Nice fall weather! That means more taking dogs out to run or out to the park and less everything else. Progress was made, sure, but, I mean, not as much as I would have liked, particularly AFTER WORD LOCKED UP SUNDAY MORNING FOR NO REASON.
Periodically this happens. Oh, sorry, you can’t edit your Word files! Oh, you’ve driven to your office so you can connect to the internet? Well, I hope you enjoyed the drive but nope, you can’t sign in, sorry! Sure, that’s the right password, but you can’t sign in anyway, sorry! No, you aren’t allowed to sign in with a personal account, has to be your school account, which isn’t going to work! See the IT people! Too bad it’s Sunday morning so you can’t actually do that!
This is absolutely infuriating, obviously. I downloaded and installed Libre Office, which I always hate to do — that is, I’m uneasy downloading anything in case I get suckered into downloading malware (I’m not sure how big a risk this is, but since I’m not sure, I’m always concerned about it). I also unearthed my old computer, which I kept just in case of this sort of problem. It can’t hold a charge at all and can be used only when plugged in, which is why I got my new laptop in the first place, but if it can be used plugged in, that’s a big step up from not being usable, and have I mentioned HOW TOTALLY INFURIATING IT IS WHEN WORD LOCKS UP FOR NO REASON?
I should not be required to sign in to use the product! If I AM going to be required to sign in, then the sign in process should work! OMG, I love Word but I hate, hate, hate the bureaucratic nonsense associated with Microsoft!
However, given various options by which I can keep moving and don’t have to waste the whole day, whatever, it’s fine, I guess. Also, if using the computer is tough, I might as well take the dogs to the park considering the weather is indeed lovely. So that was a lot of Sunday.
Meanwhile!
You know what’s coming up? November. And you know what I want to do sometime during the first week of November? Send out a newsletter. That means writing a Tuyo-world short story. The last one was about 6500 words and took several days to write, so I started this one. This is the story about the boys who climbed up the rainbow. Tano only heard a little bit of that story, as you may remember, since Raga was telling it in the most soothing, go-to-sleep way possible. Beats me what happens when the boys get up to the top of the rainbow; I haven’t gotten that far yet. Unless I really get stuck and tell a different story, you’ll find out almost as soon as I do. Want to read this story and not subscribed to my newsletter? Here’s the link!
Meanwhile!
Very happy about the early reviews for Invictus: Crisis. It’s up to 48 ratings and holding at 4.8 stars, which is a big relief. The rating’s likely to joggle down and up a bit, but this is enough ratings to suggest it’ll settle into a nice solid rating. That means most readers are finding the ending of the story satisfying, which is, as I said, a big relief.
This means I’m much more likely to go on with associated novels in this world. I suggest a probable direction in the endnotes, and that really does seem probable, since I have the opening scene in my head, as well as tentative scenes from later in the story. I really wish I could write three times as fast because arrgh! There are so many projects I would love to work on!
You know what would be helpful? If Microsoft would stop locking up Word and demanding you sign in and then not letting you sign in.
Please Feel Free to Share:
You should be fine with LibreOffice, it won’t come with malware. LibreOffice is open source, and it’s built by a non-profit in collaboration with a community of volunteers (as opposed to Microsoft Office, which is built by a for-profit only by its own employees).
Generally open source software is more trustworthy and the incentives are more aligned with users (e.g. not requiring unnecessary sign in, which probably benefits Microsoft corporate in some way).
Disclaimer: I work on open source software and am very biased in its favor.
Kriti, it’s more that I don’t trust that I’m definitely looking at the legitimate program I want to download rather than some sort of malware site. I don’t download enough stuff to be sure. I know LibreOffice itself is fine as long as I’m downloading the actual correct program.
It’s not an unreasonable fear. Ars Technica just reported that someone cloned the site for KeePass (a longstanding and well regarded open source password manager) to distribute malware, with a URL that looked about right using one lookalike character from another alphabet. They then bought a Google ad so that it was the first hit, before the official one.
You’d have to look very closely to know it was the wrong site. Which is *especially* worrisome for a password manager.
My only problem with LibreOffice is that it sometimes bloats the document. Every so often I have to open it in OpenOffice and save it to a different name to shrink it.
Justified paranoia, yikes! If I’d known that this past weekend, I would have googled “LibreOffice malware” before downloading it.
But at least I have it now (I presume!) if I need it in the future.
Rachel, that makes sense. I do remember also hearing about the KeePass thing recently, and I once fell for a phishing email and signed into what I thought was Chase’s website (luckily I realized quickly enough to change my password before any damage was done). I now avoid clicking on links in emails as a policy.
Kriti–
Sites like github and sourceforge are prime targets for malware. It has already happened once: an attack on a software distribution site led to 1000s of malware copies delivered to customers. It’s one of the worst attacks since Solar Wind, when the Chinese government sneaked spy chips into major router hardware.
Rachel: this post is a bit ironic when compared to the previous one!
Pete, I’m aware of the irony, but hey, I never said I liked Microsoft as a company!