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Goodbye Cruel Word
theodp writes "The problem with Microsoft Word, writes the NYT's Virginia Heffernan, is that 'I always feel as if I'm taking an essay test.' Seeking to break free of the tyranny of Microsoft Word, Heffernan takes a look at Scrivener and the oh-so-retro WriteRoom, which she and others feel jibe better with the way writers think. 'The new writing programs encourage a writerly restart. You may even relearn the green-lighted alphabet, adjust your preference for long or short sentences, opt afresh for action over description. Renewal becomes heady: in WriteRoom's gloom is man's power to create something from nothing, to wrest form from formlessness. Let's just say it: It's biblical. And come on, ye writers, do you want to be a little Word drip writing 603 words in Palatino with regulation margins? Or do you want to be a Creator?'"
I've known for years that "Goodbye" is a cruel word. That's why I use friendlier terms like "Cheerio", "Adios", "Ciao", and my personal favourite, "Fuck off ya sodding prick".
Is there any way to filter out NYT articles on slashdot?
People may not like the new interface but there's no question that Office 2007 and Vista have brought many changes to the interface. Vista is not as big a change from XP as 2007 is from 2003, but the changes are numerous and real and, I think, useful.
All of the anti-Vista and anti-2007 rhetoric frequently strikes me as just anti-MS drivel. Granted there are people like you who don't care for the 2007 interface but most of the criticism is rather empty and shallow and often from people who have done little more than spend 5 minutes trying out the products.
For myself, I love both Vista and 2007. I've just finished about a month of exclusively using OS X Leopard and while there are things about Leopard I really like, I was very glad to return to my PC. One reason I was glad to return is Office 2007. Pages and Word for Mac are, IMO, just not as good as Office 2007 (I'll play with Word 2008 for Mac when I get my copy but I suspect my feeling will remain the same). 2007 does indeed look nice and for me it also works nice, giving me easy access to everything I need and making it easy to reconfigure many actions.
Microsoft gets a lot of stuff wrong, but they also get a lot of stuff right. The problem with the anti-MS crowd is they refuse to acknowledge when things are done well, pretending that nothing from MS is done well.
I love my sig.