A telephone conversation that left me speechless

[thomasyen]

I'm currently a high school student in Taiwan, and a few weeks ago I took part in an English composition competition. Afterwards the judges told me to send them a digital file of my handwritten composition so that they could make a compilation. A few days ago a school administrator called me over the class phone asking about the file I sent him. The following conversation ensued:

I: Hello?
Admin: About your composition...I received the file all right, but what's with this "txt" extension?
I: (slightly surprised) That's plain text.
Admin: I don't know what you mean by that... Can't you just use a Word file (*.doc)?
I: Maybe you could just copy it into Word?
Admin: I don't know about that... (tries) Your endlines are in strange locations. (That's probably because I put the endlines exactly in the places where they were on the original handwritten copy) Just send me a Word file.
I: Okay. (hangs up, still surprised)

Microsoft claims another victim.

[MaxIBoy]

Hide a screamer in it.

[HellNoire]

I've had something worse happen. Someone asked me for a DocX file.

You know, the new format? Downloaded Openoffice.orgKiwi's fix, and turns out the person still couldn't read it, because (get this) he didn't have Office 2007. He thought that he'd be able to open it with no conversion.

He was using MS Office 97 off of Windows 2000.

[MaxIBoy]

I've had something worse happen. Someone asked me for a DocX file.

You know, the new format? Downloaded Openoffice.orgKiwi's fix, and turns out the person still couldn't read it, because (get this) he didn't have Office 2007. He thought that he'd be able to open it with no conversion.

He was using MS Office 97 off of Windows 2000.

That post lives forever in my bookmarks.

[mirhciulica]

That's funny! :-|

[thomasyen]

It's actually a bit unfortunate that the only person in my school who I can say is truly computer-adept is the hired engineer. Our Computer Science teacher (given this job as he was originally a librarian with little else to do) even asked our class about computers when we were freshmen. He even yelled at one of my classmates for using a hack he did not know of. However, I've heard of a middle school admin in Taichung, Taiwan who converted Knoppix into an installable version with MPlayer already enabled.

[maniac_X]

I would have asked the Admin...
me: "What is this Word format you keep talking about?"

Admin: "Word, as in Microsoft Word..?"

me: "Ooooohhhh, Microsoft. Yes, my parents don't allow me to use that, it's against our religion. We use OpenOffice. I can send you a PDF if you like?"

;)

.

[Spark*]

I: Maybe you could just copy it into Word?
Admin: I don't know about that... (tries) Your endlines are in strange locations. (That's probably because I put the endlines exactly in the places where they were on the original handwritten copy) Just send me a Word file.
I: Okay. (hangs up, still surprised)

Microsoft claims another victim.

Maybe he opened it in Notepad, which can't read Unix-style newlines so all the lines would be mashed together? He couldn't really be blamed for Microsoft's default text editor sucking big time.

[MaxIBoy]

I've had that problem too. It's insulting to be forced to used a file extension, and to need to change the save options in the gedit save menu.

[thomasyen]

Actually, I edited that file using Notepad because I assumed that he would open the file with Notepad (otherwise would have used gedit). Kinda ironic now that I look back on it.
As for sending a PDF, it did occur to me after I hung up. I decided to use plain text when I can after reading RMS's articles on the Word format.

[thomasyen]

Maybe he opened it in Notepad, which can't read Unix-style newlines so all the lines would be mashed together? He couldn't really be blamed for Microsoft's default text editor sucking big time.

Actually, what I meant was that I put a newline when I see one on my original paper, instead of finishing the sentence then putting the newline.

[Rplus9]

wow, who actually hand-writes anything that won't fit on a post-it?

I think I read somewhere that various forms of hand-writing are in danger of disappearing because students never write anything substantial.

[thomasyen]

That's one of the problems with computers; arts like calligraphy and (surprise) hand-written essays are more likely to die out in the not-so-far future.

[MaxIBoy]

That's quite true, but handwriting is a barrier to understanding anyway. Good riddance.

[namdung]

In one Senior Management meeting to discuss Migration to Linux in our school, a .pptx file was not opening in a XP PC with Office2003. I proudly opened the file in my Ubuntu 8.04 PC with OO3 installed. Guess what? Our labs now run Edubuntu!!!

[urukrama]

wow, who actually hand-writes anything that won't fit on a post-it?

I do, a lot.

[chucky chuckaluck]

on a positive note, this type of tragedy only happens to less than 4% of us.