Most people, I expect, never toggle any of the options. This is why sensible defaults are so important, but nobody really seems to care.
Yeah. Just because you don't like the defaults, doesn't mean they aren't sensible.
What it really comes down to for me is that Microsoft spends millions of dollars on usability studies and observing actual users in their actual environments. OpenOffice doesn't.
To be fair, Word was first released in 1983 and that's what *every* application did back then. In 1983, there was no such thing as "let's make this compatible with other systems."
The only real criticism is that they stuck with it so long instead of switching to a more flexible format earlier. But, then again, where was the need?
Ok; then why don't you design and code the new text-entry paradigm that's so much better it'll completely blow applications like Word and OpenOffice out of the water? Or are you basically arguing that all documents should be composed using something like Pagemaker or InDesign?
The simple fact is that when millions of people use your application for task X, it's well-suited for task X almost by definition. Spreadsheets weren't originally designed for making lists; but when Microsoft added list-creation features to Excel, its usage took off and destroyed the competition.
While I agree with you in principle, they must have some method of interviewing users and finding out what the most requested features are... if the bug tracker isn't it, what is?
The grandparent isn't saying that it's impossible to make the built environment easy, he says they don't make it easy. Very important distinction. There are dozens of things they could do to make it nearly trivial for a new developer to jump in and start writing code; you mentioned virtual machine images, another reply to you mentioned documenting the process. But open source projects don't.
Bullshit. Apple gave up around when Quicktime 3.0 Player came out, and had that hideous metal-brushed appearance to it with completely non-standard widgets. They were pretty good all though the Classic OS period, but since OS X came out, Apple hasn't even *written down* most of the mysterious hazy interface guidelines they're using. For example, find documentation that explains when to use the brushed metal theme compared to the Aqua theme... it's not there. Apple uses it for purposes so completely random, it's utterly inscrutable.
Sadly, Microsoft took that crown from Apple around the time Windows XP SP2 came out. Windows has been more consistent, interface-wise, than OS X for a very long time.
The new UI is ugly and putting a different set of larger buttons in my face improves usability by about 0%.
Except the Ribbon uses fewer pixels than the default toolbars did before. You can measure it if you don't believe me. So complaining that it's wasting pixels is a non-starter.
Also, you can set it to auto-collapse so you never have to see it, if you like. You know, like you could hide the toolbars in previous versions... do you ever spend the 5 seconds it takes to configure software products you use?
This is psychology 101. People *always* complain about change, regardless of whether the change is for the better or for the worse. You can't take that as serious criticism.
You're never going to convince anybody on Slashdot. A site where the vast majority of posters: 1) Hate Microsoft, so they'll insult it no matter how good it is 2) Have absolutely zero respect for usability in software products 3) Are perfectly willing and able to insult Office 2007's interface without even trying it once
It's a hopeless cause. Rational people know Office 2007's interface is better, that's all that matters.
In fact other than worthless bloat what does OO.o lack period? Microsoft Office finished in 98 or so, and just adds bloat.
We should have some kind of Slashdot law that says you can't talk about office suites unless you actually use office suites.
OpenOffice doesn't even have all the features Word had in version 98. For example, an outlining tool that doesn't suck ass. Or split windows of various types-- side-by-side view, split-scrollbars, etc. Hell, OpenOffice can't even get Word Count correct. And another poster mentioned Office 2007's new UI, which is a huge improvement.
The problem is that you have to weigh the features, since Microsoft seems to have an odd idea about what counts as "business" applications and what as "home."
For example, Vista's excellent Backup utility is only packed with the Business versions, even though most businesses already have a backup scheme and it's home users who need this feature much more. That one's always mystified me.
In my particular case, I wanted both Media Center (also excellent) and Remote Desktop client&server... the only way you can get both of these features is by buying Ultimate, Home Premium comes with Media Center, and Business comes with Remote Desktop, but only Ultimate has both. Ugh.
Fortunately, I live in an area where every second person is a MS employee, and the employee discount is awesome.:)
My non-germane observation: since this article is on Slashdot, it's almost certainly bullshit and will never happen, so don't get your panties in a bunch over it.
If we define notebooks as small laptops with processors in the Atom class,
And if we define Fords as Elephants, the level of elephant crap in this country must be incredible!
Microsoft has a very big problem with there with Vista and even with XP I would say.
Nothing new here; MS has acknowledged this, and promised to address it in Windows 7. The Netbook market took them (and many, many other people) completely by surprise.
It is not only the fact that Vista is too slow in that hardware. It is also that it gets slower with use.
Vista doesn't get slower with use; you're thinking of XP. That's actually fixed in Vista, or at least vastly improved. (The computer I'm using has had the same OS install since Vista came out, and it performs just like it did new.)
I am curious about what this will mean for Linux on the desktop as there is also the cost issue. We have a clearly inferior (in that hardware) operating system that costs money against a free and Free operating system.
And yet Netbooks with Windows still outsell those with Linux. Gasp.
Added to this, this is a feature BOTH major OS makers have been promising for decades and still haven't delivered on: the ability to have the DPI of your desktop completely independent of the DPI of your monitor. There's no reason she shouldn't be able to set the desktop DPI to (the equivalent of) 640x480 and see really, really smooth fonts on the monitor at its highest DPI.
OS X was going to add this, several versions go by with no sign. Then Vista was going to add it, and they've had a service pack and still no sign of it. I'm sure it's a planned feature for Windows 7 and OS X Kittycat, and I'll sure it'll be canceled before release.
(Microsoft, though, is actually a lot closer-- at least you can change font DPI independent of the rest of the system DPI! Too bad so many third-party software makers don't know about that, and don't write their programs to compensate for it.)
(On the other hand, IIRC Apple had some prototype of this hidden-away in a system library in OS X 10.4, and most of what was missing for it was the configuration UI.)
He wasted years of his life (and lots of money) messing about with XP.
Did he "waste" more "years of his life" using XP than he would have doing all his inventory, payroll, and accounting manually? Is that a direct quote from him, or something you made-up?
I mean, you come across as, "OH NOES! He was using a computer that does everything every other computer does, but is slightly more difficult to use! WASTED LIFE!!!" It's ridiculous.
Everybody on Slashdot needs a big dose of perspective. Computer OSes don't really matter much. The reason your dad is doing better now isn't because he switched OSes, it's because you're there to help him out when he has problems. OS X is Dumbo's feather in this little equation; if you had helped him set up his Windows network, I'm sure it would be just as reliable. (Presuming you know enough about Windows.)
Yes, because you can't possibly do that in MSN Mess-- oh wait yes you can, and have been able to longer than iChat's even existed.
I'm all for pointing out genuine reasons to prefer one over the other, but try not to point out features that *both* have, it's a little counter-productive.
We, like every organization, have idiots working for us.
Did you make any attempt to contact the users who shut down their computer and ask *why* they did that? Or did you not bother because they're obviously "idiots" and they couldn't possibly tell you anything useful? Be careful, you might actually learn something new!
80% of any job, including IT work, is psychology. If you don't know how to get other people to do what you want, you'll have a very hard time at work and life-in-general. In this case, updating the computers is really your job, and you have the tools in place to do it all remotely without any user interaction at all, so that's what you should have done, as other commenters have pointed out.
No; Amazon has all the same music in DRM-free formats. Why is iTunes more popular than Amazon's music store? It's easier to use. Amazon does their best, but the very fact that they're using a browser instead of a custom app means you need to download a new piece of software (a download manager) and install it before you can use the rest of the store. That's too much for a lot of people.
I haven't had time to try to figure out if there's a way to deauthorize computers that no longer exist. If you know of a way, by all means, I'm all ears, as it would probably make my life a little simpler.
Well, their support website lets you deauthorize all 5 once per year. (Surely you didn't burn through 5 activations in a single year?) But I guess you didn't have enough time to Google it: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1420
Seriously, you were too lazy to even LOOK? I have very little sympathy.
It's just markup - not much different to what you do with a slashdot post:)
Yeah, well I suck at making those too.
Wordperfect is vastly superior for that point since it shows codes - if MS Word also did that it would have saved me and many others a vast amount of time (paticularly finding where MS word thinks an image belongs and puttin it where I think it belongs).
Everyone complains about this, but I find it perfectly predictable where Word puts images when you insert them. Maybe it depends on which word processor you got "used" to before switching to Word? (In my case, ClarisWorks/AppleWorks.) In any case, that doesn't matter for this particular subject, since placing images won't (normally) be done by the author.
Of course Wordperfect is not around any more for a variety of other reasons.
but mainly you end up spending far too much time mucking about with the formatting of the document instead of the actual content.
As opposed to... what? LaTeX? Which uses an entire language to describe layout?
I find most people who complain about Word screwing up their formatting are:
* Not turning off options in Options that they don't like. Word only does what you tell it to, you can turn off options until it makes Notepad look featureful if you like.
* Not using "styles" properly, and instead ad-hocing styles. If you use the built-in "styles" support, you'll never have to muck about with any particular style more than once.
I'd give up Word and use something else if that something else had an Outline mode half as good as Word's... but nothing does, so I use Word.
Slashdot Mirror
Most people, I expect, never toggle any of the options. This is why sensible defaults are so important, but nobody really seems to care.
Yeah. Just because you don't like the defaults, doesn't mean they aren't sensible.
What it really comes down to for me is that Microsoft spends millions of dollars on usability studies and observing actual users in their actual environments. OpenOffice doesn't.
To be fair, Word was first released in 1983 and that's what *every* application did back then. In 1983, there was no such thing as "let's make this compatible with other systems."
The only real criticism is that they stuck with it so long instead of switching to a more flexible format earlier. But, then again, where was the need?
uhm, there is no spreadsheet in iwork.
Do you not consider Numbers a spreadsheet application?
It's pretty weird, UI-wise, but when you dig into it a bit it's definitely a spreadsheet and has all the common spreadsheet features.
Ok; then why don't you design and code the new text-entry paradigm that's so much better it'll completely blow applications like Word and OpenOffice out of the water? Or are you basically arguing that all documents should be composed using something like Pagemaker or InDesign?
The simple fact is that when millions of people use your application for task X, it's well-suited for task X almost by definition. Spreadsheets weren't originally designed for making lists; but when Microsoft added list-creation features to Excel, its usage took off and destroyed the competition.
While I agree with you in principle, they must have some method of interviewing users and finding out what the most requested features are... if the bug tracker isn't it, what is?
The grandparent isn't saying that it's impossible to make the built environment easy, he says they don't make it easy. Very important distinction. There are dozens of things they could do to make it nearly trivial for a new developer to jump in and start writing code; you mentioned virtual machine images, another reply to you mentioned documenting the process. But open source projects don't.
Bullshit. Apple gave up around when Quicktime 3.0 Player came out, and had that hideous metal-brushed appearance to it with completely non-standard widgets. They were pretty good all though the Classic OS period, but since OS X came out, Apple hasn't even *written down* most of the mysterious hazy interface guidelines they're using. For example, find documentation that explains when to use the brushed metal theme compared to the Aqua theme... it's not there. Apple uses it for purposes so completely random, it's utterly inscrutable.
Sadly, Microsoft took that crown from Apple around the time Windows XP SP2 came out. Windows has been more consistent, interface-wise, than OS X for a very long time.
The new UI is ugly and putting a different set of larger buttons in my face improves usability by about 0%.
Except the Ribbon uses fewer pixels than the default toolbars did before. You can measure it if you don't believe me. So complaining that it's wasting pixels is a non-starter.
Also, you can set it to auto-collapse so you never have to see it, if you like. You know, like you could hide the toolbars in previous versions... do you ever spend the 5 seconds it takes to configure software products you use?
This is psychology 101. People *always* complain about change, regardless of whether the change is for the better or for the worse. You can't take that as serious criticism.
Just give up.
You're never going to convince anybody on Slashdot. A site where the vast majority of posters:
1) Hate Microsoft, so they'll insult it no matter how good it is
2) Have absolutely zero respect for usability in software products
3) Are perfectly willing and able to insult Office 2007's interface without even trying it once
It's a hopeless cause. Rational people know Office 2007's interface is better, that's all that matters.
In fact other than worthless bloat what does OO.o lack period? Microsoft Office finished in 98 or so, and just adds bloat.
We should have some kind of Slashdot law that says you can't talk about office suites unless you actually use office suites.
OpenOffice doesn't even have all the features Word had in version 98. For example, an outlining tool that doesn't suck ass. Or split windows of various types-- side-by-side view, split-scrollbars, etc. Hell, OpenOffice can't even get Word Count correct. And another poster mentioned Office 2007's new UI, which is a huge improvement.
The problem is that you have to weigh the features, since Microsoft seems to have an odd idea about what counts as "business" applications and what as "home."
For example, Vista's excellent Backup utility is only packed with the Business versions, even though most businesses already have a backup scheme and it's home users who need this feature much more. That one's always mystified me.
In my particular case, I wanted both Media Center (also excellent) and Remote Desktop client&server... the only way you can get both of these features is by buying Ultimate, Home Premium comes with Media Center, and Business comes with Remote Desktop, but only Ultimate has both. Ugh.
Fortunately, I live in an area where every second person is a MS employee, and the employee discount is awesome. :)
It was your use of the word "moxie."
My non-germane observation: since this article is on Slashdot, it's almost certainly bullshit and will never happen, so don't get your panties in a bunch over it.
If we define notebooks as small laptops with processors in the Atom class,
And if we define Fords as Elephants, the level of elephant crap in this country must be incredible!
Microsoft has a very big problem with there with Vista and even with XP I would say.
Nothing new here; MS has acknowledged this, and promised to address it in Windows 7. The Netbook market took them (and many, many other people) completely by surprise.
It is not only the fact that Vista is too slow in that hardware. It is also that it gets slower with use.
Vista doesn't get slower with use; you're thinking of XP. That's actually fixed in Vista, or at least vastly improved. (The computer I'm using has had the same OS install since Vista came out, and it performs just like it did new.)
I am curious about what this will mean for Linux on the desktop as there is also the cost issue. We have a clearly inferior (in that hardware) operating system that costs money against a free and Free operating system.
And yet Netbooks with Windows still outsell those with Linux. Gasp.
Its a pity that this intel netbook crowd didn't learn more lessons from Psion about how to create workable small scale computers.
Like... what?
Humor us Psion-ignorant people.
Cool people call them "Liliputers" anyway. http://www.liliputing.com/
That guy's just a nutter.
Here's the entire process for getting my home Vista system ready:
1) Install Vista
2) Install the free anti-virus package I get from work
3) Install Office
I haven't even had to hit a driver download (yet, I'm sure it'll come up eventually.)
Added to this, this is a feature BOTH major OS makers have been promising for decades and still haven't delivered on: the ability to have the DPI of your desktop completely independent of the DPI of your monitor. There's no reason she shouldn't be able to set the desktop DPI to (the equivalent of) 640x480 and see really, really smooth fonts on the monitor at its highest DPI.
OS X was going to add this, several versions go by with no sign. Then Vista was going to add it, and they've had a service pack and still no sign of it. I'm sure it's a planned feature for Windows 7 and OS X Kittycat, and I'll sure it'll be canceled before release.
(Microsoft, though, is actually a lot closer-- at least you can change font DPI independent of the rest of the system DPI! Too bad so many third-party software makers don't know about that, and don't write their programs to compensate for it.)
(On the other hand, IIRC Apple had some prototype of this hidden-away in a system library in OS X 10.4, and most of what was missing for it was the configuration UI.)
Geez, can the hyperbole.
He wasted years of his life (and lots of money) messing about with XP.
Did he "waste" more "years of his life" using XP than he would have doing all his inventory, payroll, and accounting manually? Is that a direct quote from him, or something you made-up?
I mean, you come across as, "OH NOES! He was using a computer that does everything every other computer does, but is slightly more difficult to use! WASTED LIFE!!!" It's ridiculous.
Everybody on Slashdot needs a big dose of perspective. Computer OSes don't really matter much. The reason your dad is doing better now isn't because he switched OSes, it's because you're there to help him out when he has problems. OS X is Dumbo's feather in this little equation; if you had helped him set up his Windows network, I'm sure it would be just as reliable. (Presuming you know enough about Windows.)
Yes, because you can't possibly do that in MSN Mess-- oh wait yes you can, and have been able to longer than iChat's even existed.
I'm all for pointing out genuine reasons to prefer one over the other, but try not to point out features that *both* have, it's a little counter-productive.
We, like every organization, have idiots working for us.
Did you make any attempt to contact the users who shut down their computer and ask *why* they did that? Or did you not bother because they're obviously "idiots" and they couldn't possibly tell you anything useful? Be careful, you might actually learn something new!
80% of any job, including IT work, is psychology. If you don't know how to get other people to do what you want, you'll have a very hard time at work and life-in-general. In this case, updating the computers is really your job, and you have the tools in place to do it all remotely without any user interaction at all, so that's what you should have done, as other commenters have pointed out.
In short, talk to your users.
No; Amazon has all the same music in DRM-free formats. Why is iTunes more popular than Amazon's music store? It's easier to use. Amazon does their best, but the very fact that they're using a browser instead of a custom app means you need to download a new piece of software (a download manager) and install it before you can use the rest of the store. That's too much for a lot of people.
I haven't had time to try to figure out if there's a way to deauthorize computers that no longer exist. If you know of a way, by all means, I'm all ears, as it would probably make my life a little simpler.
Well, their support website lets you deauthorize all 5 once per year. (Surely you didn't burn through 5 activations in a single year?) But I guess you didn't have enough time to Google it:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1420
Seriously, you were too lazy to even LOOK? I have very little sympathy.
It's just markup - not much different to what you do with a slashdot post :)
Yeah, well I suck at making those too.
Wordperfect is vastly superior for that point since it shows codes - if MS Word also did that it would have saved me and many others a vast amount of time (paticularly finding where MS word thinks an image belongs and puttin it where I think it belongs).
Everyone complains about this, but I find it perfectly predictable where Word puts images when you insert them. Maybe it depends on which word processor you got "used" to before switching to Word? (In my case, ClarisWorks/AppleWorks.) In any case, that doesn't matter for this particular subject, since placing images won't (normally) be done by the author.
Of course Wordperfect is not around any more for a variety of other reasons.
Wrong: http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Product/1207676528492#tabview=tab0
You can buy it right now if you want; they even have a download link. Unless by "around" you mean "fewer people buy it", in which case you're correct.
The biggest reason to use MS Word is macros but that locks you to a single version unless you do a lot of tweaking and swapping around of libraries.
No, the biggest reason is its excellent Outlining mode, which no other word processor has even attempted to compete with.
but mainly you end up spending far too much time mucking about with the formatting of the document instead of the actual content.
As opposed to... what? LaTeX? Which uses an entire language to describe layout?
I find most people who complain about Word screwing up their formatting are:
* Not turning off options in Options that they don't like. Word only does what you tell it to, you can turn off options until it makes Notepad look featureful if you like.
* Not using "styles" properly, and instead ad-hocing styles. If you use the built-in "styles" support, you'll never have to muck about with any particular style more than once.
I'd give up Word and use something else if that something else had an Outline mode half as good as Word's... but nothing does, so I use Word.