teabag and poured boiling water over it (in a cup no-less; no fooling this gal), and stomped back out here. We’re now installing HP Officejet 9100 series.

Nicely enough, the installer window is counting-down — like a harbinger of doom — the free disk space; presumably the PC will turn into an MED (Microsoft Explosive Device, as differentiated from a small bullet-shaped lump of cotton-wool) when the counter reaches Zero.

A great use of my precious time; think, I could be cycling home now after another ab-building Bikram Yoga session, with slightly sweaty hair but feeling energised and content — relaxed even — and even more-so because the day was over and I didn’t have to look at another sodding PC again that day.

Luxury!

Whoops.

Anyway, We’re on 22% on the installer, which leaves a honking 78% to go. It’s not helped by Norton scanning every stinking byte of the installation programmes either. Tea’s too hot to drink, so what can I do? I know, Youtube!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Z-DIAthbM&rel=1]