A while ago a certain notorious program manager stopped at the intersection of Polygon Alley and the main drag (that is, the cubicle row I am in and the main thouroughfare, so to speak) and asked my next door neighbor and I if either of us knew how to "print a g-i-f file".
In typical program manager fashion, he said he'd dragged it into micro$oft Word, but it wouldn't print the document. I told him to open it in a web browser and print it from there.
I was not surprised when even this proved to be beyond his capabilities and he was back in a few minutes.
"Hey, that didn't work. I just emailed it to both you guys. Can one of you see what you can do with it?" Now, neither one of us are working on any projects for this guy, but I checked my email anyway to see just what was special about this "g-i-f" file that wouldmake it so confounding.
The thing was like 7 megabytes!. I opened it and it was some 2300 x 3300 pixels. Furthermore, it appeared to be a 2 color image of some sort of privacy fence plans.
"Uh, Dude, this isn't even for work is it?"
"It's for my subdivision comittee- I need a hardcopy tonight. Can you send it to the big printer in back?"
"This is a raster image. The plotter can only do vectors."
"Speak, english. I don't follow you."
"OK, bottom line- I can't help you. Sorry."
As the guy turned around he nearly bumped into the head of the computing department.
"Hey, Doug- Just the man I'm looking for!"
I didn't hear their discussion as they moved off. I didn't want to, either.
Posted by Roger at March 31, 2003 04:57 PM