I'm confused; where does bespoke development come into it?
My main point, albeit left implicit, was that MSO 2007 brought nothing compelling to the table for those of us already familiar with MSO 2003 and earlier (everyone on staff here), and actually impeded productivity for an extended period. The decision to go with MSO 2007 was made for reasons that have still not been fully elucidated, and the shift continues to cause problems (albeit fewer as time passes) when we exchange documents with other subsidiaries or the parent company, which continue to use MSO 2003.
In a nutshell, my point here is that MSO 2003 did the job. "Upgrading" to MSO 2007 brought a raft of issues that lessened productivity, and the only noticeable benefit I can see in my department is smaller file sizes.
But I am confused about where bespoke programming comes into the picture. I have no argument against off-the-shelf software; my problem is with mindless upgrading without any proper cost/benefit analysis that factors in time cost.
To add to that, in Word 2007, click the funky orb and open Word Options. Select Advanced on the left and scroll down to the Show document content section. Make sure Show text boundaries is checked. You might want to play with some of the other options listed here to see what you might have been missing.
If you're smart, then a new interface isn't a challenge. If you're focused, then a new interface won't interfere with your work. If you're experienced, then you'll know that even after 15 years you can find better ways to do things...
... and if your time is free, you won't mind relearning things you already knew how to do perfectly efficiently before, and you won't mind the hassles of updating legacy documents and templates, and you won't mind having to tweak styles in the new format to match your existing corpus in the older (formerly serviceable) format...
Time is money. Microsoft's UI decisions in MSO 2007 have cost me many a pretty penny that I will never see paid back to me, certainly not by Microsoft.
That's where MSO 2007/2010 really draws ire from the crowd who were familiar with MSO 2003 and earlier, and made extensive use of keyboard shortcuts to avoid having to ever use the mouse (a big plus if you're at the computer all day and would like to boost productivity and avoid RSI). The newer MSO versions have kept many of the old keyboard shortcuts for precisely this reason, but they haven't kept all of them, partially because some of the dialogs have been removed or consolidated.
I work extensively with and in Japanese as a translator, and some in Chinese and Korean as a language geek. OOo has yet to properly support simple out-of-the-box features like word and character counts for CJK text.
Rather that word/char counts are absolutely vital for the translation business (it's how we gauge time requirements and figure out our billing), this renders OOo a no-go from the start.
FWIW, IBM's Lotus Symphony, based on OOo v1.x, *does* properly implement word/char counts that break down the Asian (i.e. CJK) character versus Western (i.e. alphabetical) word counts.
For reference, this was reported as Issue 17964 way back in August 2003, with the CJK problems first mentioned (in this bug report, anyway) back in March 2004. While the OOo team did deign to add a Tools -> Word Count menu item (it had been in the File menu previously), there has been zero noticeable movement on the Asian text issue in all this time.
For as much promise as OOo holds, Microsoft couldn't possibly shoot the project in the feet any better than the management team to date already has.
If we're talking menu / dialog depth, try fixing the indentation on a bulleted style some time.:) Or tweaking a color in MSO 2007 to match what used to be the default color choices in 2003 or earlier (when trying to match the established house style).
That brings me to one of the many annoying inconsistencies with Word 2007 (might be fixed in 2010, don't have it so don't know) -- some functionality that's essentially identical, and was in identical or nearly identical dialogs in 2003 is now spread around in haphazard places in 2007. Bulleted/numbered versus outline numbered style indentation, for example -- the indentation for bulleted or plain numbered styles appears to be in the old Paragraph Format dialog, while outline numbered style indentation is defined from the Outline Numbering -> Customize dialog. The plain numbered and bulleted dialogs have been "simplified" to the point of being much less useful.
Meh. The biggest issue I've noted, purely anecdotally of course, is that those of us who were already competent with MSO versions 2003 and earlier find 2007 a royal PITA for all the apparently arbitrary changes, while new users seem to like the ribbon just fine.
I've yet to actually meet a new user of MS Word.
But then again my work is very document-intensive (in-house translation and documentation production), and none of my colleagues would be qualified for their work if they were not power users.
Does it feature the infamous Newton vs Leibnitz Calculus Slap Fight?
It's been a while since I read it, but I think I remember that being mentioned. Also, it includes a rough recipe for distilling white and/or red phosphorous from vats-worth of fermented pee -- whoohoo!
I think the crux of the issue is that, no matter if a stranger has a lot in common with you or no, they are by definition a stranger. A close friend, meanwhile, is someone you know -- you've got all kinds of information about them stored in your head, so whenever you meet them / think about them / see them, there's more to think about, and more that you're unconsciously recalling (probably a bit like RAM caching). With all that memory and emotional baggage, it's not surprising to me, at least, that people would be more prone to side with people they know but might disagree with, versus people they don't know but might agree with.
I'm reminded a bit of that old saying, "the devil you know"...
How long until... your boss becomes the thing of the future!
Egads! I hope that doesn't happen. I don't hold anything against the man, but that's precisely the point. Now, if I worked one department over, for that lovely 30-something woman, I wouldn't mind so much.:D
:) I think you might misunderstand me. I'm not trying to argue against ebook adoption -- I see their market growth and expect it to continue -- rather, I *am* trying to argue that ebooks will not completely supplant paper books (which seems to be what Negroponte is saying).
Typewriters and PCs have much the same constraints, really -- excluding manual units, both require power; both are used to produce documents; both are stationary (unless you bring in laptops, which just makes computers even more superior), etc. The use cases are very similar, except the PC does it all better. So typewriters are mostly gone, except for fringe cases.
Books vs ebooks though have a different comparison. It's much harder to break a paper book; the bookseller can't easily rescind a purchase, nor prevent reselling; paper books cannot be unnoticeably altered after printing; DRM doesn't get in the way; etc. etc. Again, I'm *not* saying this means ebooks will never take off -- but I *am* saying this likely means that paper books will persist, even as ebook sales grow, because they *each* have advantages that are not fully covered by the functionalities of the other.
Hopefully that makes my argument a bit more clear.:)
I hear you, but the examples you give have a notable difference from the paper book vs. ebook comparison. Looking at digital cameras vs. film cameras and word processors vs. typewriters, and also CDs vs. audiotape (and now digital downloads vs. CDs), the new technologies rendered their forebears effectively extinct by fully covering the older techs' use cases, while offering some compelling new feature.
Conventional photographic film is difficult in many ways -- you can't see the picture until long after it's been taken, you wind up with many pictures you don't really want but still have to pay for development, the film itself might go bad, etc. etc. Typewriters have their own flaws -- the keys jam, the paper gets crinkled, the lines are off or crooked, the ink smears, corrections are a hassle, etc. Audiotape too -- you get cracks and pops, the tapes can get eaten, they just plain wear out, you have to take the time to fast-forward or rewind to get to where you want, etc. The replacement technologies resolve these shortcomings -- and, importantly, their new shortcomings are less or different enough that the new tech can fully supersede the old.
Ebooks do offer new compelling features that improve on dead-tree technology, true enough. I think this explains why the ebook market is growing, and will likely continue to grow. But ebooks also entail a raft of issues that paper books don't have -- power, relative fragility, DRM, data corruption, etc. For this reason, I expect paper books will continue far into the future, persisting in ways that audiotape, typewriters, and photographic film have not.
That's entirely possible, but also not what I was refuting.
My point wasn't that eBooks won't grow; the market for them is definitely growing. My point is that paper books are not about to disappear, and probably never will, so long as there are readers and some means of making paper.
But then again, maybe Negroponte is not claiming that paper books will disappear. Maybe he's just being obtusely literal ("paper books are dead" = "dead-tree books"?), and we've all just missed the joke.
eBook vs paper books on the other side is different, same job, same requirements, really no fundamental difference.
I hear your points, but:
Water
Power
Breakage
Pets
Static electricity
Peanut butter
Five-year-olds
All of these (and many more) remain fundamental durability issues, and in all cases, dead-tree books come out on top (and with water, that could be taken quite literally). My argument is not that eBooks will never make it -- they already are making a market for themselves, and that market has lots of room to grow. My argument is instead that Negroponte is either a) speaking hyperbolically, or b) speaking via ventriloquism or via an interpreter, as he's clearly experiencing a rectal-cranial inversion.
Or maybe he's just being obtusely literal ("paper books are dead" = "dead-tree books"?), and we've all just missed his deadpan humor.
The best "burritos" I've had were in Monterey, CA, at the weekly farmers' market on Alvarado Street there. A local Indian restaurant (India's Clay Oven) always had a booth, with a big sign across the top: "When is a burrito not a burrito? When it's a naan burrito!" Mm, rogan josh, palak paneer, and basmati saffron rice all rolled up in a big piece of naan... Yummy.
And less gas than most any burrito autentico that I've had.:) Though beware the caca fuego if you get any of the super spicy curries!
It seems we're all missing the mark today, even ByOhTek -- his sarcasm suggests the opposite of what he's saying, which fits with your liquid, but doesn't jive with calling Negroponte's claims vaprous. And I'm enough off-the-ball today that my feeble attempts at humour are falling through, so I think I'll just drink my coffee now and try to do some actual work.
I'm sure this prediction will work out like many of his other predictions and ambitions. About as vaprous and fragrant as what comes out my ass after eating a nice large beany burrito.
You must eat a different kind of large beany burrito than I do, because the end result is usually much more liquid than vapor.
Indeed, and liquid is not vaprous.
BA: Baldric, do you know what irony is?
BR: Yeah, it's like goldy or bronzey, only it's made of iron.
I do apologize for piquing your frustration, but it bears noting the English is a muddy medium. Elsewhere in this thread, it became clear that there was some confusion as to quite what "insuring a car" specifically meant -- according to lgftsa, nomadic, AK Marc, and Firethorn, it sounds very much like, at least in some states, the liability insurance you describe -- I do however insure the other guy's car, plus his body, plus incidental property damage (like hitting somebody's fence) -- is attached to the vehicle(s) owned by the insured, which some people interpret as "insuring a car". I also recall reading somewhere (maybe AAA's insurance materials?) that auto liability policies in WA insure the vehicle owned by the insured person against liability by any driver.
Hence my question seeking clarity regarding your intended meaning. In any argument, it's generally more productive if everyone agrees what they're all arguing about.:)
Thank you for laying that out. Your post makes me realize I was interpreting the phrase "insure the car" to mean more damage insurance covering the value of the car, rather than liability insurance covering the possibility of an at-fault accident.
Yah, I belatedly realised I was partially conflating ideas here, and posted a separate question to commodore64_love directly.
To belabor the point however:), if the required insurance is liability coverage for a driver, then technically speaking the insurance is not on the car itself. WA, for instance, requires insurance for the driver, regardless of car ownership (link). But then again maybe I'm misunderstanding something here; I'm no insurance expert.
Be that as it may, I'm curious to see what commodore64_love has to say.
Small correction here. Most states allow you to get a license without any insurance at all.
What they don't allow you to do is register a vehicle without insurance.
Thanks, Firethorn. It's been a while, so clearly my memory's a bit rusty.
Digging around, it sounds like WA does not require liability insurance to get a license itself (link), but they do require either insurance or some guaranteed means of paying up to $60 K in liabilities by way of either a bond or certificate of deposit (link) before allowing someone to drive. I'm not sure how this is enforced; it would make more sense to require the insurance/bond/COD before giving someone a license, rather than after the fact, but far be it from me to understand bureaucracy.
Slashdot Mirror
Heh. #1, exactly, #2, not always an option... :(
Cheers,
I'm confused; where does bespoke development come into it?
My main point, albeit left implicit, was that MSO 2007 brought nothing compelling to the table for those of us already familiar with MSO 2003 and earlier (everyone on staff here), and actually impeded productivity for an extended period. The decision to go with MSO 2007 was made for reasons that have still not been fully elucidated, and the shift continues to cause problems (albeit fewer as time passes) when we exchange documents with other subsidiaries or the parent company, which continue to use MSO 2003.
In a nutshell, my point here is that MSO 2003 did the job. "Upgrading" to MSO 2007 brought a raft of issues that lessened productivity, and the only noticeable benefit I can see in my department is smaller file sizes.
But I am confused about where bespoke programming comes into the picture. I have no argument against off-the-shelf software; my problem is with mindless upgrading without any proper cost/benefit analysis that factors in time cost.
Cheers,
Ditto what Bert64 said here.
To add to that, in Word 2007, click the funky orb and open Word Options. Select Advanced on the left and scroll down to the Show document content section. Make sure Show text boundaries is checked. You might want to play with some of the other options listed here to see what you might have been missing.
HTH,
... and if your time is free, you won't mind relearning things you already knew how to do perfectly efficiently before, and you won't mind the hassles of updating legacy documents and templates, and you won't mind having to tweak styles in the new format to match your existing corpus in the older (formerly serviceable) format...
Time is money. Microsoft's UI decisions in MSO 2007 have cost me many a pretty penny that I will never see paid back to me, certainly not by Microsoft.
Another 2p in the pot.
Cheers,
That's where MSO 2007/2010 really draws ire from the crowd who were familiar with MSO 2003 and earlier, and made extensive use of keyboard shortcuts to avoid having to ever use the mouse (a big plus if you're at the computer all day and would like to boost productivity and avoid RSI). The newer MSO versions have kept many of the old keyboard shortcuts for precisely this reason, but they haven't kept all of them, partially because some of the dialogs have been removed or consolidated.
Cheers,
I work extensively with and in Japanese as a translator, and some in Chinese and Korean as a language geek. OOo has yet to properly support simple out-of-the-box features like word and character counts for CJK text.
Rather that word/char counts are absolutely vital for the translation business (it's how we gauge time requirements and figure out our billing), this renders OOo a no-go from the start.
FWIW, IBM's Lotus Symphony, based on OOo v1.x, *does* properly implement word/char counts that break down the Asian (i.e. CJK) character versus Western (i.e. alphabetical) word counts.
For reference, this was reported as Issue 17964 way back in August 2003, with the CJK problems first mentioned (in this bug report, anyway) back in March 2004. While the OOo team did deign to add a Tools -> Word Count menu item (it had been in the File menu previously), there has been zero noticeable movement on the Asian text issue in all this time.
For as much promise as OOo holds, Microsoft couldn't possibly shoot the project in the feet any better than the management team to date already has.
Cheers from a disaffected former OOo user,
If we're talking menu / dialog depth, try fixing the indentation on a bulleted style some time. :) Or tweaking a color in MSO 2007 to match what used to be the default color choices in 2003 or earlier (when trying to match the established house style).
That brings me to one of the many annoying inconsistencies with Word 2007 (might be fixed in 2010, don't have it so don't know) -- some functionality that's essentially identical, and was in identical or nearly identical dialogs in 2003 is now spread around in haphazard places in 2007. Bulleted/numbered versus outline numbered style indentation, for example -- the indentation for bulleted or plain numbered styles appears to be in the old Paragraph Format dialog, while outline numbered style indentation is defined from the Outline Numbering -> Customize dialog. The plain numbered and bulleted dialogs have been "simplified" to the point of being much less useful.
Meh. The biggest issue I've noted, purely anecdotally of course, is that those of us who were already competent with MSO versions 2003 and earlier find 2007 a royal PITA for all the apparently arbitrary changes, while new users seem to like the ribbon just fine.
I've yet to actually meet a new user of MS Word.
But then again my work is very document-intensive (in-house translation and documentation production), and none of my colleagues would be qualified for their work if they were not power users.
Cheers,
It's been a while since I read it, but I think I remember that being mentioned. Also, it includes a rough recipe for distilling white and/or red phosphorous from vats-worth of fermented pee -- whoohoo!
Cheers,
I think the crux of the issue is that, no matter if a stranger has a lot in common with you or no, they are by definition a stranger. A close friend, meanwhile, is someone you know -- you've got all kinds of information about them stored in your head, so whenever you meet them / think about them / see them, there's more to think about, and more that you're unconsciously recalling (probably a bit like RAM caching). With all that memory and emotional baggage, it's not surprising to me, at least, that people would be more prone to side with people they know but might disagree with, versus people they don't know but might agree with.
I'm reminded a bit of that old saying, "the devil you know"...
Cheers,
Egads! I hope that doesn't happen. I don't hold anything against the man, but that's precisely the point. Now, if I worked one department over, for that lovely 30-something woman, I wouldn't mind so much. :D
Cheers,
:) I think you might misunderstand me. I'm not trying to argue against ebook adoption -- I see their market growth and expect it to continue -- rather, I *am* trying to argue that ebooks will not completely supplant paper books (which seems to be what Negroponte is saying).
Typewriters and PCs have much the same constraints, really -- excluding manual units, both require power; both are used to produce documents; both are stationary (unless you bring in laptops, which just makes computers even more superior), etc. The use cases are very similar, except the PC does it all better. So typewriters are mostly gone, except for fringe cases.
Books vs ebooks though have a different comparison. It's much harder to break a paper book; the bookseller can't easily rescind a purchase, nor prevent reselling; paper books cannot be unnoticeably altered after printing; DRM doesn't get in the way; etc. etc. Again, I'm *not* saying this means ebooks will never take off -- but I *am* saying this likely means that paper books will persist, even as ebook sales grow, because they *each* have advantages that are not fully covered by the functionalities of the other.
Hopefully that makes my argument a bit more clear. :)
Cheers,
My brain hiccupped and I read that as (Odd && Just Plain) (Fucking Nuts), like some kind of bizarre sexual airline snack. Oofda.
Well, you see, your problem there is you're drinking bleeeechhhh. That would make anyone vomit.
Cheers,
I hear you, but the examples you give have a notable difference from the paper book vs. ebook comparison. Looking at digital cameras vs. film cameras and word processors vs. typewriters, and also CDs vs. audiotape (and now digital downloads vs. CDs), the new technologies rendered their forebears effectively extinct by fully covering the older techs' use cases, while offering some compelling new feature.
Conventional photographic film is difficult in many ways -- you can't see the picture until long after it's been taken, you wind up with many pictures you don't really want but still have to pay for development, the film itself might go bad, etc. etc. Typewriters have their own flaws -- the keys jam, the paper gets crinkled, the lines are off or crooked, the ink smears, corrections are a hassle, etc. Audiotape too -- you get cracks and pops, the tapes can get eaten, they just plain wear out, you have to take the time to fast-forward or rewind to get to where you want, etc. The replacement technologies resolve these shortcomings -- and, importantly, their new shortcomings are less or different enough that the new tech can fully supersede the old.
Ebooks do offer new compelling features that improve on dead-tree technology, true enough. I think this explains why the ebook market is growing, and will likely continue to grow. But ebooks also entail a raft of issues that paper books don't have -- power, relative fragility, DRM, data corruption, etc. For this reason, I expect paper books will continue far into the future, persisting in ways that audiotape, typewriters, and photographic film have not.
Cheers,
That's entirely possible, but also not what I was refuting.
My point wasn't that eBooks won't grow; the market for them is definitely growing. My point is that paper books are not about to disappear, and probably never will, so long as there are readers and some means of making paper.
But then again, maybe Negroponte is not claiming that paper books will disappear. Maybe he's just being obtusely literal ("paper books are dead" = "dead-tree books"?), and we've all just missed the joke.
Cheers,
I hear your points, but:
All of these (and many more) remain fundamental durability issues, and in all cases, dead-tree books come out on top (and with water, that could be taken quite literally). My argument is not that eBooks will never make it -- they already are making a market for themselves, and that market has lots of room to grow. My argument is instead that Negroponte is either a) speaking hyperbolically, or b) speaking via ventriloquism or via an interpreter, as he's clearly experiencing a rectal-cranial inversion.
Or maybe he's just being obtusely literal ("paper books are dead" = "dead-tree books"?), and we've all just missed his deadpan humor.
Cheers,
The best "burritos" I've had were in Monterey, CA, at the weekly farmers' market on Alvarado Street there. A local Indian restaurant (India's Clay Oven) always had a booth, with a big sign across the top: "When is a burrito not a burrito? When it's a naan burrito!" Mm, rogan josh, palak paneer, and basmati saffron rice all rolled up in a big piece of naan... Yummy.
And less gas than most any burrito autentico that I've had. :) Though beware the caca fuego if you get any of the super spicy curries!
Cheers,
I'm laughing at myself too, be sure of that. :)
It seems we're all missing the mark today, even ByOhTek -- his sarcasm suggests the opposite of what he's saying, which fits with your liquid, but doesn't jive with calling Negroponte's claims vaprous. And I'm enough off-the-ball today that my feeble attempts at humour are falling through, so I think I'll just drink my coffee now and try to do some actual work.
Cheers,
Or like radio, yeah, remember how TV killed radio? Or the VCR, remember how that killed the cinema?
Meh. Sure, the market for paper books might shrink back from its peak, but it's not disappearing, and certainly not overnight.
In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, What a maroon!
Cheers,
Indeed, and liquid is not vaprous.
Cheers,
I do apologize for piquing your frustration, but it bears noting the English is a muddy medium. Elsewhere in this thread, it became clear that there was some confusion as to quite what "insuring a car" specifically meant -- according to lgftsa, nomadic, AK Marc, and Firethorn, it sounds very much like, at least in some states, the liability insurance you describe -- I do however insure the other guy's car, plus his body, plus incidental property damage (like hitting somebody's fence) -- is attached to the vehicle(s) owned by the insured, which some people interpret as "insuring a car". I also recall reading somewhere (maybe AAA's insurance materials?) that auto liability policies in WA insure the vehicle owned by the insured person against liability by any driver.
Hence my question seeking clarity regarding your intended meaning. In any argument, it's generally more productive if everyone agrees what they're all arguing about. :)
Cheers,
Cheers, thanks!
Thank you for laying that out. Your post makes me realize I was interpreting the phrase "insure the car" to mean more damage insurance covering the value of the car, rather than liability insurance covering the possibility of an at-fault accident.
Cheers,
Yah, I belatedly realised I was partially conflating ideas here, and posted a separate question to commodore64_love directly.
To belabor the point however :), if the required insurance is liability coverage for a driver, then technically speaking the insurance is not on the car itself. WA, for instance, requires insurance for the driver, regardless of car ownership (link). But then again maybe I'm misunderstanding something here; I'm no insurance expert.
Be that as it may, I'm curious to see what commodore64_love has to say.
Cheers,
Thanks, Firethorn. It's been a while, so clearly my memory's a bit rusty.
Digging around, it sounds like WA does not require liability insurance to get a license itself (link), but they do require either insurance or some guaranteed means of paying up to $60 K in liabilities by way of either a bond or certificate of deposit (link) before allowing someone to drive. I'm not sure how this is enforced; it would make more sense to require the insurance/bond/COD before giving someone a license, rather than after the fact, but far be it from me to understand bureaucracy.
Cheers,