Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

The View from Wendy's World: How was I to know how to put the paper to bed?

I am absolutely a computer whiz. I can do anything on a computer - as long as someone shows me how to do it and as long as the process never, ever changes.

We got a new computer here in the office last week. For many of you who are paddling around in the same boat as me, you are now nodding and saying, Ah, I understand why the type was different all through the paper and why we couldnt read page four.

As it turns out, we processed the pages correctly, but in its infinite wisdom, the new computer program changed the pages back to something that doesnt translate into a printed page.

Yep. There was a button we were supposed to push that Ive never had to push before and so I didnt know that we had failed in our duties. Its called embedding the fonts. Now I thought wed put the little buggers to bed when we sent them to the press. How was I to know that they hadnt yet been tucked in?

Not only did they all want to be tucked in, they apparently wanted a bedtime story as well. I - in my computer savvy way - thought send was the only bedtime story necessary. Turns out, they wanted, embed these fonts as well as save all colors are they are.

My mom didnt teach me any of those bedtime stories. My grandchildren, of course, know these stories by heart. As I relayed the debacle of last weeks paper, they rolled their eyes as only 8-year-olds can and said that I should have called them first.

The next major hurdle we encountered was that Lisas computer continuously sent me the message that I could look, but dont touch. I explained, patiently at first, that Im the editor. I need to edit. Therefore, I need to touch.

If youve worked often with computers, youre well familiar with those computer snickers. Theyre often followed by a message that error 2,481,295.13" has occurred. And then theres another snicker when you have to admit that you arent familiar with that error and need help.

I needed a hammer.

But if you have a problem, you click on help and type in your problem. Amid the snickering that usually goes on for LONG minutes, theres sometimes a clue as to what youve done wrong or what you havent done right.

In this case, I spent a good three hours followed by a tag team event of another two hours. The result is that weve made some adjustments. One of the biggies is that the computer hasnt found one of the printers. That just goes to show that computers arent that bright after all. Its not six feet away and I even turned the monitor so that its looking directly at that printer.

All that means for us is that whenever it cant find the printer, I get to do a little snickering of my own.

Meanwhile, weve learned a new bedtime routine. Stop by sometime and watch. We embarrass ourselves in front of this mega-smart computer, one more in the audience wont matter.