Tag: Tech Support

Victory

After several iterations of arguing the denials of my request for lxml to be installed as a Python egg, my web host finally acquiesced.

I think I’m going to print this out and get it framed:

Hello,

I apologize for the delay. We were able to install this for you:

xxxxxxx@xxxxxxxx.net [~/lxml-3.3.5]# CFLAGS=”-O0″ easy_install –install-dir=/xxxxx/xxxxxxx/xxxxx/xxxxxxx/python2.6/site-packages lxml
Searching for lxml
Reading http://pypi.python.org/simple/lxml/
Best match: lxml 3.3.5
Downloading https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/l/lxml/lxml-3.3.5.tar.gz#md5=88c75f4c73fc8f59c9ebb17495044f2f
Processing lxml-3.3.5.tar.gz
Running lxml-3.3.5/setup.py -q bdist_egg –dist-dir /tmp/easy_install-qdMwRH/lxml-3.3.5/egg-dist-tmp-bZ_ZZT
Building lxml version 3.3.5.
Building without Cython.
Using build configuration of libxslt 1.1.26
Building against libxml2/libxslt in the following directory: /usr/lib64
/usr/lib64/python2.6/distutils/dist.py:266: UserWarning: Unknown distribution option: ‘bugtrack_url’
warnings.warn(msg)
Adding lxml 3.3.5 to easy-install.pth file

Installed /xxxxx/xxxxxxx/xxxxx/xxxxxxx/python2.6/site-packages/lxml-3.3.5-py2.6-linux-x86_64.egg
Processing dependencies for lxml
Finished processing dependencies for lxml
———————————————-

Forehead Meets Desk

So I am joined into an IM session by my scrum master with one of our special needs developers. He [the special needs guy] cannot check out code from the repository. Ostensibly something I’d be in a position to help with as I run the access rules this iteration.

So we go through troubleshooting away. For twenty minutes. I cannot reproduce his problem even using his authentication credentials. We’re at the part where I ask him to use the command line to do his checkout—and if you knew this special needs person, you’d know I’m asking quite a bit here.

Just then, and I shit you not this is 20 minutes into the troubleshooting I get this on IM:

special needs guy [4:52 PM]:
the OK button is now enabled. Seems pretty wierd but it stays dithered unless you enter something into the checkout directory – using the browse button to place a path there does not enable it

special needs guy [4:53 PM]:
I am good to go now

Word Bites, #483 in a series

How to control the page numbering in a Word document

This could also be titled “how to finally put to rest a stupid, recurring problem that plagued you all morning because a patron was trying to conform to some byzantine thesis submission guidelines someone else in your work place drafted.”

Not mentioned in this article as extra bonus stupidity: If you start numbering in a section in the middle of the document, it will bork it’s way back into other sections that should not be numbered. I could be wrong about this though as the patron’s document was so filled with page and section breaks by the time I got there who knows what flipping rules were being applied.

Which gets me on the brink of yet another rant about Word and the academic community. Suffice it to say, there are other, more appropriately engineered and time-tested environments for someone who wants to publish a bound manuscript. The fact that you need to learn an additional markup language is apparently sufficient enough barrier to 99% of all academics—faculty and student—these days. The pain and suffering that comes with corrupt files, capricious layout quirks, and multi-layered kludging are apparently more abstract than LaTeX.

But, as I said, it is a common rant if you happen to work near me. No need to spill over into my blog and the wider universe. So I’ll stop here.

But, fercryinoutloud, Word can feel so hemorrhoidal sometimes.