Microsoft OFFICE 2003 - it's good to be the King!

What? No "Microsoft uber alles" for you?

i beta tested it...and its so cute...i won't give away the new gui but its cute

Ya i've read about the "improvements" in office 03', but I want to know what you guys think in my circumstances. I'm a student so I get a discount on software. I can get office 2003 pro for $200. Right now I got Offive XP but it was from my school and I can't upgrade the service packs and security patches for it. Wierd things in word happen when inserting from other apps and etc.

Would it be worth the $200 to get a fully licensed Office 2003 pro full version, or just stay with my free copy of office XP that can't be upgraded?

Fake NYT registration generator

IN case you don't want to register with the NYT use this nice little website to register for you.

Because the folks at NYT have gotten smart to this tatic. Save the webpage to you harddrive. Then open it up and press the register and go button. Otherwise you'll get
a session expired message.
http://www.alexburke.ca/nyt/

Then you can click on Myrkat's link.


[edit] apparently you get the new stuff free at NYT if you want an article that is a say old you have to pay $2.95

an even better reason to support www.openoffice.org

I just got the student edition for my son ... One thing I like about that version is it allows you to install it on 3 computers ... So he can put a copy on his computer here, one on the computer at his moms house and one on the computer at his grandmothers house so no matter where he's staying at for the school year or summer winter vacation he will have it to use legally. Not bad for 145.00 for 3 computers ...

I just got my ms updates in the mail today and it came in. I was using the beta versin of it and I have the volume license edition. I like it so far.

Yeah, Word is bloated, but I find I make use of some of the bloat features every now and then. But still, all I remember the days when word editors weren't even WYSIWYG until you printed out at ye olde print station. Dot Matrix printers were huge, bulky, and NOISEY. Anyone remember 5 1/4" floppies?

Anyway, the features I use in Word have been standard since Word for Windows version 6.0 and that runs fine in Windows 3.1. But hey, I HAVE to upgrade, because WFW 6.0 can't read Word XP stuff without very lossless converting.

I both miss and hate the old days. DOS has forever been implanted in my soul...

Word, or even Office in general, is really something Microsoft does well. I, too, remember struggeling with first DOS based, then windows based Word Perfect with their utterly idiotic interface and even less comprehensible commands. And I really remember the great impression an immediately intuitive MS Word made back in '93.

That said, improvements on the Office front are slow to come by. I dont think any significant funk has come to Word since Office 97. (Except perhaps, the removal of stacked open documents, preventing the user to see how many were open)

And though great, there is room for improvement. Looking through Word 2003, they seemingly did what MS always does in new versions these days, funks up the icons so that it looks new but leaves everything pretty much as it was. Even the old annoyances.

Though the customization levels in Word are awesome, they still havent managed to put them together in a simple way. Sometimes you have to select Customize, sometimes Options. To add buttons, you still have to select the cryptic Keyboard.. from the Options menu. To change language first time, you have to enter the regional settings menu from the Controlpanel menu. Who would know? (Well, it used to be Keyboard option, so at least some improvement). Word still doesnt "realize" - that is, tell you, that you dont have the right language installed - even when you select that language in the spell check. And this in the world-leading word processor.

These are details in an overall genial package. But, if you have office 2k, Id stick with that rather than pay 200 bucks for some new buttons.

If someone else pays, though...

Well, I was able to get a LEGAL copy of office pro 2k3 for only $19.95! I figure at that price it was worth a shot. What I want to know is why does is that 3-4weeks to get the discs shipped form Microsoft?

OpenOffice works just fine for me. I haven't found any big features that OO doesn't have that MSOffice does.

Alternate NY Times article site

NY Times wanted me to pay up if I wanted to read more than 50 golden words, so I looked around for another option. Read the article here:

http://www.xmlmania.com/index_article_106.php

That was some great 500 words. Another search came up with this: (Seemingly the full 2000 word article).

http://www.transhumanism.org/piperma...er/000813.html