Today, for your general entertainment, I am going to write a paper in Microsoft Word. This is not something I normally do, but I am forced to today because my computer is still down. And all the computers in the labs have Word. Obviously.
The writing of a paper in itself is not entertaining. Me taking notes on the experience is. So here goes:
1) It is entirely too difficult to find the place to change the line spacing. This is because it is no longer in the menu system anywhere.
Yes, that's right. No, I have not decided to start typing in Ardith's Secret Language, in which 'no longer...anywhere' really means 'somewhere sort of handy where it used to be.' This particular function is nowhere to be found in any of the menus or dialog boxes. Instead, it is only accessible from a little icon, a design move which I find very disturbing. Did they ever think about what would happen if one turned all the little icons off?
I think people like me who actually like using the menus are being discriminated against. I should demand a refund. Except that I only paid for this copy of Office indirectly.
2) The little note that pops up in the taskbar saying "Help make Office better!" is extremely annoying. And by extremely annoying, I mean Oh-great-there's-another-little-popup-for-me-to-ignore.
3) Some of the dialog boxes have become Annoying Right-Hand Side Search an Online Microsoft Database Panes. Including Help. Which is all well and good, except for the fact that it scrunches my paper. I don't like that.
I've finished one entire sentence of my paper. I'm so proud of myself. *grin*
4) The constant green lines under my more creative sentence structures are also annoying. If I wanted it to check my grammar, I'd tell it to.
*goes to shut that particular 'feature' off and thus annoy the next person to use this machine*
*distracts self by reading /.*
Looky! It seems all my conspiracy theories are well-founded. Surely this strange effect is due to the very large fishnet currently being cast around the solar system.
Ah. I have discovered a new answer to the age-old question, "Who are you?"
"I don't know. I lost my bio and 8x10 glossy during my last special-ops mission."
*distracts self by going to read ProfQuotes*
"I'm a 60's kid. I believe what goes around comes around. I believe if you lie to me, someday you will be walking across central campus and a plane at thirty thousand feet will lose a wheel and turn you into a grease spot. Don't lie to me." -- Dr. Stuart, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.
Paper Completion Status: 1.3 out of 3 pages.
Time Elapsed: 1 hour.
*distracts self with reasons to hunt down a used iPAQ*
Paper Completion Status: 2 out of 3 pages.
Time Elapsed: 1.5 hours.
*insert lengthy typing session here*
Okay, almost 3 pages in 2 hours. That's close enough.
Posted by Ardith at September 13, 2004 03:39 PM | TrackBack