14 April 2009

Reasons To Hate Windows - First of Many

I don't know how the smart technical people out there stand Windows, but I am so glad I don't have to put up with it at home. The latest injury I got from Windows was the following weird scenario:

Excel files in a folder many levels down from the drive letter, like Top_Secret_Financial_Data_2009-04-14.xls in Z:\Blah\Bleah\Bloop\Bah-Humbug, couldn't be copied or changed. Copying any such files to C: drive or some other locations would yield the error message

Cannot copy: File.xls . Not enough server storage is available to process this command.

My C: drive had 30+ GB free, the source where I was copying from had 60+ GB, so why not enough server storage? The "helpful" Microsoft Knowledgebase mention making some changes in the registry because the error could be related to Norton Anti-Virus. I did it anyway, even though I didn't see any logic in the "fix". "Abandon all logic, all ye who enters this world" would be the proper statement at the Bill Gate of Windows Hell. Naturally, the fix did not do jack. In the end, it was a reboot of the server that did the job. No wonder we use filers, some Unix OS to contend with, but no stupid Windows to run upon to worry about misleading error messages and patching.

02 April 2009

Affected

Without realizing it, thanks to ATPM, I've been drawing one cartoon per month so far this year. You may recall about a year ago I changed department and my cartoon production pretty came to a halt. Having no access to a whiteboard, my medium of choice at the time, was one surmountable problem, but lacking an appreciative audience was a bigger problem. I was physically separated from my fan base and in the end they were terminated altogether. I tried to get back to cartooning and thought making a New Year resolution to draw a 'toon every month would help.

What really helped was that ATPM's long-time regular cartoonist, Matt Johnson, needed a break. I stepped in to fill the void, in addition to my regular software review "job". Usually I try to make the cartoon go along with my review. Still, it was not easy coming up with ideas as I really have to have my heart in it to do the 'toon. This latest one I only came up with the idea on Sunday March 29 then finally actually drew it on March 31 - during lunch break at work. I brought a drawing pad, pencils, and an eraser to work and did the pencil sketch in the cafeteria - no interruptions from Plurk, Facebook, or email. It is good to be disconnected sometimes. Inking, scanning, and adding speech bubble (via Comic Life) was done at home in the evening.

Enjoy! If all goes well, I'll have 12 new 'toons added to my portfolio for 2009!