Remind me again why I hate Windows

No thanks, my lappy is doing so on a regular basis.

Postcard from Bizarro World

Hi all, having a great time. Installed MS Office 2007, and am loving it! The new interface is quite a bit different, but pretty intuitive and (gasp!) easy to use. If Vista is this much better than XP, they may give Apple a run for their money. Word to your mother!
XOXO
B

First blog with the new lappy

My first entry from the new lappy, whom I've dubbed "Smurfette."

Time for a rant: So I'm looking at maybe upgrading from Adobe Creative Suite 2 (hereafter referred to as "CS2") to CS3. CS3 has some spiffy new featureness and functionality, but of course it's pricey. There are actually a variety of CS3 packages available that combine different programs for different user groups. There's a "Design" package, a "Web" package, and a "Production" package, and each is available in both "Standard" and "Premium" editions. The Premium edition adds a couple extra bells/whistles. If you want to go whole hog, you can also splurge for the "Master Collection," which bundles pretty much everything. After looking through the options, I determined that my needs are perfectly met by the Design Standard package. It's got precisely what I need - nothing more, nothing less.

So, I should upgrade, rather than pay for the whole package, right? Of course! Saves money, etc etc. Hmm. According to the site, regular retail for the full version is $1200, and the upgrade is $400. Ahh, but I'm a student, and can get the education pricing. Let's see... full version, $400, and upgrade ... huh. I don't see a price for the upgrade. I look around some more, and find nothing, so I decide to call customer service and find out if they have an education discount for the upgrade.

Note: The following transcript is paraphrased, and heavily expurgated in the interest of me not typing 14 minutes worth of boring crap.

*RING* Thank you for calling Adobe blah blah words. Your call will be answered something something. *RING* *RING*
Customer Service Rep [with strong Indian accent]: Hello, thank you for calling Adobe Customer Service, my name is Victor, may I have your customer number?
Me: I don't have a customer number, I'm just calling to ask a question about pricing.
Victor: Okay, and how can I help you?
Me: Right now I have the education version of Creative Suite 2, and I'm interested in upgrading to CS3. I'm wondering if there's an education discount for the upgrade.
Victor: Okay, before I can answer this, I need to create a record for you, so I will be creating a record now, okay?
[I give him my name, address, email address, DOB, SSN, TLA, IBM, LOL, and most recent sperm count. This requires me repeating a lot of things, and spelling out "3rd". Seriously. Then he gives me a customer number. I've been numerated! At last!]
Victor: Okay, and what can I help you with today sir?
Me: [repeats request, provides additional info such as: operating system, exact product I'm looking at (CS3 Design Standard), mother's maiden name, and US citizenship status.]
Victor: Okay, I am understanding that you have Creative Suite 2 Premium on Windows XP ... (he basically repeats back to me everything that I told him - I've noticed these Indian customer service reps do that - which is probably a good thing, because it verifies that he got the information right, but it's kind of annoying after the 2nd time.)
Me: Yes, and I want to know if there's a discount for educational purchases on the upgrade.
Victor: Okay, while I do research for this, I will put you on hold, okay? Please be on the line.
Me: (holding)
Victor: Okay, sir, I can give you good news, you want to upgrade [blah blah], and you can do that. So, is there anything else I can help you with today?
Me: I was wondering about the pricing --
Victor: Okay, the pricing for the upgrade is dollar three hundred ninety-nine, and for the full version it is dollar one thousand one hundred ninety-nine.
Me: Right, but is there an education discount on the upgrade?
Victor: I do not know that information, but I can transfer you to the sales where they would be the best place to give you that information. So please be on the line.
Me: (holding)
Sales guy (obviously American): Thank you for calling Adobe Sales, my name is Noah. Do you have a customer number?
Me: Yes I do. (tells him number)
Noah: And what can I do for you today?
Me: I currently have Creative Suite 2, which I bought through the university where I'm a student right now, and I am thinking about upgrading to CS3. And I see that the regular price for the upgrade is $399, and the educational pricing for the full product is also $399.
Noah with a bit of a chuckle: (says something about how silly that seems)
Me: I was wondering if there's an educational discount for the upgrade.
Noah: Unfortunately, we don't offer education pricing for the upgrade.
Me: Okay, that's all I needed to know. Thanks.
Noah: Thank you for calling Adobe, have a nice day.

So basically, in four seconds, the American guy was able to answer the question I couldn't get resolved in 14 minutes with the other guy.

My experience with Lenovo customer service was pretty much the same: Talk to someone in India for several minutes, get nowhere, get transferred to someone in the U.S., problems solved almost immediately. Also, there is a pattern of customer service being based in India, and sales being in the U.S. I guess this is because once they've got your money, you're screwed, and have to take whatever crappy service they dish out. But when you're a prospective customer, they want to give you an actual good experience with the company, so they have you deal with Americans. Jerks.

Worst. Directions. Ever. (Graphics edition!)

In preparation for my new lappy, I'm checking out the bargain-priced Micro$~1 software available through the U. On the main page of the University Computer Services web site, I noticed the link "Where can I park at UCS?" The graphic they've put together to point out their parking spaces is hilarious. (I'll post it here, since who knows if it'll disappear after word gets around that the Lady with a Hat, Arbiter of eQuality, has dissed them.)

Powerful new functionality in Adobe Acrobat

Random silliness and other updates

My lappy died last week. It's still under warranty for a few more months, but blah blah words, I'm replacing it. We'll ship it in & see if they can fix it, & if so, then Ben has a lappy too. Yay! The sad part is that despite my vehement exhortations that I would never buy another Windows box, I can't afford right now to (a) buy a Mac and (b) buy Mac versions of the software I need for school. So I'm trapped in Windows land again. This makes me grrr. But so what? How does this affect you, the reader? I'll have limited access to the Internets until my new lappy arrives, and so will not post as often. The result is that you will need to find another way to spend your hard-earned Internets time.

Random fun notes:
An issue of the Minnesota Daily last week included a story about a first-year student (18 or 19 yrs old) who last spring (1) went to a party, (2) was served alcohol by a 20-year-old student, (3) become very intoxicated (0.31% blood-alcohol level), (4) left the party, and (5) fell to his death from a parking structure. All tragic & shit, but my favorite part is the end of the story, where the UMPD's chief is quoted as saying, "A death like this can have life-changing effects."

In today's Daily, a front page story about sports injuries includes this gem from Jennifer Kearns, associate director of NCAA public relations: "It could be a temporary condition or it could be, in some cases, a permanent condition." Really. It could be either one of those. So, y'know.

Just fucking shoot me now

As a very disorganized person, I thought it would be nice to try out the Sunbird calendar application from Mozilla. I can't say for sure if that was my mistake, or if it was trying to access the increasingly shitty U of M wireless network, but I found myself with a fucked up network adapter, so I decided to reboot my laptop. When I tried to restart Firefox, I had the joy of finding that it had been reset to 0. All of my bookmarks are gone. Every fucking one. Backup? Well, I thought Firefox kept a backup copy, but either I'm wrong, or it was also erased. I imagine there's some chance a backup is stashed somewhere, but I'm not optimistic.

Hyphenation? Yes, please!

If you were writing a longish paper (say 14 pages) in Microsoft Word(TM), and wanted to automatically hyphenate the whole document so that the right-hand side of the text would look less ragged, how would you do it?

Would you look under Edit? Hmmm, nothing there looks promising. No, probably Format, since that's what I'm doing - I'm trying to format the appearance of the document. Let's see... no Hyphenation item there, but let's try Paragraph. That would make sense - I mean, that's where I'd go to determine line justification, line spacing, indentation, and so forth. Hmm. Gee, I don't see anything here about hyphenation.

Hrmph. What about Tools? Let's see here.... Spelling and Grammar, Research, Language, ... Track Changes, Protect Document, Online Collaboration, ... Macros, ... Customize, Options. Well, let's try those last two, just for shits.

Customize... Toolbars, Commands, Options - yeah, these are for customizing the interface, not for working with the document. What about Options (from the Tools menu, not from the Customize dialog box).... Oh my! All these tabs! Let's see... we've got View, General, Edit, Print, Save, ... Compatibility, Spelling and Grammar... Yeah, this is no good. It's just more interface customization options.

Hey - maybe Page Setup... (humming tunelessly to self) File > Page Setup. We've got Margins, Paper, Layout. Let's see... I can turn the paper sideways, but that's not what I'm looking for -- ooh! I wonder how many pages I'd end up with that way? Still 14. Boooooring. Okay, let's look at this again. Headers and footers... nope, that's taken care of.

Well dammit, now I'm going to have to use the "Help."

(doo-de-doo....) <F1>, Search for hyphenation. .... (It's searching Microsoft Office Online - this'll take a minute).... (humming Taking Care of Business) Did you hear we're in a flood watch toni---- oh there it is. We've got "About Hyphenation," "Insert a nonbreaking hyphen" (I wonder if there should be one in "nonbreaking"?), ... Here we go: "Hyphenate text."

Huh - I can "Automatically hyphenate all of a document" or "Automatically hyphenate part of a document." I'd like "all," please.

(Mouthing words while reading text, muttering softly)... Tools menu... Language - What? I was just there! Okay, what next? Tools > Language > Hyphenation. Select Automatically hyphenate document. Well, there we go. Ooh, I can Limit the number of consecutive hyphens, set the "Hyphenation zone" ... I wonder if that's like that danger zone? ... I can even Hyphenate words in CAPS! That's silly. Why would a word be wearing a cap?

Well, that's taken care of then. Although I don't understand why Hyphenation is Language (hanging out with Set Language, Translate, and Thesaurus (thundering across the Jurassic plain...)).

Wait, I didn't see anything in there about hyphenating part of a document.... Let's see what the "Help" says about that.

(Mumbling) Select the text you don't want to -- wait. The first step under "Automatically hyphenate part of a document" is "Select the text you don't want to hyphenate"? This is getting more confusing by the minute. Okay, select the text... then Format > Paragraph > Line and Page Breaks... oh, there's a check box for Don't hyphenate. Well, THAT makes a lot of sense. I have to tell it to automatically hyphenate the whole document, and then I not hyphenate the rest of the document, then the part of the document that I want to hyphenate will be hyphenated.

Dammit, now I need a drink.

Error message

From Microsoft Excel(TM):

A document with the name 'Book1.xls' is already open. You cannot open two documents with the same name, even if the documents are in different folders. To open a second document, either close the document that's currently open, or rename one of the documents.

No such problem with Microsoft Word(TM).

Should I be confused, or just assume that this is Microsoft Standard Asshattery?