> Yes - you can insert pictures and there are different text alignments and 
> you can fiddle with the margins and insert headers and footers and a few 
> other bits that nobody uses. But basically, it's WordPad with bells on.

You really have no idea how Word is used in the real world, do you?

A few things you didn't mention which are used *extensively* by most 
companies I've dealt with:

- Document templates
- Reviewing/markup
- Styles
- Spell check
- Page breaks
- Tables
- Picture editing (brightness/contrast)
- Table-of-contents
- Cross-referencing
- Forms and document protection
- Drawings/diagrams

And things which are used less often, but certainly not only by uber geeks:

- General VB scripting
- Mail merge
- Columns
- Address label creation
- Thesaurus
- Automatic emailing of form data
- Simple formulae in form boxes

What I hate most is people who don't know how to use Word, and treat it like 
WordPad.  There is so much power there I don't understand why people don't 
take just a small amount of training for something they probably use almost 
every day.

Post a reply to this message

>>> You don't play many video games, then.
>>
>> Yeah - and? ;-)
> 
> Nothing :)  As long as you realize that the limits of your experiences 
> are not the same as the limits of others'.

I did say that *I* had never heard of it. ;-)

> In other words, *all* the features that are in Word are there because 
> there are a significant number of people who use them.

Really?

And M$ somehow "knows" what features people do and don't use?

I would imagine most of the features are there because it makes the 
feature list look longer - and that makes it "better", doesn't it?

>> But what if you only actually want to run Word?
> 
> Then you should run Linux on an EeePC, or an embedded system.  You could 
> even buy a 15 or 20 year old Word Processor - basically a laptop that 
> only runs Notepad :)

...or just not bother with Vista?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:

> You really have no idea how Word is used in the real world, do you?

You're right. My place of work isn't the real world at all.

> A few things you didn't mention which are used *extensively* by most 
> companies I've dealt with:
> 
> - Document templates
> - Reviewing/markup
> - Styles
> - Spell check
> - Page breaks
> - Tables
> - Picture editing (brightness/contrast)
> - Table-of-contents
> - Cross-referencing
> - Forms and document protection
> - Drawings/diagrams

And how many of these features aren't in Word 2.0?

(I don't recall it having templates or styles, and it likely didn't have 
picture editing, but I'm pretty sure everything else on that list was 
there.)

As an aside, at work we try to avoid document templates to the maximum 
extent possible because they cause Word to crash. I'm also 98% sure none 
of the Word power users know about styles.

> - General VB scripting
> - Mail merge
> - Columns
> - Address label creation
> - Thesaurus
> - Automatic emailing of form data
> - Simple formulae in form boxes

Now at least we come to some things Word 2.0 didn't have - specifically 
I don't recall it having VB. Or address label creation. Or forms. I'd be 
really surprised if anybody out there actually uses VB though.

> What I hate most is people who don't know how to use Word, and treat it 
> like WordPad.  There is so much power there I don't understand why 
> people don't take just a small amount of training for something they 
> probably use almost every day.

Because M$ tells us that "Word is easy". Why would you need training for 
something that is "easy"?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> a écrit dans le message de news: 
487efeda$1@news.povray.org...
> And M$ somehow "knows" what features people do and don't use?

They have this:
http://www.microsoft.com/usability/studies.mspx

Also, when they don't get something right or when something's missing they 
have gazillions of users who tell them a piece of their mind, like this guy:
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/141821.asp

G.

Post a reply to this message

> You're right. My place of work isn't the real world at all.

Exactly, you seem to base your assumptions of how the whole world uses Word 
based on how the people in your company use it.  You regularly present lots 
of evidence about how screwed up IT is in your company, so don't you think 
that there might actually be other companies out there that are a tad more 
organised in this sort of thing?

> As an aside, at work we try to avoid document templates to the maximum 
> extent possible because they cause Word to crash.

See, it's comments like that that really show a completely screwed up IT 
mentality.  Does it not occur to you that something else might have been 
causing the crashes, given that it is likely millions of people actually do 
use templates daily without Word crashing?  How on Earth do you keep 
consistent looking documents without using templates?  Don't you think it 
would be headline news on every IT website if nobody could use document 
templates without Word crashing?  Don't you think MS would release a fix 
straight away if there was such a problem?

> I'm also 98% sure none of the Word power users know about styles.

WTF?  You really need to send your "Word power users" on a beginners course 
for Word.  And be concerned that they are happy to manually change the font 
styles for every heading/caption/sub-heading and never ever consider that 
there might be a faster way to do it.  What else are they doing in their job 
so stupidly that they could be doing much more effectively?

> Now at least we come to some things Word 2.0 didn't have - specifically I 
> don't recall it having VB. Or address label creation. Or forms. I'd be 
> really surprised if anybody out there actually uses VB though.

Googling "VBA in Word" gives 5460000 results, seems like a lot of people 
have something to say about it.

> Because M$ tells us that "Word is easy". Why would you need training for 
> something that is "easy"?

I think it says more about the mentality of the user if they don't seek to 
find more efficient ways to work.  Not just in using software, but in other 
things too.

Even though we did two MS Office courses at work ages ago, I still quite 
regularly think to myself "oh there *must* be a quicker way to do this, 
surely someone else has needed to do this before" - and 99% of the time, 
sure enough, there is functionality built-in to Word/Excel to do this. 
That's what is the difference between Office 2008 and Word 2.0 / WordPad / 
whatever.

Post a reply to this message

>> In other words, *all* the features that are in Word are there because 
>> there are a significant number of people who use them.
>
> Really?
>
> And M$ somehow "knows" what features people do and don't use?

Of course they do, I can't believe you would think otherwise.  THey don't 
just sit there in a closed off building, and out pops a new version of 
Office every few years.

Post a reply to this message

>>> In other words, *all* the features that are in Word are there because 
>>> there are a significant number of people who use them.
>>
>> Really?
>>
>> And M$ somehow "knows" what features people do and don't use?
> 
> Of course they do, I can't believe you would think otherwise.  THey 
> don't just sit there in a closed off building, and out pops a new 
> version of Office every few years.

Are you suggesting that somebody somewhere *wanted* The Paperclip??

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
>> You're right. My place of work isn't the real world at all.
> 
> Exactly, you seem to base your assumptions of how the whole world uses 
> Word based on how the people in your company use it.  You regularly 
> present lots of evidence about how screwed up IT is in your company, so 
> don't you think that there might actually be other companies out there 
> that are a tad more organised in this sort of thing?

The people who work in IT are pretty screwed up. The regular users at 
the UK site are just normal people trying to get their job done. In 
particular, we have two report writers who spend practically their 
entire way working with M$ Word and do almost nothing else.

>> As an aside, at work we try to avoid document templates to the maximum 
>> extent possible because they cause Word to crash.
> 
> See, it's comments like that that really show a completely screwed up IT 
> mentality.

> Does it not occur to you that something else might have been 
> causing the crashes, given that it is likely millions of people actually 
> do use templates daily without Word crashing?

I'm still waiting to see hard evidence that "millions of people actually 
do use templates without Word crashing".

Word's tendancy to crash at the slightest provocation is the stuff of 
legend, to the point that nobody even bothers to *try* to fix it any 
more. We just placidly accept that if you use Word it *will* crash, and 
there's essentially nothing you can do about it.

> How on Earth do you keep 
> consistent looking documents without using templates?

Hint: It's very slow and tedious.

(Actually, I didn't say we *don't* use templates. I said we *avoid* 
using them. Some customers demand that we use the templates they supply. 
 From what I understand, some of these templates work OK, and others 
cause endless crashes, much to the frustration of people trying to get 
their job done...)

> Don't you think 
> it would be headline news on every IT website if nobody could use 
> document templates without Word crashing?  Don't you think MS would 
> release a fix straight away if there was such a problem?

I thought it *was* headline news that Word is cripplingly unreliable?

Again, Word has a selection of "well known" bugs that have never 
actually been fixed. For example

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/PageXofY.htm
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Numbering/WordsNumberingExplained.htm

Just two articles explaining ways to cope with Word brokenness. (And 
written by MVPs, no less.)

>> I'm also 98% sure none of the Word power users know about styles.
> 
> WTF?  You really need to send your "Word power users" on a beginners 
> course for Word.  And be concerned that they are happy to manually 
> change the font styles for every heading/caption/sub-heading and never 
> ever consider that there might be a faster way to do it.  What else are 
> they doing in their job so stupidly that they could be doing much more 
> effectively?

Spending many, many hours correcting formatting glitches *is* 
practically their entire job description.

[That's slightly unfair - they also made corrections, add new 
information, rearrange sections, etc. Since they use Word every single 
day, for hours on end, they know way more about Word than I do. For 
example, they apparently comprehend how Track Changes is actually 
supposed to work. But I've never seen them attempt to use styles...]

>> I'd be really surprised if anybody out there actually uses VB though.
> 
> Googling "VBA in Word" gives 5460000 results, seems like a lot of people 
> have something to say about it.

On second thoughts, allow me to clarify: I'd be really surprised if 
anybody who's job is to "use Word" actually sits down to *write* VB. 
There probably are a number of users who *use* VB that somebody else has 
written for them...

>> Because M$ tells us that "Word is easy". Why would you need training 
>> for something that is "easy"?
> 
> I think it says more about the mentality of the user if they don't seek 
> to find more efficient ways to work.  Not just in using software, but in 
> other things too.

Seems to me they're all just resigned to the fact that Word is horribly 
awkward to use? *shrugs*

But you have to admit, when M$ spends millions telling us how "easy" 
their software is to use and how it will "effortlessly transform the way 
you work", it does seem counterintuitive to think that you would need to 
expend effort to "learn" it. (Personally I'd suggest that M$ is vastly 
exaggerating just how "easy" their software is...)

> Even though we did two MS Office courses at work ages ago, I still quite 
> regularly think to myself "oh there *must* be a quicker way to do this, 
> surely someone else has needed to do this before" - and 99% of the time, 
> sure enough, there is functionality built-in to Word/Excel to do this. 
> That's what is the difference between Office 2008 and Word 2.0 / WordPad 
> / whatever.

I, personally, don't spent enough time using Word for this to crop up.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Are you suggesting that somebody somewhere *wanted* The Paperclip??

A woman in my office uses it.  That's 1 out of 8 people, or 12.5%.  When 
you have millions of users, that kind of percentage translates to a 
*lot* of users.

...Chambers

Post a reply to this message

> I'm still waiting to see hard evidence that "millions of people actually 
> do use templates without Word crashing".

Well most of the people in my company worldwide use our standard corporate 
templates, as did everyone at the previous company I worked for.  Plus 
everything I've seen coming out of companies like Nokia, Sony Ericson, BMW, 
Ford, Daimler is in standard format - I *highly* doubt they have not used 
templates to create these documents.  That's probably well over a million 
people using templates in just the area of industry I work in.  Do you 
really think all these people would use templates if they were always prone 
to crashing?

> Spending many, many hours correcting formatting glitches *is* practically 
> their entire job description.

So surely they should have been on numerous training courses to get the 
absolute maximum out of Word as efficiently as possible?  But they don't 
know how to use styles?  I still can't believe that.

> But I've never seen them attempt to use styles...]

Why don't you teach them?  It will save them hours of work - per day! 
Really, are they manually setting the font size, alignment, style etc for 
EVERY single heading/subheading/caption in every document?  What a complete 
and utter waste of time.

> Seems to me they're all just resigned to the fact that Word is horribly 
> awkward to use? *shrugs*

But it just smacks of complete incompetence when a) they should have been 
trained for this if it's their main job, and b) they don't ask anyone if 
there's a more efficient way to do it.  Especially when there usually *is* a 
more efficient way than just typing as if it is wordpad.

Post a reply to this message

>> I'm still waiting to see hard evidence that "millions of people 
>> actually do use templates without Word crashing".
> 
> Well most of the people in my company worldwide use our standard 
> corporate templates, as did everyone at the previous company I worked 
> for.  Plus everything I've seen coming out of companies like Nokia, Sony 
> Ericson, BMW, Ford, Daimler is in standard format - I *highly* doubt 
> they have not used templates to create these documents.  That's probably 
> well over a million people using templates in just the area of industry 
> I work in.  Do you really think all these people would use templates if 
> they were always prone to crashing?

Well we churn out seemingly identical documents every month. Word 
crashes quite a lot, but the poor souls using it just start again. And 
again. And again. Until eventually they get to the finished product. All 
the reports look identical because a dedicated team scrutinises every 
individual page, line by line, before the document is allowed to be 
released. (This has nothing to do with Word - the regulations require 
such scrutiny to check that there are no erroneous statements or 
ambiguities in the text.)

Presumably Word crashes like hell for everybody else too, and they just 
work around it.

>> Spending many, many hours correcting formatting glitches *is* 
>> practically their entire job description.
> 
> So surely they should have been on numerous training courses to get the 
> absolute maximum out of Word as efficiently as possible?  But they don't 
> know how to use styles?  I still can't believe that.

Training? You think the company I work for offers TRAINING? Have you not 
been reading lately? ;-)

>> But I've never seen them attempt to use styles...]
> 
> Why don't you teach them?

Because *I* can't get Word styles to work either?

(Last time I tried it, my copy of Word ended up permanently broken until 
I erased my normal template and deleted a chunk of my per-user registry.)

> It will save them hours of work - per day!

I can see that happening - I mean, if styles could be made to be 
reliable and stuff...

> Really, are they manually setting the font size, alignment, style etc 
> for EVERY single heading/subheading/caption in every document?  What a 
> complete and utter waste of time.

Well no, they start with a blank report document that contains all the 
section headings and standard text, already formatted. Then they change 
all the appropriate fields, insert the data for this specific project, 
etc., and then clean up all the formatting that breaks in the process.

>> Seems to me they're all just resigned to the fact that Word is 
>> horribly awkward to use? *shrugs*
> 
> But it just smacks of complete incompetence when a) they should have 
> been trained for this if it's their main job, and b) they don't ask 
> anyone if there's a more efficient way to do it.  Especially when there 
> usually *is* a more efficient way than just typing as if it is wordpad.

Training? I won't argue with that one.

As to whether it's possible to use Word efficiently, I'm not so sure. 
But I imagine it could probably be _more_ efficient than what they 
currently do, sure.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

> Presumably Word crashes like hell for everybody else too,

No.

> (Last time I tried it, my copy of Word ended up permanently broken until I 
> erased my normal template and deleted a chunk of my per-user registry.)

Never heard of that before.  Put your pointer inside a heading, then click 
the arrow next to that little box that says "Normal" at the top, and choose 
"Heading 1".  Do that for all the titles.  Then, to change that style, go to 
Format->Styles, click the little menu arrow next to the one you want to 
change and "Modify...".  ANd then, once you've made your changes, it applies 
them to everything in the document with that style!!!!  Clever eh?

> I can see that happening - I mean, if styles could be made to be reliable 
> and stuff...

You really mean the above explanation doesn't work on any of your computers? 
It's not complicated!

> Well no, they start with a blank report document that contains all the 
> section headings and standard text, already formatted.

So it's not blank then ;-)  Sounds to me like maybe that document is corrupt 
somehow, so every single "new" document they make still is based on this 
corrupt file.  Try, just once, opening the file with "Open and repair" and 
then save it again.  Then get them to use this one in future.

Post a reply to this message

>> Presumably Word crashes like hell for everybody else too,
> 
> No.

Are you seriously suggesting that there are people for whom Word doesn't 
crash?

>> (Last time I tried it, my copy of Word ended up permanently broken 
>> until I erased my normal template and deleted a chunk of my per-user 
>> registry.)
> 
> Never heard of that before.  Put your pointer inside a heading, then 
> click the arrow next to that little box that says "Normal" at the top, 
> and choose "Heading 1".  Do that for all the titles.  Then, to change 
> that style, go to Format->Styles, click the little menu arrow next to 
> the one you want to change and "Modify...".  ANd then, once you've made 
> your changes, it applies them to everything in the document with that 
> style!!!!  Clever eh?

I guess my mistake was in attempting to *change* the default styles. You 
know, permanently. Seemed to screw up just about everything Word-related.

On the other hand, having to spent 20 minutes changing all the ugly 
style defaults to what *I* want them to be every single time I open Word 
just seems like way too much work...

>> Well no, they start with a blank report document that contains all the 
>> section headings and standard text, already formatted.
> 
> So it's not blank then ;-)  Sounds to me like maybe that document is 
> corrupt somehow, so every single "new" document they make still is based 
> on this corrupt file.  Try, just once, opening the file with "Open and 
> repair" and then save it again.  Then get them to use this one in future.

The documents built from this "blank report" document are reasonably 
reliable. The ones built from customer-supplied templates tend to crash 
incessently. So yes, I would imagine these templates are corrupted.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> a écrit dans le message de news: 
487f5efe$1@news.povray.org...
> Well we churn out seemingly identical documents every month. Word crashes 
> quite a lot, but the poor souls using it just start again. And again. And 
> again. Until eventually they get to the finished product.

Well, that's just abnormal. Word versions post Word 97 are stable. They may 
crash once in a blue moon, but certainly not on a regular basis unless 
there's a very specific reason, which should be described in the KB and a 
few thousands dedicated forums. If the problem is so widespread, it should 
have been solved by your IT people by now. The last time I've seen stuff 
like this, it turned out that the IT department hadn't bothered to patch 
Office so the users were suffering from bugs fixed by MS years ago.

G.

Post a reply to this message

Gilles Tran wrote:

> Well, that's just abnormal. Word versions post Word 97 are stable. They may 
> crash once in a blue moon, but certainly not on a regular basis unless 
> there's a very specific reason, which should be described in the KB and a 
> few thousands dedicated forums. If the problem is so widespread, it should 
> have been solved by your IT people by now. The last time I've seen stuff 
> like this, it turned out that the IT department hadn't bothered to patch 
> Office so the users were suffering from bugs fixed by MS years ago.

I've mentioned the problem that certain customer-supplied document 
templates seem to massively increase the frequency of crashes. 
(Presumably these templates are just corrupted internally.) Other than 
that, the users generally avoid certain features because they either 
don't work properly or make Word unstable. By this method of feature 
avoidance, we manage to keep crashes to a reasonably small number.

I guess I would install some newer SRs and see if it makes any 
difference at all. But I don't hold out much hope. From what I've seen, 
these seem to fix specific issues like "if you press X and then press Y, 
it does something strange", rather than general issues like "numbered 
lists never work correctly".

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> a écrit dans le message de news: 
487f687f$1@news.povray.org...
> (Presumably these templates are just corrupted internally.) Other than 
> that, the users generally avoid certain features because they either don't 
> work properly or make Word unstable. By this method of feature avoidance, 
> we manage to keep crashes to a reasonably small number.

And did anyone look up the KB or the MS groups to see whether there were 
some issues with those particular features? I've been using Office heavily 
for a long time now, and one good thing is that it's so massively used that 
the tiniest issues are documented (*). At worse, they're a terse message in 
the KB saying "we know there's a problem there but don't have a solution 
yet" but major stuff like crashes tend to be documented and fixed. As I 
said, Word from the 2000 version onward is stable now, if it doesn't work 
properly there's something fishy on your end. And yes, at least make sure 
that you have the latest service packs.

G.

(*) see the latest "important" Vista update. I resisted a couple of days 
before installing a 56 Mb file + reboot, looked up the WU number in the KB 
and found this gem:  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/11/vista_update/

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> Presumably Word crashes like hell for everybody else too,
>>
>> No.
> 
> Are you seriously suggesting that there are people for whom Word doesn't 
> crash?

FWIW, I've not had word crash since I got the version after Word 97. 
(So, call it 10 years.) :-)  Nor excel, for that matter.

Also, my XP doesn't crash, except recently I seem to have some hardware 
problems.  (It doesn't crash so much as about once a month randomly 
powers off in the middle of something.)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

Post a reply to this message

"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:487f6620@news.povray.org...
> >> Presumably Word crashes like hell for everybody else too,
> >
> > No.
>
> Are you seriously suggesting that there are people for whom Word doesn't
> crash?
>

I don't think I've ever had Word crash on me.
I've had SQL Server crash and burn several times. I've had Windows 2000
bluescreen and shutdown more than once (it's in dire need of a reinstall).
I've had powerpoint simply close in the middle of a presentation.
However those are the exceptions, not the norm. If the products crashed like
hell, I wouldn't use them.

I also seem to recall that this is not the first time (or the second) we've
told you that your experience with Word is not normal.

Post a reply to this message

"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:487f687f$1@news.povray.org...
>  rather than general issues like "numbered lists never work correctly".
>

They don't? Please explain more.

btw, if you have a bug to report or a suggestion on an MS product, you can
log it at http://connect.microsoft.com
Anything posted there goes directly to the relevant product development
team.

Post a reply to this message

>> Are you seriously suggesting that there are people for whom Word 
>> doesn't crash?
> 
> FWIW, I've not had word crash since I got the version after Word 97. 
> (So, call it 10 years.) :-)  Nor excel, for that matter.

Don't think I've ever seen Excel crash - or any other element of Office, 
just Word.

(BTW, did you ever see the flight simulator?)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Gail Shaw wrote:
>> "numbered lists never work correctly".
> 
> They don't? Please explain more.

If you write a brand new document, and happen to insert a numbered list 
into it somewhere, it usually works fine. As soon as you try to do 
anything more complex, bizare behaviour results. Lists magically change 
themselves from bullet to numbered, or continue from lists elsewhere in 
the document, and when you try to reset them to start from zero, they 
either don't reset, or they reset but yet other parts of the document go 
wrong. And occasionally, the whole formatting of a section can go wrong. 
I've even seen bits of deleted text reappear overprinted on top of body 
text...

> btw, if you have a bug to report or a suggestion on an MS product, you can
> log it at http://connect.microsoft.com
> Anything posted there goes directly to the relevant product development
> team.

The Word MVP website has an entire *section* dedicated to this 
particular issue:

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Numbering/WordsNumberingExplained.htm

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Gilles Tran wrote:

> And did anyone look up the KB or the MS groups to see whether there were 
> some issues with those particular features? I've been using Office heavily 
> for a long time now, and one good thing is that it's so massively used that 
> the tiniest issues are documented (*). At worse, they're a terse message in 
> the KB saying "we know there's a problem there but don't have a solution 
> yet" but major stuff like crashes tend to be documented and fixed.

As you probably know, it's frustratingly difficult to track down 
*exactly* what causes intermittent bugs such as "Word sometimes crashes 
if I use this template file".

> As I 
> said, Word from the 2000 version onward is stable now, if it doesn't work 
> properly there's something fishy on your end. And yes, at least make sure 
> that you have the latest service packs.

Well AFAIK all the Office 2003 machines are at a minimum of SR2 right 
now. I could see if SR3 makes any difference, but with intermittent 
problems you can never truly know if it's "fixed" or not...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Gail Shaw wrote:

> I don't think I've ever had Word crash on me.

You're lucky. In year 1 at uni, Word "ate" my assignment 3 hours before 
the handin deadline. (As in, the file would open, but it became 
impossible to save any modifications. Word *insisted* the disk was full, 
when in fact it wasn't.) From that point on, I wrote every single 
assignment in HTML instead. That's how ****ed off I was about it!

Even today, Word still sometimes does strange things to me - usually to 
do with formatting not working right, or spurios text duplication. I 
don't use Word very much, so I never see it actually *crash*. The report 
writers do though. Not quite as much as in Word 97, but it still happens 
now and then.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Don't think I've ever seen Excel crash - or any other element of Office, 
> just Word.

If you do sufficiently funky stuff with it, it can get ugly. (By 
sufficiently funky, I mean things like adjusting the formulas and 
display options based on the values stored in an external SQL database, 
say.)

> (BTW, did you ever see the flight simulator?)

I think I might have, once.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

Post a reply to this message

Gail Shaw wrote:
> bluescreen and shutdown more than once (it's in dire need of a reinstall).

I had one coworker with an install so screwed up he'd get Yellow Screen 
Of Death (with light-grey text) whenever he tried to log out. But then, 
he ran all kinds of pirated crap and weird amateur device drivers on it, 
so I'm not surprised he had to reinstall every couple years.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

Post a reply to this message

"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:487f6620@news.povray.org...
>>> Presumably Word crashes like hell for everybody else too,
>>
>> No.
>
> Are you seriously suggesting that there are people for whom Word doesn't 
> crash?

yes, it doesn't crash for me, in fact I haven't had it crash for me in 
*years*.

HTH

Cheers Dre

<snip>

Post a reply to this message

> If you write a brand new document, and happen to insert a numbered list 
> into it somewhere, it usually works fine. As soon as you try to do 
> anything more complex, bizare behaviour results.

Either turn off the array of auto-numbering options within Word, or learn 
how they work.  Once you know how they work it's easy to understand what 
Word is doing, and more importantly what you need to do to get things to 
look the way you want (when that's different from what the auto options 
think you want!).

At least in recent versions of Word, whenever it changes something for you, 
you *always* get that little icon that gives you the chance to "don't ever 
do what you just did again" or "ok undo what you just did, but do it again 
later if you want".  Very handy.

Post a reply to this message

And lo on Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:23:34 +0100, Gilles Tran  
<gil### [at] agroparistechfr> did spake, saying:

> At worse, they're a terse message in the KB saying "we know there's a  
> problem
> there but don't have a solution yet"

Or much more helpfully 'We know there's a problem and we've fixed it in  
the new version; go and buy that'

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

Post a reply to this message

And lo on Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:30:14 +0100, scott <sco### [at] scottcom> did  
spake, saying:

>> Yeah, I'm reading about it now. (Hmm, I guess I'm not the only person  
>> who still thinks 512 MB RAM is a lot. ;-)
>
> For a games console it's probably enough.  What do you hold in RAM  
> during a game?  All the 3D meshes and textures are on the GPU video  
> memory only*. Probably only the code, collision meshes, map data?  And  
> the PS3 OS is vastly simpler than Windows, so I doubt that uses up much  
> RAM.

Yeah all you've got is an OS that can have multiple users; reads/writes to  
a hard drive; works with multiple USB devices; shows pictures, plays  
music, videos, and games; communicates via Bluetooth and a wired/wireless  
TCP/IP connection; and comes with an internet browser.

Completely different to what Windows does :-P

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

Post a reply to this message

> Yeah all you've got is an OS that can have multiple users; reads/writes to 
> a hard drive; works with multiple USB devices; shows pictures, plays 
> music, videos, and games; communicates via Bluetooth and a wired/wireless 
> TCP/IP connection; and comes with an internet browser.
>
> Completely different to what Windows does :-P

Actually that sounds like my phone, and that has something like 35MB RAM ;-)

Post a reply to this message

And lo on Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:24:30 +0100, scott <sco### [at] scottcom> did  
spake, saying:

>> Yeah all you've got is an OS that can have multiple users; reads/writes  
>> to a hard drive; works with multiple USB devices; shows pictures, plays  
>> music, videos, and games; communicates via Bluetooth and a  
>> wired/wireless TCP/IP connection; and comes with an internet browser.
>>
>> Completely different to what Windows does :-P
>
> Actually that sounds like my phone, and that has something like 35MB RAM  
> ;-)

Heh and the ones running Windows Mobile will even run cut down versions of  
Word and Excel while allowing you to make phone calls, check your diary,  
browse the 'net and pick up your email... Perhaps we should all be running  
that version on our desktops instead ;-)

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

Post a reply to this message

>> Actually that sounds like my phone, and that has something like 35MB 
>> RAM ;-)
> 
> Heh and the ones running Windows Mobile will even run cut down versions 
> of Word and Excel while allowing you to make phone calls, check your 
> diary, browse the 'net and pick up your email... Perhaps we should all 
> be running that version on our desktops instead ;-)

...and THIS is why I'm reluctant to buy a new phone. Who would want to 
pay money for something that runs an M$ OS? :-S

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

And lo on Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:47:10 +0100, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull>  
did spake, saying:

>>> Actually that sounds like my phone, and that has something like 35MB  
>>> RAM ;-)
>>  Heh and the ones running Windows Mobile will even run cut down  
>> versions of Word and Excel while allowing you to make phone calls,  
>> check your diary, browse the 'net and pick up your email... Perhaps we  
>> should all be running that version on our desktops instead ;-)
>
> ...and THIS is why I'm reluctant to buy a new phone. Who would want to  
> pay money for something that runs an M$ OS? :-S

A lot of the problems we had stemmed from the third-party interface  
plonked on the top, once I removed that it was quite stable. They would  
occasionally refuse to link to the computer unless you restarted the  
phone, but I've had the same problem with the NokiaOS.

I'm still impressed that if you made a change in Outlook while the phone  
was connected it would automatically sync that item and was quite happy  
syncing between multiple unconnected computers; something that both the  
Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones still don't do or have problems with.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

Post a reply to this message

>> ...and THIS is why I'm reluctant to buy a new phone. Who would want to 
>> pay money for something that runs an M$ OS? :-S
> 
> A lot of the problems we had stemmed from the third-party interface 
> plonked on the top, once I removed that it was quite stable. They would 
> occasionally refuse to link to the computer unless you restarted the 
> phone, but I've had the same problem with the NokiaOS.
> 
> I'm still impressed that if you made a change in Outlook while the phone 
> was connected it would automatically sync that item and was quite happy 
> syncing between multiple unconnected computers; something that both the 
> Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones still don't do or have problems with.

Well let me put it this way. My current mobile phone is a little bit 
worn out now. And it wasn't a very good phone to start with. But on the 
other hand, it doesn't seem to be *possible* to buy a mobile phone 
that's just a phone any more. It has to also try to be a camera and a 
music system and a database and... I just want a phone?

Also, for some reason flip phones seem to be extremely rare right now. 
Personally I dislike being charged money because my phone has 
accidentally called somebody while it's in my pocket. Some phones allow 
you to "lock" the keypad, but it can still call 999, causing a pretty 
serious hazard as it might block out a *real* emergency call.

(My current phone was clearly designed by idiots. Or at least, by people 
who have never attempted to *use* their product! For example, if you 
write an SMS and select "Options", option #1 is... adjust the screen 
setting? WTF? Surely you're going to do this, like, ONCE, when you first 
get the phone, and never change it again. By contrast, the option you'll 
want 99% of the time is "send" - which is option #4. If you *receive* an 
SMS, "reply" is option #8 - which doesn't even fit onto the screen 
without scrolling. At least my old Nokia had a sane menu system...)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

> Well let me put it this way. My current mobile phone is a little bit worn 
> out now. And it wasn't a very good phone to start with. But on the other 
> hand, it doesn't seem to be *possible* to buy a mobile phone that's just a 
> phone any more. It has to also try to be a camera and a music system and a 
> database and... I just want a phone?

Try the Nokia 1208, it's really cheap (like 20 quid cheap) and doesn't have 
hardly any features so should be just what you're looking for.

Post a reply to this message

And lo on Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:44:15 +0100, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull>  
did spake, saying:

>>> ...and THIS is why I'm reluctant to buy a new phone. Who would want to  
>>> pay money for something that runs an M$ OS? :-S
>>  A lot of the problems we had stemmed from the third-party interface  
>> plonked on the top, once I removed that it was quite stable. They would  
>> occasionally refuse to link to the computer unless you restarted the  
>> phone, but I've had the same problem with the NokiaOS.
>>  I'm still impressed that if you made a change in Outlook while the  
>> phone was connected it would automatically sync that item and was quite  
>> happy syncing between multiple unconnected computers; something that  
>> both the Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones still don't do or have problems  
>> with.
>
> Well let me put it this way. My current mobile phone is a little bit  
> worn out now. And it wasn't a very good phone to start with. But on the  
> other hand, it doesn't seem to be *possible* to buy a mobile phone  
> that's just a phone any more. It has to also try to be a camera and a  
> music system and a database and... I just want a phone?

They're out there just not displayed as prominently because they're cheap.

> Also, for some reason flip phones seem to be extremely rare right now.

They were in vogue for a while along with sliding ones, perhaps people got  
fed-up with the flip/slide breaking? Or it was just cheaper not to build  
them that way?

> Personally I dislike being charged money because my phone has  
> accidentally called somebody while it's in my pocket. Some phones allow  
> you to "lock" the keypad,

I've not seen a phone that doesn't allow this.

> but it can still call 999, causing a pretty serious hazard as it might  
> block out a *real* emergency call.

It can still call any emergency number, but the I bet the likelyhood of  
hitting the three correct digits and dial remains small.

> (My current phone was clearly designed by idiots. Or at least, by people  
> who have never attempted to *use* their product! For example, if you  
> write an SMS and select "Options", option #1 is... adjust the screen  
> setting? WTF? Surely you're going to do this, like, ONCE, when you first  
> get the phone, and never change it again. By contrast, the option you'll  
> want 99% of the time is "send" - which is option #4. If you *receive* an  
> SMS, "reply" is option #8 - which doesn't even fit onto the screen  
> without scrolling. At least my old Nokia had a sane menu system...)

Again I like my SE phone menu system. You can navigate through using the  
numbers next to the choices, I can lock it and switch it to silent with  
two key presses likewise get the date, model and my telephone number from  
the Phone Status two clicks away (the number of times I've seen people  
being asked exactly which model of phone they have and being stumped  
because it's not shown anywhere amazes me).

It has its problems - there are two ways of locking and silent and they  
appear in each menu in a different order; the call log is unintuitive if  
you want to know the time someone tried to call you yesterday, and has a  
nasty habit of compressing multiple calls into one entry so it appears  
they've only tried once. Other then those it's fine.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

Post a reply to this message

> music system and a database and... I just want a phone?
> 
Motorola F3 (GIYF)

Post a reply to this message

>> Well let me put it this way. My current mobile phone is a little bit 
>> worn out now. And it wasn't a very good phone to start with. But on 
>> the other hand, it doesn't seem to be *possible* to buy a mobile phone 
>> that's just a phone any more. It has to also try to be a camera and a 
>> music system and a database and... I just want a phone?
> 
> They're out there just not displayed as prominently because they're cheap.

Heh, I'll bet. ;-)

>> Also, for some reason flip phones seem to be extremely rare right now.
> 
> They were in vogue for a while along with sliding ones, perhaps people 
> got fed-up with the flip/slide breaking? Or it was just cheaper not to 
> build them that way?

Lots of slide phones around, not seeing many flip phones...

>> but it can still call 999, causing a pretty serious hazard as it might 
>> block out a *real* emergency call.
> 
> It can still call any emergency number, but the I bet the likelyhood of 
> hitting the three correct digits and dial remains small.

Um... hit 9 three times? (Or alternatively, just hold down the 9 key for 
a second or so.) It's really very easy. I made many, many calls this way 
with my old Nokia 3210.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Am Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:34:25 -0400 schrieb Michael Zier:

>> music system and a database and... I just want a phone?
>> 
> Motorola F3 (GIYF)

I forgot: geek bonus points for using e-paper!

Post a reply to this message

And lo on Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:36:09 +0100, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull>  
did spake, saying:

>>> Well let me put it this way. My current mobile phone is a little bit  
>>> worn out now. And it wasn't a very good phone to start with. But on  
>>> the other hand, it doesn't seem to be *possible* to buy a mobile phone  
>>> that's just a phone any more. It has to also try to be a camera and a  
>>> music system and a database and... I just want a phone?
>>  They're out there just not displayed as prominently because they're  
>> cheap.
>
> Heh, I'll bet. ;-)

Same deal with contracts.

>>> Also, for some reason flip phones seem to be extremely rare right now.
>>  They were in vogue for a while along with sliding ones, perhaps people  
>> got fed-up with the flip/slide breaking? Or it was just cheaper not to  
>> build them that way?
>
> Lots of slide phones around, not seeing many flip phones...

I suppose the slide is more durable then a flip?

>>> but it can still call 999, causing a pretty serious hazard as it might  
>>> block out a *real* emergency call.
>>  It can still call any emergency number, but the I bet the likelyhood  
>> of hitting the three correct digits and dial remains small.
>
> Um... hit 9 three times? (Or alternatively, just hold down the 9 key for  
> a second or so.) It's really very easy. I made many, many calls this way  
> with my old Nokia 3210.

Hmm all the phones I've had you've had to hit dial before or after the  
number.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:25:07 +1000, Dre wrote:

> yes, it doesn't crash for me, in fact I haven't had it crash for me in
> *years*.

I can say that as well, but that's probably more due to the fact that I 
use OpenOffice rather than MS Office. :-)

But I do know lots of people who use Word frequently (and use advanced 
features) and don't have it crash.  Last time I worked on a book, I was 
required to use Word with templates and it never crashed on me - and I 
think that was even Word 97.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> For a games console it's probably enough.  What do you hold in RAM during a 
> game?  All the 3D meshes and textures are on the GPU video memory only*. 

  That's actually not true.

  In big games typical scenes may consist of hundreds of thousands, if not
even millions of polygons. You *can't* render them all even with the most
modern graphics cards.

  Game engines implement an ample variety of techniques to reduce the amount
of polygons sent to the graphics card. The optimal situation is that only
those polygons which are visible in the current frame are sent to the
graphics card to be rendered.

  Many of these techniques are things which are not supported by graphics
cards but must be calculated by the CPU. These include things like BSP
trees, dividing the scene into sectors, portals, occlusion volumes,
billboard sprites, etc.

  Also in most modern games the scene to be rendered is seldom static,
but changes all the time. For example dynamic shadows, at least if
implemented using shadow volumes, require new shadow polygons to be
created at each frame and sent to the graphics card. Of course in order
to create the shadow polygons in the first place you need the scene
itself (and all of its optimizations) in RAM.

  Games also need to do a whole lot more than that as well. For example
most current games have some kind of physics engine, which requires its
memory. The list is endless.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

>  Game engines implement an ample variety of techniques to reduce the 
> amount
> of polygons sent to the graphics card.

True, but you very rarely need to keep a copy of the actual meshes used to 
render.  Usually for the sort of algorithms you mean, you never go down to 
the polygon level because it's just faster to let the GPU handle that. 
You'll usually be working with bounding boxes of meshes, not the actual mesh 
data.

And as for the textures, I don't think you need them at all in CPU RAM 
during the game.

> The optimal situation is that only
> those polygons which are visible in the current frame are sent to the
> graphics card to be rendered.

Maybe that was optimal 15 years ago, but today the GPU is way faster than 
the CPU at culling polygons.  Especially when you consider the overhead of 
having to transfer all the mesh data per-frame to the GPU - that is slow and 
nobody does it.  The optimal approach nowadays is to have as much mesh and 
texture data loaded in the GPU as possible, and per-frame the CPU can just 
tell the GPU which meshes to render, based on some algorithm.

>  Also in most modern games the scene to be rendered is seldom static,
> but changes all the time. For example dynamic shadows, at least if
> implemented using shadow volumes, require new shadow polygons to be
> created at each frame and sent to the graphics card.

No they don't, you can do it that way but it's slow.  You usually make a 
simplified version of your mesh, replace each edge with a quad compressed 
down to that edge and then load it to the GPU.  THen, per-frame, a vertex 
shader running on the GPU decides if the edge is a silhouette edge, and 
expands out the polygon as necessary in the direction away from the light. 
Character animation and other dynamic effects (eg trees moving in the wind) 
are usually done in the vertex shader too.

Post a reply to this message

"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:487f8231$1@news.povray.org...
>
> The Word MVP website has an entire *section* dedicated to this
> particular issue:
>
> http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Numbering/WordsNumberingExplained.htm
>

Ok, so the numbering's strange. At leat it's understandable once the
explaination is given (like so many things).
I assume you foung that link a while back and didn't go searching for it
just for me.
Since you now understand why the lists sometimes go strange, you can explain
it to the users. You'll probably end up their hero for saving them so much
time in fixing the lists.

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
> you, you *always* get that little icon that gives you the chance to 
> "don't ever do what you just did again" or "ok undo what you just did, 
> but do it again later if you want".  Very handy.

I like how this works in OpenOffice, where it pops up the little 
lightbulb that says "Hey, I just changed stuff. If you want to learn how 
to change it back, here's what the subject to search for in the help 
file is..." ;-)

Not that it'll put it back, or let you turn it off right there, or 
anything like that.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

Post a reply to this message

"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
news:4880c065@news.povray.org...

> Not that it'll put it back, or let you turn it off right there, or
> anything like that.
>

That would be too easy and it would deprive you of an opportunity to see the
outstanding quality of the help file. </tongue in cheek>

Post a reply to this message

scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> > The optimal situation is that only
> > those polygons which are visible in the current frame are sent to the
> > graphics card to be rendered.

> Maybe that was optimal 15 years ago, but today the GPU is way faster than 
> the CPU at culling polygons.  Especially when you consider the overhead of 
> having to transfer all the mesh data per-frame to the GPU - that is slow and 
> nobody does it.  The optimal approach nowadays is to have as much mesh and 
> texture data loaded in the GPU as possible, and per-frame the CPU can just 
> tell the GPU which meshes to render, based on some algorithm.

  Many games seem to disagree with you.

  For example HL2 and sequels actually drop meshes and use lower-resolution
meshes for scenery which can only be seen from far away, but if you go
to that scenery, it will load objects and higher-resolution versions of
other objects.
  For example in HL2:Lost Coast you can use objects to climb over barriers
which would normally stop you from getting back to previous parts of the
level. If you do that, those parts are very ascetic compared to what they
were previously (when you played through them normally).

  Other games, such as for example Oblivion, generate terrain details
dynamically based on distance: Closer terrain will be more detailed than
terrain farther away. Other games, such as Call of Juarez, also do this
(and this one does it even better than Oblivion), which allows huge visible
landscapes to be rendered.

  The amount of polygons to render matters even today. That's because
today polygons are much heavier to render compared to 15 years ago.
15 years ago you had bilinearly-filtered perspective-correct texture
mapping, light mapping, and little else. Today you have all kinds of
pixel shaders, bump mapping and whatnot.

  Also some polygons need to be rendered from farther to closer, most
prominently polygons with transparencies, or else the Z buffer won't
work properly. I don't know if any graphics card supports sorting of
polygons (especially since there's no generic algorithm for sorting
polygons, not even triangles, without polygon splitting).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
<snip about graphics>

And that's not even the game, just the stuff needed to show it on screen!

SimCity 4 came out what, 7 years ago?  It's still one of the most CPU 
demanding games I have (once you get a large city, that is :) ).

The Sims is also notoriously slow on high end computers.  When you get a 
house with decent decorations, that game can slow to a crawl (of course, 
we've got more than 8 GB of downloaded stuff for it).

The point is, there are *lots* of things you need CPU and RAM for other 
than graphics.

...Chambers

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I'm also 98% sure none
> of the Word power users know about styles.

<CoderForLife> 83% of all statistics are made up on-the-fly 76% of the time
<CoderForLife> 4 out of 5 dentists agree
<efc> Thats 62% bull($#@, CFL

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
> Googling "VBA in Word" gives 5460000 results, seems like a lot of people
> have something to say about it.

Googling "Excel database" gives lots of results of people showing you how to
create excel databases too. Took me long to find the link I was looking
for: a blog post about "I can't believe people use excel as a database"

Post a reply to this message