Skip to main content

Craig Bailey's thoughts on life and Visual FoxPro: O07: Office 2007 Technical Refresh Thoughts

Craig Bailey gives a great rundown of features to be found in the latest Office 2007 Technical Refresh.

I'm glad he did this because while he identifies the good, he also identifies the bad (Project 2007 being hosed, among others), the ugly (Visio Startup) and the just plain "huh".

I had the beta on my laptop and unfortunately, that box lives on gmail and the web mostly so I've only had to use it a few times. One thing I hope they have fixed is their backward compatibility with Word 2003. I'm still out as to whether I'll do a full upgrade or even recommend it. As Craig notes, when some features aren't "backwards compatible so you are limited in who you can send it to" - this will really limit to how much it gets used. Microsoft should spend the resources and put together a web-based or free download tool to allow viewing of these files as they used to do. (if one already exists, then I've missed it)

Thanks Craig!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hey there - got an Excel spreadsheet from someone today - and when I tried to open it, it offered to take me directly to the website to download the converter. So, it's there.

yag
September 25, 2006 at 6:36 PM
Andrew MacNeill said…
Good to know. I'll have to try that with those earlier versions of Word on my other machine.

Thanks Yag!
September 25, 2006 at 7:08 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Merry Christmas

Whether you celebrate now, have already celebrated your past holiday, are planning to, or not, I hope you find yourself surrounded by family and those you love during this holiday season and are able to remember fondly those who are not with you. We often find ourselves buried in work, or too distracted by other problems, to share and remember a few moments with those closest to us. So many of us are separated by huge distances, we often find it easier to focus on those who are out of arm's reach yet so easy to connect with online, instead of those who are right beside us. So do yourself a favour, put down the keyboard (stylus, mouse, etc) and spend that time. I know I will. Merry Christmas. Powered by ScribeFire .
4 comments
Read more

Programmers vs. Developers vs. Architects

I received an email this morning from Brandon Savage 's newsletter. Brandon's a PHP guru (works at Mozilla) but his newsletter and books have some great overall perspectives for developers of all languages. However, this last one (What's the difference between developers and architects?) kind of rubs me the wrong way. Either that, or I've just missed the natural inflation of job descriptions. (maybe, it's like the change in terminology between Garbage man and Waste Engineer or Secretary and Office Administrator) So maybe it's just me - but I think there's still a big difference between Programmer, Developer and then of course, architect. The key thing here is that every role has a different perspective and every one of those perspectives has value. The original MSF create roles like Product Manager, Program Manager, Developer, Tester, etc - so every concept may pigeon hole people into different roles. But the statements Brandon makes are often distinction...
11 comments
Read more

From Writing to AI: the pattern repeats itself

When I was ten years old, my dad bought a computer and, thanks to an advertising supplement in a Superman comic I read, it was a TRS-80. A month later, he dragged the entire family (my mom and brother were not the most enthusiastic) to a class at Radio Shack teaching how to use microcomputers. At the time, I understood why my mom wasn’t that excited: the computer was yet another gadget in the house. But today I find it fascinating. My mother went to Vassar in the 50s. She learned how to type — not a common skill at the time — but it opened doors. Her ability to communicate effectively led her to a career in adult education and later communications work with the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). This isn’t a nostalgia post. Today, the ability to use artificial intelligence, be it through Copilot or simply writing the right prompt, is becoming a critical skill. But is it really that novel? In the 1500s and 1600s, the printing press gradually made reading accessible beyond cler...
Post a Comment
Read more