When things go wrong, they go wrong a lot

Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 10:51 pm

OR:

"Why unsecured wireless networks are good for the church"

I had to go to church today as there's a youth retreat and they needed me to run the powerpoint.

So I head there a bit early just so I can turn the PC on and such. I go to turn on the projector. It wont turn on. It's hard to tell if it goes on or not as its high up and we can't see the lights from the sound area. So I go down in the auditorium to check, I see an orange light and a green blinking light. At first I'm just thinking, ok lets just turn it off and restart.

Does not work.

So I pull out the manual, blinking green light can mean different things. The one I was worried about was the last entry "6 blinks = burn bulb". I go back down and count the blinks, blink, blink, blink, blink,blink, blink, off, blink, blink...

Yep, bulb is burnt. This thing is about 50 feet in the air, there are barely enough chairs to make it high enough to get up there, and even if there were not like we actually have a spare bulb for it.

Ok, no problem, I'll just go get one from work. But first I decide to try their powerpoint just to be extra sure it works, guess what, they went and saved it as some weird format called pptx. Does not even reconize in power point. Ok I figure maybe open office can handle it. I go home, start downloading it, head to work, get a projector, go back home, burn the CD, then head back to church.

None of it worked. This is for the songs, which they wanted to start 15 minutes ago.

Someone has a laptop and comes up to see if it will work on theirs, no go, BUT we find an unsecured wireless network. We download a few songs off the internet, and had something to display on the overhead.

Yay for people that are stupid enough to not secure their network.

Thank you to Bryan C!
(Gotta love when people put their name as the SSID)

That was the excitement for tonight.

Next week:
The chair scaffolding and "how many chairs does it take to change a light bulb?"

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Death · Post by **Death** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 7:28 am

pptx is a powerpoint 2007 file, and the bane of many people. It's funny how everyone automatically "assumes" that everyone can open and read it, so they send off that file without downgrading it to a common format.

What you could do is download the conversion pack from microsoft to avoid that problem in the future.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:3601, old post ID:23092

Nexus Graveheart · Post by **Nexus Graveheart** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 12:03 pm

Reminds me of a recent job I had. They wanted me to help them build some Excel spreadsheets, except they refused to update their Excel. So everytime I did any work at my house, I had to convert it to an earlier format so that when I sent them the file, they could actually see it.

Pain in the ass.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:3601, old post ID:23094

E.Machine · Post by **E.Machine** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 12:23 pm

When I first moved out on my own, I stole internet for about 5 months before I started paying for it on my own. Eventually they secured it, and I was upset.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 1:32 pm

Found a conversion pack actually I'll be sure to get it installed on the church computer too.

Though I hope Open Office will eventually be able to open those. I want to move the church computer to a sinless, more God-like environment. That means switching to Linux.

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TriX · Post by **TriX** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 1:34 pm

I have an unsecured wireless.......but my nearest neighbour is like a mile away, so I think I'd realise if someone was leeching it whilst sat in a van outside.

There are loads of people that don't sucure their wireless networks, cos it can be a ain in the ass. I cba securing mine, but no-one can really steal it without me noticing.

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Death · Post by **Death** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 3:27 pm

Red Squirrel wrote:Found a conversion pack actually I'll be sure to get it installed on the church computer too.

Though I hope Open Office will eventually be able to open those. I want to move the church computer to a sinless, more God-like environment. That means switching to Linux.

lol Microsoft would probably jump open office if they tried to decode their formats. You know how MS feels about open source.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 5:52 pm

Actually I'm surprised microsoft did not patent the concept of office programs or at least more specific programs like power point. That would screw over Corel and Open Office right there.

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Death · Post by **Death** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 6:14 pm

Red Squirrel wrote:Actually I'm surprised microsoft did not patent the concept of office programs or at least more specific programs like power point. That would screw over Corel and Open Office right there.

Probably some legality issues there where they could not do it as it would cause a monopoly.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:3601, old post ID:23109

dprantl · Post by **dprantl** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 9:14 pm

It's very rare for Microsoft to make something first, hence they cannot patent it. They usually look at some competition, make something that is inferior for years (until their customers thoroughly beta test it) and muscle their standards and formats to committees.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:3601, old post ID:23110