Ben J

I have a client's Word document to edit. It contains lots of pictures, which are evidently stored on their servers instead of in the file. As I page through the file, it pauses every time an image is encountered, with the message "Contacting the server for information - press ESC to cancel", then hangs until it times out after 20-30 seconds, and this delay makes it quite unusable.

Neither setting Word to display images only as placeholders, nor putting the document view into Draft mode, solves the problem. It still tries to "Contact the server" with the consequent delay.

While trying to solve this, I discovered (by opening the docx in a Zip programme and searching through the various XML files inside) that the picture references are of the following 3 forms:

<Relationship Id="xyz123" Type="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2... Target="file:///\\Server\Images\xxx.png" TargetMode="External"/>

<Relationship Id="xyz124" Type="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2... Target="file:///S:\Images\xxx.png" TargetMode="External"/>

<Relationship Id="xyz125" Type="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2... Target="file:///\\10.2.3.4\Images\xxx.png" TargetMode="External"/>

Editing the HOSTS file and appending "127.0.0.1 Server" seems to improve the problem with the first type. Using "SUBST S: C:\" from a command prompt may improve the problem with the second type; the results are not yet conclusive. However, I'm not sure how to approach the third type. Some ideas I've had so far:

- Append "127.0.0.1 10.2.3.4" to the HOSTS file (but I think it's only used with names, right?)

- Use something like port forwarding in the router (but it's a simple Linksys WAG200G and I think it can only forward ports to IPs, not outgoing IP requests to IPs?)

- Use a firewall (ZoneAlarm is installed) to set up an custom rule that all outgoing requests to 10.2.3.4 are redirected to 127.0.0.1 (but I think all the expert rules offer is 'blocking' and a quick trial indicates that this doesn't solve the delay)

- Extract the whole docx to XML, edit the XML manually to replace all of the server references to something like C:\1\, C:\2\ and C:\3\, recompile into docx, edit the file then reverse the procedure just before sending the file back to the client (rather long winded)

Incidentally, "http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2... does not appear to be a valid URL, although a comment at http://www.docx4java.org/forums/pptx-java-f14/miss... implies that this is not a problem because it's just a URI and not intended to be accessed online. I'm not 100% sure though.

Does anyone have any further suggestions for how I could try to resolve this situation?

Some friends want to learn both the Bach-Gounod and Schubert versions of Ave Maria, but just reading the words and listening to a recording doesn't seem to work well for them, so I said "there's bound to be a video of each one on YouTube or similar, where the Latin words (gratia plena etc.) are shown as synchronized subtitles or closed captions while the music plays". Unfortunately I can't find one, although I must have viewed at least 50 versions. Can anyone else do better?

I'm looking at a web page with a Flash video, and a clickable area - when I click it, it loads another video. The first video can be saved using various apps (e.g. DownloadHelper), but the second one can't as I can't tell what the URL is. Hovering above the button shows nothing (unlike an HTML link), the address bar in the browser doesn't change, view Page Source or Page Info both show nothing of interest, right-clicking also gives nothing other than the normal Flash 'share your camera?' type of settings. Any ideas?

We have a network currently set up as follows:

Internet -- Belkin router -- PC, laptop

......................|

..............Netgear router -- XBox (several)

The Netgear router is sometimes used to do offline play between the various XBox consoles, and is sometimes plugged into different net connections elsewhere, so is configured as a DHCP server (192.168.0.1).

The Belkin router is also configured as a DHCP server (192.68.2.1).

When the Netgear router is plugged into the Belkin, the XBox machines manage to access the net (XBoxlive?) but the PCs and laptops connected to the Belkin lose all Internet access. I imagine this is because the Netgear somehow takes precedence over the Belkin as a DHCP server (because of its physical location? or because 192.168.0.1 is a lower number than 192.168.2.1?) and it could probably be solved by switching off the DHCP server inside the Netgear router, but that would be awkward (the teenage owner would resent having to set & reset frequently) so I wonder if there's any other way to resolve it. For example, could the Belkin be setup to limit the Netgear's net access to only XBoxlive, or to enable/disable only certain protocols, or could subnet masks etc. somehow be used to ensure that DHCP works OK with both routers attached as servers? Could it work perhaps to switch the Belkin to 192.168.0.1 and the Netgear to 192.168.2.1 or something along those lines? Any other ideas for troubleshooting? (Lots of questions I know!)