Category: Imported

That I know of, none of my relatives or friends were directly affected by hurricane Katrina.  I just read Sara Ford’s latest post on the subject, and it’s a stark reminder of the long-lasting affects of Katrina.  Since the disaster, Sara has catalogued her efforts to try to help rebuild her hometown of Waveland, MS.  The rest of her blog is focused mostly around Visual Studio Powertoys.  It’s a good read if you develop under Visual Studio, or if you just need a reminder about the destructive nature of hurricanes.  Take a minute to read through, and then think about how you can keep yourself and your family safe in the event of a natural disaster.

I previously wrote that Microsoft should offer up Windows Starter Edition as a free product.  Stephen Broadwell writes that he thinks Microsoft could morph Starter Edition into an Ad-supported version of Windows (towards the end of the post).  If this could lower the cost of computing so that more folks can realize the benefits, then this would be a good thing.
 
Microsoft could extend this even further.  In their press release today, Microsoft writes that they are going to start allowing OEM’s to install 60-day trials of Office on PCs, and then the OEM still gets to be part of the transaction if the user decides to purchase a full license.  They could extend the ad-supported model to include a free/ad-supported version of office as well: 2007 Office Starter Edition.  Then they can let the OEM’s get a cut of either the ad revenues, or the price the consumers pay to upgrade to a full version.
 
In the earlier referenced blog post, Stephen wrote:
“Imagine booting up Windows Starter Edition and seeing a list of 10 commercials.  You have to click on at least one to continue.  Every so often the system downloads an updated set of commercials from the Internet.” 
I’m not a big fan of the interruption ad model, and would rather see relevant contextual ads using up some screen real-estate.  Microsoft could even build a platform for displaying ads, and provide an API for application programmers to provide context, and then serve up ads from Adcenter (https://adcenter.msn.com/).  Adoption can be driven through revenue sharing.  Perhaps Microsoft could even share the revenue with the consumer if they are willing to provide a detailed profile to allow more directly targeted advertising.

Anil Dash says that the Office UI is “brave”.  I agree that it’s a pretty ballsy move, but I’m afraid that whether history will look back on it as brave or foolish is yet to be determined.  I’m a pretty pro-Microsoft guy, and it’s taken me a while to start coming around.  But like Rory points out in a post titled “Pardon me, Microsoft, while I help save Microsoft“, many folks aren’t willing to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt. (I know it’s painful, but read Rory’s whole post.  Skip a couple of the historical references if you must, but he makes some very good points. And Rory: seriously it’s over 3500 words, couldn’t you cut it back a bit?).

I dug this one out of my “Blog This” folder…  David St Lawrence pontificates on the significance of blogs.  My favorite quote: “Your message is spread by the power of your ideas.”

The Office 2007 UI Is Growing On Me, slowly…  I’ve complained in the past, and I’m still not so sure I’ll ever be totally assimilated.  But the ribbon bar UI is starting to grow on me.  I’ve forced myself to use Word 2007 for a couple of drafts and papers, and it’s not so bad. 

My biggest pain points come in when I start down any of my old Word 2003 ALT-key navigation trees.  I used to do things like hit ALT-E, then arrow down to Paste Special.  Now Word 2007 just mocks me by telling me “Office 2003 access key: ALT, E, Continue Typing the Office 2003 menu key sequence, or press escape to cancel”.  Even if I dutifully hit the appropriate arrow keys, it doesn’t give me my paste special dialog.  I have to remember the hotkey from the menu.  Was it P, or S, or maybe E? (It’s S if you’re wondering)

Now, when I hit the brick wall with my learned behavior, it is pretty easy to find what I need, but it breaks my concentration.  I’m not sure how long it’ll take before I un-learn all those old behaviors, but so far my ALT-key + arrows habit is alive and well.

In a related note, I’ve started reading Jensen Harris’ Office UI Blog, to help understand the new UI.  In a recent post Jensen talks about their exclusion/inclusion of the “Spelling Check is Complete” dialog.  Instead of requiring a click, I think they should just fade something similar to toast into the middle of the screen, and then let it fade away.  If a dialog is meant for one-directional communication, don’t make me click it to get rid of it.  And if you’re going to keep the dialog:

Does it cancel all my changes?  Is it the same as OK?