New
#11
Well, Fafhrd, my guess is that you too are probably tiring of this long thread. I must say though that I have enjoyed the communication and the break on what was a dreary morning. It's afternoon and the sun is shining and my bees are calling. Be well, and thank you much for the interchange. Let me know if you come to Maine and I'll be glad to take you out for a beer.Firstly I apologise If I caused offence in my final sentence, I was making an analogy between the "fit" of Windows to an average user (the likes of which never existed), and the fit of a non-bespoke garment to an average body (also non-existent). I should not have used the word "you", and if, by that, I appeared to personalize the statement, it was not intended. Forgive me.
NO no no! No apologies needed, no offense taken, nothing to forgive. Having recently been to my yearly physical, my doctor told me that I am in great shape (why does she always qualify it with "for your age"?) and will "live to have another colonoscopy in a decade", so I'm feeling quite arrogant/cocky and you needn't worry about offending me.
I too have been working with computers (and users thereof - without which the box with a screen would not do much at all) for 30+ years, and I have never considered them as a single tool, more as a toolkit with almost endless possibilities.
Thank you for your patience, and yes, that would make a difference. For me, it is just another tool to facilitate my work. In the early days of DOS and writing one's own programs, macros, bats, et all, it was fascinating, but my life changed and as with cars, I came to a point where I just wanted to use them, and no longer was interested in "getting my hands greasy". Perhaps it was that these tools evolved to become so complicated that one had to spend much time learning and spend many hours searching for the right "app" as they say now. The computer started to take far more time than I wanted to give it - especially when for some reason it wasn't working properly while I was in the middle of work. I just had an experience here with this website where I went to submit a reply and a popup told me I wasn't signed in. But my name was still up there at the top. A number of attempts to refresh the page and finally I copied what I had written to a doc, and closed the page, re-logging in and pasting the writing. Those are the time consuming tasks that irritate. I'd rather be spending some time communicating with the "Clark Kent" hiding behind Fafhrd. LOL
I love the word "Spanmer", by the way, may I use it?
As long as you don't hit anything or one with it, please do.
I agree totally, but sadly not limited to Windows, and the BBC is noticeably dumbed down and the King's English is no more (hurrah!) if one listens. Of East End lorry drivers I know nothing more than I suspect you do, but I would bet the majority of them are multilingual these days.
It's true as one doesn't meet many from the EE in Cornwall nor in Hampshire, but I have met some who even spoke a form of Anglo-Saxon. And I'm not such a Luddite to not appreciate the melting pot aspect of humanity.
I don't understand this, as I worked with training users in WordPerfect, Lotus, Quattro Pro, AmiPro etc., and found the MS Office products more efficient and user friendly since they were much more integrated and used a common interface, but all the other "Office suite" offerings for Windows remained quirky and frankly buggy.
It's been many years since I made the change to Word from WordPerfect, but I do remember one of my peeves was that I could easily find what was wrong with the formatting by opening up, was it called Reveal Codes, whereas with MS, I was always told "wysiwyg" but one couldn't always see the formatting that had slipped in a few pages back. Lotus too was wonderfully simple to use - even the command language. With MS, one needed to take a course in VB and learn a whole new system and at a time when time was precious. (Now it is precious because there is not much in front as behind.)
Its a rule of evolution - learn to change or become a fossil, or to put it another way: "Once you stop learning, you start dying" - Albert Einstein
I often quote Ivan Illich, "There is no standing still. One either keeps on growing and changing or one begins to fossilize. Take your choice."
Frankly, I have it both ways - I still use Office 97 in preference to Office 365, because it costs me nothing and is screamingly fast, and in the end, no one can tell a document printed from either apart. (and MS Office converter tools still work for docx etc.) Which all adds up to my response to your next statement:
My "choice" is Office 2003 which I have because it is what most people I know and work with have. I still have 97 whenever I need it and i2003 was free thanks to the college my wife works at, but I am very leery, paranoid perhaps, of using anything like 365 based online. I live in the country where the internet is slow, and sometimes erratic.
Do it the old way if you want - it's all still there for you, nobody has made Windows 7 unavailable to you - yet.
Yet. That's the reason I have switched to Win10 now, rather than wait until 7 is vulnerable to security issues. I made that mistake with WinXP and had a time consuming meltdown.
Good for you, another one of us that is outside the box.
Your'e welcome
oops!
You mistake my avatar for my real nature or appearance, it is no more representative of me than the lack of an image on yours is representative of you. I do believe you when you admit to having a perfect body. So do I, and my suits all fit perfectly.
At this point, the only use I have for a suit is funerals. Few seem to be getting married so it's only funerals now
My wife and I both love Cornwall too.
Solar (heat and PV) is one (good) thing, but mechanical turbines are no less eyesores than pylons IMO, and fail more catastrophically.
I do understand that they are an assault on the aesthetic view, but so is smog. Perhaps if they were more colorful?
I think you may be comparing apples and oranges (probably a bad choice of fruit) Microsoft has done an amazing equalizing act by making computing affordable to the masses, and on the shoulders of the computer industry, the mobile telephone revolution has done even more to make information and education and the ability to create wealth available to members of some of the poorest societies.
I do concur when I stand back and look at the big picture. All technological advances (should that word be in quotes?) are two-edged and we muddle on with them. Eventually they get refined and/or cause problems and society demands that we change them. The chance for something new but also something problematic. Ammonium Nitrate used for bombs, then a fertilizer to help feed the world, and now a pollutant and used in bombs again. Progress. I'm caught in the ambivalence between cynical and sanguine. I had hoped for humanity to improve in my lifetime, but didn't understand that it would improve both in the positive and negative ways. As long as I detach a bit, I can accept it as it is.
500 years ago, about the only place English was spoken was England, and then with about 200 (I am guessing here) dialects, and I'd bet there are even more today with the influx of new British residents from far flung places. The world would become a less enjoyable place if there were less choice available, not more.
Perhaps, but there was a commercialism and "modernization" in Penzance that seems to make it less enjoyable than it was 45 years ago. And who knows, I might be one of the contributors to that change by having my shop there.
Which is kind-of in opposition to the grumble and sentiments I sense were expressed in your initial post.
Oh, it was one of those days when nothing seemed to be going right and I'm not a patient person, especially with "work saving devices" that are not saving me work.
Don't worry about the quotes - I probably was the only one to read it anyway - there is a DR:TL tendency here :)