Comments on: Future of C&I (& this blog): blue skies

By: walt

walt — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 14:29:25 +0000

Thanks, and I’d say (probably) is essentially certain, just not fully public yet. Andy: I wasn’t aware of that one; I was aware that right-click functions and other choices are far more clearly stated. Sounds like Word’s doing a “presumptive right click” based on hovering; as long as you can turn it off (if your machine’s marginal), that seems like an excellent idea.

It looks as though I may wait a while after all, since I’ve now figured out what the problem with my old PC is, but…

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 01:27:14 +0000

Glad to hear things are (probably) working out, Walt!

By: Andy Havens

Andy Havens — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 01:20:18 +0000

Walt — good to hear the good almost news. Looking forward to details.

Also… the singe function about Word 2007 that I love to death is that if you select some text and let your cursor hover over it… a magic tool box appears that lets you alter the most common characteristics; font size, color, bold, italics, etc. No clicking (beyond selecting the text)… it just knows, “Hey… if you’re thinking about that text, you probably want to do something to it. Like… this.” Love it. Took awhile to get used to, but so slick.

By: walt

walt — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 16:49:17 +0000

Oh, and Peter: I’ll post about the core situation as soon as possible, but that will require coordination with the people I’ll be working for. Soon…

By: walt

walt — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 16:48:26 +0000

John, this is a classic YMMV situation…and since I have a full copy of Office 2003 sitting in a box, I’m certainly not obligated to move to 2007 when I move to Vista…but my wife’s been using Word 2007 and Excel 2007 for a few weeks, and finds them much preferable to Word 2000/2003–for reasons that make sense to me. There’s definitely a learning curve; it’s easier for her because she didn’t like the old Word (and its over-helpfulness), and she sees the logic in the new function groupings. Just looking over her shoulder, so do I–but there’s no question that it involves unlearning/relearning.

Tried OpenOffice. Not for me. And Google’s a little too involved in my life already…

By: Peter Murray

Peter Murray — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 16:33:17 +0000

As of right now, Iâ€™m about 99% certain that C&I will continueâ€“not because of direct sponsorship (still up in the air), but because of a satisfactory â€œcore situation.â€

Hear, hear, Walt! Not only for the welcome continuation of C&I, but more importantly for the ‘satisfatory “core situation.”‘! I can’t wait to hear more about it. Actually, I can — there is no sense in jinxing it…

By: John Dupuis

John Dupuis — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 16:28:46 +0000

Just a word of warning: my wife hates Office 2007. We upgraded from a fairly old version when we bought our new computer and she’s really having a hard time getting used to the new interface. The kids and I use Open Office at home and are really happy with it, but it may not be powerful enough for serious document preparation. Google Docs is also a really interesting option for a lot of the really simple stuff that I do, at least.

By: walt

walt — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 14:42:05 +0000

Thanks. I’m hoping that things will work out so that I can also do Making it Work (maybe with a different name) as a separate–I think that will particularly work well as a synthesis and commentary on what’s being said, and one of several related efforts to move libraries forward.

Yesterday was a strange day–I got the good news, but then went home and found my PC malfunctioning (in pretty much the same manner that my wife’s now-replaced notebook started malfunctioning a few weeks ago…). I may be migrating to Vista and Office 2007 a little sooner than I’d intended! (And if waltcrawford.name doesn’t show evidence of the new position for a while, that may be the reason: I could be entirely off the air for a few days.)

By: John Dupuis

John Dupuis — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 13:10:28 +0000

Great news, Walt. Good luck dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. It must feel great to have the situation settled without having to go through a period of even more uncertainty post-Sept 30.

I, for one, would have sorely missed C&I; I find it far more useful and entertaining than a bunch of disconnected blog posts for surveying the library world and helping me advance my own understanding of the challenges we face.

By: Dorothea Salo

Dorothea Salo — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 12:52:18 +0000

Great to hear, Walt!