Ken McGuire

Tag: office

  • That New Home Workstation

    New home workstation

    So there were a few people asking for a photo for the recent DIY job I did in the house, namely in putting a new workstation into one of the rooms here.

    Et, voila.

    Moving office late last year I wound up with a large desk (one I had originally custom made to fit the first office) that wound up be recycled to construct this one. The desk itself went up in a day, the shelving and stands on the desk itself cut from the old desk top (made to order by a gifted Sligo carpenter) and the rest was down to myself.

    I’ve been producing a series of podcasts for the Kilkenny Arts Festival this week so fitted the retractable mic stand to the desk this week to finish things off. Turns out to be a great workstation for the audio / video combo, with the PC (right) used more on the entertainment front (music, streaming video etc.)

    The artwork on the walls are pretty much all from Devious Theatre productions.

  • Convert DOCX To DOC On A Mac (OSX)

    One of the developments of Microsoft Office 2007 was the introduction of the Office Open XML file format for Word Documents (extension is .docx), presentations etc. One of my clients has apparently upgraded in recent days as the new attachments I receive are all .docx, unreadable on the Mac in Office 2004, OpenOffice, any way you look at it.

    None of the online converters I tried seemed to be working (one wanted a “lifetime” fee of US$5 to access to a conversion tool). Microsoft, on the other hand, released a beta converter for OSX that will convert your unreadable .docx documents to DOC / RTF format allowing them to be opened and edited. Via Microsoft…

    Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 0.2.1 (Beta)

    This version of the converter extends the expiration date for this beta release.

    This version of the converter can convert the following Open XML file formats:

    • Word Document (*.docx)
    • Word Macro-Enabled Document (*.docm)
    • PowerPoint Presentation (*.pptx)
    • PowerPoint Show (*.ppsx)
    • PowerPoint Template (*.potx)

    The converter is a Beta release, and might be unable to convert all the data in Open XML files. After you convert a file, you should review the file carefully to make sure that it contains all of the information that you expect. For a complete list of known issues, install and open the converter, and then on the Help menu, click Office Converter Help.

    This Beta release expires on December 31, 2008.

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    As converters go, it does exactly what it says on the tin. It installs with ease into your Applications folder then works on a drag-and-drop basis i.e. drag your unreadable document onto the app window and presto, one readable and workable document. You can find it by clicking here.