Microsoft Word: the installation update …

I’ve cancelled! The only page I was able to access the whole time was my account page. I never was able to access the word processor, the bit I need more than all the other frills. All work is meant to happen in the cloud these days … I know that … I don’t have the inner fortitude to wrestle with passwords every single time I want to use a word processor.

I’d really like the installation to happen without hang ups. I’d really like it if after I click on Install, the behemoth just installed itself without hanging itself up somewhere. I’d really like it if I didn’t have to uninstall, then go through all the steps outlined in the Troubleshooting page then reinstall and go through it all again.

All the boasting going on in the clean no-frills accompanying text isn’t having the required effect, because I can already see, that despite that they have already taken my money–which wasn’t outrageous this week–this is not going to be a smooth operation. I wonder if the reason that it’s only the third week after the end of the Financial Year, that the buy-price was a full $30AUD less than the original?

[And you know what? There is a bot following me around. Just got a suggestion for a less complex word for ‘purchase’ … fits better in the grammar, apparently … ‘buy-price’. Sounds like US slang to me. And apparently following is also too complex. Not buying that and this is WordPress, not the subject of the post.

Well, my online account works. Naturally, they start pushing more products the minute my feet hit the deck. Like, will I want a co pilot? No thanks. I’m used to flying alone, and am quite capable. And why would I want to pay an extra $33 a month for having a co-pilot?

They don’t see any devices? Well, duh. No devices, thank you. Trying to do this on a shoe string. Why would I open an Outlook account when I have had one operating since I got this computer? Another problem rearing its ugly head. Well, that’s My MS Account explored. Seems to be working. Its hiccups might iron out overnight. Wouldn’t that be something?

Next? The installation process … was encouraged to save the License agreement. Have you ever noticed how an encouragement like that is hedged by the further choices being grey-ed out and your attention narrowed to the word that must be reacted upon?

It seems to be happening. Then … per-ling-lingk … that Microsoft-specific sound of success. it says it’s done. A couple more hurdles, because not quite done yet. It has to initialize.

You should to laugh, I think at myself. A window just popped up. 2 updates available! I haven’t even opened anything yet. Update in progress is the next message. At 27 minutes that’s going to take longer than the installation process.

So the Updates are done. I click it, and it then tells me that a number of the new programs, since they were installed back in May 2024,… which they definitely weren’t … need updating. Ha ha ha! It’s like a maze. And I still don’t have anything to work with.

So finally I get a couple of aliased icons on my desktop … and here is the test … open one of my previously clamped documents and get …. taraaaahhh! Drum roll, please!

Nope! Forget the drum roll! A bit of Bosley and his crew from long ago, see those two little angles just under the Header? The clamps. My stuff is still not usable. Up in the top left it says I must ‘Activate‘ Microsoft.

Huh? Haven’t I done that already? I click on Activate just in case …

You know what? I’m calling it a day. Cheers all

Rabbit Hole 1

Fell through a rabbit hole and discovered what ‘product managers’ actually do. First had to google what they are … had heard the title bandied about by various acquaintances.

This definition from the Atlassian website: “A product manager is the person who identifies the customer need and the larger business objectives that a product or feature will fulfill, articulates what success looks like for a product, and rallies a team to turn that vision into a reality.”

So is this a fancy name for a sales person? Maybe, maybe not. The rabbit hole took a turn.

‘Selling’ is apparently a slippery concept. Some of the people answering the question in Quora.com say product managers don’t do selling, that there are sales managers for that. Other people say product managers sell all the time, such as selling their ideas to their team (internal) and selling the product externally.

What I’m taking away from it is that product management is a process that marketers go through to identify prospective customers and set them up with the products that that marketer provides.

One example I came across is a company requiring a fleet of EVs. They applied to a product management company to help them get a deal.

Another example is the way I bought my unit in a retirement village. Although it was case of me reaching out to them through their website, in hindsight I recognize the procedures involved in getting me to the signing-up event. Interesting article I just read about it all https://assaph.substack.com/p/user-journeys-the-real-heros-journey

‘A Scanner Darkly’

By Phillip Dick, an SF Masterwork published in 1999, original from 1977

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scanner_Darkly

Wrote this post three years ago:

“She risked her masked-up health and went into her new favorite library, St Vinnies—an Op Shop, charity or opportunity store—and “borrowed” eight old-fashioned print books. This because the local library was shut for Christmas-and-New-Year and the local virtual library not listening to her passwords, library id or pins.

“On arriving home, she began reading Phillip K Dick’s A Scanner Darkly. Not wanting to stop for lunch she got a bottle of water, and a jar of Pano dark choc bits. Ate the latter and drank the former while continuing to read. Round about 4.30 PM, she remembered the not-getting-sick parameter, and drank more water before making and eating a peanut butter sandwich with blueberries.

“Though the read was not all that gripping, she’d decided to read it, so read it she would. If that makes sense. The title, which an FB friend was attracted to after the crone posted a pic of a bag full of reading matter, sounds like a take on ‘through a glass darkly’ … let me just check that …

“OMG! yourbibleversedaily dot com tells her: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. – 1 Corinthians 13:12. Paul’s famously poetic statement about the difficulty of knowing God in this life says a lot more than at first meets the eye.”

“Well, it tells her it’s definitely worth it to check references, sometimes only vaguely known. What she has read so far of Through a Scanner Darkly … Yep, yep, definitely shaping up … to Augustine’s interpretation: “For Augustine, we see the image of ourselves clearly, but, as a reflection of God, the image is an imperfect way of gazing upon God.”

“All she can think is, that poor sap. (Thinking about A Scanner Darkly’s MC now.) He thinks he’s on top of what he’s trying to do but of course he will come a cropper. I wouldn’t be surprised, she thinks, if there’s a proper death at the end, not just the split-brain drug-addled undeath.
So. She’ll keep reading. [Posted 22 Dec 2021]

This is me, here and now, two and a half years on. Apparently I did blog this at the time but I can’t somehow deliver the image. As you’ll have noticed this isn’t a book review but another post about blogging. What a supposed ‘seamless transfer’ looks like on the ground. When advertising gurus talk about seamless transfers they don’t take into account the oceanic number of input/output skills out there/here or the infinite gradations of computer use competence.

I know that though I’ve been using computers for 28+/- years, my skill set is highly idiosyncratic, as is that of everyone else who was self-taught. And I believe the majority of us are, aren’t we?

I had three options of delivering that pic and none worked so far. My Media Library has about 800 images in it, but not apparently the cover of the novel I was writing about. I did a Search and got a virtual copy. The result of that maneuver is at the top. No image that I can see. And if it does appear in the post between the time I hit the Publish button and you read it, it’ll be the old pic. Not the Blue green and yellow version gracing the Masterwork.

Or I could take a photo of the print version I have, email it to myself and download it. That hasn’t worked either. So far. Google for some reason has retrieved an email address I left in the dust six years ago.

My Google ID is my next job.

Stuck!

I am stuck between a rock and a hard place Americans might say. Old Americans, probably. I don’t know if that aphorism is still being used.

I am stuck between my old Mac, with an old copy of Microsoft Word that I’m perfectly happy with, and new Mac with a so-far unlicensed Microsoft Word 365 that has frozen several of my Files. I haven’t been asked did I want the new version and I definitely haven’t agreed to hosting it on my computer.

Of course I know it’s probably some handshake agreement between Apple and Microsoft, they thinking that because a person purchases an Apple laptop they will naturally want also to purchase a gazillion MB word processor suite with no questions asked.

It’s here and it’s freezing my work as if it owns my output. That fact already is making me dig my heels in. My files, on my computer–not even online– frozen on the say-so of a company too big for its boots? Ee-ee-eh! That’s me screaming, frustrated already.

I can’t post either Brick Stories or Lodestar as my files are stuck in Word-ruled limbo for some so-far unidentified reason, and it’s ironic because the only thing I use Word for is to turn screeds into PDFs, as I generally use Scrivener for first and second drafts. So I really really resent having to purchase a huge program, either on a monthly basis at $11 US ad infinitum, or outright for over $200 US … just to free my work!

I can’t even copy and paste into a another program. And this is immediately after I proved I’m human. This is the material I personally wrote, for pity’s sake!

Just had a call from BH who suggested I check out Acrobat Reader. Good idea. I will. But first Scrivener. Surely it has the capability to PDF? Sounds like a dance. It’s all I need a couple of steps here, then there.

Found it. Scrivener dances the PDF.

Goodbye, Microsoft.

Meditative Art

Life has been challenging over this past week. Sometimes things happen that are difficult, if not impossible, to process. Such has been our …
Meditative Art

This post by Judith on https://artistcoveries.wordpress.com/ was a serendipitous find for me when I was casting about for a distraction from the on-going disaster that is the world out there. I had already weakened and thrown a train of the ongoing grief onto the page (previous post) when I recalled how soothing painting can be and thought that I should get back to it.

There’s nothing I can do about the ongoing train-wreck but keep myself sane and … I just don’t know what we as individuals can do.

Painting these miniatures my whole attention needs to go into every step of the process. They offer me three stages … I sketch, trace the important lines with black waterproof, and I paint. Six miniatures per A4 page, with two more to serve as a front door into the space and backdoor, or gate, out of the space.

Unfinished sketch of a corner of a living room. A few more elements before I can call it done. the flowers need a touch of color, for example. And so do the bricks in the fireplace. 10 x 9.5 cm or 4 x 3.7 inches.

Before I put pen to paper I need to set the scheme out, and it’s easy to make a mistake. As I did with this series. To put the booklet together with the least number of cuts and gluing, the six inner elements need to be positioned facing upward, facing downward, facing upward. That didn’t happen here:

… and I will need to do more cutting and more gluing to get a successful outcome. My fingers are crossed.

Watercolour Painting …

I’ve been doing booklets using free form paintings for a while … producing these for eventual sale at a residents open day.

After two or three, it became difficult to replicate methods while staying original.

So—big think later—decided to paint structured pre sketched scenes where I could practice perspective, and revise different techniques on a small scale.

Also to be made into little books eventually

A front door … a couple of things that can be improved on next time …

A back gate next, where I did a bit of wet on wet …

Duckweed …

As you can see when you zoom in, most of the duckweed is white and dead.

I’ve been keeping fish and frog ponds for about fifteen years and I’ve never had such a wholesale dieback that even the duckweed carked it.

The feathery green plant seems okay so far. Fingers crossed that they make it. And, I hope that both the Azolla waterfern and the duckweed have left spores and seeds behind, that hopefully will sprout when we leave winter behind.

While you are zoomed in you may be able to spot the two remaing fish. Though they look like leprosy warmed up in the photo, in their analogue state they‘re stockier than they were, but at least still alive.

I moved their habitat back under the outdoor light, in the hope that that gives the plants enough light to survive until I get my grow lights. An added bonus is that I can sometimes see the fish flitting about from inside my living room.