Zip It

Not too long ago all our computers at work were upgraded. The new systems are much faster, and run Windows XP (the old systems ran WinNT). Soon after the new systems were installed I noticed that Microsoft had added yet another "feature" to their OS - zip compression.

I guess they have a critical need to crush even the tiny amount of competition they get from PKzip and WinZip - either that, or they figure that with Bush and the Republicans in power they can get away with anything.

But here's the funny thing: Microsoft's zip feature sucks. I had an emergency request to zip a couple of files for an urgent transmission. I zipped them them and was just about to send them when on an impulse, I did a quick test-unzip.

Son of a gun! Although I had requested no such thing, the unzipped files recapitulated the entire server folder structure where they were originally created. They should have simply unzipped normally into my C drive, but instead they created a P:/folder/subfolder/subsubfolder/ and put the unzipped files in that. So I deleted the zip file, went back, and made sure that I hadn't checked "include folder structure" or whatever it was. I hadn't.

What to do? I moved the files into the root C drive and tried re-zipping them. They still came out with some sort of messed-up folder structure (I can't remember exactly what it was, because at this point I was panicking a bit). Finally I moved the files onto a server and over to an old computer that still ran WinZIP. Five seconds later I had a perfect Zip file ready to go.

And that wasn't the only problem with the XP Zip "facility". Later I discovered that it often simply wouldn't unzip certain files; I'd click on the files, and nothing would happen. I'd right-click and chose Open or Extract; still nothing. No matter what I did XP simply wouldn't unzip those files, and I couldn't figure out why. WinZIP on my old machine had no problem with the files, so the whole thing was quite a mystery.

Unfortunately the old machine with WinZIP was scheduled to be replaced with a new XP machine soon - I didn't have a choice about that - so I put in a request to have WinZIP installed on the new machine. A few days later I got a call back from IT:

Tech: "You don't need to have WinZIP. That function is built into XP."

Me: "But it doesn't work."

Tech: "What are you trying to do?"

Me: "Zip files to send to clients." (duh)

At this point the tech fell back on Standard Response A, which is, assume that the user is a moron who doesn't know how to tie their shoes, much less use a computer. I'm used to that particular ploy, though, and am pretty good at proving that I am, in fact, qualified for my job. In fact, I'm generally more knowledgeable about the software I work with than the IT people.

My point made, the tech agreed to kick the request back upstairs for reconsideration. Three days later the phone rang:

Tech: "Corporate Security has turned down your request. They say you don't need to have WinZIP. That function is built into XP."

Me: "*sigh*. That fuction does not work correctly."

Tech: "Tell me what you want to do, and I'll tell you how to do it with the XP zip program."

Me: "I need to zip multiple files without recursing the folder structure and password-protect them."

Tech: "You select-"

Me (interrupting): "-the files that I want to zip, then right-click on them and select "Add to compressed folder" from the resulting drop-down menu. I've tried that. It doesn't work. What's more, it won't unzip a number of the files I'm recieving from our clients. I can send you the files, if you want. Look, these are business-critical files, and I can't perform my job without zipping them."

Tech (after a pause): "I'll check with Security again and get back to you."

Me: "Thanks."

Variations on this dialog were repeated a couple more times over the next two weeks. Finally one day I came in to a voicemail from a relatively high-level and sensible IT guy. He's one of the people who I've worked with a bit, and knows that I can generally back up what I say. Within a couple of hours, I had the latest version of WinZIP installed on my machine.

The program only costs $29 anyway. I can't believe the grief they put me through over 29 bucks!

Zip It

Not too long ago all our computers at work were upgraded. The new systems are much faster, and run Windows XP (the old systems ran WinNT). Soon after the new systems were installed I noticed that Microsoft had added yet another "feature" to their OS - zip compression.

I guess they have a critical need to crush even the tiny amount of competition they get from PKzip and WinZip - either that, or they figure that with Bush and the Republicans in power they can get away with anything.

But here's the funny thing: Microsoft's zip feature sucks. I had an emergency request to zip a couple of files for an urgent transmission. I zipped them them and was just about to send them when on an impulse, I did a quick test-unzip.

Son of a gun! Although I had requested no such thing, the unzipped files recapitulated the entire server folder structure where they were originally created. They should have simply unzipped normally into my C drive, but instead they created a P:/folder/subfolder/subsubfolder/ and put the unzipped files in that. So I deleted the zip file, went back, and made sure that I hadn't checked "include folder structure" or whatever it was. I hadn't.

What to do? I moved the files into the root C drive and tried re-zipping them. They still came out with some sort of messed-up folder structure (I can't remember exactly what it was, because at this point I was panicking a bit). Finally I moved the files onto a server and over to an old computer that still ran WinZIP. Five seconds later I had a perfect Zip file ready to go.

And that wasn't the only problem with the XP Zip "facility". Later I discovered that it often simply wouldn't unzip certain files; I'd click on the files, and nothing would happen. I'd right-click and chose Open or Extract; still nothing. No matter what I did XP simply wouldn't unzip those files, and I couldn't figure out why. WinZIP on my old machine had no problem with the files, so the whole thing was quite a mystery.

Unfortunately the old machine with WinZIP was scheduled to be replaced with a new XP machine soon - I didn't have a choice about that - so I put in a request to have WinZIP installed on the new machine. A few days later I got a call back from IT:

Tech: "You don't need to have WinZIP. That function is built into XP."

Me: "But it doesn't work."

Tech: "What are you trying to do?"

Me: "Zip files to send to clients." (duh)

At this point the tech fell back on Standard Response A, which is, assume that the user is a moron who doesn't know how to tie their shoes, much less use a computer. I'm used to that particular ploy, though, and am pretty good at proving that I am, in fact, qualified for my job. In fact, I'm generally more knowledgeable about the software I work with than the IT people.

My point made, the tech agreed to kick the request back upstairs for reconsideration. Three days later the phone rang:

Tech: "Corporate Security has turned down your request. They say you don't need to have WinZIP. That function is built into XP."

Me: "*sigh*. That fuction does not work correctly."

Tech: "Tell me what you want to do, and I'll tell you how to do it with the XP zip program."

Me: "I need to zip multiple files without recursing the folder structure and password-protect them."

Tech: "You select-"

Me (interrupting): "-the files that I want to zip, then right-click on them and select "Add to compressed folder" from the resulting drop-down menu. I've tried that. It doesn't work. What's more, it won't unzip a number of the files I'm recieving from our clients. I can send you the files, if you want. Look, these are business-critical files, and I can't perform my job without zipping them."

Tech (after a pause): "I'll check with Security again and get back to you."

Me: "Thanks."

Variations on this dialog were repeated a couple more times over the next two weeks. Finally one day I came in to a voicemail from a relatively high-level and sensible IT guy. He's one of the people who I've worked with a bit, and knows that I can generally back up what I say. Within a couple of hours, I had the latest version of WinZIP installed on my machine.

The program only costs $29 anyway. I can't believe the grief they put me through over 29 bucks!

Grrr...

I want to go work out, but I hurt like hell - particularly in my sinuses. For the last three days my sinuses have hurt like crazy. And I've had a lot of other pain as well - it feels as if all normal pains have been magnified about ten times. My feet and my back are driving me nuts, and normally they're totally fine.

I've been getting very little sleep as a result. Mostly I just toss and turn. On Saturday night around 2:30 I said "the hell with it!" and went downstairs to sleep on the couch. But that didn't help. So at 4:30 I got up and took a maximum dose of Tylenol.

That did help, quite a lot, and I ended up sleeping until 10:30 or later. Since Sunday is my morning to sleep in, that worked out well. But these aches and lack of sleep are making it really hard to function.

The thing is, I don't think it's a cold. It's really painful to swallow, and my sinuses are hurting a lot, but it doesn't feel like a cold - I'm not sneezing or coughing much, for one thing. This may all be connected to some new sinus medications I've been taking. The first one gave me frequent nosebleeds, and the new ones don't seem to be doing much at all. But I've been doing some reading online, and I'm wondering if I should try irrigating my sinuses. I've already done something like that with saline, and it seems to help a little, so maybe it's something to look into.

Anyone else out there had experience with that sort of thing?

Grrr...

I want to go work out, but I hurt like hell - particularly in my sinuses. For the last three days my sinuses have hurt like crazy. And I've had a lot of other pain as well - it feels as if all normal pains have been magnified about ten times. My feet and my back are driving me nuts, and normally they're totally fine.

I've been getting very little sleep as a result. Mostly I just toss and turn. On Saturday night around 2:30 I said "the hell with it!" and went downstairs to sleep on the couch. But that didn't help. So at 4:30 I got up and took a maximum dose of Tylenol.

That did help, quite a lot, and I ended up sleeping until 10:30 or later. Since Sunday is my morning to sleep in, that worked out well. But these aches and lack of sleep are making it really hard to function.

The thing is, I don't think it's a cold. It's really painful to swallow, and my sinuses are hurting a lot, but it doesn't feel like a cold - I'm not sneezing or coughing much, for one thing. This may all be connected to some new sinus medications I've been taking. The first one gave me frequent nosebleeds, and the new ones don't seem to be doing much at all. But I've been doing some reading online, and I'm wondering if I should try irrigating my sinuses. I've already done something like that with saline, and it seems to help a little, so maybe it's something to look into.

Anyone else out there had experience with that sort of thing?

Mysterious Disappearance

When Teri and I took our old queen-sized mattress out of the house last week, we put it in the trash pick-up area next to our driveway. We weren't thrilled about putting it out there so early (trash is picked up on Tuesday morning), but there wasn't any place in the house where we could keep it.

Strange thing: on Sunday afternoon we went out for a drive with Sebastian. A few hours later we came back, and the mattress was gone!

It's kind of creepy.

Mysterious Disappearance

When Teri and I took our old queen-sized mattress out of the house last week, we put it in the trash pick-up area next to our driveway. We weren't thrilled about putting it out there so early (trash is picked up on Tuesday morning), but there wasn't any place in the house where we could keep it.

Strange thing: on Sunday afternoon we went out for a drive with Sebastian. A few hours later we came back, and the mattress was gone!

It's kind of creepy.

Carnival

On Friday Teri and Sebastian drove up and picked me up at work. After dinner at Vinny Testa's (featuring a surprise visit by Grandma and Grandpa), we went south on Route 1, headed for home. But on the way we passed a huge carnival that had been set up in an enormous mall parking lot.

I made the mistake of pointing the carnival out to Sebastian, who let out a loud cry of excitement. As we drove past, the cries of delight turned into tears of rage. Teri promptly swung into the left lane for a turnaround at the next light.

I'm really feeling beat, so I'll cut this short: Sebastian was kind of naughty. He kept trying to run away and look at all the cool games. He and I went on the merry-go-round, which he enjoyed; then he played a sort of bowling game, and won a little stuffed toy. After that we put him on a kiddie ride of little cars, but as soon as the ride started going he turned beet-red, his mouth opened into a huge oval of fear, and tears poured from his eyes. The operator stopped the ride after the first go-around and we took him off. Oh well.

Finally all three of us went on a ride called the "Rockin' Tugboat". From the ground it looked fairly mild, but the reality turned out to be more than we expected.

Hah! I won't have to try to explain it: I've found a video instead. If the direct link goes away, here's a link to the newsletter I found it in. One question: Doesn't "No Son of Mine" (by Phil Collin's Genesis) seem like an odd choice for background music?

The ride had quite a lot of oomph to it - we swing around at surprisingly high speeds. I laughed like a loon, and Teri was a little queasy. Nonetheless Sebastian, nestled safely between us, really enjoyed it. So much, in fact, that when the ride was over we stayed put and rode again!

That done we picked up some fried dough and headed home. Sebastian was tired enough not to protest.

Carnival

On Friday Teri and Sebastian drove up and picked me up at work. After dinner at Vinny Testa's (featuring a surprise visit by Grandma and Grandpa), we went south on Route 1, headed for home. But on the way we passed a huge carnival that had been set up in an enormous mall parking lot.

I made the mistake of pointing the carnival out to Sebastian, who let out a loud cry of excitement. As we drove past, the cries of delight turned into tears of rage. Teri promptly swung into the left lane for a turnaround at the next light.

I'm really feeling beat, so I'll cut this short: Sebastian was kind of naughty. He kept trying to run away and look at all the cool games. He and I went on the merry-go-round, which he enjoyed; then he played a sort of bowling game, and won a little stuffed toy. After that we put him on a kiddie ride of little cars, but as soon as the ride started going he turned beet-red, his mouth opened into a huge oval of fear, and tears poured from his eyes. The operator stopped the ride after the first go-around and we took him off. Oh well.

Finally all three of us went on a ride called the "Rockin' Tugboat". From the ground it looked fairly mild, but the reality turned out to be more than we expected.

Hah! I won't have to try to explain it: I've found a video instead. If the direct link goes away, here's a link to the newsletter I found it in. One question: Doesn't "No Son of Mine" (by Phil Collin's Genesis) seem like an odd choice for background music?

The ride had quite a lot of oomph to it - we swing around at surprisingly high speeds. I laughed like a loon, and Teri was a little queasy. Nonetheless Sebastian, nestled safely between us, really enjoyed it. So much, in fact, that when the ride was over we stayed put and rode again!

That done we picked up some fried dough and headed home. Sebastian was tired enough not to protest.