Ah, Adobe Acrobat.

Of course, you can obtain Acrobat Reader for free. (What good is an 
authoring tool without a ubiquitous platform to deploy for?) But the 
full Acrobat package, last time I looked, is about £400.

But what the hell do you actually *get* for your money?

Of course you get the ability to generate PDF files. But you know what? 
Any number of freeware tools can do this also. (E.g., Ghostscript can 
transform PostScript to PDF. All you need is a PostScript printer driver 
- and Adobe just happen to have one available for free download - print 
your document to a PS file, and then have GS convert it to PDF. Done.)

My goal today was very simple:

1. Take a PDF file and remove the headers and footers.

2. Overlay one PDF file over another.

That is all. However, it seems that £400 of software is unsufficient to 
achieve this trivial goal.

As far as I can tell, Acrobat can rearrange pages, delete pages, insert 
pages from other files, and this split or merge seperate PDF files. It 
can rotate pages, and it allows you to edit metadata and security 
restrictions.

What it does *not* appear to allow is modifications to the actual 
contents of the pages. You can add [extremely limited] additional 
graphics and text, but you *cannot* remove what is already there. Which 
is obviously absurd. You also can't copy content from one page and paste 
it onto another page, completely preventing the overlay I want to do.

In short, I've got two digital files in front of me and the premium 
editor program for that file format, yet I cannot achieve my trivial 
aim. I am actually going to have to PRINT THIS STUFF OUT and play with 
glue and scissors. How pathetic.

Post a reply to this message

> My goal today was very simple:
>
> 1. Take a PDF file and remove the headers and footers.
>
> 2. Overlay one PDF file over another.

I always thought of PDFs as the digital version of print-outs.  Think what 
you would do if someone gave you two printed out sheets and asked the 
above...

BTW, you might be able to find some software that renders a PDF to an image 
file, then use some paint program to do what you want.

Post a reply to this message

> 
> In short, I've got two digital files in front of me and the premium 
> editor program for that file format, yet I cannot achieve my trivial 
> aim. I am actually going to have to PRINT THIS STUFF OUT and play with 
> glue and scissors. How pathetic.

Before doing this, you can also simply use the copy tool (the one with 
the camera icon). Copy and paste the parts of the documents you need 
into a grapical program (or combine them as povray image_maps :-). nd 
you're done without scissors.

Thibaut

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:

> I always thought of PDFs as the digital version of print-outs.

They are. Except that unlike a PostScript page description (which is an 
unstructured arbitrary Turing-complete program which may or may not 
produce an image as a side-effect of its execution), a PDF file contains 
sufficient metadata to be easily manipulatable. (E.g., it's not 
Turing-complete, it's easy to locate a specific page, it has a bounding 
box included, etc.)

> Think 
> what you would do if someone gave you two printed out sheets and asked 
> the above...

Yeah, well, if digital printouts have only the same functionality as 
real printouts, then they're rather pointless. We may as well just use 
paper and save ourselves £400. :-P

> BTW, you might be able to find some software that renders a PDF to an 
> image file, then use some paint program to do what you want.

Both Ghostscript and Acrobat will happily transform PDF into a bitmap 
image. (Though Acrobat will only produce Windows Bitmap - the most 
braindead image format in widespread use.)

The trouble is, then the pages would be bitmap images. That means that I 
can manipulate then with IrfanView. On the other hand, it means they'll 
either be vastly lower resolution than the original vector graphics, or 
they'll be absolutely huge files...

Post a reply to this message

> Yeah, well, if digital printouts have only the same functionality as real 
> printouts, then they're rather pointless.

Except I can send a "digital printout" to 50 different people in 5 different 
countries within a few seconds from my desk, try doing that with real 
printouts :-)

> Both Ghostscript and Acrobat will happily transform PDF into a bitmap 
> image. (Though Acrobat will only produce Windows Bitmap - the most 
> braindead image format in widespread use.)
>
> The trouble is, then the pages would be bitmap images. That means that I 
> can manipulate then with IrfanView. On the other hand, it means they'll 
> either be vastly lower resolution than the original vector graphics, or 
> they'll be absolutely huge files...

What's your printer? 600dpi?  Just convert them into bitmaps using that 
resolution and do your work on it, then save them to PDF again.  It's quite 
common to work on A4 size at 600dpi on a normal PC these days...

Or, presumably, if you are meant to be modifying these documents, then you 
can just ask the original author for the original files to modify?  That 
might be easier in the end.

Post a reply to this message

>> Yeah, well, if digital printouts have only the same functionality as 
>> real printouts, then they're rather pointless.
> 
> Except I can send a "digital printout" to 50 different people in 5 
> different countries within a few seconds from my desk, try doing that 
> with real printouts :-)

Sure. But you don't need Acrobat for that, just Acrobat Reader. We paid 
a shedload of money for the full Acrobat Professional package on the 
expectation that it would allow us to, you know, *modify* PDF files. :-P

>> The trouble is, then the pages would be bitmap images. That means that 
>> I can manipulate then with IrfanView. On the other hand, it means 
>> they'll either be vastly lower resolution than the original vector 
>> graphics, or they'll be absolutely huge files...
> 
> What's your printer? 600dpi?  Just convert them into bitmaps using that 
> resolution and do your work on it, then save them to PDF again.  It's 
> quite common to work on A4 size at 600dpi on a normal PC these days...

Mmm, A4 at 600dpi. That's going to be a few megapixels...

In the end, I ended up just double-printing the damned thing. Which 
meant I had to print it three times before I figured out the paper path, 
scaled everything so the new headers don't overprint the document 
content, and so on and so forth. All of which would have been *so* much 
easier with some suitable software... but hey, Adobe has our money. Why 
should they give a damn?

> Or, presumably, if you are meant to be modifying these documents, then 
> you can just ask the original author for the original files to modify?  
> That might be easier in the end.

Right. Because BackupExec *totally* has options for customising the 
header and footer on the job logs it prints out. ;-)

Post a reply to this message

Just when you thought your day couldn't get any worse... it does.

I now have to phone a lady who doesn't speak propper English and make 
her PC work. Oh, did I mention? She's in a different country...

Yay, me. :'{

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Just when you thought your day couldn't get any worse... it does.
> 
> I now have to phone a lady who doesn't speak propper English and make 
> her PC work. Oh, did I mention? She's in a different country...
> 
> Yay, me. :'{

I'm almost glad the number doesn't work... :-P

Still, I don't suppose there's any way I can realistically get rid of 
this person.

Post a reply to this message

> Sure. But you don't need Acrobat for that, just Acrobat Reader.

Of course.

> We paid a shedload of money for the full Acrobat Professional package on 
> the expectation that it would allow us to, you know, *modify* PDF files. 
> :-P

Did you read the "features" page of Acrobat Professional?

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/features/

> Mmm, A4 at 600dpi. That's going to be a few megapixels...

I make it 35MP, about 3x what consumer digital cameras are up to now, 
shouldn't be a problem to edit a file this size.

> Right. Because BackupExec *totally* has options for customising the header 
> and footer on the job logs it prints out. ;-)

You mean it only gives you job logs in PDF format?  That's a bit pants.

Post a reply to this message

>> Mmm, A4 at 600dpi. That's going to be a few megapixels...
> 
> I make it 35MP, about 3x what consumer digital cameras are up to now, 
> shouldn't be a problem to edit a file this size.

On my old wreck of a PC? It's not going to be much fun...

>> Right. Because BackupExec *totally* has options for customising the 
>> header and footer on the job logs it prints out. ;-)
> 
> You mean it only gives you job logs in PDF format?  That's a bit pants.

Actually they're XML files with a custom schema. My guess is that it's 
using the Internet Explorer rendering engine to print them. Suffice it 
to say, this is a backup program. It has a button marked "print", and 
that's basically it. You have no control over formatting. I did, 
however, manage get it into PDF format.

(Print to a PostScript printer, send to file instead of the printer, use 
Ghostscript to convert PS to PDF. Yay, I have a working PDF file now.)

I stupidly assumed that since we have PDF editing software, it would be 
easy to, you know, edit the PDF file.

Post a reply to this message

> I stupidly assumed that since we have PDF editing software, it would be 
> easy to, you know, edit the PDF file.

Yeh you'd think so, but for some reason they seem to want to make it really 
hard/impossible to actually modify any detail on a PDF page.  I always 
wondered myself if there was any software capable of doing this...

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
> > Just when you thought your day couldn't get any worse... it does.
> >
> > I now have to phone a lady who doesn't speak propper English and make
> > her PC work. Oh, did I mention? She's in a different country...
> >
> > Yay, me. :'{
>
> I'm almost glad the number doesn't work... :-P
>
> Still, I don't suppose there's any way I can realistically get rid of
> this person.

I bet that's what the Call Centres in India say about us :)

Stephen

Post a reply to this message

>> I'm almost glad the number doesn't work... :-P
>>
>> Still, I don't suppose there's any way I can realistically get rid of
>> this person.
> 
> I bet that's what the Call Centres in India say about us :)

Hmm. Probably.

Well anyway, I just had a conversation with somebody who doesn't speak 
English very well, and doesn't know how to operate a computer. As if 
that wasn't bad enough, the phone line kept repeatedly cutting out. 
Perfect. :-S

Post a reply to this message

>> I stupidly assumed that since we have PDF editing software, it would 
>> be easy to, you know, edit the PDF file.
> 
> Yeh you'd think so, but for some reason they seem to want to make it 
> really hard/impossible to actually modify any detail on a PDF page.

Pretty dumb really. Especially when PDF has so many enhancements over PS 
that should make this kind of thing really easy.

> I 
> always wondered myself if there was any software capable of doing this...

In principle it shouldn't be too hard.

In fact, in principle you can ask Ghostscript to convert the PDF into 
PostScript and edit the thing by hand. In practice, this turns out to 
be...rather hard.

(Not many people know this, but you *can* in fact write PDF files using 
only Notepad. You'd have to be insane to try it though...)

Post a reply to this message

> Well anyway, I just had a conversation with somebody who doesn't speak 
> English very well, and doesn't know how to operate a computer. As if that 
> wasn't bad enough, the phone line kept repeatedly cutting out. Perfect. 
> :-S

Even better is when their OS isn't in English, then the fun really starts 
over the phone :-)

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
>> Well anyway, I just had a conversation with somebody who doesn't speak 
>> English very well, and doesn't know how to operate a computer. As if 
>> that wasn't bad enough, the phone line kept repeatedly cutting out. 
>> Perfect. :-S
> 
> Even better is when their OS isn't in English, then the fun really 
> starts over the phone :-)

The fun is, she couldn't log in because the laptop had a UK keyboard. So 
we sent her a French keyboard. Ah, but the laptop still thinks it has a 
UK keyboard, so now the keys pressed don't even correspond to what the 
keyboard types!

Of course, she changed the regional settings - but only for her account. 
That means the Windows login prompt still has the wrong keymap.

Isn't technology wonderful?

Can my day get any worse??

I said CAN MY DAY GET ANY WORSE?!? DO YOU HEAR ME MURPHY!?

Post a reply to this message

"scott" <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> > I stupidly assumed that since we have PDF editing software, it would be
> > easy to, you know, edit the PDF file.
>
> Yeh you'd think so, but for some reason they seem to want to make it really
> hard/impossible to actually modify any detail on a PDF page.  I always
> wondered myself if there was any software capable of doing this...

I thought that was the purpose of PDF. Not being able to change documents,
unless you have the original, is perfect for version control.

Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >> I'm almost glad the number doesn't work... :-P
> >>
> >> Still, I don't suppose there's any way I can realistically get rid of
> >> this person.
> >
> > I bet that's what the Call Centres in India say about us :)
>
> Hmm. Probably.
>
> Well anyway, I just had a conversation with somebody who doesn't speak
> English very well, and doesn't know how to operate a computer. As if
> that wasn't bad enough, the phone line kept repeatedly cutting out.
> Perfect. :-S

Welcome to my world ;)


Stephen

Post a reply to this message

>>> I stupidly assumed that since we have PDF editing software, it would be
>>> easy to, you know, edit the PDF file.
>> Yeh you'd think so, but for some reason they seem to want to make it really
>> hard/impossible to actually modify any detail on a PDF page.  I always
>> wondered myself if there was any software capable of doing this...
> 
> I thought that was the purpose of PDF. Not being able to change documents,
> unless you have the original, is perfect for version control.

On the contrary, you can build PDF "forms" which can be filled in 
electronically and returned. (But only if you have the server-side 
technology. Isn't that nice?) The whole marketing for Adobe Acrobat 
talks about "collaboration" and exchanging data and vivid, "alive" 
documents.

Adobe Acrobat can indeed alter several aspects of a PDF file. Just not 
any of the *useful* ones...

We use a 3rd-party product for version control. The files you get from 
it might be editable, but the "definitive version" is whichever one 
exists in the document control system, so it doesn't matter.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:

> Isn't technology wonderful?
> 
> Can my day get any worse??
> 
> I said CAN MY DAY GET ANY WORSE?!? DO YOU HEAR ME MURPHY!?

He heard me.

I was just asked to set up a web presentation. Do you think I could get 
the God-damned thing to work?!

First I turned on the laptop, and it spent 20 minutes updating itself. 
So rather than having half an hour to get it going, I had 10 minutes. By 
this point all the attendees have turned up and their waiting to know 
when it'll be working - so no pressure or anything. Not that I've ever 
used Live Meeting before. But will it connect the desktop? No, no, and, 
er, NO.

So we decide to give up (they don't want to keep the other sites 
waiting), and everybody goes home. 3 minutes later, Live Meeting works 
perfectly. WTF?

WHY DOES MY LIFE HATE ME?! >_<

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:

> WHY DOES MY LIFE HATE ME?! >_<

...and now the French women is back.

When will it all end?

Post a reply to this message

>> WHY DOES MY LIFE HATE ME?! >_<
>
> ...and now the French women is back.
>
> When will it all end?

Your life really doesn't sound so bad, it all seems like normal jobs an IT 
guy working for an international company should be doing.  Try getting up at 
4am, sitting on a plane for 8 hours, then going to a customer meeting for 2 
hours, then having dinner (in a time zone 6 hours behind where you started), 
then having a 3 hour conference call with non-English-speaking people, then 
going to bed 24 hours after you got up, then working 16 hours a day for a 
week.  Want to swap?

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
>>> WHY DOES MY LIFE HATE ME?! >_<
>>
>> ...and now the French women is back.
>>
>> When will it all end?
> 
> Your life really doesn't sound so bad, it all seems like normal jobs an 
> IT guy working for an international company should be doing.

A normal IT guy working for an international company would presumably be 
earning slightly more than £14k/year. I would also *hope* that such a 
person wouldn't be considered utterly incompetent every single time any 
kind of minor technical glitch occurs. But maybe I'm just kidding myself...

> Try 
> getting up at 4am, sitting on a plane for 8 hours, then going to a 
> customer meeting for 2 hours, then having dinner (in a time zone 6 hours 
> behind where you started), then having a 3 hour conference call with 
> non-English-speaking people, then going to bed 24 hours after you got 
> up, then working 16 hours a day for a week.  Want to swap?

What's the pay packet like? :-P

(That's rhetorical of course. I wouldn't travel to a foreign country if 
you paid me.)

Post a reply to this message

I have a solution to your PDF problems installed on my computer:
It's called Scansoft PDF Professional and lets you double print PDFs and other
nice things.
http://www.nuance.co.uk/pdfconverter/create/

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:04:44 +0200, scott wrote:

> BTW, you might be able to find some software that renders a PDF to an
> image file, then use some paint program to do what you want.

There's a plugin for OpenOffice 3.x to do just this.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> (Though Acrobat will only produce Windows Bitmap - the most 
> braindead image format in widespread use.)

You forgot PPM. ;-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Insanity is a small city on the western
   border of the State of Mind.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> I stupidly assumed that since we have PDF editing software, it would be 
> easy to, you know, edit the PDF file.

I'd be surprised if "PDF manipulation software" included everything you 
needed to write documents in PDF. That would be "word processor/image 
manipulator/font editor/PDF manipulation software" to me.

Why not write a new XSLT to take the XML from backup exec and output 
something a word processor can handle, like RTF or LaTeX or something? 
That's why BE is giving it to you as XML.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Insanity is a small city on the western
   border of the State of Mind.

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:26:42 +0200, scott wrote:

> Want to swap?

I was thinking something similar, but unlike you, I can't go into details 
about what last week held for me.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Of course, she changed the regional settings - but only for her account. 
> That means the Windows login prompt still has the wrong keymap.

That's one of the things they fixed on Vista. It's really obvious now how to 
use a different input mechanism to log in.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Insanity is a small city on the western
   border of the State of Mind.

Post a reply to this message

>> Of course, she changed the regional settings - but only for her 
>> account. That means the Windows login prompt still has the wrong keymap.
> 
> That's one of the things they fixed on Vista. It's really obvious now 
> how to use a different input mechanism to log in.

I can understand different users having different language settings. But 
the friggin' keymap?? HOW can that be different for each user?!

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> (Though Acrobat will only produce Windows Bitmap - the most braindead 
>> image format in widespread use.)
> 
> You forgot PPM. ;-)

That's why I said "in widespread use". ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> I stupidly assumed that since we have PDF editing software, it would 
>> be easy to, you know, edit the PDF file.
> 
> I'd be surprised if "PDF manipulation software" included everything you 
> needed to write documents in PDF. That would be "word processor/image 
> manipulator/font editor/PDF manipulation software" to me.

Well, you know, it's not like I'm trying to do anything complex. A few 
trivial cut/paste operations is all. But noooooo, that would be too 
useful...

> Why not write a new XSLT to take the XML from backup exec and output 
> something a word processor can handle, like RTF or LaTeX or something? 
> That's why BE is giving it to you as XML.

BackupExec does not "give" it to you at all. It displays it in screen 
for you, and lets you print it, but it won't let you "have" the 
underlying file at all. (Although it does tell you that this log is file 
38H4G28JHQ83BH94EH.XML if you're interested.)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

On 29-6-2009 19:52, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> Of course, she changed the regional settings - but only for her 
>>> account. That means the Windows login prompt still has the wrong keymap.
>>
>> That's one of the things they fixed on Vista. It's really obvious now 
>> how to use a different input mechanism to log in.
> 
> I can understand different users having different language settings. But 
> the friggin' keymap?? HOW can that be different for each user?!
> 
On a desktop it is possible, for a laptop a bit more difficult, although 
you can always plug in a usb keyboard... No, come to think about it, it 
should on all systems be possible. Only I would expect that it would 
take at least 5 generations for MS to get right. If on Vista it already 
works that could be an indication that MS has changed it's testing 
procedures. That reminds me that on this Vista system the exceptions 
during filecopy also finally are handled in a useful way. Something 
fishy going on. Anybody knows more?

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> but it won't let you "have" the 
> underlying file at all. (Although it does tell you that this log is file 
> 38H4G28JHQ83BH94EH.XML if you're interested.)

And in what sense is that not letting you have the underlying file?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Insanity is a small city on the western
   border of the State of Mind.

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> Of course, she changed the regional settings - but only for her 
>>> account. That means the Windows login prompt still has the wrong keymap.
>>
>> That's one of the things they fixed on Vista. It's really obvious now 
>> how to use a different input mechanism to log in.
> 
> I can understand different users having different language settings. But 
> the friggin' keymap?? HOW can that be different for each user?!

You've never heard of remote logins?  (Altho I don't know at which end of 
the protocol the translation is done.)

I'm more familiar with chinese input mechanisms than french keyboards. You 
can imagine how it would be difficult to log in with a password in chinese 
if you didn't have the appropriate input drivers available from the login 
screen.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Insanity is a small city on the western
   border of the State of Mind.

Post a reply to this message

>> I can understand different users having different language settings. 
>> But the friggin' keymap?? HOW can that be different for each user?!
> 
> You've never heard of remote logins?  (Altho I don't know at which end 
> of the protocol the translation is done.)

One would *hope* RDP transports character codes, not scancodes. (But, 
knowing M$...)

> I'm more familiar with chinese input mechanisms than french keyboards. 
> You can imagine how it would be difficult to log in with a password in 
> chinese if you didn't have the appropriate input drivers available from 
> the login screen.

Hmm. I don't want to know why you know that...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> I can understand different users having different language settings. 
>> But the friggin' keymap?? HOW can that be different for each user?!
>>
> On a desktop it is possible, for a laptop a bit more difficult, although 
> you can always plug in a usb keyboard... No, come to think about it, it 
> should on all systems be possible. Only I would expect that it would 
> take at least 5 generations for MS to get right.

Ah yes, that's the Really Fun Thing(tm). What happens if you have an 
English PS/2 keyboard and an American USB keyboard plugged in at the 
same time? The answer: No matter what keymap you select, one or other of 
the keyboards will malfunction. Isn't that wonderful?

> If on Vista it already 
> works that could be an indication that MS has changed it's testing 
> procedures. That reminds me that on this Vista system the exceptions 
> during filecopy also finally are handled in a useful way. Something 
> fishy going on. Anybody knows more?

I know little about Vista. ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

On 29-6-2009 20:43, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>> I'm more familiar with chinese input mechanisms than french keyboards. 
>> You can imagine how it would be difficult to log in with a password in 
>> chinese if you didn't have the appropriate input drivers available 
>> from the login screen.
> 
> Hmm. I don't want to know why you know that...
> 
But we do, and we know why you don't. ;)

Post a reply to this message

> But we do, and we know why you don't. ;)

Hmm. I wonder what else you people know?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> But we do, and we know why you don't. ;)
> 
> Hmm. I wonder what else you people know?
> 

More than you could imagine.

-Aero

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> One would *hope* RDP transports character codes, not scancodes. (But, 
> knowing M$...)

Which works great until the program at the other end asks for scancodes.

> Hmm. I don't want to know why you know that...

Because my wife is chinese?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Insanity is a small city on the western
   border of the State of Mind.

Post a reply to this message

On 06/29/09 11:20, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:04:44 +0200, scott wrote:
>
>> BTW, you might be able to find some software that renders a PDF to an
>> image file, then use some paint program to do what you want.
>
> There's a plugin for OpenOffice 3.x to do just this.

	Since no one mentioned it, Gimp can open up pdf's as images.

-- 
AAHH!!! I've deleted all my RAM!


                     /\  /\               /\  /
                    /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                        >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                    anl

Post a reply to this message

Neeum Zawan wrote:
>     Since no one mentioned it, Gimp can open up pdf's as images.

As can Paint Shop Pro, if you already own it.

Or, open it in Reader and take a screen shot. ;-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Insanity is a small city on the western
   border of the State of Mind.

Post a reply to this message

On 29-6-2009 23:26, Darren New wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>> Hmm. I don't want to know why you know that...
> 
> Because my wife is chinese?
> 
I think it would have been more fun to keep Andy in suspense for a few 
more days.

Post a reply to this message

> A normal IT guy working for an international company would presumably be 
> earning slightly more than £14k/year.

And would presumably be meant to be working for almost 100% of the time, and 
not moaning whenever he actually had to do some real IT work :-)

> I would also *hope* that such a person wouldn't be considered utterly 
> incompetent every single time any kind of minor technical glitch occurs.

Surely you've demonstrated how you can solve all the minor technical 
glitches though?  Surely not everyone in your company is that dumb that they 
all think you're totally incompetent?

Did you ever try to work pro-actively? I mean by suggesting things to your 
boss that you think you should be doing (in order to improve the company's 
IT), rather than just waiting to be told things to do?  It might make them 
think more of you as a valued employee contributing to the company rather 
than "just" an IT worker who fixes stuff when asks.

> (That's rhetorical of course. I wouldn't travel to a foreign country if 
> you paid me.)

Well clearly you have travelled to a foreign country, when you actually paid 
yourself to go, albeit for a holiday.  Are you really telling me that if 
paid enough you still wouldn't travel abroad to work for a few days?  How 
about to go to a conference?  OOC why not?

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>> Want to swap?
>
> I was thinking something similar, but unlike you, I can't go into details
> about what last week held for me.

Sometimes I think to myself about just giving up this stuff and going to 
work selling drinks on the beach somewhere hot :-)  Is it really worth 
having so much more responsibility and stress for your whole life just to 
get a bigger house or faster car or whatever?  Are you really going to be 
happier in the end?

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> > But we do, and we know why you don't. ;)
>
> Hmm. I wonder what else you people know?
>

There are more things in heaven and earth, Andrew,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Stephen

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"scott" <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> >> Want to swap?
> >
> > I was thinking something similar, but unlike you, I can't go into details
> > about what last week held for me.
>
> Sometimes I think to myself about just giving up this stuff and going to
> work selling drinks on the beach somewhere hot :-)  Is it really worth
> having so much more responsibility and stress for your whole life just to
> get a bigger house or faster car or whatever?  Are you really going to be
> happier in the end?


The trick is, finding a job that you actually enjoy.

I’ve been lucky, most of my jobs I would have paid to do but then I was probably
born at the right time. I did not need a degree to operate the photocopier the
way my wife did.

Remember “you are a long time dead”.


Stephen

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>>> Hmm. I don't want to know why you know that...
>>
>> Because my wife is chinese?
>>
> I think it would have been more fun to keep Andy in suspense for a few 
> more days.

Yes, because I...don't...*want*...to know...? Hmm...

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> The trick is, finding a job that you actually enjoy.

Hmm, maybe I don't enjoy my job as much as I think I do, if I am always 
thinking it would be more fun to stay at home and do other stuff.

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