Well, It has been an interesting week in an exciting month for your Adventurer! We went canoeing in the Minnesota headwaters of the Mississippi River, played Paul Bunyan felling a tree in my daughter's back yard, and glutted ourselves with blackberries at a "pick-them-yourself" farm in central Missouri. I will save the details for pizza-time before a meeting. Suffice it to say that the vacation was all too short. They always are....

I returned to work to find my former duties being done by an associate, and I had to change assignments.

After an interview, I accepted a new assignment requiring preparation and distribution of daily reports that use forms provided to me on a disc. Needless to say, the disc and forms were created with software designed by "them other guys" and I left the interview wondering if the PowerMac and I were up to the challenge.

Arriving home, I dropped the disc into my trusty machine. The first indication I might be in deep doo-doo was a window confirming my worst fears - the files could not be read without a translator. Somewhere in the back of my mind a bell sounded to remind me that my Mac is supposed to be able to do this for me. Placing my trust in God (and the disciples in Silicon Valley) I double-clicked the "untitled" disc icon with its ominous "PC" markings. To my surprise, a window appeared displaying a veritable feast of documents, all of which I knew I would need but none of which I knew how to translate.

Gritting my teeth (and fearing the sudden appearance of blue smoke from my Mac) I clicked on one of the document icons. Something happened that was almost beyond words. A message appeared explaining that the Mac needed to translate the document, and then listed the options of translators I could use. I clicked the first choice - which contained a reference to ClarisWorks - for no good reason other than that I recognized the name of my faithful word processor. The computer told me that MacLinks Plus 9.0 (which came with my machine) could do the translation, but that a newer version might do it better. I decided to proceed despite this warning of impending doom. The computer grunted a bit and, suddenly, the ClarisWorks tool box appeared, followed quickly by the form I wanted, translated and usable. My joy knew no limits. After a few handsprings around the living room (the expressions on our English Cocker's face at these antics was truly something to behold), I examined this new revelation in some detail. I found to my amazement that not only was the form present and accounted for, but that the tool box header even told me which font and size was used to compose it. Cool!

Ecstatic in my new-found prowess, I cycled my way through the other forms on the disc. Although the recommended translator varied with the program used to generate each document , what I wound up with was a readily usable document in every case except one. On that form, the title block and company logo which accompanied it were unacceptably misaligned. My adventures in recreating the form with proper alignment, and my subsequent feeble attempts to fax directly from my Macintosh, will be the subject of Chapter 4, subtitled "A Picture's Worth..."

You are invited to stay tuned.

Your fellow traveler on Spaceship Earth,

buckebohlz

buckebohlz