klingon 10 Posted September 30, 2003 Share Posted September 30, 2003 When will the "free version" be available? Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted September 30, 2003 Share Posted September 30, 2003 Is 2003 different from XP? My piratical friend sent me several emails saying that the 'free Office XP' he downloaded the other day was 'great value', and recommended that I 'snag myself a copy'. Of course I didn't respond because I'm ostracising him. Link to post Share on other sites
rajeem 0 Posted September 30, 2003 Share Posted September 30, 2003 2003 not out yet, Ocean11. Out next month. Probably very little change from XP. Link to post Share on other sites
zebedee 1 Posted September 30, 2003 Share Posted September 30, 2003 Oh no, does that mean a "new" Windows version is just round the corner as well. Link to post Share on other sites
DumbStick 13 Posted October 1, 2003 Share Posted October 1, 2003 Aren't you excited?! Link to post Share on other sites
enderzero 0 Posted October 6, 2003 Share Posted October 6, 2003 The new Windows version is still a ways off. I am eagerly awaiting the new version of Outlook though (whatta nerd). Link to post Share on other sites
merryJim 1 Posted October 6, 2003 Share Posted October 6, 2003 How come enderzero - something amazing going to be in it? Link to post Share on other sites
enderzero 0 Posted October 6, 2003 Share Posted October 6, 2003 There are just things about Outlook I don't really like right now that I think will be improved. Link to post Share on other sites
badmigraine 0 Posted October 6, 2003 Share Posted October 6, 2003 Do you mean Outlook Express, or the bigger Outlook itself? Link to post Share on other sites
badmigraine 0 Posted October 6, 2003 Share Posted October 6, 2003 Another question...does anybody really use and enjoy all those features of Outlook or Lotus Notes that were explained to me at my company? You know, the features that allow you keep your schedule on it, it rings a bell tone to remind you of meetings, people can check on the network to see whether you're available, you work on documents as a group, and all that other "enterprise productivity" stuff? The IT people told us confidently it would save us a few million a year by increasing our productivity. But I and my associates found it an annoyance and it left us cold. The whole thing seemed a mysterious directive from the beginning. It was hard to figure it out because its purpose was opaque, the user interface was yet another pandering set of buttons, drop-down menus and puzzles to navigate while busy and trying to get real work done, a struggle to find time to update and maintain every day, and a frustrating distraction in the workplace. I never had a schedule that stayed put for more than a day, so my personal situation would have required obsessively updating my schedule online every time it changed, or else only doing it once per day which meant most of the time an innacurate schedule was posted for others to rely on. I tried checking on the network to see who was supposed to be available for meetings, but half the time the info wasn't correct so you always just had to pick up the phone and call anyway. Look, phoning up a couple of people to set a meeting was never a problem in the first place. OK, maybe if it was a 40-person meeting, but then you just send out an e-mail to a mailing list or something. As far as group markups of documents, this was a tragically ridiculous idea for the legal dept., because it led to various corrupted versions of the same 80-page agreement that could not be distinguished except by a thorough read and compare of all versions...rather than a time savings, this was a veritable nightmare with huge potential risks for the company in its $800 million contracts. As for the reminder bells for meetings, well... if you don't wear a watch to work or can't look up at the clock and make it to your meeting, then no computer noise is going to help you in your career. In fact if you are that type of person, then you probably failed to set the alarm correctly in the first place. Maybe you should consider a new career in gardening or house-painting. In retrospect the utter failure of all these features can be ascribed to lack of user interest and user incompetence. But even if you managed to teach everyone in the building to operate the damn software, then managed to convince or force them to actually use it all day long, then said goodbye to the time it takes them to do so, well...this expensive turkey was not going to save us any money. Quite the opposite in fact. As far as I could tell, nobody had perceived any problem with scheduling, meetings, document markups or alarm clocks in the first place. So why this million-dollar license for a giant chunk of software that we didn't need? How did this costly gewgaw get foisted on a hurting company that was supposed to be in turnaround? The company was hurting because of scandal and poor product, not because we didn't know each other's schedules for pete's sake. And who are all these handsome, flashy-dressed people in the MS and IBM commercials who are saving millions by using software known as enterprise solutions? Do most workres at most companies really need anything more than e-mail and a network server where documents can reside? Maybe a few depts. in a few companies need this stuff. But most people can't be bothered and this stuff is just an imaginary solution to a bunch of problems that don't really exist. If these "problems" are really problems, then so are bathroom breaks, breathing, the time it takes to get from floor 3 to floor 7, the need to eat food and of course the incredibly slow transfer of information called "speech" (we need MS to jack our brains into a network to save time and millions for giant corporations, right?). Well, I hope the guy who sold this enterprise solution to our company got a nice bonus out of it. Does anybody have a different take on this stuff? I am only one guy at one company. There has got to be more to it than I saw. Link to post Share on other sites
enderzero 0 Posted October 7, 2003 Share Posted October 7, 2003 When I worked for a certain company that had a vested interest in making sure Outlook was successful we used a lot of those features (schedule+ and the like). They work well for enterprise level stuff, but a lot of it is unneccessary. I use full-meal-deal Outlook and really like the high end email stuff. I don't use any of the journal/tasks/notes crap, and actually the ability ro remove that stuff from my folder list is something I am hoping is added to the new Outlook. But my main problem is just how underpowered and un-configurable the contacts are. Most web based email client address books are better than Outlook's. Link to post Share on other sites
grungy-gonads 54 Posted October 7, 2003 Share Posted October 7, 2003 I use only the basics too - surely thats the case with the vast majority of people with the software. Link to post Share on other sites
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