99 Problems But CrimPro Ain't One

This is how Prof CrimPro started class last week: He kicked off the semester by saying that many people are highly critical of our criminal justice system, then he said we were going to watch a short powerpoint presentation and listen to what some of those critics have to say about the system. The next thing we knew, NWA “F#@$ tha Police” (I'm trying to be family-friendly here; lyrics) was thumping through the classroom of over 100 students, while the lyrics scrolled in foot-tall letters on the projection screen at the front of the room. This was followed by:

• KRS-1: Sound of da Police (iTMS link;lyrics),
• Prince Paul: The Men in Blue (“NY's largest crew”) (not in iTMS; lyrics),
• and, that's right: Jay-Z: 99 Problems (iTMS link; lyrics).

So now you see why I got 99 problems but CrimPro ain't one. I'm gonna love that class. I'm going to have trouble keeping on top of the reading, but I'm still gonna love that class. I actually have some great classes this semester . . . . At least it seems that way after the first week. I'm knocking on digital wood, but in this moment I'm feeling like I might actually enjoy this semester if I can just learn to be fully functional on 5 hours of sleep each night instead of 7 or 8. Oh, and if I could stop reading blogs. Is there a 12-step program for that?* All right. I better read me some CrimPro now or one of my 99 problems is going to be you know what. *It was actually blawg that reminded me to post this story. I've been meaning to post it since it happened last Tuesday, but I've been swamped and crazy and putting it off for some reason, but Blonde Justice just posted the track list of a mix CD she just made and it included a track that triggered this memory and I figured there was no time like the present.

Posted 06:38 AM | Comments (6) | 2L

Don't Send Word

I just got an email with a Word document attached. The document contained the only information that made the email worth opening, so I obviously had to open the attachment. It took maybe a full minute for Word to start up and show me the stupid document, I looked at it for all of 10 seconds just to make sure it said what I thought it said, and then I quit Word because it's such an awfully-written piece of bloatware that it slows my machine down if I leave it running in the background. For these reasons and others (e.g., many people don't have Word and it's a proprietary format, Word docs are larger than many other formats and therefore take longer to send and receive, etc.), Word attachments are a cruel and unnecessary form of communication. Instead of sending Word docs, please consider the following alternatives*:

• If you want to send information in email, send it in the body of the email whenever possible.
• If you created the information in Word, you can just copy and paste into your email.
• If you simply must send and attachment, Word also offers a nice feature called “Save As” that allows you to convert your document to plain text or rich text, either of which are preferable attachment formats (because they can be opened by just about any word processor).
• If your document contains tables or the formatting is important to its meaning somehow, the Mac OS allows you to save any document as a PDF, so if you're using a Mac, it's easy to attach a PDF instead of a Word doc, and the PDF will allow your recipient to see the document exactly as you created it.**
• If you're using Windows and don't have a simple means to create PDFs, use Word's handy “Save As” feature to create an HTML version of the document, then attach that. The HTML version can be opened in any browser (and probably by most email clients), so, again, it's a much more considerate and convenient form of communication.

*Possibly the only worse form of document attachment is the WordPerfect document; generally, the above tips apply to this format, as well. ** Of course, PDFs aren't a much better format than Word docs for many Windows users. Every time I use a Windows machine and need to view a PDF I'm dismayed anew at how poorly the system handles them. Even on a fast machine it takes forever to load the Adobe viewer so you can see the PDF. The Mac OS has a handy built-in PDF viewer called Preview that opens PDFs as fast as you can open a plain text document.

Posted 06:28 AM | Comments (1) | mac geek