MS Office v. X is comming

[evildead]

I got a copy of MS Office v. X last night. It's not in stores yet but ... it will be soon. When ever I get apps like that.. they hit the shelves soon after. I installed it with the value pack. Looks good so far. Havent tryed Window Media palyer for OS X yet, but will when I get home. Importing Enturage accounts and settings from verion 2001 was a snap. A buddy of mine is a sales rep for MS.. he said that the Mac version should be out soon in stores. He all ready has all the promo stickers and posters and junk to put out when they tell him too.

Too bad the rest of the MS cant code like the Mac devision can.

[Ensign Paris]

I agree, my copy of Office X arrived this morning compliments of a friend of mine in MS UK, Entourage and Word are the only two programs I have used so far, but I am going to delve in to Powerpoint and Excel tonight!

Thanks,
Guy Wickenden

[jefhatfield]

the coding probably is not the "issue" as much as it is that apple gives something "cleaner" for microsoft to work with

the rush to get the first pc computer os out committed, in a sense, microsoft to dos and this caused an imperfect world for the pcs/wintel world to work with in the first place

microsoft's software is not bad per se, (and i know many on this site will strongly disagree with me), but it's more accurate to say other software (mac os, novell netware, oracle, sun, etc... is better)

let's say if windows 98 SE rated a 7 out of 10, then mac OS 9.1 or OS 10.1 would be a 9 out of 10 in my book

...windows NT, or mac os 8.1 would be a 6 out of 10

...original windows 95, original windows 98, or windows ME for me would rate a 5 or below

...windows 2000 at release would be a 4

...and windows 3.1 would be a 3 or so

and by no means would i call microsoft's current operating systems a big fat zero

but that said, i still am not defending microsoft or bill gates for their past predatory actions...so blame where blame is justified (the people and/or leaders of microsoft) and don't slam the software because mediocre and downright awful are two different things indeed

evil kenevil, you are headed into double century...congrats!

[Edited by jefhatfield on 11-16-2001 at 05:49 PM]

[spikey]

True.

I think the reason why people hate microsoft is because microsoft take advantage of their dominance of the market. hence why the software is mediocre.

I wouldnt rate win98SE so high.



by the way seeing as your a pc tech jef i need your opinion, whats better an ATI Radeon VE 32Mb or a Geforce2 MX200?

[jefhatfield]

i am just a lowly tech and my knowledge is for basic home users and businesses...networking clients, LAN, WAN, ms office, backup, restore, basic harware needs, etc.

the high end gaming cards never enter the mix since the gamers never need to call me or any other techie for hardware tasks since many of these people know more than me

us certified and or degreed techies pale in comparison to those self taught, usually gamer geniuses who know hardware and coding in such a way that the "official" techs of the field think that they must have sold their soul to you know who

the gamers i know seem to be really into gforce moe than ati in general

[spikey]

ok, i dont believe you but ok.

your about to become the most prolific poster jef.

[Ensign Paris]

I would go for the GeForce unless you can get the new Radeon (I think its called the 7500 or the 8500 cant remember)

Guy

[jefhatfield]

the last time i came in contact with pc gamers, they were loyal geforce dudes and all i heard from them was, "ati sucks"

but maybe ati is hot...i did hear speculation about ati coming back to recapture lost ground from the geforce invasion in a mac based magazine

let me know what the latest greatest is then because i thought the boring side of IT moved fast enough...the only problem is i would never need something so powerful as the latest ati or geforce card

...my cards are the standard 4MB AGP card in my ibook and the 2 MB video card in my compaq presario 366 laptop so you know where i am coming from as a gamer...i play solitaire on mac and pc, nanosaur & bugdom on mac, and flight simulator 95 on pc so my needs are very modest...i do have diablo II for pc but i have not installed that one yet (yeah, i know, me playing a knight fighting skletons and bad guys with only 2 MB of video RAM in a early 1999 era pc laptop...yes, you can laugh now!!!)

ps - also concerning the windows 98 SE comment...i thought i put enough distance between windows 98 SE and OS X...ok, ok, then...i give windows 98 SE a 6 out of 10...that would be a "D" in high school...what would you give, on just one month out now, as a grade for windows XP?

i have only doodled with it at different stores because my above mentioned pc laptop cannot run XP efficiently since its stats are at the bottom of the operating requirements for XP

[spikey]

XP is good.
seems a tad sluggish.
Patronising GUI
Reasonably stable.

I would give it 7.5/10

[spikey]

I think i can get the geforce for less than £40 so i think i will go for it.
On the other hand the ATI has a very nice special sounding name.

[Ensign Paris]

9.75/10

Some features yet to come like Click and a-Half, when that comes I will be happy.

Anybody got an terminal things to do that?

Guy

[Disdain]

warez warez where is the warez?

[evildead]

Originally posted by Disdain
warez warez where is the warez?


its out there

[evildead]

This thread got a little sidetracked :)

Well.. I have some new info from test results messing arround with a copy of MS Office v.X I put it on two computers in a lab... so they are on the same network. Both installed fine and I used the same serial number for both. But If one copy is running on one Mac then when you try to open Office on the other Mac, it comes back and complains that there is another active copy with the same serial number running... so it wont start. Very interesting and ... a little scarry. I wonder what MS is up to. http://www.appleturns.com/ reports that MS was paining to do some of that messy foced registration crap they do for OfficeXP and WinXP. I wonder what kind of info my computer is sending to the evil empire when I am not looking. Any one else hear anything about this????

[Edited by evildead on 11-20-2001 at 01:26 PM]

[akuma]

Originally posted by evildead
...But If one copy is running on one Mac then when you try to open Office on the other Mac, it comes back and complains that there is another active copy with the same serial number running... so it wont start. Very interesting and ... a little scarry.

I think that is just an anti-piracy thing. From what I've heard, adobe has it built into their products also, so you can't run mulitple copies of programs over a network.

I've heard that, if you absolutly need to have two copies of office v.x running, you can just unplug from your network, then start the program, then plug back in and it'll run fine. Not a very efficient work-around, I know. :)

[jefhatfield]

BUT THIS IS TRUE TO REAL LIFE THOUGH, DON'T YOU THINK

THE LAST REAL PIRATES EXISTED IN THE 19TH CENTURY ANYWAY

[sparkleytone]

bill gates = the ultimate software pirate

we all know this and i find it psychologically interesting that he is so bent on protecting his stuff from piracy.

i guess its a little different, he doesnt want people to COPY XP, where as he just STEALS INNOVATIONS and IDEAS. oh...yeah thats it that must be okay.

so i guess instead of copying all of m$'s software...i'm gonna get some people together, and as m$'s betas come out for blackcomb, we'll steal their ideas, move them in a vertical direction, and come out with it two months earlier.

except i dont know if i can make it suck as much.

yeah how's THAT for prolific ;)

[jefhatfield]

good point

do you think bill will be sharing a cell with bin laden or noriega?

[spikey]

could be worse.
he could share a cell with jeffrey archer. Now just imagine what sort of evil archer and gates would create.

[Foocha]

I'm puzzled by the way you've ranked 98 SE higher than 2000 Jef - surely NT has to be better than DOS? Also, whilst I'm a big Mac fan, I'd find it hard to justify ranking OS 9.1 higher than 2000!? If DOS was ugly, then surely OS 7 (let's face it, OS 9 was just OS 7 with a face lift) was uglier. It's only now with OS X that we can look our PC friends in the eye again ;-)

I have to say I think Microsoft make some great software - but with the kind of money they can afford to throw at product development, what would you expect? Office is great - it's a beautiful suite of well thought out apps. It's really nice to see that it now looks best on OS X.

Network protection of serial numbers has been around for years on the Mac - Adobe, Macromedia and Quark use it - I think Apple support it at a system level. It's been key to Apple attracting developers to the platform - Mac users buy more software than their PC equivalents.

[jefhatfield]

give the hcl a bigger list and make the hal a little friendlier and then i will give w2k a better rating

98SE, for all its faults, is so friendly with third party software compared to NT and w2k

98 SE still dominates for windows users in home and business

i went to tech school so i could be a microsoft certified professional based on nt/w2k and xp, but the money is in dealing with windows 98 SE standalone, tutoring of win 98, and windows workstation issues with windows 98SE, whether it belongs to a nt/2000/netware/linux network

i think many mac users hate windows 98 SE because it is all over the place and they look at their superior mac machine and must say, "and we got beat by this?"

belive me, everyday a look at a windows machine, i ask the same question quietly to myself...changing my clients to mac would eventually make me lose those clients because of mac's ease and stability...why do you think i use macs at home?....the last thing i want to do is be a techie at home, i just want the machine to work for ME, not the other way around

[Edited by jefhatfield on 11-20-2001 at 05:04 PM]

[evildead]

I know Adobe likes to talk to my mac... but there are some files that I just tossed that fixed that.. any one heard of a fix for Office??


Thanks for info

[SPG]

What did you toss for Adobe? Does it effect functionality otherwise or just the BigBrotherness?

[Foocha]

Interesting points on w2k Jef. You clearly know your hcl from your hal when it comes to Windows. I had to check them out on the Microsoft Web site to understand what you were talking about.

I guess backwards compatibility is what you sacrifce in the name of progress - something OS X users will be every bit as familiar with as w2k users.

[evildead]

Originally posted by SPG
What did you toss for Adobe? Does it effect functionality otherwise or just the BigBrotherness?


a few files that talk to Adobe.. I havent seen any diffrence in functionality at all... you just make alises of them ... then toss the originals. I have the list at home on my mac.. I am at work on my PC right now. I will post them here later

[evildead]

Adobe WARNING!!

before installing illustrator 9 or Photoshop 6.0 cut off your connection.

Then go into System Folder > Application Support > Adobe > Web : and then compress the following files :

AdobeOnline Inventory
Adoberegistrationeng.html or Adoberegistrationenu.html
AdobeWeb.dll
AOM

As recently reported by MacInTouch, these modules send your registration name and number directly to Adobe.

http://www.macintouch.com/illustrator9part3.html#sep14

Make sure to read the privacy statement by Adobe. This is where they inform you of the registration number being sent.

[Foocha]

I've been using Office v.X for a week now, and overall I'm very happy with it. I have encountered several issues with it:

- Links from PowerPoint documents to local HTML files do not work properly. When you click through, IE is launched, but the document is not displayed. The only work around I've found is to put the HTML documents in the sites folder and access them via Web sharing using http://127.0.0.1/~username
- Spell check is very slow in all Office apps - it takes as long as 30 seconds for the red underlining to appear or disappear. This was almost instantaneous in the previous release.
- The buttons on the toolbar in Entourage sometimes mysteriously appear highlighted for no apparent reason
- File names are restricted to the old 32 characters

Considering the work that must have been involved in porting to OS X, Microsoft have done an excellent job, but I am suprise they released it with this many bugs. Has anyone else encountered problems with Office v.X?

[evildead]

I have noticed some of the same problems. The spell check and the vanishing buttons. It still need a little work but over all I would agree.. its not bad. I have not done any real work in Powerpoint so I cant report anything.

[AmbitiousLemon]

"1) before installing illustrator9 or photoshop6 disconnect from your internet connection.
2) Go to System Folder > Application Support > Adobe > Web and compress and delete the ".sit" text or alias and delete the "alias" text the following files:

• AdobeOnline Inventory
• Adoberegistrationeng.html or Adoberegistrationenu.html
• AdobeWeb.dll
• AOM

trash or move the original files to a backup location

As noted in MacInTouch, these modules send your registration name and number to Adobe.

http://www.macintouch.com/illustrator9part3.html#sept14

Make sure you read the privacy statement by Adobe. This is where they inform you of your registration number being sent."
-quest

[evildead]

AmbitiousLemon, didnt I post that same thing a few posts ago? maybe thats why you said not to ask

[AmbitiousLemon]

not sure what happened there but i didnt see your post. saw the one with you saying ull post it soon but missed the actual warning.