Eek A Bug!
By “Cajun” David Richard

For this section of our newsletter, we will be reporting on the most common, and the most exotic bugs that we have encountered over the past two months.  Keep in mind that these bugs will not be around forever, so enjoy them while you can, especially this issue’s Most Strange.

                                               Caps lock
Most Common:
This issue’s most common bug is encountered when using Easy Envelopes Plus 2.6.0 with a Hewlett Packard Printer.  It seems that the most recent versions of the HP print drivers have a personality conflict with some Desk Accessories, Including Easy Envelopes.  When the HP driver encounters a print command from a DA, it automatically assumes that there is not enough memory to print the document, and sends an “Out Of Memory” message to the user.  The first reaction of most people is to raise the memory allocation for Easy Envelopes.  But a trip to the Get Info... box reveals that raising the memory allocation is not possible for a DA.

Work Around:
Now, I’m not certain of what is going on with the print driver, but I do know that the problem is easily solved.  By turning background printing OFF from the Chooser, Easy Envelopes is set free to print away at it’s leisure.

Another solution is to install an older version of the print driver, preferably the version before last.  This will allow you to print in the background, and to have beautiful, stress free envelopes.

Most Strange:
This one was unintentional, I assure you.  When playing our recently released molecule building game Chiral, you build molecules, of course.  But sometimes you do not use all of the available atoms, and end up leaving a few leftover atoms lying around on the screen.  You are eventually penalized for these stray atoms.  The penalty is based on the number of bonds that could have been made with all of the stray atoms left, multiplied by a factor of your skill level and current level of play.  

Well, It seems that there are some really talented molecule builders out there, and then of course some not so talented ones.  These not so talented molecule builders have stumbled upon this issue’s Most Strange Bug.  It turns out that if you happen to have a stray atom penalty of over 30,000 points (don’t ask how, these things happen,)  then the penalty is not subtracted from your score, it’s ADDED!!!

Work Around:
Don’t leave so many atoms on the playing field.  If you do, you will not be properly penalized. We don’t want that now, do we.