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Oct 2008
Another 21st century computer problem
I have a very large PDF document which I need to use as a basis for a presentation. I'd like to extract the text to put into a Keynote file.
I went looking for a replacement for pdf2rtf, a program which I used to have but its useful life expired. I searched and searched for a replacement but all I could find was a bunch of proprietary programs all of which were windows-centric. The only Mac oriented one I could find was an Automator script. I tried it and it would only convert PDFs to images! This is extraordinary as Preview will already do this conversion.
It seems I'll have to do all the extraction by hand!
Posted: 29/10/08 3:24 PMAnother Beautiful Barraba Spring
Winter has definitely gone and the roses are blooming marvelous.
We are so luck to have fetched up in this part of the world where nearly every day is absolutely wonderful.
Posted: 28/10/08 11:30 AMThe latest addition to the Marrett Household
As the family moved from Brisbane to Barraba, they decided to get a dog. Kelly fell in love with Jess and vice versa so when Jess had been desexed, she came to live in Henry Street.
The poor thing has to be restrained from licking the healing surgical wound so she lives in a lampshade. It hasn't reduced the enthusiasm with which she greets everyone and she seems very happy to have joined the family.
Posted: 21/10/08 3:11 PMAnother motorhome visits
We were privileged to have our long time friends, Ken and Wendy Conley visit us after the rally at Bingara. The used to live in an old bus but that has been sold and they now have a new Wildcat fifth-wheeler of which they are very proud.
They had had an enjoyable week at the rally but needed a few quiet days to regain their energy before heading home to Harrington.
They were pleased to be able to plug into power and to fill the fresh water tanks with top quality tank water.
In the afternoon we had a full on happy hour with Elsie May and John Samin joining in even though Vicki was still away in Canberra. We arranged to have another happy hour at the Samin's on Wednesday after Vicki returns.
In the evening the four of us went to the Bowling Club for a Chinese dinner. We were all impressed with the standard of the food. Jean and I think the chefs are improving their skills as they go along.
Posted: 21/10/08 1:42 PMThe Motley comes to visit us
Russell Bevan was on his way to the rally at Bingara and he called in to see us. It was very touching to see the Motley parked in its usual site after an absence of three and a half months.
I took a photo to celebrate the event but can't upload it because the damned MacBook is playing up and the recommended fixes haven't worked. I suspect that the recent "software updates" have actually been "software corruptions".
I have fixed it as you can see but it was quite a trial while it lasted. Among other things, I was locked out of all my Lions secretarial stuff until the morning of the dinner meeting.
Russell wanted some help with a few features of the Motley. I showed him how the power switching arrangements worked. He had had trouble with it the power system. I found that the generator wasn't putting power into the system and the charger and the inverter were not working. I couldn't find an obvious cause so I gave him the names, addresses and phone numbers of the guys in Brisbane who can look into the problems for him so he had to change his plans so that he can visit Brisbane again soon.
He stayed two nights with us and we had lots of very pleasant chats. On Sunday night we all were invited to Henry Street to have roast dinner with the Marretts which was really good and was washed down with some pretty nice Hardys, Jacobs Creek, and Banrock Station wine.
Posted: 13/10/08 10:46 AM - revised 18/10/08 3:07 PMMore work for a volunteer
Thursday was filled with three meetings, the Community Development Committee, a Lions Dinner Meeting and a Lions Board Meeting. All the meetings require followup action on my part so I'll be busy for a while.
Happily, one of my volunteer jobs has terminated. The Highway Wanderers have apparently given the job of webmaster to Robin Wood (without even telling me). I found myself locked out of the site and found updates over his name. I had asked him before if he wanted to do the job but he said "Heavens, no". The upside this that that's one job I won't have to spend time on any more. As we plan to not renew our CMCA membership in November I guess our Highway Wanderers membership will go the same way.
On Friday we had a date in Tamworth to get new hearing aids fitted. The visit was productive for us both with the new nearing aids being both more comfortable and more effective. For me "The music has come back". Hooray.
Posted: 4/10/08 5:36 PMWhat happened to the core economic fact that an economy lives on its production and that money is simply a means of exchange?
I've just been reading some analysis of the present "financial crisis" on some sites linked to in my my daughter's blog. The analyses are from the non-establishment side of the argument but the logic sounds pretty good to me.
I am still unable to understand how this crisis which is linked to all manner of "derivative financial instruments" is being characterised as a "coming recession" when a recession is really a shrinking of the productive output of the economy.
I don't give a tinkers that some smarties have found themselves with paper money worth less today than is was yesterday when we humble members of the economy are continuing to make our full contribution to the economy by making products and delivering services to our fellow members of the economic community.
I was taught that capital for productive enterprises was "real money" not the "monopoly money" which is at the heart of the present "crisis".
I feel very sorry for the innocent participants who are going to lose their saving because they have entrusted them to the "smarties" and the "market" has gobbled them up.
I am appalled that the "bail out" is not directed to any of the "real" problems. One of the references identified above shows that the sub-prime mortgage problem could be resolve entirely with a judicious injection of $100billion. I suspect that none of the $700billion of the proposed bail-out would be used in this way anyway. Perhaps it is a good thing that the US Congress refused to agree to the "bail-out plan".
Posted: 1/10/08 11:50 AM