OK, this one is boring if you aren’t into problem solving or geeky stuff. Come on back tomorrow, if this is not your cup o’tea. OK? Yeah, the photo is a decoy and not about much in this column. (LynnH hugs you as you leave…)

Geek, Geek, Geek (again)

I spent much of 3 days trying to solve my problem saving Mom’s book #1 properly. I read the help files on the site I was planning to use to print her book, I read everything I could find on Google, asked a few friends who do similar work. No luck.

Then I wrote to an email group on Yahoogroups, where the members of that group do basically the same sort of work I do (writing/self-publishing patterns). I got several really helpful emails, some of which told me to do what I had already done.

The issue in particular, for those interested in details, was that I needed to create a .PDF file from Adobe InDesign, and it had to have the font fully embedded. The font I was using did not have restrictions on doing such a thing. Yet no matter what I did, I got the font embedded as a subset (not all the characters) rather than the full font. I must have tried to do it a dozen different times, with the same result.

When I tried to upload a PDF with a subsetted font (or no font embedded at all) just to see what happened, the site would error out and tell me I didn’t have proper embedding. Which was true, if I was to meet their specific requirements (and then be able to order copies of the book).

VISTA Woes… Again

With folks on my team (email list) who do this sort of thing every day, telling me I did it totally right, I took a bold sideways move. I installed the InDesign software on my old WindowsXP laptop which has been threatening to quit working for a year and a half.

I made the PDF according to the instructions I’d been following for 3 days on my VISTA machine. And I hate to say it, but it fully embedded my font the first time.

Apparently VISTA could/would not do what I told it to do, even when I ran the program “as administrator.” Even though the dialog boxes I had worked in, looked identical to those in Windows2000 where an internet tutorial said they would work properly.

Good News/Bad News

So the saving of the PDF properly is the good new piece of news. I was able to upload the inside of the book as specified. I uploaded a front and back cover. I clicked “Save and Finish.”

And then something happened and the site I’m working with for printing (lulu.com) would time out/freeze before saying I had “finished.” So I waited. For hours. No response, never a “finished” message.

I tried it with more than one browser, more than one operating system, two different computers. Still a time out.

So Saturday night I had Brian watch me and he could figure out nothing I did that would be wrong. And he found a “live support chat” link on the site. I mean, at 11:30pm on a Saturday. And we clicked, and I had a live chat with someone who confirmed I was on the right track but something was not working. So I now have a tracking number for the unusual website response.

They will contact me probably by Tuesday with a technician letting me know what is up there. So for now I can go forward on other things. Brian and I have our anniversary on Sunday, which is also his mother’s birthday, so we will go visit her and some of the family out of town for the day.

The Ones We Love

Brian and I had dinner together and a concert, on Saturday, for our time alone together. His family is pleasant company, and we will play music and chat and knit with them on our actual anniversary. I will enjoy the change of pace, will work in the car and relax when we are there. I usually work on Sundays so I will plug away on things when it is reasonable, and enjoy family when that is the focus.

Pair #163 and Hat Knitting

For the record, I have been knitting. I just bound off my 163rd pair of socks since Spring 2001. I’m also working very slowly on my chevron lace hat. It is ridiculously simple if you are a lace knitter, a 10-stitch, 4-row pattern where every other row is “knit all stitches.”

There are only 6 repeats, a total of 24 rounds with about 100 stitches per round. Yet I’m not much of a lace knitter and it is easy for me to mess up if I try to knit it while with other people. I am eager to wear the hat but I’m in the middle of repeat #5 and have a hiccup from a previous row to fix. That one is waiting for a quiet time with good lighting.

I guess I should be working on a pair for Brian if it’s our anniversary, huh? I do have a pair or two started for him, waiting for me to pay attention to a turned heel or some thing of that sort. Maybe I need to pay attention again, huh?

Oh, the photo? I spent several hours Saturday knitting and doing my best to mellow out with Kristi, mom of these two incredible almost-two-year-old boys. This photo was taken in May at East Lansing Art Fair, it’s my most recent photo of them even though I saw them when we sang at JazzFest in August.

The photo isn’t really much about this post other than seeing Kristi, though the boys are expert at crawling… quickly, not slowly!

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 4th, 2008 at 11:53 pmand is filed under Knitting, Miscellaneous Artforms, Relationships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.