COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Tizer]

You and I are on 64-bit Ubuntu and don't have the problem; she's on 32-bit and has the problem. Perhaps it's only affecting 32-bit versions. I wonder if there are separate 32 and 64-bit versions of Firefox itself? I don't how these things work. She says she's had the problem for about a week and has been hoping there might be an update soon that would fix it.

[Pluggy]

I'm on 32 Bit 12.04 and I've no problems with Firefox. I'd check the updates are working (dash home type 'update' to find it). If not I'd uninstall and reinstall Firefox. If that doesn't work I'd redo the entire operating system..

[Stanley]

My God! That sounds drastic! I know it's tempting fate but 12.04 64bit seems to be very stable....

[Pluggy]

Only the last bit Stanley.

[Stanley]

My system's working well.... I shall leave it alone!

[Tizer]

Updates are working OK and Mrs Tiz had another yesterday but it didn't cure the Mozilla Firefox problem. I saved her Mozilla profile and reinstalled Firefox and found the problem had gone. But when I restored her profile the problem returned. She only really needs the bookmarks from her old profile so I decided to set Firefox back to the default profile and add in only the bookmarks folder from the old profile...but I couldn't find any folder called `bookmarks' in her profile. I tried adding, one by one, the folders that might contain the bookmarks but nothing did the job! Yet when I added the whole profile again the bookmarks were there - I can't understand it! But...

...as I was going through this process I found a solution. When her profile was fully restored and the problem was occurring again it could be avoided simply by exiting Firefox using Control Q instead of the alternative way of clicking the little X in the top left of the window bar. We've both been exiting Firefox by clicking with the mouse until now. So if Mrs Tiz now exits Firefox with Ctrl Q then re-opens it she gets the usual blank page instead of Firefox restoring the last visited pages. There must be a bug in the way the clicked X icon tells Firefox what to do.

[Stanley]

Glad you found it. Can't have J being perturbed!

[Tizer]

While doing the investigation into our computer problem I had the File Manager open on the Home folder and had used Ctrl H to expose the hidden files which contain all the profile folders and profile files. I noticed on mine that it contained a very large number of files with a name beginning `goutputstream' followed by random letters and digits. I put goutputstream and ubuntu into google and found that they are due to a bug in Ubuntu and can be deleted:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/151101/w ... ome-folder

I also found several folders for something called `shotwell' and looked that up too. They contained very large numbers of thumbnails. It turns out that Shotwell is photo managing software which has replaced F-Spot - which I never used. It must have been installed by default in the new version of Ubuntu and it has made thumbnails of all my thousands of photos. I opened the Software Centre, found Shotwell and uninstalled it. Job done.

[Gloria]

Hi All,
a bit of help needed with my apple ipad please.
I know I can't get Microsoft Works loaded on it, but thought I could maybe get OpenOffice, apparently not, but it is suggesting a list of "compatible mirrors"-----complete gobble di gook to me. What do I need to download please? It is not the end of the world by a long chalk if there is nothing, but it would be handy to have in case I need it.
Many thanks
Practically computer illerate Gloria

[Pluggy]

Works is a tough one, nobody ever took it seriously, it was the poor mans office which was often given away with Windows computers. Even Microsoft gave up on it in 2009, since far superior office software was available for free (open office mainly). If Libreoffice is available on the iPad, it MAY be able to open old works files (the text editer bit anyhow). The Linux version of Libreoffice will open the files. Libreoffice is first cousin to Open Office, pretty much the same software in fact but with different licensing and some extra bits (like it can open works files). For an existing customer, I'd be prepared to convert a few works word processor files (not more than 20 as a freebie) to somthing a little more mainstream (.doc, .docx etc). Which would then open in something that will run on the iPad (almost everything officey will open .doc files). If you could compress (aka zip) them up into one file and send them to gloriaogfb@stsr.co.uk I'll take a look when I've time.

As an alternative an old Microsoft Office (2003 certainly will) on a Windows computer should be able to convert them to a .doc file.

[Gloria]

Many thanks for the offer. What I would like to do is take my ipad instead of my laptop to the records office etc, and document what I find in either word format or spreadsheet format. But then I would possibly have the problem of transferring it to the laptop. Looks like I shall be taking the laptop still.
I suppose this is the problem with gadgets which don't want to talk to one another???
Thanks for your help.

[Tizer]

Pluggy, I know nowt about Ipads but might Quickoffice do what Gloria wants, do you think?
http://www.google.com/drive/apps.html#quickoffice
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/quickof ... 86521?mt=8

[Pluggy]

Quickoffice does the 'Standard Office Documents' but doesn't do Works. Very few do, because as I say nobody took it seriously. I'd get the documents converted into something mainstream one way or another because Works is dead, it has been for 4 years. Its not much to do with the device you're using as the software itself. Almost anything will open .doc files (old school Word), very little will open .wps (The word processor bit of Works). I'd have thought dropbox or similar would be an easy way of getting the files from one to the other. Apple putting a USB socket on the iPad would have been easier....

From memory, Works would save as RTF (rich text format) and many office programs will open RTF (Not Quickoffice however). There's no problem if you're writing new documents (other than the thought of typing on a touch screen, which is right up there with washing my hands in a toilet on my list of fulfilling things to do ), Quickoffice or any other Office will do on the iPad, squirt 'em across with Dropbox or something to the laptop ,you could use OpenOffice on the laptop if you don't have 'real' Microsoft Office (presumably not or you wouldn't be using Works).

[Gloria]

Thanks Pluggy,
I will no doubt be contacting you again.

[Stanley]

Isn't it amazing that at this stage of development we still have problems with WP format compatibility. I send my SV articles to a mailing list and have to convert them to .doc because many can't access .odt. Converting to .txt and re-editing back into a usable format sounds like the way to go. In the days when I still had a 5 1/4 disc drive I converted a lot of mine that were made in a format I can't even remember.

[Tizer]

I'd have thought that what Gloria says she needs to do requires only a simple text editor. Key in the text in the simplest form possible, use the default font, and avoid all formatting other than making paragraphs. Once the text file has been opened on the laptop in her normal word processor she can then do any formatting needed. If it's necessary to record anything as requiring formatting later, she can insert her own simple open and close codes e.g. <i>italics</i> (cf. the old WordPerfect codes). This will tell her later that she needs to put the word into italic font. A step further is to map such codes to macros in Word so that they can be replaced automatically. Old technology...but it works!

[Pluggy]

I'm presently in negotiations with a couple of php developers in regard to sorting out OGFB's problems. It will mean big changes. There's more details in the donor members area for the donors.

[Steven Chorkley]

Many thanks for the offer. What I would like to do is take my ipad instead of my laptop to the records office etc, and document what I find in either word format or spreadsheet format. But then I would possibly have the problem of transferring it to the laptop. Looks like I shall be taking the laptop still.
I suppose this is the problem with gadgets which don't want to talk to one another???
Thanks for your help.

https://www.apple.com/ios/pages/

Apple have made a iWork suite for the iPad's. Quite expensive but I use it on my iPad!

[Stanley]

Tiz, in case you missed it, a new Firefox update for 12.04 arrived this morning.

[elise]

Panic this morning my Samsung Galaxy tablet "froze", had no response to anything. Search of the internet gave me the clue what to do, hold down volume button then power button and it re-boots.

[Wendyf]

I had a similar incident with my tablet (not a Samsung). I was poised to throw it at the wall when Colin whipped it away from me muttering about reset buttons. He stuck the end of a paperclip into a tiny hole on the back and that did the trick.

[Stanley]

Mozilla is looking after the lads, new Thunderbird arrived this morning.....

[Tizer]

My father-in-law has gone into a nursing home and is no longer able to use his computer. I've got it and I'm going through the files for him to gather information that Mrs Tiz needs for her Power of Attorney role. I've also copied all his files onto an external hard disk so that we have a back-up and I can access them on our Ubuntu PCs. I'm thinking that afterwards I'll ditch the old Windows XP and put Ubuntu on it. The machine is a Dell Optiplex 755 with a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Processor, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD. I know it'll be slow but would it be up to running Ubuntu 12.04 at all?

[Pluggy]

That's a very reasonable spec, in fact its not far behind my 'new' faster PC. It will play with Ubuntu 12.04 . It should have run XP pretty well too, unless it was riddled with what I would deem 'cr*p'.

A Core 2 Duo is not to be sneezed at.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu ... 40+2.66GHz

I wouldn't rank it as slow unless the 'CPU Mark' was a lot less than 1000. 2GB is what my 'new' faster PC has, more than enough for Ubuntu 12.04 unless you're doing something serious.

I spend a lot of time kicking life back into far lesser machines.

[Stanley]

Hee hee! I think that was a 'yes'!