Today’s xkcd cartoon inspired this post. (Shown right.)
The most recent and annoying workaround I’ve used was the need to install a virtual machine running Windows XP on my wife’s Windows 7 x64 desktop just to run OCLC’s Connexion Client. Finally, last week, I was able to install OCLC’s v2.2 update which included support for x64 systems.
So I’m going to ask, what’s the most obnoxious workaround you’ve used to solve a problem, computer-related or not?
P.S. Using Firefox and Word 2007 I couldn’t actually get the instructions in the cartoon to work. You know I had to give it a try.
Michael Sauers is currently the Director of Technology for Do Space in Omaha, NE. Michael has been training librarians in technology for the past twenty years and has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller since earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and his fourteenth book, Emerging Technologies: A Primer for Librarians (w/ Jennifer Koerber) was published in May 2015 and more books are on the way. In his spare time he blogs at travelinlibrarian.info, runs The Collector’s Guide to Dean Koontz Web site, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
View all posts by Michael Sauers
One Reply to “30 posts in 30 days #7: Workarounds”
I don’t know if this counts as an “obnoxious workaround,” but I keep an old machine running primarily to use a late 1990s copy of “Adobe Photo DeLuxe Business Edition” because its built-in shortcuts are the quickest way to accomplish some .tiff to .jpg transitions I use for image editing.
This composite image combining a drawing extracted from a U.S. patent office .tiff and several photo .jpgs is one example of why I want to do this.
Other image editing software I’ve tried (both open source & proprietary) either is much more cumbersome or just will not make that transition.
Unfortunately the software will not run on 64 bit OS.
Today’s xkcd cartoon inspired this post. (Shown right.)
I don’t know if this counts as an “obnoxious workaround,” but I keep an old machine running primarily to use a late 1990s copy of “Adobe Photo DeLuxe Business Edition” because its built-in shortcuts are the quickest way to accomplish some .tiff to .jpg transitions I use for image editing.
This composite image combining a drawing extracted from a U.S. patent office .tiff and several photo .jpgs is one example of why I want to do this.
Other image editing software I’ve tried (both open source & proprietary) either is much more cumbersome or just will not make that transition.
Unfortunately the software will not run on 64 bit OS.