OT: Ghostscript, won't install

wrote in

designer/troubleshooter for

EndoSonics

with

Well, right now I am using Foxit. No more crashes. Maybe I just accept the slightly fuzzier rendering of Foxit and be done with the Acrobat crashes :-)

wrote in

designer/troubleshooter for

EndoSonics

with

This computer was partly used as one. I never really understood why a very small office like mine needed a dedicated server that just acts as a gigantic file storage shed. Until I found a nice deal on a Western Digital LAN drive. I needed more disk space and (after some haggling) got it pretty much for the same price a comparably sized HD would have cost.

Won't work under XP? Wow, I never had that happen and I am still using some stuff from the 80's.

like

you'll

^^^^^^^

ROFL! That was a good one. Luckily my morning coffee was already consumed and swallowed before I read this post :-)

Quote "After viewing this page, 25% of our customers chose to purchase this item". I think some marketing droid must have written that. Anyhow, I'll comfortably wait until prices drop to a more reasonable level. Or until Costco has a special ;-)

Actually I was commended by the TSA guys on occasion, for the way my stuff was packed. Guy holding something up ... "Folks, this is exactly how it's s'posed to be done".

Yet I know lots of business owners who run very expensive bookkeeping software. For a mom and pop shop that is usually a large waste of money. One of them looked at my database stuff and thought this is pricey software. "Nah, it actually comes pre-packaged with most PCs, and I think also with yours. Either that or an MS-Office suite with the more expensive PCs." ... "WHAT? Really?"

Bentley? Maybe you have more of a knack for mechanical engineering CAD system. I sure don't. You can throw me just about any EE CAD and I hop in, like into a rental car. But ME stuff always feels to me like trying to ride a unicycle.

They are from the 80's and early 90's.

I wonder how they measure "customers"? That's at least two zeros added to the numerator. ;-)

"...and thank you for the chocolates."

wrote in

designer/troubleshooter for

EndoSonics

with

several

The server is intended to protect your data, not just allow access.

Some scanner and grapichs manipulation software. Paperport, for one. It lets me scan and clean up old schematics better than any program I've found for XP, but it tells you that it can't install on a XP system. I have over 50 scanners at the moment, but I get the best results from some of the oldest. My 11" * 17" scanner only wants to install under 95. The best I have only workes with win 3.1, but I no longer have a system set up to use it, and the propritary 8 bit ISA card.

Just be glad she didn't pack a pair of her panties for them to hold up. ;-)

Some of those USB to video adapters will work on Linux... to various extents. I'm not sure of the exact chip in that Kensington product, although I do know it's of the "DisplayLink" family -- drivers for some of their chips are available here:

My recollection is that -- at least initially -- the USB protocol had to be reverse-engineered using byte sniffers as DisplayLink wasn't willing to provide documentation. Why companies don't just hand out those protocols is beyond me... there's nothing particularly exciting about the protocol; it's the usual set of pixel/line/blitter-type operations you'd expect for any "smart" video card. (I personally ran into this recently while trying to find the RS-232-like serial port protocol for Sirius radios. The so-called Sirius Streaming Protocol -- SSP --, documented by one Kevin Mitzel of Michigan back around 2004, it considered proprietary even though, again, there's nothing that exciting about it -- just commands to go to a specific channel, retrieve a channel's title/artist/etc., get a list of all the categories and channels, etc. as anyone would expect. Companies are weird...)

---Joel

I've always found it interesting that many people seem to approach purchasing items starting with, "How much can I afford -- I'll spend about that much..." rather than, "What's the cheapest that will actually satisfy my desires?" Indeed, in markets where there isn't always a strong correlation between price and performance such as, oh, say, stereo equipment, sporting goods, and jewelry, even the salesguys are brazen enough that if you go in and ask for, e.g., some nice speakers their first question is usually, "How much would you like to spend?"

The De Beers marketing campaign that an engagement ring "should" cost "two to three months salary" is either marketing genius or complete insanity. Wikipedia claims the average price for engagement rings in the U.S. is now $2,100!

---Joel

Actually, I think $2,100 is pretty cheap. I'm surprised it's not several times that. Think of what wedding receptions cost. OTOH, perhaps if you're making $700/month you shouldn't be thinking about getting married. ;-)

Dave Ramsey's theory is one month's salary for an engagement ring. Cash! That makes a lot more sense than De Beers, for sure. He also has a hard limit of half your annual salary on things that depreciate (cars, boats, and other toys with wheels). Again, all purchased with cash, of course. Not sure I agree totally, but it's a goal.

wrote in

designer/troubleshooter for

EndoSonics

with

several

Which is what this computer was doing. Some areas were restricted and NT4 Server handles this quite nicely.

Huh? I _have_ PaperPort. Right on this here XP computation machine. Maybe you have a version back from Edison's days?

ISA bus mobos are very much alive an kicking. Industry has a great need for that so they can be bought new, right off the shelf.

Our entire wedding -- rings included -- was Dave Ramsey's theory is one month's salary for an engagement ring. Cash!

Yeah, sounds like a reasonable enough goal.

---Joel

They never took those away. Once I offered the guy one but he politely declined.

I think our wedding bands cost around $300. For both. I really don't get it when couples whose families really are not well off financially think they absolutely have to splurge on a $30k+ wedding and then everyone involved pays off credit card debt from that for years. Seen it many, many times. Silly. If love needs to be expressed in Dollars there's something wrong with that picture.

Ours was about the same. It included hotel charges for a number of people and dinner at a chateau, the rest was home-cooked.

The chateau was this one:

Alright! That's the right kind of woman to marry.

If most people had heeded that advice our country would not be in the financial mess we are in right now.

Well, guys, now I dunnit: Loaded a busy schematic from a client (came in DXF format which I converted to PDF) into Foxit and Acrobat reader.

Foxit: Renders not super-great but very readable.

Acrobat Reader: Trundle, trundle, parts trickle onto screen, sloooowly as if it were molasses, nets are still missing ... *KA-CRASH* ... "This program is not responding".