Tag: microsoft

The Chernobyl Experiment

Posted on December 29, 2008 by ellen

After a couple of months of watching Microsoft’s teaser “Mojave Experiment” commercials on TV, I finally got around to looking at the Mojave Experiment site. The TV commercials (unlike the web commercials) give the impression

Microsoft’s Silverlight

Posted on December 27, 2008 by ellen

After years of institutionalized incompatibility in their browser software, office software, and video software, Microsoft has come out with with Silverlight, their Rich Internet application platform and supposed Flash Killer. Flash is universally accepted because

A brief complaint about Microsoft Windows Media Player!

Posted on December 23, 2008 by ellen

A colleague at work needed to know how to turn on captions in Windows Media Player. I started to write her a note explaining it, but needed to check exactly how to get to the setting since I knew how to do it in older versions but not 11.

This turned out to be just another opportunity to experience Microsoft’s creative approach to usability.

Here’s a snapshot of the the player. Note, there is no "File" menu, no Open command, nothing that appears useful unless you are purchasing music from their store or ripping from an old CD. And really, aren’t "Rip" and "Burn" SO 2006? Who even cares about ripping CD’s anymore?

Images in Word docs created on Mac cannot be seen on Windows

Posted on May 13, 2008 by ellen

If you add screenshot images to a Word or Powerpoint document on a Mac, by either dragging them onto the page or pasting them in, chances are they will not be visible on a PC.

Exporting high resolution Graphics from Microsoft Word 2003

Posted on March 11, 2008 by ellen

In Word 2003, it is not immediately obvious how to export pictures that have been inserted into a Word document. Even if you select “File: Save As…” and select the format “Web Page” in the “Save As” dialog, the images that get saved along with the web page are usually low resolution.

The solution to this is a menu selection “Compress Pictures” which is hidden in the “Tools” menu in the “Save As” dialog.

MS Word won’t print – other apps will

Posted on December 31, 2003 by ellen

On the Mac, when Microsoft Word won’t print a document, but other applications will, check the fonts. I’ve found that if a file uses fonts that are not on the computer, it doesn’t substitute like

MS Producer 2003 – report so far

Posted on September 8, 2003 by ellen

A long awaited update to Microsoft Producer is here. Producer 2003 is available from: Final Release Candidate of Producer 2003 Producer is a free app that allows you to synch Powerpoint presentations with video, html,