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 the Director of Logan Library in Logan, UT. Prior to this he was one of the founding staff and Technology Manager for Do Space in Omaha, NE. After earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany's School of Information Science and Policy Michael spent his first 20 years as a librarian training other librarians in technology along with time as a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, a technology consultant, and a bookseller. He has written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and has published 14 books ranging from library technology, blogging, Web design, and an index to a popular horror magazine. In his spare time, he blogs at TravelinLibrarian.info, runs The Collector's Guide to Dean Koontz website at CollectingKoontz.com, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
Unless otherwise stated, all opinions are my own and are not to be considered those of the City of Logan, UT.
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.