Microsoft Remodels the Mac Office
You would be forgiven for thinking that Office 2008 was a step ahead of Office 2007, but you would be wrong. Office 2008 is essentially Office 2007, except it's the Mac version. I've been spending some time with Office 2008 recently and it's as much of an improvement for the Mac as Office 2007 was for Windows machines. Depending on your point of view, that might be a lot or a little.
Click any of the images here for a full-size view. There's some controversy about that point because some people are adamantly opposed to change and some welcome it. Those who welcome change, and even some of those who don't, will find that Office 2008's interface is a big improvement. Yes, you'll spend a little time figuring out where items that used to be on complicated menus are now located on the ribbon. Power users who have modified the interface may be in for the greatest shock, but even they will probably realize that the new interface is a step in the right direction. Mac users may be less shocked by the new interface than Windows users were because the new interface has a more Mac-like look. The ribbon shown above is from Entourage.
My only significant complaint about Office 2008 about a year after its initial release is that there's no database application. The Windows version has Access, but the Mac version has never had a database component. Perhaps it never will have. But everything else you need is there: word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, e-mail, and a calendar.
Power users who depended on Visual Basic for Applications made so much noise about its being dropped from Office 2008 that Microsoft's Mac business unit announced in May that it would be back in the next version of the suite. If you're still using a G3 Mac, Office 2008 is not for you. You need at least a G4 processor and OS X 10.5 (Leopard) to run Microsoft Office 2008.
Microsoft Mac business unit news release: "The Mac BU also announced it is bringing VBA-language support back to the next version of Office for Mac. Sharing information with customers as early as possible continues to be a priority for the Mac BU to allow customers to plan for their software needs. Although the Mac BU increased support in Office 2008 with alternate scripting tools such as Automator and AppleScript — and also worked with MacTech Magazine to create a reference guide, available at http://www.mactech.com/vba-transition-guide — the team recognizes that VBA-language support is important to a select group of customers who rely on sharing macros across platforms. The Mac BU is always working to meet customers’ needs and already is hard at work on the next version of Office for Mac."
Art That's Smart
SmartArt, which is available in all of the applications except Entourage, tries to help users create business graphics and illustrations quickly and easily. For the most part, the cookie-cutter approach works. You won't design anything astonishingly good with SmartArt, but the feature does allow non-designers to create lists, process flow diagrams, relationship illustrations and the like. There's still the danger that people will use inappropriate illustrations that don't advance comprehension just because they think the illustration makes the document "pretty". But that's always a danger. Above on the left, I'm creating a process diagram. Above at right is the finished diagram after I resized the containing box.
The Formatting Palette is greatly improved and now includes a "Document Theme" section that allows users to apply full-document designs with a single click. The designs include typefaces that work together and colors that don't clash. It's another way to keep users from creating something unspeakably ugly.
A reference tools section includes the expected thesaurus and dictionary, but there's also an included Encarta Encyclopedia lookup within Office 2008. Several bilingual dictionaries are included for translation help (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and Simplified and Traditional Chinese), and a translation service that requires an Internet connection.
Powerpoint
Powerpoint also comes with a variety of template styles. This isn't a new concept, but the styles have been refined over the years. You won't go too far wrong if you use one of the built-in styles and choose one that's appropriate to your topic.
With a single mouse click, you can change the style, too, so it's easy to examine several styles to see which is the one that's most appropriate for your message.
The much-maligned Word Art continues to be a part of the suite in Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. This gives users the opportunity to create something really atrocious.
That said, it's important to point out that by default the Word Art styles at least use colors that are appropriate to the theme and they're far less garish than in the past. Still, it's probably better to avoid Word Art in most cases. The exception might be for a single slide or two in a presentation where the effect might add to the message. In any case, Word Art should never be applied to bulleted text as I have done here.
Word
I work more with words than with numbers, so Word is the application I'm most likely to use on either a Mac or Windows machine.
Designing headlines and subheads is one of the more vexing tasks for most people and that's one of the reasons that document styles will be welcomed.
Document styles have been designed with appropriate typefaces and colors, so there's no longer an excuse for "ransom-note publishing".
And speaking of publishing, Word has a "publish" view. Some people are highly critical of Microsoft for extending applications into areas where they should not go. This, they say, is one of those areas. A word processor should be used for word processing tasks, not for formatting newsletters and such. Although I agree entirely with this point of view, I also know that people will use a word processor for formatting newsletters and such. Microsoft has a choice: Do what the purists would have them do or do what their customers want them to do. Microsoft has rightly chosen the latter course.
Entourage
Outlook by any other name would still be Outlook. Entourage combines e-mail, contact management, and a calendar and task manager. A new "My Day" quickly lets you see what's on your calendar and to-do list. Unfortunately, one feature that I enjoy on Windows machines isn't yet available on the Mac: The Outlook calendar can be synchronized with the Google calendar, which makes keeping calendars on multiple machines in sync an easy task. This is not, of course, a Microsoft failing. Google simply hasn't yet developed the tool for Mac users.
At the right is a panel from the Entourage address book. Multiple tabs and various display options make the application easy to use.
Excel
Ah, yes, Excel. What can I say. It's a spreadsheet and a darned good one. It does everything you'd expect a spreadsheet application to do, and then some.
Oddly, though, I found that what should be a simple, slam-dunk operation didn't work: A Windows Excel sheet with conditional formatting converted perfectly except for one thing. The colors were all wrong.
In the image at the right, the larger area is from Excel 2008 on the Mac. The inset image is from Excel 2007 on a Windows machine. It's the TechByter Worldwide program schedule. Programs that are compete should be marked with a green box, but on the Mac the boxes are gray. Programs that aren't yet started should be pink, but they're yellow on the Mac. And programs that are in development are supposed to be light blue instead of garish green. That's a minor problem, though, and if that's all I can find to complain about, the application must be doing a lot of things right.
Bottom Line: Office reinvented for the Mac. Most of the changes are good and you'll need a powerful machine to run the application.
The "Home and Student Edition" of Office 2008 (about $150) includes license keys for 3 computers. If you're running a desktop at home, carry a Mac notebook with you, and the kids use another Mac for homework, a single license covers everyone. For such a powerful application, that's a decent price.
For more information, visit the Microsoft Mac business unit website.
The E-Mail Landscape Continues to Change
Recently I was talking about the increasing use of colors, backgrounds, and images in e-mail. This is done with HTML formatting and one of those involved in the discussion brought me up short with the admonition to remember that many people ("particularly geeks and those who have been on the net for a long time") tend to use text-only e-mail programs. So because of this, nobody should use HTML-based e-mail?
Times change. I used to be a fanatic about text-only e-mail. The application I used (The Bat) didn't display images that were embedded. Today, even The Bat both sends and receives HTML-based e-mail. Outlook is probably the most-used e-mail application and it certainly can both create and display embedded graphics. So can Thunderbird, Eudora, Outlook Express, Apple Mail, Entourage (the Microsoft equivalent for Outlook on the Mac), most if not all of the Web-based e-mail applications (Google, Yahoo, Horde, Squirrel, RoundCube, etc.), and most e-mail application for the true geek's operating system, Linux. Combined, those applications are probably what all but a fraction of one percent of e-mail users use.
At the time, I wrote that I wasn't sure about Pegasus; the last person I knew who used it switched to Outlook about 2 years ago. As I expected, a Pegasus user checked in and told me that Pegasus has no problem with HTML-based e-mail.
I am a geek who has been on the Net since about 1983. I receive messages from a lot of geeks. In the past 5 years or so, I have seen the virtual elimination of plain-text messages from the geeks I know. Even those who use a fixed-width typeface still usually do it by specifying Courier in a multi-part message.
The writer who cautioned that we should not use HTML-based e-mail then reported that Eudora "certainly does not" display HTML e-mail. This is incorrect, as several current users of that application pointed out. In fact, the only applications I know that don't support HTML e-mail are text-only applications such as Pine and Elm, which are mainly used on Unix and Linux systems. Even there, most people have moved on to other applications.
HTML-based e-mail can be overdone, but the formatting can also help the reader comprehend. This is why magazines, newspapers, and books are not produced in plain text on typewriters.
That said, when it comes to embedding photos in e-mail, I agree totally.
A long-time friend lives on the top of a hill in rural eastern Ohio. His Internet connection is via modem and, on a good day, he "enjoys" a connection speed in the range of 30Kbps. I rarely send embedded images to him and when I do send something that I know he'll find interesting, I'm careful to make the image as small as possible.
Learning to Use the Tool
Sometimes it surprises me when someone who is so vocal about the shortcomings of an application turns out to know very little about the application. The case in point here is Eudora, which can be set up so that it doesn't show HTML e-mail, but is still quite capable of displaying it.
Creating a filter to move all messages with HTML coding to the spam folder, as this person does, seems a bit broad. Filters in Outlook 2003 and 2007 are reasonably powerful. So are the filters in Eudora. Although I haven't used Eudora for nearly 10 years, I do use Outlook at the office and The Bat at home.
At the office, I have a dozen or so filters in place. At home, using The Bat's uncommonly powerful filtering system (right), I have more than 60 filters for inbound messages and about a dozen for outbound messages. These filters extract messages from my inbound message queue and redirect them to specific folders. For example: E-mail related to technology goes to a general technology folder, except for certain subscription messages that each have their own folders; request from the TechByter website are highlighted; general messages to my TechByter account are placed in a separate folder, as are messages sent to my Blinn.com address (writing, editing, and website design); messages to me as an individual are sorted to a general in-box, except for messages from some specific people. When I send messages, other filters kick in to delete the saved copy in some cases, or to save the local copy to a specific folder depending on a value that's embedded in the message's header.
This is not intended as a "my program is better than your program" message. You'll choose an e-mail application based on several considerations: A client or an employer may tell you that you must use a specific application or you may like the way one application handles a specific task. The point is that most applications contain far more features than we use, or even know about. Sometimes spending a little time with the applications we use most frequently can pay off with significant time savings and reduced frustration.
A Widget By Any Other Name
In 2005, Apple released the "Tiger" version of OS X introduced widgets, except that they didn't. Widgets were already available on PCs using an application called Konfabulator from Pixoria. Konfabulator also worked on Macs, including those running the antique System 9 software and the cost was just $20. (Keep this in mind the next time you hear a Mac fan complain about Microsoft "stealing" an idea.) In the intervening 4 years, Vista introduced widgets, but that Microsoft called them "gadgets". The "gadgets" were one of the things I liked about Vista and I missed them when I removed Vista and returned to XP. I tried another application that promised a Vista-like sidebar, but the widgets kept wandering around on the screen or disappearing. Then I found that Yahoo had acquired Konfabulator and makes it available for free.
I've made it clear more than once that I don't hold Yahoo in high regard, but I'm glad that the company acquired Pixoria in 2005, not long after I wrote the first Konfabulator review. Click any of the images here for a full-size view.
In 2009, I rediscovered Konfabulator, now known as Yahoo Widgets, and I have to criticize Yahoo immediately. When you install Yahoo Widgets, two default settings are selected: Set the browser's home page to Yahoo and define Yahoo as your default search engine. I understand that Yahoo wants people to do these things, but the default should be to make no changes unless the user requests a change. Both of these selections should be de-selected by default.
If you have any question about the origin of the widgets, the installation page clears that up immediately by mentioning "Konfabulator".
By default, widgets appear in a dock that sits on the right edge of the screen. The application will align the dock so that it is vertically centered, but I prefer to move it to the top of the screen. That way it won't interfere with my UTC clock that's at the bottom of the screen.
If you press F8, everything that's on your screen fades away and you'll see the larger version of the widgets you've installed. Currently there are more than 5000 widgets, but a large number of those are clocks and weather applications.
At the left you'll see the widgets I currently have defined: System performance information, weather, New York Times headlines, the local time, time in half a dozen cities around the world, and a summary of my Outlook calendar for the day.
What's in a Widget?
Widgets are zipped files that contain graphics and some XML code. I haven't looked into the file format closer than that yet. Unfortunately, there are differences between widgets intended for use natively on OS X and in Konfabulator. There are, of course, differences between widgets written for Windows and those written for OS X, particularly with widgets that deal with system-level information, such as how much memory is in use.
Widgets are fun and they can be useful. That's probably why Apple borrowed the idea from Pixoria. That's an important distinction, by the way. Some Apple fanatics like to point out that Apple did everything first even though this is clearly not the case. For example, Apple didn't invent the graphical user interface. The Palo Alto Research Center did that. The mouse? PARC again. The notebook computer? The concept came from PARC. The desktop computer? PARC. Most of the technology behind the Internet? Also PARC.
Bottom Line: Widgets can be fun, but they can also put useful information where it's just one keystroke away.
Occasionally the widgets seem to forget where they're supposed to be and I have to move them around, and some of the widgets crash regularly, sometimes killing the entire sidebar. Even given the shortcomings, Yahoo widgets would earn 4 cats if Yahoo didn't insist on trying to sneak itself in as the default search engine and the default home page.
For more information, visit the Yahoo Widgets website.
Here's a Really HOT Video! Literally.
It happens when you least expect it. You're just typing along, minding your own business, when suddenly, WHAM! The the computer reboots. Not even a blue screen. Black-screen crashes are often the most vexing kinds of problems to solve because they leave so few clues. Fortunately, only a few faults cause this kind of crash. Unfortunately, they're usually expensive to fix.
That's what happened to me one recent Saturday. Just typing along and ...
As much as I dislike the blue screen of death (BSOD), I much prefer it to this. A BSOD will give you a stop code, which is something you can research, something that points to a specific problem. Usually hardware. Black screens are also almost always caused by a hardware fault: Main board, RAM, and video card are the primary suspects. On rare occasions, a black screen can result from a badly broken video driver.
My first suspect was video. I rebooted the computer and in the few minutes before it crashed again, I was able to load a temperature monitor application. It told me that the video card was reporting its temperature was something like 102 degrees Centigrade! The number was certainly bogus, but a reading like that almost certainly indicated a problem.
I slid the side cover off the box and reached in, being careful not to touch the video card. If it was really 215 degrees Fahrenheit, I certainly didn't want to touch it. No air was moving below the video card. The fan had stopped moving.
The next step was to take a look at the card, so I shut the machine off, disconnected the monitor, and removed the card. At the right is what I found. Although I could manually turn the fan, there was clearly a catch in the bearing. And then I noticed a couple of capacitors. Examine the capacitor adjacent to the lower left corner of the fan and the one near the fan housing's upper right corner in the image at the right. Then see the close-ups below.
One thing I can tell you with absolute certainty is that capacitors aren't supposed to look like this (left).
Or this (right). The capacitor has nearly exploded. Video cards don't work well when the fan stops and two capacitors malfunction.
Click any of the images for a larger view.
The fix for a problem like this is relatively easy: It involves driving to a store that sells video cards (I selected Micro Center) and selecting a replacement. Video cards start below $50, but you can pay up to $1000 for a high-performance card designed for high-end video editing and 3D gaming.
I selected a $140 Nvidia card that was on sale for $115 and had a rebate that would drop the final cost to about $85.
Nerdly News
Fast Batteries
Battery technology was nearly unchanged for most of a century, but now there's a huge interest in the subject. Phones and computers use lithium-ion batteries, but so do cars. Some manufacturers have batteries that charge in as little as 15 minutes, but these batteries will have shorter lives than batteries that are charged more slowly. What about a battery that charges in 6 seconds? Do you think computer and auto manufacturers would be interested?
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Gerbrand Cedar and graduate student Byoungwoo Kang say that they have batteries that can be charged in just seconds, not minutes or hours.
Lithium-ion batteries are common in electronic devices because of the amount of energy they can store. Auto manufacturers will use L-ion batteries, too. Cedar and his students say that new technologies they've discovered allow for faster charging times.
They have a prototype unit that can be charged in about 20 seconds. This compared to at least 6 minutes for more standard batteries. The MIT professor says the materials aren't new, but the manufacturing process differs. As a result, new style batteries could be available for sale in less than 3 years.
Why Won't They Ever Learn?
Hitachi has been fined $31 million for price fixing. It's the 4th company to admit fixing prices on LCD displays. The Department of Justice says many of the displays were sold to Dell. Hitachi says it will cooperate with investigators. The displays in question were sold between April Fool's Day in 2001 and the end of March 2004.
Scott D. Hammond, acting assistant attorney general in charge of the department's antitrust division, said that Hitachi, LG Display, Sharp, and Chunghwa Picture Tubes have all admitted price fixing. The companies have already paid fines totaling $585 million. One must wonder how much profit these companies made by breaking the law and whether they might not have made higher profits by simply doing the right thing and not having to pay multi-million dollar fines.
The fines ranged from the $31 million paid by Hitachi to $400 million by LG. Sharp and LG were charged with price fixing on LCDs sold to Dell, Apple, and Motorola.
The author's image: It's that photo over at the right. This explains why TechByter Worldwide was never on television, doesn't it?
