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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 //2010 Microsoft’s
already introduced Office 2010 and I and many users are still learning and
having frustrations upgrading to Office 2007 – or lookin’ like a fool
with unopened files on your computer ....
The greybeards at Microsoft are now gone. Of the 2 founders, Paul Allen left active management many years ago, and Bill Gates effectively retired in 2008. The question now is – are the lunatics running the asylum? I read an article in the paper last week saying that now Apple is the world’s largest technology company. If you’ve used Microsoft products like word for many years – or since they first came out as I have – each new version of Office has included the same look and feel, but supposedly more features and functionality .... so that when you installed a new version of Office you could do everything you did in previous versions. New version of the program – but everything works the same, and you can explore the new features at your leisure, if you want to. But Office 2007 was a major departure from this smooth transition. The major cosmetic change – which went against all rules of “If it ain’t broken don’t fix it “ was a new look or interface, referred to as The Ribbon interface.
as opposed to the traditional time tested and user loved File – Edit - View interface:
An industry war story behind this new Ribbon interface was that the younger programmers and designers at Microsoft challenged Bill Gates about the traditional Office interface, claiming that the younger generation of computer users wanted something new and exciting. And somehow Bill – who was on his way out and didn’t maybe want to make the argument that he had virtually started the PC industry by himself and probably knew more about what people wanted than these young whippersnappers – acquiesced to their rants, and let Office 2007 be released with the new look and feel of The Ribbon interface. The embarrassing result - to all previous users of Office - was that whatever new Office 2007 program you ran, it opened up in this new strange ribbon interface, and you sat there staring dumbly at it not knowing how to do the most basic task – open one of your own files which you know is on your computer, so you end up
sitting there – as the American
Idol Rap Video went – lookin’ like a fool with your files on
your computer, and you can’t even open them. and it will be only until you discover by reading the upgrade manual – or someone shows you - that you have to now click on the new Office Button to open a file, and you then have to click on it again to save your file or to email it too. And you will have to know this “click on the Office button trick” in Publisher, Excel, Access and other Office 2007 programs in order to do any work. And it gets even worse for some people using other Office 2007 programs, and I’ll tell you about that next week. |
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For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2009 MTA Micro
Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html PO Box 31522 Spokane, Wa 99223-1522 (509)624-7230 |
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