"I forgot to plug it in" - the computing "duh!" thread

[humblebee]

This is like the "stupid things one does" thread, except to do with computers rather than ex-girlfriends/boyfriends and whatnot.

When I rebooted this computer just now, after installing some new drivers, I heard a dialling tone and lots of bleepy phone noises. I was a bit alarmed. I thought, ooh crikey, maybe those drivers had some dodgy dially-uppy Russian spyware in or something like that. So I scanned the whole machine for spyware and nothing came up. Then I remembered I had the handset for our cordless landline phone in the pocket of my hoody, and I'd just leant on it and somehow put it on speakerphone and that was where the dialling tone and bleepy phone noises were coming from.

Duh!

[crystalball]

Hehehehehe.

We are allowed to laugh, right?

[humblebee]

Yes. But only with me, not at me.

Or adjacent to me.

[humblebee]

I've started being sent .docx files, for various reasons, by people who use Word 2007 and assume everyone else must have it as well. I don't have Word 2007: I use OpenOffice 2.4. So the other week I spent chuffing ages looking for ways to convert them into plain old .doc files. There are sites where you upload the file and then they send you a converted one by email, but they take ages. There are more efficient ways of doing it but they cost money. And there are plug-ins but I was really confused about where and how to install them. So my hours of research were basically wasted.

And then today I realised that when I get sent a .docx file, there's an option in Gmail to just open it as a Google Document. You can just click that, and it opens up in a new browser tab where you can copy all the content and paste it into an OpenOffice doc.

In summary, then: gah!

[Gordon]

Doesn't open office deal with docx files? The newest version does, I think.

[humblebee]

Doesn't open office deal with docx files? The newest version does, I think.

Duh again, then! I need to update it.

Oh.

Checking for an update failed.

[Gordon]

Manual download and install, I guess. I use NeoOffice on the mac which is a port of Open Office far better than their own in-house mac build. Even 3.1 still has a flaky installer.

[humblebee]

Manual download and install, I guess. I use NeoOffice on the mac which is a port of Open Office far better than their own in-house mac build. Even 3.1 still has a flaky installer.

Yeah, I'll try that. Thanks Gordon.

[roundbitsofplastic]

I can't find a place to put this...

So, I got a bit over-excited and bought a DVD that may well be Ragion 1. Is there some futuristic software I can use that won't limited the number of times I can watch it (or whatever it is the region thingy does)?

Fanks!

[Gordon]

Normally you would need to do a firmware hack of your DVD drive first of all.

Here's a good place to start: http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/rpc1.htm

[Jangloid Mark]

I can't find a place to put this...

So, I got a bit over-excited and bought a DVD that may well be Ragion 1. Is there some futuristic software I can use that won't limited the number of times I can watch it (or whatever it is the region thingy does)?

Fanks!

Depending on what DVD player you've got on your machine, VLC Media Player may be able to sort the region thing for you. Some newer DVD players have put some kind of software on to stop it working, but, if you've got a DVD player that's more than a couple of years old, it should work.

Simply put the disc in and play it from VLC. The first time you put a region 1 disc in, it takes a couple of minutes before it starts playing, but, after that, it will play just fine...

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html