I am too lazy to catalog all of the design and usability offenses by this POS software that I just paid for, but seriously, I’d like to imagine what conversations the developers had when planning out the most soul-crushing aspects of this particular bowel movement.
You know, where they discussed why they need to make all of the toolbars (even the menu bar) hideable/showable at user preference (which is fine) but have the really obtrusive rarely used “elements gallery” toolbar constantly in your goddamned face in an easily accidentally clicked on position. “Oh, let’s not ever, ever hide that,” some douchebag said with a big grin, “because even though users who love the goddamned thing will rarely use it more than once a document, we just have to have it there because it’ll be so hilariously stupid to do that, and we’re MICROSOFT. What are they going to do? Use Open Office? Ha ha ha ha.”
Don’t even get me started on these goddamned “toolboxes.” I’m just waiting for a fucking paper clip to come and harass me, and then I’m putting my ass-kicking boots on and booking a plane trip to Seattle.
I figger if I said I was booking a flight to Redmond some weisenheimer would scold me because they don’t have an airport in Redmond. You’d fly into Seattle.
MS Office 2008 for Macintosh? WTF? I thought Apple users were supposed to be using MS Loft 2008. It is like MS Office, but it looks prettier, does less, and costs more.
So do you need some particular feature that Open Office doesn’t have, or are you going with MicroSoft for reasons of compatibility with people using Office 2007? I like Open Office, especially the fact that I didn’t have to pay for it, but I can sympathize with people who are stuck with MicroSoft. I have to use it at work. I really hate the fact that I can’t find things in the menus anymore.
You know it’s too bad that Apple doesn’t create their own office suite that’s compatible with Microsoft Office. It seems that they’ve pretty much just ignored their user community’s need for a serious office application and just pipe them over to Microsoft. I have a MacBook Pro (with OSX 10.5.6) and I have a Dell Precision notebook (Windows Vista). Guess which one I do more work on, including some light Photoshop work? Not the Mac. In fact, the Mac’s been relegated to living room Internet surfing, because frankly I think the OS blows a bit and most of the applications you can get are pretty shitty. I’ve had the Mac for about 2 years now and I’m not really getting the hype.
If only Apple could get serious about application development, they might get some marketshare in the workplace. Instead, I think they’re actually losing with share they had with the introduction of the iPhone – which ironically enough doesn’t integrate well with Outlook (and when I say “doesn’t integrate well” I mean “not at all”).
I wasn’t impressed by Open Office when I tried it. I have heard good things about iWork, people who use it are loath to switch over, but for me MS Office is about the same cost (it’s subsidized at the U where I work) and I’m “used to it” (i.e., WAS used to it). Anyway, I don’t want to worry about compatibility.
Office 2007 is no slice of heaven either. Why should Windows users be the only one cursing the Office development team? I’ve got both, and I haven’t really decided which I hate more. Both have well and truly pissed me off several times.
Either way, it makes me want to rummage through the garage and find my old Word 2.0 floppies.
I don’t know Office 2008, and i use PC computers. But we had Office 2007 “pushed” at work and WHAT A HORRIBLE PILE OF SHIT. I imagine 2008 is just a Mac version of the same PILE OF SHIT.
That pretty much sums up why I use Office on my mac, too. But damn. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to PCs because every time I open it up, it’s a fresh reminder of why I hate dealing with Microsoft products. It’s like with women having multiple kids - after a while, the memory of the pain fades, and I might be willing to try a PC again, but I don’t get the chance, because every day or two I get a taste of a contraction.
No, you weren’t whooshed. I had no idea that this existed.
This all good and fine, for the individual user. Try managing this for 2000 users. BlackBerry offers BlackBerry Enterprise Server which integrates directly with Microsoft Exchange. AFAIK, Apple doesn’t have anything like this, which makes administration – on a large scale anyway – virtually impossible. When I said, “Outlook,” I really meant Exchange.
There might be many things about your expensive computer that would be easy to do, if you took the time to learn more about it. I say the same thing to many people when I help them with their computers, regardless of operating system (Windows or Macintosh OS X).
If you see it written down step by step in detail, it might look complicated, but as far as configuration goes, the instructions look pretty simple to me. I haven’t compared with a Blackberry, but I imagine that even with a Blackberry you have to configure the phone in some way - otherwise how would it know which Exchange server it would need to synchronize with?
The article says that, by following the instructions, you can get your iPhone to synchronize contacts, e-mail and calendar - isn’t that “Exchange” integration?
I should state for the record that I’ve never had a smartphone so maybe there’s something obvious that I’m missing.
That’s the part that drive me nuts. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to come up with a new file format which is totally, 100% incompatible with all previous versions of Word (not to mention third party word processors)? What was wrong with the .doc format? .docx is a “improvement” no one wanted or needed!
And why change the menu toolbars? The old configuration was fine! More than fine - everyone was familiar with it and comfortable with it. You shouldn’t have to relearn the basics of typing a letter every time the software is upgraded, for Christ’s sake!
Newsflash to Microsoft: word processing software is a mature technology at this point. Your users don’t need or want a bazillion new bells and whistles; they just want software that will work properly with whatever operating system they’re currently using, and which will share documents seamlessly across multiple platforms. Deliver THAT to your users, and can the so-called “improvements,” and future generations of Word might not elicit Pit threads (which you don’t care about, I know) and show improved sales (which you damned well OUGHT to care about).
