Month: April 2009

MS Word Numbering

Is it just my usage pattern or is this the most screwed up feature ever to show it’s face in any application. I took a movie or 2 of a typical interaction with this feature, just to show the world I’m not making it up. They would be quite amusing if I wasn’t trying to finish an important (to me) doc….
In the movie you’ll see

  • “Continue numbering” with the previous number as 1, turn a number to 97 or something
  • Set number value (how can that be misinterpreted OR difficult to program??) turn a number to 97 and indent it by the wrong amount which then can’t be undone without turning all the numbers in the entire document to one long list…
  • Various failed attempts to copy bits from numbering parts which turned out OK but mysteriously screw up when pasted in this bit
  • Starting a new line does not produce a new number for some reason

Wampserver on Vista

Spent ages trying to get it to work and couldn’t – it said it was running but just gave me a blank page on localhost and 127.0.0.1 . For the benefit of anyone else who is struggling with this, I found out that this is what you have to do:
Step 1 – find this file
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
Step 2 – open it
Step 3 – save it on the desktop (Vista won’t let you save it even as admin)
Step 4 – find a line in the hosts file that says
::1 localhost
Step 5 Copy it to overwrite the original at C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
Voila’

The department of ridiculously implausible denials

Why do reputable news agencies insist on publicising obvious lies as “just the other side of the story”? Some examples:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7972702.stm
“The spokesman of the Chinese embassy in London said that there was no evidence to show Beijing was involved.
He suggested the findings were part of a “propaganda campaign” by the Tibetan government in exile. ”


“BEIJING, April 9 (Xinhua) — Chinese officials on Wednesday denied a so-called “media war” over the March 14 riot in Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, saying that the majority of foreign journalists were covering the issue fairly.”

http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/zt/zgxz/t423192.htm (OK that one is from the Chinese embassy but I bet it was reported verbatim elsewhere)

President Robert Mugabe has said Zimbabwe has contained cholera – as the UN and a UK charity warned the deadly outbreak was getting worse.
Save the Children said: “If anything is certain in the chaos of Zimbabwe today it is that the cholera outbreak is not under control.”
Mr Mugabe also said Western powers were plotting to use cholera as an excuse to invade and overthrow him.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7777178.stm

“The Zimbabwean Government has rejected widespread criticism of a new media law passed by parliament on Thursday.
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa told the BBC there was nothing in the legislation which was intended to stifle dissent. ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1795125.stm