Hell task: converting a doc to pdf

My friend asked me to convert 2 Microsoft Word files to pdf. At first I thought it's a trival task. It wasn't.

First I tried using the free trial Adobe .pdf online converter. The 2 files were accept and even completed. But the result was NEVER showing up in download page. It's like the converted file went to la la land!

So I tried using desktop Adobe Acrobat 8 application. That one failed too, as Acrobat 8 complain that the file was corrupted and couldn't be converted.

So I go for my final resort:

• Install Microsoft Office 2007 in a VM
• Download and install Microsoft PDF export plugin
• Load the files and save them as .pdf

That worked. Finally.


By the way, I also need to bitch about Windows Server 2008. It's just pain in the neck to deal with. For instance, I couldn't install Acrobat 8 on it because it bitch about not being able to access temp directory in order to complete install.

I also have problem running Microsoft Word 2007 on Windows Server 2008 because the system bitched that the version of Word I use couldn't be used under Terminal Client. And I was like, what the **ck is that.

I resolved my problem by giving up Windows Server 2008.

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS works very work at work

I have Ubuntu 8.04 LTS installed on a VMWare OS at work, and it works very well so far. In fact, using Samba ("smb://windowsmachineName"), I can access machines in Windows network. This is pretty awesome, because now I can actually use this Linux environment to do work.

My only complain is that scroll wheel doesn't seem to work on Ubuntu. Maybe it's a VMWare thing, and I will mess with it a while later.

Setting up Subversion server on home machine

I already expected trouble setting up subversion at home machine, but didn't expected this much problem. I followed the instruction here, and

I did the following and eventually get the problem resolved:

• need to download the Subversion 1.4.6 Win32 binaries for Apache 2.2.x file ( svn-win32-1.4.6.zip). Expand it and put the content in the already installed 1.4.6.
• Copy the two files (mod_dav_svn.so, mod_authz_svn.so) from C:\Program Files\Subversion\bin to C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\modules.
• In the httpd.conf file, makes sure the following lines are added or un-remarked:
• LoadModule dav_svn_module modules/mod_dav_svn.so
• LoadModule dav_module modules/mod_dav.so
  LoadModule dav_fs_module modules/mod_dav_fs.so
  LoadModule dav_lock_module modules/mod_dav_lock.so

And then the subversion should be accessible.

Running a Server on VMWare

I always want to expose my home machine in some way so that I can access files on my home machine, or turn my machine into a Subversion server, or something like that. But security issue already hold me back. Now I finally get time and trying to do it right.

So first I need to assign a static IP address to the Windows Server 2003 running on VMWare, so that when I expose the IP and port through the firewall, I don't have to worry about the DHCP assignment another IP to the server, and thus messing up the firewall setting. So here's what I did:

• Select [Setup] tab, [Basic Setup] tab, [Static DHCP] button. Here you can specify what IP address you want to staticly map to what MAC address.
  
  
• Hint: you can find out the Mac address by going to the Network Control Panel applet, select [Support] tabm Click [Details...] button, and found Physcial Address (which is the Mac address).
  
  
• Not that my machine is alway sa certain specific IP address, I can expose the port I want to expose by Select [Applications Gaming], it should take you to the default tab [Single Port Forwarding], and fill up proper information.
  
  
• Finally, and to me most important, I want to make suer that the server has NO NetBIOS access to my local area network. I use ZoneAlarm running on my VMWare Hosting computer to accomplish this:
• Under "Firewall" , click Main tab, set Internet Zone Security to Med.
• Under "Firewall", click Zones tab, Make sure that the VMWare Server's IP is NOT in trust zone. Then set up an entry just for the Server on VM, and set the Zone to Internet Zone. Now the server should be able to do Net stuff, but not the NetBIOS thing.
• 
  
  

Installed Windows XP Service Pack 3 on my desktop computer

Well, I got the Windows XP Service Pack 3 directly from MSDN Library subscription, installed in on my home desktop computer, and .... nothing strange happened. Nothing good. Nothing bad. Just .... installed. Oh well, for a service pack, no news is good news.

By the way, I also resolved my Task Manager menu disappearing problem. It turns out that it's something very simply to fix: just double click at the top of the window. That's it.

Messing with Portfolio 8.5

I just found that if Portfolio 8.5 attempted to convert a photo catalog from previous version but FAILED, it may CORRUPTED the old catalog and made the file unreadable by both the old and new vesrion of Portfolio. Horrible indeed, but luckily I always have a back up, so it's not the end of the world.

Still, I was pretty puzzled by the fact that the catalog was being opened by 7.0 with no problem at all.

Anyway, to overcome that issue, I am doing something like this now: open the old catalog WITHOUT converting it. The catalog will be opened properly. Next I created a NEW 8.5 empty catalog. And finally I drag all the items from the old catalog to the new catalog. This catalog takes A LOT OF TIME, and as of now, after running for a while, only 2% got converted, and I won't be surprise that it may actually take DAYS to complete. Anyway, I am heading to bed now, and let crazy thing run itself ... til it's done.

I remember when I was young, using old school laptop computers like the 8088 based Toshiba T1000 (damn, the good old day, and I even ran LucusArt adventure games on it) , I always had to carry my AC/DC adapter with me. Now I am using Lenovo X60T, which is supposed to be more power friendly. Well, sad things happened when I just a while realized that my machine was in low battery. Only 25% of the battery life left, and I have 2 hours to kill.

Well, guess what, after using it for almost an hour, I still have an hour of juice back, which is not too bad. Technology sure goes a long way.

Slow cataloging

I was using Portfolio 7 to catalog my photo discs, and it seems like the speed of cataloging using the external USB DVDR drive is much slower than using the internal DVDR drive. Either that of catalog that particular disc (PIC_060530) really does take forever.

Convert .asf to .mp3

I was asked to convert an .asf audio file into a mp3 file. The process was not as straight forward as I would like it to be, mostly because some audio application (Audacity, Super, Sound Forge 9) have problem recognizing .asf file. As a result, I went thru the following steps to complete the conversion:

• Download Super version 2008 Build 30
  
• Install the application in VMWare OS (Yeah I have pretty much no trust on stuff I downloaded online)
• Run Super, set:

1. output Container: .asf (you know .. I think I made a mistake here....)
2. Output audio codec: mp3
3. Sampling Feq: 44100, Bitrate kbps: 320

• Once done, open the file with SoundForge 9, and then save:
• as mp3, mono, 56 Kbps, 24000 Hz

And finally I got a mp3 file smaller than 20Mb so that I can sent it to my friend using Gmail.

Research on eBook Readers: still not ready to buy

I spent a night trying to figure out which eBook reader to buy. My conclusion is that it's still not thr right time to make the move.

I have the following options on hand:

• iRex iLiad Second Edition
• Sony Reader PRS-505
• CyBook Gen 3
• Amazon Kindle

Each of these products suffer problems one way or the other. For instance, iRex iLiad is too expansive (US$699), have to have online and ship from oversea, doesn't support merging sketching and document other than pdf, and seem very clumsome regarding to the moving data back to the PC.

Sony Reader does NOT support Chinese character unless you use some hack that I mentioned previously in my blog. And even then you have to live with a small Simplied Chinese character set. Something that I feel like I am not willing to after spending US$299.

CyBook Gen 3 seems to work pretty OK overall, with Chinese Character support and such, but limited only to .prc files. Until they fix they, it's not too useful a device to me, consider that I pay US$399.

And finally the Kindle. I don't like the fact that I need to live with their rules of emailing documents to myself in order to consume it on my device. I pay US$399 damn it and it better does things my way.

So in summary, there's more options on the market now, but still not mature enough for me pick one. In fact, I much rather get a US$299 Eee PC and use it as eBook reader. Of course I will definitely wait for the touch screen 9 inch version. For US$500, the new Eee PC is much better a all around device to replace my oven heat ThinkPad X60T as a reading device.