How many of your jobs are like this?

Perhaps that's the problem: the vapour leaves the house before it gets a chance to absorb heat.

If the water vapour doesn't leave the premises, then the humidity would keep increasing until there is an equilibrium with condensation on cold objects. I.e. a large pool of water would form under your fridge.

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Boudewijn Dijkstra
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No. There's not enough moisture in the air for fog, frost, etc. I suspect it has to do with our location proximate to two large washes -- along the base of a set of (ahem) "mountains". I suspect air tumbles off the mountains (somehow) as the Sun is rising and the washes channel it to our feet.

E.g., we tend to be several degrees cooler (night lows) than "town" during the winter months. And, this "phenomenon" just exacerbates the problem as you *think* you're out of the woods when the sun comes up -- until you notice the thermometer still falling!

Yeah, well... when you get to be "expert" about this, I *still* won't want that hand in my living room!! ;-)

Exactly. These are problems that, once solved, can be applied easily "across the board".

The same attitude exists about water use. Rather than deal with more efficient ways of using/conserving it (e.g., folks "watering" lawns during daylight hours??

40% lost to evaporation!), they look for ways to get lower quality water into use (I'm just waiting for the day they suggest treating effluent!) soas not to impact "growth".

("Um, wait until your 100 year water supply certification goes away and you find the cost of borrowing money, etc. goes through the roof!")

Small minds can't even deal with small problems -- let alone the *big* ones!

[BTW, the gelato has been mysteriously "evaporating" in this hot dry weather. Almost as if some critter was *eating* it...]
Reply to
Don Y

A friend was reporting something similar from the Carson City area, up in Nevada.

No, it'll be in your fridge, where the beer is :-)

Here I was hoping that organizations such as IEEE would step up to the plate on the hill. But no, only some vague position statements with lots of platitudes in there. Every time I try to get them to actually demand something practical the discussions trail off.

Just like what our margaritas do, evaporate ...

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Joerg

Probably not. I have a digital thermometer probe sitting in the outlet of the cooler. Air goes in from the outside at 95F and comes out into the house at 72F. Yet the house remains at 80F for hours. All it does is keep it there or slow down the increase, despite the fact that it pushes in the equivalent of the total house air volume every 10 minutes.

Not under the fridge since that's actually warm because of its external heat exchanger. But you can see increased condensation on things like beer bottles or other things you just took out of the fridge. If that gets to be too much you need to open the windows a little more.

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Joerg

Up *your* alley:

A "wall wart" design that switches itself *off* when the load drops to (to replace old xformer based ones -- why are these even being *made* anymore???)

And, while we're at it, 86 the stupid "barrel connectors" (or, at the very VERY least, replace the "universal" symbol for polarity to something simpler like a circled + or circled -. Preferably large enough for old eyes to see without resorting to a magnifying glass... )

Reply to
Don Y

The singlemost significant drawback to the cooler is: you can no longer leave popcorn, potato chips, etc. "out" overnight and still enjoy them the next morning! :<

(always amazes me to leave a tall glass of iced tea on the counter and *not* find it sitting in a pool of water 18 seconds later!)

Reply to
Don Y

I fought PDF's for years. Now, *embrace* them. I know *exactly* what everyone sees when they open the document. No worrying about whether they have the right "fonts" installed, whether they're using english or metric paper sizes, if they're using the "right" version of the software or something "compatible" (e.g., OO), etc.

[Of course, you have to know how to *build* PDFs properly to ensure this (e.g., embedding the right fonts, etc.)]

I use PDFs any time I need to send a "page" of "something" to someone -- whether it's a schematic, spec, artwork proof, etc. I don't have to worry about whether their running Solaris, Linux, Windows, etc.

If you're dealing with this sort of thing on a regular basis, I would recommend tools implicitly designed for collaboration. E.g., you might look into etherpad, skydrive, google docs, MS Sharepoint, etc.

If I were starting out (fresh) in business *now*, I'd set up a secure Wiki to have the benefits of all of the above without risking exposing data to third party servers... (anyone up for a dropbox account? :> )

All of my clients have either been big enough muck-a-mucks

*or* running "tiger teams"/"skunkworks". So, the only problem has been convincing them that there *is* a problem and *this* is the solution. They're more interested in getting things done than dealing with paperwork (had one client just purchase the things on his personal -- non-business -- credit card: "I'll worry about getting reimbursed, later")

Of course! You want to use MSWord to create datasheets? Or bills-of-materials? Or, user/service manuals??

No, the "reader" (I've always called it "Acrobat" as it originally was "Acrobat Reader" -- I didn't realize there was an "Acrobat" product, itself, until some time later. I believe it is now called "Adobe Reader") has markup capabilities. Adobe has (belatedly) realized this to be a market for their product and seems to be trying to come to grips with how much of the "Acrobat" functionality to migrate into "Reader".

I guess we'll live with our choice. Can't imagine any other material that is going to be much better.

Reply to
Don Y

I'm sort of bursting in here, without having followed the whole thread, and mixing up replies to different people.

One format that might be of interest to you is hybrid pdf files created with OpenOffice (or LibreOffice, which is generally a better choice these days). Basically, it's a normal pdf file with the original odt document included as a comment. So anyone can view the pdf file part using normal pdf viewers - and things like fonts, page breaks, etc., are all correct. And anyone with OpenOffice/LibreOffice can edit it.

Regarding pdf programs, I find it hard to understand why people are still so obsessed with Adobe's programs. The reader is a bloated security nightmare - there are a dozen other free reader programs that are much faster, and much safer (though no guarantees about being entirely safe). Unless you are trying to read one of these locked pseudo-pdf files that you sometimes buy (such as for iso standards documents), you don't need Acrobat Reader. My company has standardised on Foxit Reader for Windows (evince on Linux), but there are several choices.

For editing pdf's, again people seem to think the only choice are the expensive (and bloated) Adode programs. These are the top-of-the-range, but they are not the only options. For simple changes, OpenOffice can import pages as drawings - very limited, but free. And there are other options, such as Foxit's editor which does most of what people need for a tenth of the price.

For generating pdf files, I fully understand why some people use DTP software that directly generates pdf files. What I can't comprehend is why anyone would use MS Word and then Adobe Writer - it's an expensive combination that produces poor-quality pdf files even after a lot of effort. If you want to use a word processor for documentation, use OpenOffice - it will generate high quality pdf files, with clickable links, table of contents, etc., at the click of a button - for free. For more general "pdf printer" usage, pdfCreator is free and does a perfectly good job.

Reply to
David Brown

One company I was working with switched to FrameMaker from Word because one of their documents had a very large table in it which they needed to copy and resort within the document. FrameMaker would handle it where-as Word would not. The document was so large that it was beyond the capacity for Word to deal with.

I use Open Office and distribute PDF's only. No problem there.

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Paul E. Bennett

I really can't say enough *good* about FrameMaker. Use it for more than a single document and you'll quickly grow accustomed to doing *everything* in it. And, the fact that the "file format" (MIF) is reasonably open and "ASCII" so you can mangle it if you want to do something "extraordinary".

But how do you deal with the "collaboration" aspect? Do folks markup the PDF's for you (e.g., in "Acrobat" or in "Reader") and *you* reintegrate the changes into your "original document"? Or, do they markup paper copies? Or, are *you* the source of all modifications?

Does anyone have any first-hand experience with some of the (other) "collaborative tools"? (whereas "Reader" seems to be addressing this market as an "afterthought")

Reply to
Don Y

Not always. I have here some PDFs that are searchable in Acrobat Reader but not searchable in Foxit Reader. So, depending on the SW used the recipient will find different behavior of the same file.

It ain't that easy. If the client doesn't have it you can't use it. As a consultant you have to find the smallest common denominator for all this stuff and then try to stick with it.

That won't fly with larger companies. They have policies and all this fun stuff. Violating those can backfire, for example reimbursement for a SW purchase without a signed capex request might be denied. "Sorry, this was not budgeted and not authorized".

Yes, yes and yes. BTDT. Actually writing one right now.

[...]
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Joerg

No problem here. Leave it out and you won't enjoy that anyhow. Either the dogs got it or the ants were there first.

Yep, when you have a cooler you'll quickly learn to use coasters :-)

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Joerg

Ok, there always comes a point when it's too small. Just like even a Ford F-350 will eventually reach its limits where you need to rent a

5-ton truck.

Same here, except the *.doc files are sent during the collaboration phase. For some reason OO and MS-Word display redline colors in different colors. Amber becomes red and so on. These incompatibilities can be annoying.

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Joerg

[%X]

All the documents I produce have a paragraph numbering scheme. So the client has a number of ways to make comments about a specific document. Just quoting document ID, Version and Paragraph number when making their comments will be enough for me to locate the cause for their comments and concerns.

Of course, some of the modifications will come about from review meetings which gives me a list of items to deal with. No fancy tools required really.

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Paul E. Bennett

So *they* never manipulate the document (or copies of it)?

Understood. Sounds like we work in similar environments.

Reply to
Don Y

The advantage of something like a Wiki (depends on software) is that all the user (client) needs is a browser and an internet connection.

From the *document's* point of view, it also has the advantage inherent of HTML over PDF (or other "page description" formats) in that it focuses on *content* instead of *form*. So, user A can use some funky "font", oversized, in *blue* to view the content while some other user sees very fine print (cuz he wants to see more on a "screen") in white-on-black, etc.

You don't fret over "page numbers" -- everything is referenced via tags or section headings, or "topics", etc. If someone inserts 3 lines of text, you don't worry about how that "moves" subsequent text/headings... because there is no sense of "absolute position".

In a "private" document, you needn't be as democratic/fair in deciding what materials stay in the document and what is removed -- you can be as authoritarian (or not) as you like. Yet, still keep the contribution/collaboration process "open for submissions"

Once the collaborative phase is over, the *content* can be professionally typeset to produce a finished document.

The biggest drawback is you need to set this up as a service, "somewhere". Expecting the client to host it is asking a lot. And, if you're not particularly IT literate, it represents an added burden on *you* (since *you* have to keep the service available as long as "collaboration" is taking place.

For someone like me, the only issue would be having to set up an *isolated* server (so there is no chance in hell that client A would be aware of client B)

(Also, I would want these boxes on my premises instead of going the co-lo route... can you say "trust no one"? :> )

Reply to
Don Y

That would be no problem but one issue would be: Cyber security. Some clients require all this stuff to be encrypted. That kind of runs counter to the whole wiki method.

I have some FTP areas separate for each client that wanted it. Because, to my surprise, many IT folks don't seem to know how to set one up anymore.

Sure, but I trust a large server in Kansas with handling my email, website and whatnot. So I'd have no problems but for highly sensitive stuff none of this is practical. You just have to back up regularly.

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Reply to
Joerg

You've forgotten to account for all the heat trapped in the walls,furnishing, appliances etc. You not only have to cool the air, but you also have to cool down all those solids. That requires removing a lot more heat than just cooling the air.

Mark Borgerson

Reply to
Mark Borgerson

Never. That is part of my job to do the edits for such things. I don't edit their documents either.

Probably.

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Paul E. Bennett

[...]

Yes, I realize that. But if 65F air comes in for hours on end I'd expect that to budge at least a wee bit. Yet it barely does. 3000cfm is a lot of air. If I send much less air from a tiny fan through an amplifier stage with a large bulky heat sink it cools things down within minutes.

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Joerg

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