Musings From My Home Office

I’m using Office 2007 again, but there are a few changes I’d like to see in this release of the software.

I really like the way it works, but I’d like to be able to define all my pop3 accounts and be able to have them each go into a separate PST without having to use a different profile for each POP3 account.

I’d like to be able to utilize the built in RSS capabilities, but be able to have that information sent to a different PST file as well.

I would like to have the menus back, at least for some things.  I had previously not had my signature set up to auto-insert and would use Alt+I+S and then select my signature to insert on emails.  That’s not possible with this release…..in fact, I couldn’t figure out how to insert my signature except to do it automatically…

Oh well.  The improvements in Outlook 2007 (and Office 2007) are substantial, and I believe that a lot of people will upgrade to this release.  I think there will be a bit of a learning curve when it comes to the new interface, but I believe that once people get used to it, they won’t want to go back, even for someone like me who has resisted moving to a newer Office release, having running Office 2000 for many years….

Tags: Office 2007 Beta 2, Microsoft, Outlook 2007

Well, after running Vista beta 2 for a day, I’ve reformatted my machine and re-installed Windows XP Pro.

I know, they said don’t install it on mission critical machines.  Oh well.  I’ve got a penchant for not listening.  Besides, as Jerry Pournelle used to say (maybe he still does) "I do these crazy things so you don’t have to."

I like Office 2007.  It’s sweet.  It seems like it will be a very worthwhile upgrade, especially for my current organization, which currently uses a mixture of Office 2000 and Office 97 (remember that version?  I didn’t think so).

But for me, at least at this point, I’m annoyed by the way you browse folders, which is the same as Office 2003.  It’s too painful for me to change over at this point.

Additionally, I don’t want to run into compatibility issues should I need to exchange documents with co-workers….

Vista beta 2 is nice.  I really don’t like some of the new "protect the user from themselves" security features, but that’s just me, I guess.  The main reason I uninstalled it is that I have a Celeron laptop with 512 meg of RAM and not enough memory on the video card to run in Aero mode.  It seemed much slower to do things than in XP Pro or even Home for that matter.  Bigger was the fact that my corporate VPN softwae, which is a requirement for me to be able to use, is not comaptible with Vista (this is to be expected at this point, but I was hopeful).

So, I’m back on XP Pro, and Office 2000.  It was nice to play on the wild side for the day, but for now, I’m content where I’m at…Tags: Vista Beta 2, Office Beta 2

If I had just looked at the author’s site at www.orderlist.com, I would have found it.  Duh.

I like it.  It was fast, easy to do, only one little glitch, which is my Tiger Style Administration console plugin that I had been using only sort of works with 2.0 .  Oh well.  I’ll look and see if the author has upgraded it. Other than that, it was a fast, painfree upgrade.  Thanks Matt & company.

Microsoft is offering Office 2007 beta 2 for anyone who wants to download it. I downloaded and installed it this evening on my Windows XP Pro machine. So far, so good. My main Office application is Outlook. I have a few add-ins for Outlook which are VERY important to me. I was thrilled when I installed Outlook 2007 that all my plugins kept on working just like they should (and did in Outlook 2000). Skylook - I’ve talked about Skylook before, but it becomes even more important now that Skype has announced free calling for US and Canadian numbers from Skype until (at least?) the end of 2006. If you don’t use Skype, you need to check it out. If you do, and don’t use Skylook, you need to ask yourself why….Skylook will increase your productivity with Skype and Outlook. Check it out. Newsgator - Yes, Outlook 2007 includes RSS support. But I’ve been using Newsgator since before v1, as a beta tester, and it is indispensable, especially since it synchronizes with Newsgator Online…If my machine crashes, and I have to re-install the OS, and Outlook, and Newsgator, I won’t lose my feeds, and will get back to the state I was in at the previous synchronization point. The comparison I would give between Newsgator and built in RSS support is this - Your car comes with a stereo. But it isn’t optimized (usually) for complete audio performance. An Denon car audio system is. Would you rather be listening to your Delco AM/FM radio in your new Hummer or a Denon CD player with surround sound and an IPod interface? Microsoft is the Delco. Newsgator is the Denon. You can figure it out. Use of Microsoft Office 2007 is "free" until February 2007. By then, if you use the beta, you’ll probably want to beg your company to upgrade (this is what Microsoft is hoping, I can just imagine). Me, I’m the IT guy. I can see strong reasons to upgrade from our current installed base of Office 2000 and Office 97….check it out, it’s free for now.

Since is was Memorial Day here in the states, we went to the cemetery to pay our respects, then we decided to do something fun for the day. I thought it would be fun to go to the zoo. But, I was outvoted, even when I suggested we could get cheesy fries. The cheesy fries usually wins over at least three of the four girls… We decided to go see the new movie called Over The Hedge with Bruce Willis. Bad thing was that we were one of the last people in the theatre, so we ended up sitting in the front row…. It was pretty good. I’m sure we will rent it when it comes out on DVD. Funny in parts. I’m not sure the girls liked it as much as some of the other movies they’ve seen, but we did have a good time. I suggest renting it.

I downloaded Windows Media Player 11 beta tonight, and installed it. I really like the new look. It seems really easy to use and intuitive. But where is support for podcasts? I know, maybe adding it would just be a ‘Me Too’ feature to ITunes, but I was really hoping that there would be podcasting support so I could eliminate ITunes and just use Windows Media Player… Alas, at least not with this beta version. Maybe later?

I was reading on Engadget today an interview with Sky Dayton (of Earthlink and Boingo fame) who has now started a new company called Helio, which will launch this spring. They haven’t launched yet. They’ve got 300 employees. And a big FLAME logo on top of their building across from UCLA. Wow. Amazing… Another MVNO (maybe this is the new .COM thing, the MVNO)…. Check out the interview here