Okay, So Maybe It's Font Heck!

It's weird. My thesis prints up okay, and the larger size fonts look okay, but any font I try in the smaller sizes looks ugly and messy. It's a bit like a reversion to an earlier computer screen that doesn't look like the page it preludes. But it looks okay when printed, so that's what counts right now for me.

Rain and disappearing snow - the dirty end of winter.

There is such a wide range of computer knowledge around nowadays. Many of the people I'm supposed to work with just don't do computers, and what's available for them in the institution is old and unsupported. Yesterday, as I am (I hope temporarily) without computer at my institution, I went into a teacher "lounge" to use one of the computers. OS X was on the system, but everytime I tried to send a message in webmail on the school portal, both Internet Explorer and Safari would simply close. So I tried the other computer, and someone had shut it down and I have no idea what the user name and password are and who to ask. So I gave up and came home to my borrowed but wonderful machine.

At the same time, I know that a former supervisor (not mine) had very limited computer skills and at least two totally high end computers for his exclusive use. Status indicators rather than tools. Tant pis!

The whole question of learning and computers is both fascinating and central to our culture. How do we learn, and how do we learn to use computers to do what we want to and need to? How do we get techies to learn design and communication, and those who who have skills and knowledge to communicate to learn how to use the computer? No complete and perfect answer is posible, and the learner and the environment are as central as computer availability.

Stuck in Font Hell

How come a font that is supposed to be part of OS X is there in name only! How come my beautiful thesis looks stupid and ugly now! What do I have to do to get the font I want! I can't find it anywhere to download.

Got to go and keep on trying, until the call from the Oscars becomes impossible to ignore.