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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Wednesday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In computer news this week 02/20/2008 Non-productivity gains and other
slowdowns with my new computer ... I’ve
been talking about the new Dell computer I bought recently and comparing it
to my old one. Theoretically it’s 5 times faster overall according to
benchmarks, and on the one thing that was slowing me down – creating
movies and burning dvd’s – the productivity gain is almost real
time – my new computer does the job in about 1/5th of the
time – and – a big plus – I can use my computer for other
things at the same time. But there
are other areas where’s there’s no productivity gain. First of
all, it’s running Vista, which has been out over a year now and the
first major service pack from Microsoft has been released to fix the many
known bugs and incompatibility problems it had initially. So there’s a
learning curve for me to learn it, and it is different from Windows XP. Not
significantly in that it’s a major change from what I’m used to,
but there are many little differences that I have to learn and absorb and
store away, and hope that one day I just don’t run out of RAM
myself. And of course I want to
get deep down inside Vista and learn all the power user secrets, so
that’s going to take some of my time. When
Microsoft introduced Windows XP over Windows 98 – there was an
immediate cut off – you couldn’t buy a new computer without
Windows XP being on it after its release. But Vista has been so plagued with
problems and incompatibilities – all the major vendors are still
offering both operating systems when you buy a new computer. The only
incompatibility I ran into was a warning message that my copy of Quickbooks
2006 might not run properly, but it did. So the
next productivity slowdown is learning the new Ribbon user interface in
Microsoft Office 2007. Since
Microsoft office products have been around – they’ve all had the
familiar menu interface with the menu selections at the top of the screen –
File – Edit – View – Insert etc.
And
herein lies a tale, maybe an urban legend or a
Microsoft legend – about how this familiar interface was changed for
office 2007. As I heard it, there
was a lot of controversy over changing the loved and familiar interface, but
a team of young programmers met with Bill Gates and somehow convinced him
that he was of the old fogy generation, and that the new generation _ pepsi
– genX – whatever – didn’t want their father’s
user interface, and convinced Bill – now in his 50’s – that
the world ( over half the global population is now under 30 ) wanted a new
user interface – the Ribbon - and Bill, being a very smart guy
– acquiesced.
So the
first time an old fogy – specifically me – goes into Word 2007
– I sat there dumfounded as to how to even open a file, and at the top
of the screen on the Ribbon I see more commands than I ever knew existed in
Word, and there are new Menu selections I can click on – and then I see
even more ribbon menus with even more commands than I ever knew existed in
Word – and I still can’t open a file .... Next week
– other areas of my new computer where there’s no productivity
gain For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2007 MTA Micro Technology
Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html PO Box 31522 Spokane, Wa 99223-1522 (509)624-7230 |
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