For months, I've been listening to gripes and whines about the new Office 2007 interface from people who don't like the new Ribbon and want their old menus back. My usual response was well, if you want it to look like Office 2003, why not just use Office 2003 instead?  After all, most of the folks who were complaining weren't really using most of the new features in Office anyway, so I figured their best solution was to just save a few bucks and not upgrade.

Alternatively, except for Outlook, you can run the Office 2003 and Office 2007 applications on the same computer. I did that for a while, until I found I was never opening the old apps anymore because I, unlike so many folks, actually do like the new Ribbon interface.

But much as I think the Ribbon makes most tasks easier, there were occasions when I wished I had the old menus back - not instead of the Ribbon, but in addition to it.

Well, it's possible now to have exactly that, with an add-in available at http://www.addintools.com/english/menuoffice/default.htm from a Chinese developer that I mentioned in last week's WXPnews. I have to admit I was a little wary of installing it at first. I've had bad add-in experiences before and after all, I'm not the one who's been longing for the old menus. But finally I decided to give it a try on a secondary machine. If it worked, I'd have an answer for all those folks who refused to get over the loss of the classic menus and move on.

Well, I installed the trial version on the secondary laptop and I fell in love. Suddenly I had the best of both worlds - all my Ribbon tabs were still there, but so was a new Menus tab that had the old toolbars on it, so I no longer had to go hunting for things like the Sort in Ascending order button. Way cool.

I tested it for a while to make sure it didn't cause application instability, but there were absolutely no problems. So I installed it on my primary desktop machine and paid to register it. I've been working with it for a week now and I love it. Here's what the interface looks like:

Click HERE for a larger version.

I'm using the add-in with Office 2007 Ultimate edition on Vista Ultimate. If you've been pining away for the old menus, it's well worth the $29. And even if you like the new Ribbon, you'll find it doesn't get in the way and it's nice to have the old menus there when you want them.

I have to say Microsoft could probably have increased the adoption of Office 2007 if they had built this in from the beginning.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

George Ou stirred up a lot of controversy over on ZDNet recently when he said something I've been thinking for years: who cares, in these days of cheap storage, if an application has "too many" features? You can read his opinion at http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=479.

So-called "feature bloat" may have been a legitimate issue when a few hundred megabytes of disk space cost several hundred dollars. Today I can buy a 750 gigabyte hard drive for $250 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150014+103530113+1035320984&name=750GB). If Office 2007 Pro requires 2 GB of disk space (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/ha101668651033.aspx#5), so what?

Some folks said George's grocery store analogy wasn't valid; I disagree. Those who say they aren't having to pay for all the stuff in the grocery store don't understand how business works. Built into the price of those items that are bought frequently is overhead for the ones that sell less well or have lower margins, as well as the cost of housing all those items you never use.

For years and years and years, I went to the grocery store and never once bought Ambesol (toothache medicine). I could have called that whole section of the store "bloatware" -- but then one day I got a toothache and I was glad it was there. I didn't have to trek off to a different store to find it while I was in pain. Same way with some of the Office features. I might never use them -- until one day when I have a special case and I suddenly need that feature, and when I do, it'll probably be when I'm up against a deadline and it's really nice to have it right there and not have to go download/pay for a separate program to do what I need to do.

Bottom line: software customers don't realize how well off they are. If you pay for commercial software like Office, you get a lot for your money. If you don't want to pay, there are free options out there, like Open Office, that work pretty well.  If you don't use all the programs, there are a number of editions to choose from that have fewer apps. If all you use are Word and Outlook, just buy those programs individually instead of the entire Office package. If you don't want all the features, you can do a custom installation and reduce what gets installed.

But when you talk about software "bloat," don't compare just the file sizes of today's programs with the file sizes of those fifteen years ago. Also compare the relative percentage of space today's program takes on a $300 hard disk, vs. the percentage that program of fifteen years ago took up on a hard disk that cost $300 back then. I think you'd find that today's programs, which give you so many more features and options and so much more functionality, aren't really bloated at all.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

Since the discussions of Web 2.0 and SaaS at the Microsoft IT Pro Town Hall Meeting last week, I've been giving a lot of thought to the idea of Software as a Service and whether it will ever really catch on. The benefits for some business customers are obvious: a fixed monthly cost with no worries about software maintenance and upgrading sounds like a pretty good deal to company managers who are spending big bucks for productivity programs and the IT personnel to maintain them.

But don't expect those IT professionals themselves to get behind the idea anytime soon. If the reactions at the meeting were any indication, IT people see SaaS as a threat to their very existence - much the same way factory workers viewed automation a few decades ago (and those fears turned out to be pretty well founded).

Based on what I've heard from home users, they aren't too enthralled with the idea of paying a monthly or annual fee to lease their software, either. This is true even if you tell them it may cost them less and even though most of them know that they don't really "own" the software they buy anyway under current licensing agreements.

What it all boils down to, I think, is an issue of control. IT administrators are, by their very nature, control freaks. Tom and I certainly are. We could pay someone to host our web servers and our Exchange server and maybe we'd save a little money (and we'd almost certainly save a certain amount of hassle), but having those servers somewhere across the Internet and not under our control is not an attractive proposition. Being at the mercy of some stranger hundreds or thousands of miles away to fix things when there's a problem is more than a little scary. Trusting someone else with your web sites and your email isn't easy, not for us control freaks.

Of course, the SaaS concept will probably fly with a lot of people. Our society seems to be becoming more and more willing to give over control to big government, more eager to have someone else take care of us, less determined to take responsiblity for our own lives. Why not abdicate control of our software, too?

I don't expect to go easily into that good night myself, but I have to reluctantly admit that SaaS probably is what the future of computing looks like. 'Til then, a few diehards will continue to embrace the DIY philosophy.

deb@shinder.net    www.debshinder.com

No photography was allowed at the Microsoft event (see previous post), but here are a few pictures of the very nice suite they provided at the Hyatt Bellevue and the view of the city.

Living area 

 
Another view of the living area

Bedroom

 
Most important part: work area big enough
to accomodate both our laptops

 
View from the tenth floor

Another view

Back to Seattle this week to participate in Microsoft's IT Pro Townhall Meeting. This was the first event of its kind, and coming just a little over a month after the MVP Summit, comparisons of the two are inevitable. The gathering of MVPs is always fun, informative and exhausting, with almost 2000 Microsoft technology experts from all around the world, whose areas of expertise vary widely, from

Word gurus to developers. There's always far too much packed into that week, and the MVPs' role is primarily passive, listening to what Microsoft representatives have to say about the company's products and technologies.

The Townhall Meeting was an entirely different experience. To begin with, there were far fewer of us, and prior to arrival none of us were quite sure what we were doing there. Microsoft flew in around fifty people identified as "community leaders." As far as I could tell, everyone was from the U.S., and the group included such well known names as:

• Mark Minasi, renowned speaker and author of Windows networking books
• Mary Jo Foley, formerly the heart and soul of Microsoft Watch and now a columnist for eWeek
• George Ou,Tech Republic technical director and one of my favorite ZDNet bloggers
• Ed Bott, another well known book author and tech magazine/ezine writer
• Karen Forster, editorial director of Windows IT Pro Magazine
• Jesper Johansson, former Microsoft senior security strategist and now principal security engineer at Amazon
• Jim McBee, with the Defense Intelligence Agency
• John Williams from MIT
• Mark Burnett and Tony Piltzecker, authors of Syngress books
• Brien Posey, prolific author of tech books and articles
• Rod Fournier from NASA
• Sean Deuby from Intel
• Stephen Wynkoop, famous user group leader

along with various other authors, bloggers, industry analysts, tech entrepreneurs, CEOs and educators (apologies to those I didn't mention by name; I don't have the whole list in front of me). It was really an honor for me and for Tom to be included in a group of such widely recognized industry leaders.

From the moment the Town Car picked us up at the airport and deposited us in a lovely suite at the Hyatt Bellevue, we got the VIP treatment. The event itself was a one-day affair that began with breakfast in the Executive Briefing Center on the Microsoft campus in Redmond, after which we moved to a comfortable, intimate room outfitted with black leather sofas and chairs arranged in a way that made it easy to interact.

The format was informal panel discussion, moderated by John Rymer, Forrester vice president. We were told the point of the event was not for us to listen to Microsoft, but for Microsoft to listen to us. We were invited to share our thoughts and pose questions freely. The first session of the morning was devoted to the concept of Web 2.0, a term that's been bandied about a lot but which a number of participants, including panelists, admitted we could only vaguely define. In fact, a great deal of the discussion dealt with defining what (if anything) the term meant to each of us. The panelists were Bill Veghte and Craig Barnes from the IT community, and Microsoft Vice President Chris Jones. In fact, we were destined to see a lot of Microsoft VPs as the day went on.

Recurring themes (throughout the day, not just the session) included Software As A Service (SAAS), more efficient ways of searching, organizing and prioritizing information (and the difference between useful information and raw data), the need for a reliable and standardized way of verifying not only the identity of information sources but also the credibility/reputation, and the evolution of the role of the IT professional .

The second session focused on the IT community . Panelists were Dave Sanders, Beth Quinlan, Kevin Kline, and Lee Benjamin. We talked about the value to Microsoft of user groups and the community, what an IT evangelist is and does, IT training (including the existing and potential use of virtualization in the training environment), the need for a more standardized curriculum and training pathways for online training, and the feedback that the IT community gets from various product groups within Microsoft (with a consensus that helpfulness varies tremendously from one product group to another).

Lunch was served in the same room as breakfast, with banquet tables set up to view a small stage so the discussion could go on as we ate. The food was excellent, with salad, a choice of steak, sea bass, a chicken dish or a vegetarian plate and a delicious chocolate cake for dessert. During lunch, the third session took place. The panel for this one consisted of Mark Minasi and Dan Holme representing the IT pros along with Bob Muglia and Ron Markezich, both Microsoft vice presidents. This one was about Data Center trends, with the focus on managed/hosted services and virtualization technologies. A lively discussion ensured over whether trends toward hosted services mean the demise of the IT pro as we know it, or merely a shifting of job duties and the need for new skillsets.

After lunch came the session many of us had been looking forward to: the Q&A with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Some of us MVPs had already expressed disappointment that Steve didn't speak at this year's MVP Summit; Bill Gates' keynote was great but Steve always manages to raise the energy level to an extraordinary degree. His enthusiasm is contagious and his personality is powerful.

Steve did a short presentation and then opened it up to questions. Mary Jo Foley did an excellent job of capturing the essence of his talk so rather than repeat what she said, I'll refer you to her blog post at http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=398. I had a question for Steve, but unfortunately the microphone never got around to me (and I wasn't the only one). He did invite us to email him with additional questions, and I intend to do so right after I finish this post.

In fact, my only real complaint about the event was that it was too short. I'd have liked to see it last for two days. Every single session ended with a number people unable to ask their questions or make their comments because we ran out of time.

That evening, Microsoft hosted a dinner and open bar party at the Columbia Winery, in a lovely setting. There we were all able to mingle more and exchange our impressions with one another and with the Microsoft employees who were present (one of the best known and certainly one of the nicest was Mark Russinovich, and I finally got a chance to tell him how much I enjoyed his excellent presentation about UAC to the Security MVP group at the Summit last month).

By the time we made it back to the hotel, we were well fed, full of ideas inspired by the discussions and happy to have made valuable contacts with many of our peers we'd previously known only through online correspondence or by reputation.

As with most events of this type, we were asked to complete an evaluation questionnaire, and I felt that my expectations had been met or exceeded -- but what I wonder is whether Microsoft got what they wanted/expected from the day. When you think about it, the airfare, hotel bills and food and drinks for fifty-something people, along with the transportation costs and salaries of the event coordinators, was a significant investment. As with any group, there were a few there who seemed compelled to turn it into a whine fest, but the majority of the participants seemed to recognize that the company was looking to us as a microcosm representing their customers - both the IT professionals who use and support server products and technologies and the consumers and employees who are end users of desktop technologies.

I don't believe it was a coincidence that most of us who were invited have a constituency of readers, users, students, etc. who look to us to be liaisons. Those people let us know what they like and don't like about Microsoft products, and this was an opportunity for us to bring those concerns and kudos to the attention not just of our usual contacts in various Microsoft product groups, but to those at the executive level in the company.

I believe this event was invaluable to me, to give me a better understanding of some of Microsoft's goals, plans and philosophies that can help me to better help those who depend on me for information about their technologies. I think (hope) it also provided value to Microsoft, to help them understand what's going on out in the community and how they can better address their customers' needs.

I have to say this was one of the most well-coordinated events I've attended in years. The only minor glitch that occurred, in regard to our hotel arrangements (due to the fact that Tom and I had a "different" situation since we were attending together), was taken care of quickly, efficiently and cheerfully. Otherwise, everything went like clockwork and all of those support people who organized and oversaw the event, provided transportation, served the food, etc. were, without exception, friendly and eager to please and saw that the day proceeded smoothly. Those folks, who often get overlooked, really deserve a lot of the credit for the success of this event.

DEBRA LITTLEJOHN SHINDER
deb@shinder.net   www.debshinder.com

The Vista sidebar is sort of like Hillary Clinton or Rush Limbaugh. You either love it or hate it, but it seems that few people are indifferent to it. I'm one of those who adores my sidebar (for one thing, it never tries to push partisan politics on me).

But I see a lot of people using the sidebar in a rather lackluster way, with those same old default gadgets. That's like moving into an already furnished house or apartment and never adding anything to make it more functional or aesthetically reflective of your own personality.

You're not stuck with the gadgets that come with the OS. You can download all sorts of cool ones from http://gallery.microsoft.com/vista/SideBar.aspx?mkt=en-us. And you can add the same gadget to your sidebar more than once. For example, I have five instances of a simple digital clock, set to all the time zones I want to keep up with (including Afghanistan, where my daughter is stationed).

I also have a little weather gadget that tells me the current temperature in my city, a cool electric blue analog clock (purely for looks), a Multimeter that tells me memory and processor usage (for both cores), a little calendar that shows me the full month at a glance, and a dictionary gadget for quick lookups.

But I love the sidebar so much, I wish I had two of them. I don't like having to click the arrow buttons to switch to a second sidebar "page" when I add more gadgets than will fit in the display, so I've taken some of my gadgets completely off the sidebar and put them on my desktop.

You can create a sort of second sidebar by lining the detached gadgets up along the other side of the screen or on a second monitor. Or you can just place them wherever they look best on your desktop.

In the screenshot of my desktop below, the yellow notepad, Zip Code lookup and currency exchange applets are detached sidebar gadgets, as are the "polaroid photos" at the left side of the screen.

Click here for a larger view of the desktop screenshot.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

All I know so far is that when I went to bed last night, Word worked fine. I was revising a number of old articles for a current project, opening each one in turn from Windows Explorer on Vista in the usual way: double clicking the file, which opened it in Word.

When I got up this morning to find that my computer had been restarted after installing automatic updates, that functionality was gone. It's not a file association issue - Word tries to open the document, but the window remains blank and then I get an error message that Word needs to close. I can still preview the document in the Preview pane, but I can't open it.

After this happened several times, I got this dialog box, asking me to run Office Diagnostics:

Naturally, the result was "there are no known solutions which require your attention." Gosh, that was a big help.

A bit of experimentation revealed that the same thing happens whether the document I'm trying to open is on a network drive or on the local computer. And it doesn't affect any other file types; I can still open PowerPoints, Excel files, MP3s etc. by double clicking in Explorer.

I can still open the documents from within Word, using the Open selection on the Office Logo menu (thank goodness) but that's not the way I'm used to working. Not being able to open documents from Explorer is not acceptable. In addition, if I open a document within Word, I can't click the mouse to place the cursor in the document, although I can use the arrow keys to change the cursor location. Finally, in the Word Options menu, I can't click any of the buttons on the side. Grrr.

Again, none of these problems appear in other Office programs, just Word. Of course, as a professional writer, I use Word more than any other application (with the possible exception of Outlook), and this greatly impairs its functionality.

If anyone else out here has encountered this, and especially if you've found a way to fix it (short of rolling back to a earlier system restore point, which it looks like I'll end up doing), please let me know.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

It's great to live in a world where we have choices. And in this world, many people choose to use Mozilla's Firefox instead of Internet Explorer as their web browser - but some may be doing so for outdated reasons.

If you use Firefox because you like the interface better, that makes sense. If you use it because there are some sites that will work on it and don't work on IE, that's another good reason (I have both browsers installed because I occasionally run across sites that I can access in one but not the other).

But if you use Firefox because you think it's more secure than IE, it may be time to rethink that decision. As my good friend George Ou points out in his April 3 post over on ZDNet (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/), "Firefox alone in recent months has had more exploits than Windows XP and Vista combined and is in serious need of mitigation measures (not to mention better code auditing). For example, here's a batch of 11 critical vulnerabilities and here's a batch of nine critical vulnerabilities, and some of those exploits were zero-day with proof-of-concept code."

Meanwhile, Microsoft has greatly improved browser security with IE 7, and especially when running IE 7 in protected mode on Windows Vista. Because of the nature of web communications, there will never be a 100% secure browser, but it behooves computer users who are truly concerned about security to keep up with the changes in each version of all the popular browsers and use the one that is really most secure in its current incarnation, not the one that used to be more secure.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."