Bad Software Day

– Got up really early and tried to get the hang of Adobe Indesign so i could write my book with it – and i got so frustrated that I am switching back to Word.

– Tried to demux and mux a video with FFmpegX and am now totally confused.

– Entourage keeps crashing so I am deleting files to make space.

I am having a bad software day.

Andrew

Andrew Jones launched his first internet space in 1997 and has been teaching on related issues for the past 20 years. He travels all the time but lives between Wellington, San Francisco and a hobbit home in Prague.

8 Comments

  • hi andrew,
    personally as from my point of view [as a graphic designer] you’re better of writting you’re book in Word and then importing the text into InDesign to typeset and design it [once it’s finished].
    hope the software starts behaving itself.

  • jeremy says:

    I’d recommend using word also; heck maybe even notepad/textedit (or whatever it is you Mac guys have over there ;). The less distracting your environment is the more you’ll get accomplished and more refined it will turn out (also because InDesign is mostly meant to be used for layout…not necessarily composition). I can attest to this as I write software; I used to use fancy crazy editors with millions of features. Now I use a super simple but elegant editor that’s been around since the early 70’s and get atleast three times as much accomplished.

  • Joshua Rudd says:

    i second Jonny’s recommendation. InDesign is great for layout — but there’s no reason to use it as a text editor.

  • andrew says:

    yeah i know – and i found a good article that shows how to get the most out of word
    but i only have 21 days of my indesign CS2 trial left, and i am really frustrated that i couldnt master it like i thought i could.
    maybe i will later on – thanks for your encouragement
    i just need to write the bloody book and then worry about layout . . . amen? .. . can i get a witness?

  • Dana Ames says:

    Amen! Write on, brother!
    Dana

  • bobbie says:

    me too. downloaded the new itunes 5.0 (DON’T DO IT IF YOU HAVEN’T YET!) and have had no end of problems – reinstalled 4.6 (or whatever) and uninstalled 5 – plugged in my ipod and wiped out my whole library… most was backed up and only lost about $30.00 but the TIME of reloading all of those cd’s – ugh.
    hope your softward days are brighter soon!

  • Roger Saner says:

    I would recommend switching from Entourage to Mail. I did that about a year ago and haven’t regretted it – full integration with Address Book as well as just being, well, Mac. You’ll have to live with both side-by-side for a while…but it’s worth it.

  • michael lee says:

    Have you tried praying and reading your Bible more.

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