Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Microsoft Shrugged
Well, let this be the first in what I’m sure will be a long series of posts dedicated to the backward, counterproductive, consumer thoughtless posts dedicated to the mighty Microsoft.
One of the reasons I got the new PC (didn’t make ‘the switch’ as I still have my iMac) was so I can do work at home. I use Excel and Word quite a bit and I seem to be more productive in the confines of my house. The new PC was inexpensive, which of course meant that it didn’t have Office, but instead utilized Works. This is problem #1.
Why is Works even an option? Seriously, do you know of anyone who uses any of its crappy applications? Why would MS even bother to make it? It is hardly able to communicate with Office documents. AppleWorks, while being from a whole different OS, will talk with Office and makes sure that Office can talk to AppleWorks, yet Office can’t even talk to another program from its same developer. The answer of course, is money. Every computer with Works will give you a ‘free’ 60 day trial of Office. So MS in all their charity will give you a sub-standard, obsolete program, only to lure you into having to drop $200 on what you could have had installed in the first place.
This created the second problem.
Luckily I work for Circuit City, who has a pretty good working relationship with MS. Turns out, through an accommodations program we have with MS, I can get Office Professional 2003 for $19.95, one hell of a good deal. So I go to install it and everything is fine, that is until I go to open Word. When I do, it asks me for the product key (which, during the installation process I had already entered). I re-type all 25 digits and it tells me that the key was invalid. Invalid? So I retype the damn thing five or six times, using all sorts of combinations of capitols and lower case. Then, after some research, I come to the conclusion that Word was conflicted with the new program and the existing ‘free’ trial version (the one that came with the computer). I then had to un-install my new program, dump the trial version and then re-install the new program.
Good Lord.
Here’s where I long for my Apple days. You see Apple, being a user friendly company, writes programs that pick up on stuff like this and automatically do all dumping for you. Why? Because it makes sense. Why? Because it’s easier on the consumer. Why? Because they have programmers who think about these kind of things.
I get the feeling that I’ll be ranting on this kind of thing at least twice a month.
One of the reasons I got the new PC (didn’t make ‘the switch’ as I still have my iMac) was so I can do work at home. I use Excel and Word quite a bit and I seem to be more productive in the confines of my house. The new PC was inexpensive, which of course meant that it didn’t have Office, but instead utilized Works. This is problem #1.
Why is Works even an option? Seriously, do you know of anyone who uses any of its crappy applications? Why would MS even bother to make it? It is hardly able to communicate with Office documents. AppleWorks, while being from a whole different OS, will talk with Office and makes sure that Office can talk to AppleWorks, yet Office can’t even talk to another program from its same developer. The answer of course, is money. Every computer with Works will give you a ‘free’ 60 day trial of Office. So MS in all their charity will give you a sub-standard, obsolete program, only to lure you into having to drop $200 on what you could have had installed in the first place.
This created the second problem.
Luckily I work for Circuit City, who has a pretty good working relationship with MS. Turns out, through an accommodations program we have with MS, I can get Office Professional 2003 for $19.95, one hell of a good deal. So I go to install it and everything is fine, that is until I go to open Word. When I do, it asks me for the product key (which, during the installation process I had already entered). I re-type all 25 digits and it tells me that the key was invalid. Invalid? So I retype the damn thing five or six times, using all sorts of combinations of capitols and lower case. Then, after some research, I come to the conclusion that Word was conflicted with the new program and the existing ‘free’ trial version (the one that came with the computer). I then had to un-install my new program, dump the trial version and then re-install the new program.
Good Lord.
Here’s where I long for my Apple days. You see Apple, being a user friendly company, writes programs that pick up on stuff like this and automatically do all dumping for you. Why? Because it makes sense. Why? Because it’s easier on the consumer. Why? Because they have programmers who think about these kind of things.
I get the feeling that I’ll be ranting on this kind of thing at least twice a month.
Comments:
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I haven't tried it, but have heard really good things about Open Office. It is supposed to be compatible with MS Office and save in MS formats.
http://www.openoffice.org/
http://www.openoffice.org/
Oh, Kirk... don't tell me you didn't know that Microsoft Office is available for the MAC? In a better version? With better features? And less restrictive licensing crap???
Ugh.
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Ugh.
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