The attack of the Edit headache

As some of you may know, I published a new story on smashwords a couple of weeks ago called The Set'la. After waiting only a few days I received notice that my hyperlinks were not behaving the way should and my paragraphs were not properly aligned.
I didn't have this problem last time and it seems as if I did everything correctly except for a few capitalized words. That one was an easy fix. Looking through my document I figured this would be a real easy fix.
It took me only a few minutes to fix the hyperlinks and then I began paragraph adjustment procedures. I made the change needed, and then saved it and closed it. No biggy, fixed and ready to go out again. But a little voice whispered in my head, "You sure you don't want to check.it?" In my mind I saw Gollum staring at me rubbing his hands together as he licked his cracked lips.
Giving into the fish smelling voice, I clicked on the open office program and waited for it patiently...
...
...
Once it was up and running I checked the formatting and it held. "There you go smelly voice! It worked!
Before it could change back I quickly uploaded it.....
....
....
....
...and got the message, "This is wrong idiot, try it again."

I heard the evil laughter echoing through my head as I fixed it again, saved it and closed it one more time. When I opened it back up the changes were not saved. I realized that the last book I sent to Smashwords was on the actual Microsoft Word, not the barebones version in OpenOffice.
Please don't misunderstand me. I like the fact that Openoffice is free, even with all the problems I have had with it over the years. To be honest the only reason I was using it is because it was free and I was rebelling against Bill Gates Corporate Opulence. Why should I pay extra for a program that always came with the computer only a few years ago,...off track,..sorry.

Anyway, after an hour of internet searches and queries sent out over cyberspace I tried one more little trick.

I copied and pasted it into a brand new notepad and then saved it. Here is where I messed up. I don't know how I did it but when I opened it back up in an OpenOffice Doc it had Chinese Characters almost every sentence. I cursed so much that the wife thought her daughter was home and suddenly developed a very deep voice.

Okay, I thought to myself, I can fix this. I copied and pasted the unwanted symbols into the 'FIND AND REPLACE' function and hit the replace all button.
Now, every apostrophe and quotation mark has been replaced with a question mark.
After two hours of trying to figure this out I gave into Mr. Gates and bought Microsoft Word.
The paragraphs behaved, but the question marks were still there and now I have to reedit, rework, redo. It will be back up. I can fix this, make it stronger, faster, better than it was before.
Hopefully by the end of January.
Wish me luck.

Corporate opulesnce

A few years ago I got a little upset at my computer virus software when it developed a minds of its own, it liked to do things sporadically like scan when I was in the middle of playing a game or trying to write, Of course it never let me set the time for this labor of protection –it just figured, “Dude – while that human is in this instance would be a great time to run a complete scan!”

It basically refused to do anything the way I wanted it to. This was free software that for a while seemed to work excellently, until it needed an upgrade. The upgrade included a fee of $25 a month. I deleted it and went in search of the perfect anti-virus software. I found one,

Norton’s 360. I could even put it on more than one computer. (yippee) The price was right, so I went for it.
I was impressed by how well it worked, quietly in the background and not disturbing me at all – which is how all things should act – including kids. Until last week.

Every time I turned on my computer I got a nasty message from Norton telling me that my subscription will be expiring soon and I should really upgrade or else! I ignored it since I had no spare cash at the time.

As the days went on, the messages continued, getting bolder and closer together, I thought for sure that they would soon send someone to my house dressed in skintight black suits with hoods covering their faces and physically force me to upgrade their product.

This morning, my time was up. When I turned it on this morning it slowly came to life, then a full screen size message all in caps, “ATTENTION! YOUR SUBCRIPTION HAS EXPIRED AND WE HAVE YOU LOCKED OUT OF EVERYTHING YOU NORMALLY DO. SO PAY NOW OR WE WILL SEND THE MEN IN BLACK SUITS – UNTIL THEN – YOU ARE UNPROTECTED SUCKER!” It wasn’t kidding either. I thought I heard a knock on the door, but it was only my dog sliding down the steps. (He is okay; he does that all the time.)

World of Warcraft was so slow I moved around like an old Worgen walking through mud. I did the next best thing, I clicked “Upgrade now.” This took me to a payment site where they wanted me to fork over more than a days’ pay so I could have protection for another year!

I went on the search for another software program, free again. (Yeah, I’m a Scrooge – deal with it) I was pleasantly surprised that the old one let me download and install its replacement before I removed it from my computer.

After I removed the dead anti-virus I did check everything out, including WoW, and everything worked perfectly. My take on this is, if you buy a program for your computer you shouldn’t have to pay to make it work after a year – games don’t do that. It is another way for someone to get as much money as they can with what they have. Some people call it business, I call it corporate opulesnce = simple greed.

My other experience with it this week has been Microsoft Word. A month ago I downloaded their free trial software and all week I have been warned I was about to expire. I was expecting a call from Mr. Gates any minute.

Before getting that, I was using OpenOffice, which I thought was a good program and would work for me, until I downloaded DocumentstoGo on my phone so I can write at work (I didn’t think OpenOffice was compatible.)

It worked out pretty well; I managed to flood my email boxes by moving stories from my phone to my computers. I also began writing more.

When Microsoft Word finally expired Monday night – I couldn’t do anything with it, I’m sure I could have typed something, but that was all I could do. A few years ago, with an older version, I downloaded a trail and once it expired I could still use it but I couldn’t access some of the more special features.

I wasn’t about to pay for this, more $$$ out of mine and into Bill’s. (Fortunately I discovered that Openoffice is compatible with DocumentsToGo, you just have to save it in the write version.)

Now I am happy!

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Fresh takes on old ideas.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I found some old writing notebooks that I was using a few years ago. At the moment, while I'm working, I'm tapping them into the virtual keyboard of my Droid, using a cool app called Documents to go.
As I read them, I enjoy the characters, the dialouge could use a little work, but the main story is really bad. I'm gonna have to fix that. Something is whispering in my ear to scrap the whole thing and do it over. Possibilities are endless, and in the world of fiction anything could happen.

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Why so frakin early?

That's simple really, it started as a soft whimper, whispering from the other side of the room. Slowly it began to grow more urgent. We (I) did set the clocks back last night, but my brain was so fuzzy I didn't know if it was 1:30 am or 2:30 am.
It really didn't matter, some one had to go out and water the lawn. After I took the two littlest out, started the coffee pot, brought them back in and put them away, grabbed a lightly tanned cup of coffee and sat down in my office, it was the old ancient ones turn.
Once he was taken care of, I finally started up the computer, clicked on the WoW beta icon, and nothing happend.
This was actually a good thing. Yesterday, as I was fishing through my writing notebooks, I found three different bios I had written for my detective and four short stories, and one long one, that I had started. Never finished them.
Now, I had a chance to figure out where I was, and which one I should do first.
Only interrupted once, an hour after I let him out, the old ancient one hobbled into my office and stared at me for a few seconds before a low cry began to grow from his throat.
"Let me guess, again?"
Just a low quiet roar came out as an answer.
"That's a yes," I sighed.
There are only a few times the old man gets really excited, when he thinks he is getting food, which is every time someone enters the kitchen, or he gets to go out side.
Or that certain odor is in the air and he is thinking, "Maybe this time!"
Once the five trips up and down the steps were done I began. Now I'm organized, (don't have a heart attack) and ready to work on them.
First one will be a short story, a way of introduction.
I'll be back once I get the feeling back in my finger tips.

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My day off and more.

Thursday:
Not really supposed to be exciting and it wasn't. I spent most of the day playing WoW beta. Yes, I was bad and did not write at all. But the night is still young depending on what I am fixing for dinner - haven't decided yet, hamburgers or pbj. So many choices, so little time. It was actually neither: hot dogs, beans and macaroni and cheese.


Within the next few days I will be posting either the biography or the prologue to "Appointment with a Dead Body, A Nathan Whiseman mystery." It is either that title or "The Bad Taste of Death." He has been around for a while, in my head itching to get out. As I age the walls are getting thinner and he is close to escaping. If not today, maybe this weekend. I started his biography on Friday and suddenly discovered I had two other bios for him...(Maybe I will combine the two of them.)

Things turned out better for my paycheck anyway, I did work yesterday, "Yippee!" Sorry about the outburst, I'll try to keep it down for a while.

Will it ever make sense

I normally do not complain about politics, but I couldn't stay away from this;

Last night, we had two major school levys to vote on for two districts in predominantly Republican neighborhoods. The levys lost, which tells me that people are conserned about the rising cost of living, which includes taxes. Then they turn around and vote Republican.

Okay, I'm done. On the bright side, no more political commercials, and as a friend, Jack, said earlier this morning, they can go back to pretending they like each other.

I have a detective series to start, the hardest part is making it different than anything else out there. After 53 years, there isn't much I haven't seen in crime dramas.
One of my favorite authors is James Patterson, I love all his books and am simply amazed some times at what comes out of his head.
I heard one author say once, you have to be crazy to write crazy. I don't consider myself crazy, but I think I can fake it.

Have a great day!

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