If you add spark-plugs to an engine, and now the engine suddenly is able to spring to life... does that make the spark-plugs fuel? What about fuses?
Sorry, I'm not buying what you're selling. It was never referred to as fuel. It's obviously something necessary for the operation of the craft, yes, but that tiny amount could hardly be considered fuel for that craft, and there was never any implication or insinuation that it was FUEL. Merely a required component.
I was listening to someone a few cubes over bitch and moan about 2007 over and over again.
Hey, I was sympathetic to a point, as I went through the same pain. So I ended up walking over to help out.
I pointed out that if you knew key combinations, those hadn't changed for the most part. So just keep typing if you're using to keyboarding it.
And if you want to learn to keyboard it? Just hit ALT. Everything on the ribbon can be accessed from the keyboard that way, and it's easy to learn.
I then pointed out the few things that were the most used and most difficult to find: where the options were, for example. Or how to convert text to a table.
Beyond that, once you learn where it is, there are usually a few 'ah-hah' moments, and you re-wrap your brain around the slightly different way of thinking about it, and its' really not such a pain in the ass any more.
I still find some things annoying, how like some ribbon commands are hidden if you're not positioned on a certain object (sometimes I'm just browsing for how to do something), and the header-footer stuff, as well as field codes, are all far more arcane in this UI than previously. But for probably 80% of the population that uses Word, including all new users, it's a vast improvement over the old (once you get past the learning curve for those who AREN'T new).
At least that's my take on it, and my experience. There were a few times I wanted to put my first through the screen while struggling to re-learn some things, but it's pretty clear to me now how and why they changed things, and its' really not nearly as bad as the nay-sayers claim.
Of course, for some, old habits die harder than for others, and I definitely have empathy there, but MS really was in between a rock and a hard place with the UI, and it was a bold and intersting step. Not super-successful, as your experience illustrates, but then if they'd just kept the old stale UI and kept trying to load new shit into it... it would have been worse for new users. So... trade-off.
Because Skype doesn't have the simple 'push to talk' that Ventrilo does.
Ventrilo works really well for us, and nothign else we've tried... from IM clients that allow voice, to Skype, has come even close to being dead-simple and easy to use, and yet fully flexible for our needs (with various "meeting rooms" as well as the common 'bullpen' for our team, and everyone just a single push-to-talk away, without keeping a line open at all times, having to dial or connect to someone, etc.)
Sure it is "non-polluting" in that it doesn't generate tons of carbon emissions directly. But it requires fossil fuels to mine and refine the uranium ore, and uranium is a limited resource, just like oil. There's also the issue of what to do with and where to put the waste that is produced.
I'm all for building new nuclear power plants to help meet demand without significantlly increasing greenhouse gasses or air pollution, but there are some basic facts to face regarding how much nuclear power will really help us... starting with the fact that any new construction started today won't actually produce any usable energy for a decade.
There are new designs that not only are far more safe and far more efficient than current plants, but some that can even use the spent fuel from other reactors as fuel. We should definitely build these things. But the issues around transporting the fuel and spent fuel, dealing with waste, and dealing with the sources of the fuel (which reside largely outside this country, so doesn't count as domsestic production) all mean that nuclear power is no panacea.
And yet, oddly according to you, I upgraded to Vista two months after its release, and had no driver troubles or issues.
It wasn't nearly as wide-spread as you imagine. There were a few companies with drivers that were widely used that didn't step up to the plate. Put the blame where it belongs.
I only made the statement to rebut the assertion that Vista wasn't "stable". The notion that Vista isn't stable is ridiculous, and I was just making that point very clearly.
What's sad is that people are constantly bashing the OS based on ignorance and myth. There are ligitimate things to complain about re: Vista, but 'stability' isn't one of them.
The drivers aren't written by Microsoft and aren't shipped with the OS, so blaming Microsoft and Vista because some 3rd party wrote a crap driver is just stupidity.
I also never suggested that other people's problems didn't happen, just that they're blaming the wrong thing. And I'm correct on that.
So I'm not sure what your problem is.
Vists is perfectly stable, providing you have sufficient and stable hardware (i.e. enough memory, and no failing memory), and the correct drivers. That would certainly cover the vast, vast majority of people.
I work at a company where every developer moved to Vista two years ago (to help ensure our product ran fine on it, for starters). I've never seen a crash or heard of a crash from anyone.
I think your friends are using really bad or buggy drivers, or have really marginal hardware. It's proably something other than Windows that is crashing, because Vista is rock-solid stable for all I can see, far more so than XP ever was. About the only thing that makes it crash are really buggy drivers, or really bad (failing) hardware.
I see and hear people blaming Vista a lot of things that have nothing to do with Vista... just recently I heard someone bitching that they hated Vista because they couldn't print. I took a look, and it turned out to be the printer driver, not Vista at all. After insalling the correct driver, everything worked fine.
I think Vista is getting a lot of completely undeserved crap.
I use Outlook 2007 every day all day, and have never experienced the memory problems you have (and I typically have 7000+ emails in my inbox). I don't LOVE outlook, mind you. I hated it with a passion up until 2007, but I feel 2007 is the first version that hasn't sucked so bad I hated it every day. It's still a pain in the ass to figure out how to configure it the way you want (options are spread out all over and the UI is unintuitive in many ways), but it's not the horror you're making it out to be.
And while Word 2007 was frustrating at first, trying to find things, the fact is your keyboard muscle memory is still mostly valid (same key presses), and the ribbon UI is useful for for more simple and direct things (and is still fully keyboard accessible).
The ribbon just takes opening your mind to it a bit. It's no more difficult to assign keystrokes than before (not sure what you're talking about there) and you can easily put frequently used buttons into the fast access bar at the top.
Vista isnt' nearly as bad as you're making it out to be. Especially since SP1 and all the drivers have had time to be written and stabalized.
The fact is that Vista is just a better OS than XP. It's more secure by far. It's easier to use. It has better tools and utilities for administering, as well as using.
Vista is perfectly stable, and any insinuation to the contrary is incorrect.
I use Vista on several machines, and almost never have to reboot, and never crash. Uptime is 24/7.
Since SP1, Vista has been remarkably stable. I do development, and even when software crashes, the OS stays up and running.
I find Vista more stable than XP.
Vista got a horrible reputation out of the gate (and it was pretty well deserved), but since SP1, and as long as you run on sufficient hardware with mature drivers, it's an OS I like significantly better than XP. Sure, it took me some time to get used to the New UI (just as it took me a while to get used to XP after Windows 2000), but right now, any remaining slams against Vista are mostly lazy and uninformed.
Given the way the Military operates, it takes probably years to certify a new software acquisition. They've obviously gone through that work with Vista, and are satisfied enough to roll it out. It's likely they'll begin evaluating Win7 soon after it is released, and will likely upgrade to that in a couple of years or so.
and on top of that you're using keyboard shortcuts because a mouse slows you down - well, forget the ribbon...
I don't understand this comment. Keyboard shortcuts are still available (many haven't changed), and are fully customizable (orb menu, options, customize). You can also put frequently used commands in the Quick Access Toolbar for easy mouse access. There are very few functions that require you to lift your hands from the keyboard, in fact.
And if you're not sure of a keyboard short cut (and don't want to go into the customization screen to look it up or to create your own), just hit the ALT key. All the key presses light up in the ribbon and show you exactly what you need to press to get where you want to go. You can memorize those, or learn some of the faster short-cuts that are available, or you can create your own.
In short: this isn't even remotly a reason to hate the ribbon.
Keyboard commands (and muscle memory) are still available... most old keyboard short-cuts still work. Want to learn the keyboard short cuts? Easy, just press Alt, and the ribbon lights up with all the keypresses that will gain you access to various ribbon tabs and commands.
Additionally you can easily customize keyboard shortcuts and commands to serve your whims.
No, you cannot customize (as in re-arrange) the ribbon itself; however you CAN add frequently used functions to the "quick access toolbar" at the top.
The ribbon works for a great many users, in particular, in making much functionality much more easily dicoverable than before. As for switching menus, I share your perception that this is somehow slower, but I'm beginning to think it's mostly "perception", as really, switching menus and going after items and options in sub-menus, then clicking through dialogs, to other dialogs burried within behind even more buttons was never really that quick either. I think on average it evens out, but it seems slower on the ribbon for some reason. I'd be interested in a study about why that is.
The rest is just an issue of learning curve. Yeah, it was frustrating at first trying to figure out where the hell the options went, or how to convert text into a table, or to work with headers and footers and field codes. But once learned, the ribbon is actually a breeze, and between it and several of the other new UI enhancements, I find working with Word 2007 (my main office app) actually less frustrating than 2003. This is, of course, after getting over that initial learning curve, but that really only took a couple of weeks. There are still a few frustrations I have, but the new ones are essentially balanced out by the lack of some of the older ones I had with 2003 and before.
On the whole, taking all users as a group (new users, casual users, basic users, as well as advanced users and power users), I think the ribbon update is a definite win. Individual users might have issues, but on the whole, it's a better system than the one it replaces.
I honestly didn't notice a slow-down in Office 2007 (hell, I run it on my Vista laptop with no perceived performance issues). What hardware are you running on? In particular, how much memory do you have? Boosting memory from 1GB to 2GB would definitely be a big bang for the buck, if that's an issue.
In addition to being able to customize keyboard commands (as the other comment above suggests), you can also add custom icons to the "Quick Access Toolbar" up in the upper left (title-bar area next to the orb). Commands you use frequently that you want to mouse to can be placed there.
Again... specious argument. Or rather, "quibbling".
I have to imagine most of the people bitching about the ribbon and keyboards have never actually tried it.
Hit the Alt key in Office 2007, and letters appear next to each tab that correspond to the tab that will be selected when you type that Alt-Key combination. Once on the tab, letters will appear next to each UI element.
Basically, you can keyboard your way through Office 2007 apps without ever clicking if you want, and the majority of the key combinations you remember haven't changed, so your muscle memory isn't thrown out either.
The simple fact is: The Ribbon is an improvement over the old system. It solves many problems for casual, new, and infrequent users, while providing only a minimal learning curve for die-hard and power-users.
Mostly people just like to bitch about change. They also like to bitch about kids on their lawn.
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An enabler, or catalyst is not fuel.
If you add spark-plugs to an engine, and now the engine suddenly is able to spring to life... does that make the spark-plugs fuel? What about fuses?
Sorry, I'm not buying what you're selling. It was never referred to as fuel. It's obviously something necessary for the operation of the craft, yes, but that tiny amount could hardly be considered fuel for that craft, and there was never any implication or insinuation that it was FUEL. Merely a required component.
Why do you (and everyone else it seems) keep referring to it as fuel?
Never once in the movie was it called 'fuel' or even insinuated that it was 'fuel'.
It was refered to as FLUID. In fact, it's pretty clear it wasn't fuel.
I'd describe it as "The Fly meets Enemy Mine meets V meets Blackhawk Down"
I was listening to someone a few cubes over bitch and moan about 2007 over and over again.
Hey, I was sympathetic to a point, as I went through the same pain. So I ended up walking over to help out.
I pointed out that if you knew key combinations, those hadn't changed for the most part. So just keep typing if you're using to keyboarding it.
And if you want to learn to keyboard it? Just hit ALT. Everything on the ribbon can be accessed from the keyboard that way, and it's easy to learn.
I then pointed out the few things that were the most used and most difficult to find: where the options were, for example. Or how to convert text to a table.
Beyond that, once you learn where it is, there are usually a few 'ah-hah' moments, and you re-wrap your brain around the slightly different way of thinking about it, and its' really not such a pain in the ass any more.
I still find some things annoying, how like some ribbon commands are hidden if you're not positioned on a certain object (sometimes I'm just browsing for how to do something), and the header-footer stuff, as well as field codes, are all far more arcane in this UI than previously. But for probably 80% of the population that uses Word, including all new users, it's a vast improvement over the old (once you get past the learning curve for those who AREN'T new).
At least that's my take on it, and my experience. There were a few times I wanted to put my first through the screen while struggling to re-learn some things, but it's pretty clear to me now how and why they changed things, and its' really not nearly as bad as the nay-sayers claim.
Of course, for some, old habits die harder than for others, and I definitely have empathy there, but MS really was in between a rock and a hard place with the UI, and it was a bold and intersting step. Not super-successful, as your experience illustrates, but then if they'd just kept the old stale UI and kept trying to load new shit into it... it would have been worse for new users. So... trade-off.
Because Skype doesn't have the simple 'push to talk' that Ventrilo does.
Ventrilo works really well for us, and nothign else we've tried... from IM clients that allow voice, to Skype, has come even close to being dead-simple and easy to use, and yet fully flexible for our needs (with various "meeting rooms" as well as the common 'bullpen' for our team, and everyone just a single push-to-talk away, without keeping a line open at all times, having to dial or connect to someone, etc.)
Etherpad for real-time text file collaboration
Yuugu for sharing desktops
Ventrilo for voice communication
Whatever source control solution you wish (TFS, Subversion, Perforce) for non-real-time collaboration with text documents (programs)
Yahoo IM or the chat/IM client of your choice for casual low-bandwith and non-time-critical conversations and sharing of information, links, etc
Email for everything else
Nuclear power is a stop-gap solution.
Sure it is "non-polluting" in that it doesn't generate tons of carbon emissions directly. But it requires fossil fuels to mine and refine the uranium ore, and uranium is a limited resource, just like oil. There's also the issue of what to do with and where to put the waste that is produced.
I'm all for building new nuclear power plants to help meet demand without significantlly increasing greenhouse gasses or air pollution, but there are some basic facts to face regarding how much nuclear power will really help us... starting with the fact that any new construction started today won't actually produce any usable energy for a decade.
There are new designs that not only are far more safe and far more efficient than current plants, but some that can even use the spent fuel from other reactors as fuel. We should definitely build these things. But the issues around transporting the fuel and spent fuel, dealing with waste, and dealing with the sources of the fuel (which reside largely outside this country, so doesn't count as domsestic production) all mean that nuclear power is no panacea.
It really is meaningless.
If you mean it will cost one tenth as much, then say so.
I don't even know what "ten times less" means. Ten times less than WHAT?
So basically you don't want to be in a car powered by these things, if there's an accident?
Actually, a majority of the population supports decriminalization of marijuana.
And it's not only popular, it's a really good idea in virtually every imaginable way.
It's such a smart thing to do, in fact, that there's no way it'll ever get done.
And yet, oddly according to you, I upgraded to Vista two months after its release, and had no driver troubles or issues.
It wasn't nearly as wide-spread as you imagine. There were a few companies with drivers that were widely used that didn't step up to the plate. Put the blame where it belongs.
"Rebooting means your system is unstable"
Even by that ridiculous standard, Vista is more 'stable' than XP.
I only made the statement to rebut the assertion that Vista wasn't "stable". The notion that Vista isn't stable is ridiculous, and I was just making that point very clearly.
What's sad is that people are constantly bashing the OS based on ignorance and myth. There are ligitimate things to complain about re: Vista, but 'stability' isn't one of them.
No, sorry.
The drivers aren't written by Microsoft and aren't shipped with the OS, so blaming Microsoft and Vista because some 3rd party wrote a crap driver is just stupidity.
I also never suggested that other people's problems didn't happen, just that they're blaming the wrong thing. And I'm correct on that.
So I'm not sure what your problem is.
Vists is perfectly stable, providing you have sufficient and stable hardware (i.e. enough memory, and no failing memory), and the correct drivers. That would certainly cover the vast, vast majority of people.
I stand by my post as correct.
I work at a company where every developer moved to Vista two years ago (to help ensure our product ran fine on it, for starters). I've never seen a crash or heard of a crash from anyone.
I think your friends are using really bad or buggy drivers, or have really marginal hardware. It's proably something other than Windows that is crashing, because Vista is rock-solid stable for all I can see, far more so than XP ever was. About the only thing that makes it crash are really buggy drivers, or really bad (failing) hardware.
I see and hear people blaming Vista a lot of things that have nothing to do with Vista... just recently I heard someone bitching that they hated Vista because they couldn't print. I took a look, and it turned out to be the printer driver, not Vista at all. After insalling the correct driver, everything worked fine.
I think Vista is getting a lot of completely undeserved crap.
I've been using Vista and Office 2007 for over a year, and I like it just fine. Better than XP/2003 in fact.
I use Outlook 2007 every day all day, and have never experienced the memory problems you have (and I typically have 7000+ emails in my inbox). I don't LOVE outlook, mind you. I hated it with a passion up until 2007, but I feel 2007 is the first version that hasn't sucked so bad I hated it every day. It's still a pain in the ass to figure out how to configure it the way you want (options are spread out all over and the UI is unintuitive in many ways), but it's not the horror you're making it out to be.
And while Word 2007 was frustrating at first, trying to find things, the fact is your keyboard muscle memory is still mostly valid (same key presses), and the ribbon UI is useful for for more simple and direct things (and is still fully keyboard accessible).
The ribbon just takes opening your mind to it a bit. It's no more difficult to assign keystrokes than before (not sure what you're talking about there) and you can easily put frequently used buttons into the fast access bar at the top.
Vista isnt' nearly as bad as you're making it out to be. Especially since SP1 and all the drivers have had time to be written and stabalized.
The fact is that Vista is just a better OS than XP. It's more secure by far. It's easier to use. It has better tools and utilities for administering, as well as using.
Vista is a solid step up from XP now.
Vista is perfectly stable, and any insinuation to the contrary is incorrect.
I use Vista on several machines, and almost never have to reboot, and never crash. Uptime is 24/7.
Since SP1, Vista has been remarkably stable. I do development, and even when software crashes, the OS stays up and running.
I find Vista more stable than XP.
Vista got a horrible reputation out of the gate (and it was pretty well deserved), but since SP1, and as long as you run on sufficient hardware with mature drivers, it's an OS I like significantly better than XP. Sure, it took me some time to get used to the New UI (just as it took me a while to get used to XP after Windows 2000), but right now, any remaining slams against Vista are mostly lazy and uninformed.
Given the way the Military operates, it takes probably years to certify a new software acquisition. They've obviously gone through that work with Vista, and are satisfied enough to roll it out. It's likely they'll begin evaluating Win7 soon after it is released, and will likely upgrade to that in a couple of years or so.
and on top of that you're using keyboard shortcuts because a mouse slows you down - well, forget the ribbon...
I don't understand this comment. Keyboard shortcuts are still available (many haven't changed), and are fully customizable (orb menu, options, customize). You can also put frequently used commands in the Quick Access Toolbar for easy mouse access. There are very few functions that require you to lift your hands from the keyboard, in fact.
And if you're not sure of a keyboard short cut (and don't want to go into the customization screen to look it up or to create your own), just hit the ALT key. All the key presses light up in the ribbon and show you exactly what you need to press to get where you want to go. You can memorize those, or learn some of the faster short-cuts that are available, or you can create your own.
In short: this isn't even remotly a reason to hate the ribbon.
Keyboard commands (and muscle memory) are still available... most old keyboard short-cuts still work. Want to learn the keyboard short cuts? Easy, just press Alt, and the ribbon lights up with all the keypresses that will gain you access to various ribbon tabs and commands.
Additionally you can easily customize keyboard shortcuts and commands to serve your whims.
No, you cannot customize (as in re-arrange) the ribbon itself; however you CAN add frequently used functions to the "quick access toolbar" at the top.
The ribbon works for a great many users, in particular, in making much functionality much more easily dicoverable than before. As for switching menus, I share your perception that this is somehow slower, but I'm beginning to think it's mostly "perception", as really, switching menus and going after items and options in sub-menus, then clicking through dialogs, to other dialogs burried within behind even more buttons was never really that quick either. I think on average it evens out, but it seems slower on the ribbon for some reason. I'd be interested in a study about why that is.
The rest is just an issue of learning curve. Yeah, it was frustrating at first trying to figure out where the hell the options went, or how to convert text into a table, or to work with headers and footers and field codes. But once learned, the ribbon is actually a breeze, and between it and several of the other new UI enhancements, I find working with Word 2007 (my main office app) actually less frustrating than 2003. This is, of course, after getting over that initial learning curve, but that really only took a couple of weeks. There are still a few frustrations I have, but the new ones are essentially balanced out by the lack of some of the older ones I had with 2003 and before.
On the whole, taking all users as a group (new users, casual users, basic users, as well as advanced users and power users), I think the ribbon update is a definite win. Individual users might have issues, but on the whole, it's a better system than the one it replaces.
I honestly didn't notice a slow-down in Office 2007 (hell, I run it on my Vista laptop with no perceived performance issues). What hardware are you running on? In particular, how much memory do you have? Boosting memory from 1GB to 2GB would definitely be a big bang for the buck, if that's an issue.
In addition to being able to customize keyboard commands (as the other comment above suggests), you can also add custom icons to the "Quick Access Toolbar" up in the upper left (title-bar area next to the orb). Commands you use frequently that you want to mouse to can be placed there.
Again... specious argument. Or rather, "quibbling".
I have to imagine most of the people bitching about the ribbon and keyboards have never actually tried it.
Hit the Alt key in Office 2007, and letters appear next to each tab that correspond to the tab that will be selected when you type that Alt-Key combination. Once on the tab, letters will appear next to each UI element.
Basically, you can keyboard your way through Office 2007 apps without ever clicking if you want, and the majority of the key combinations you remember haven't changed, so your muscle memory isn't thrown out either.
The simple fact is: The Ribbon is an improvement over the old system. It solves many problems for casual, new, and infrequent users, while providing only a minimal learning curve for die-hard and power-users.
Mostly people just like to bitch about change. They also like to bitch about kids on their lawn.
Most of the same keyboard combindations work in the new Office versions with the ribbon.
This is a specious argument.