Anyone have an idea why PDFMaker would just stop working when attempting to convert files to PDF from Microsoft Word and Excel?

Nope, but I've used cutepdf for the last two years on everything and it's been flawless.

[link]

Problem is, it's my work machine and I'm just trying to put off calling desktop services.

This is a complete stab-in-the-dark, but are you logged in as a different user than normal? Have you tried rebooting?

What happens when you try to use PDFMaker? Does it fail? or is the option not available at all?

Is it something specific to a particular document? I've had a document crap out in the middle of conversion for some reason. I ended up cutting it into sections, which successfully converted, and then rejoining them in Adobe.

tommyrot, that gives me an idea. I may try logging in under a different username and see if anything's running. I have rebooted, but no dice.

What happens when you try to use PDFMaker?

It attempts to export, "prints" the PDF, and then the process just hangs up, churning for infinity.

Is it something specific to a particular document?

No, other people can export the Excel file as a PDF successfully. I tried with a fresh Excel file, and that didn't work, either.

AHA. Logged in under a different username, found a failed print job, killed it and reset the default printer. Logged in under my regular username and the PDFMaker plug-in is working again.

Eat it, technology!

A video demonstration of software that lets you create a 3-D model of an object from a video of the object: [link]

Way-cool!

VideoTrace is a system for interactively generating realistic 3D models of objects from video—models that might be inserted into a video game, a simulation environment, or another video sequence. The user interacts with VideoTrace by tracing the shape of the object to be modelled over one or more frames of the video. By interpreting the sketch drawn by the user in light of 3D information obtained from computer vision techniques, a small number of simple 2D interactions can be used to generate a realistic 3D model. Each of the sketching operations in VideoTrace provides an intuitive and powerful means of modelling shape from video, and executes quickly enough to be used interactively. Immediate feedback allows the user to model rapidly those parts of the scene which are of interest and to the level of detail required. The combination of automated and manual reconstruction allows VideoTrace to model parts of the scene not visible, and to succeed in cases where purely automated approaches would fail.

Apparently it's not available to the public yet.

I just went through the peculiar hell of having my Ctrl key stick. I've installed my auxiliary backup keyboard, but is there any way to fix a membrane-based keyboard? I tried cleaning; taking the key out and putting it back; pushing the key many times; and elaborate swearing.

For ergonomic reasons, I prefer compact keyboards without the number pad on the right, because otherwise the angle of my hand to the mouse gives me RSI issues in my shoulder. All the ones I've tried have been at least moderately expensive and none of them has lasted very long.