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dchenesOne of my attributes, which is either a virtue or a vice depending on the situation, is that when I know there has to be a way to make a computer do something, I'll fight with it until I come up with a way to do it. The way I come up with is usually the hard way, unfortunately, but at least I get a result. In the present case, it's a word count from three different Flash files, and it only took me three different downloads on two different computers to do it.
The first piece of software I tried was freeware, and it worked for one of the files, but couldn't read the other two. Then I discovered that Flash MX has a free trial version. Ha, says I, that'll do it.
The lab's computers are set up so that they wipe the disk image and reset it every time they restart. Flash requires restarting the computer before you can use it. I'm sure you all can see where this is going: you download something to use in the lab, run the installer, and it tells you that in order to use what you just installed, you have to restart the computer. When you restart the computer, it deletes both the installed program and the .exe file. So you just wasted however much time you spent finding the program, downloading and installing it.
So I came home and installed the Mac trial version of Flash MX on the Moose, and happily sat there counting words in the Flash files in question. I'm sure there's a way to export the text out of a Flash file and run it through a word counter somewhere or other else, but getting any number, even if I'm wrong, is better than no number at all at this point. We need the number in order to get things done before our next meeting (on Saturday, oogh). I'm supposed to be revising the scope statement, too, but I'm damned if I do it tonight. (I can't, anyway, since it depends on a file I can't open at home and I am NOT going back to the lab again tonight.)
The first piece of software I tried was freeware, and it worked for one of the files, but couldn't read the other two. Then I discovered that Flash MX has a free trial version. Ha, says I, that'll do it.
The lab's computers are set up so that they wipe the disk image and reset it every time they restart. Flash requires restarting the computer before you can use it. I'm sure you all can see where this is going: you download something to use in the lab, run the installer, and it tells you that in order to use what you just installed, you have to restart the computer. When you restart the computer, it deletes both the installed program and the .exe file. So you just wasted however much time you spent finding the program, downloading and installing it.
So I came home and installed the Mac trial version of Flash MX on the Moose, and happily sat there counting words in the Flash files in question. I'm sure there's a way to export the text out of a Flash file and run it through a word counter somewhere or other else, but getting any number, even if I'm wrong, is better than no number at all at this point. We need the number in order to get things done before our next meeting (on Saturday, oogh). I'm supposed to be revising the scope statement, too, but I'm damned if I do it tonight. (I can't, anyway, since it depends on a file I can't open at home and I am NOT going back to the lab again tonight.)
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Date: 2005-03-31 11:58 pm (UTC)