So, we recently took Microsoft Sharepoint, made some modifications to it, and presented it to the higher ups as a "solution" to the age old problem of wasting tons of paper due to meetings.
In order to achieve the goal of saving paper, we completely refitted the meeting room with wireless internet connection (the programme has to be connected to the internet), installed tons of electrical sockets, bought dozens of laptops, paid Microsoft consultancy fees, and so on. Just before the meeting, I also printed out hardcopies of all meeting documents for each and every meeting participant, just in case. Yes, most of them wanted hardcopies.
As the first paperless meeting began, I took out a pen and my trusted notepad to take notes. Which of course was noticed by the chairman, and he ordered me to use more proper means to take notes. I guess he meant the laptop in front of me.
My heart plunged hundreds of feet downwards. I knew the laptop had Office installed on it. But it was Office 2007. I also had Office 2007 installed on my work computer. But I had someone install the Office 2000 tool bar on my machine. No such tool bar was available on the laptop in front of me. This laptop was not "my" laptop. It belonged to the meeting room.
I nervously looked at the top left cornor. No "File" tab. I could type all I wanted. But I couldn't save the file. Couldn't produce the notes. In all my years of using Word I've never seen a version without the "File" tab.
Then I saw the second mountain before me. I did not bring a USB storage device. Even if I could wrestle down the Office 2007 interface and somehow save the file in the harddrive, I couldn't get it out.
I took a deep breath, prayed to the languish god, then typed away. Without saving. At the end of the meeting, I took the laptop away without switching it off, raced back to my office, summoned a technician, and told him to save the file then get it out.
When the technician arrived, the battery had 5% left.
It was my lucky day. Now the only thing I had to worry about were frantic phone calls asking me why I stole the laptop.
Typical worldwide 'lets get with the digital age' idiocy is that.
ctrl+s
Personally, I love Office 2007. Ganted, I customized the menu bar next to the "Office" button a fair bit.
Quote from: Syt on October 23, 2009, 06:36:03 AM
Personally, I love Office 2007. Ganted, I customized the menu bar next to the "Office" button a fair bit.
The only improvement that I noticed was that all my favourite buttons were gone. Or hidden somewhere. Is there any reason why they have to turn the file tab into a circle with funny pictograms on it? :mad:
Office 2007 doesn't allow you to save? You must be drunk.
Quote from: Darth Wagtaros on October 23, 2009, 06:59:41 AM
Office 2007 doesn't allow you to save? You must be drunk.
There was no file tab. As far as I am concerned, that is equivalent to not letting me save. I was responsible for producing the notes on who said what during that meeting. I could not afford to spend ungod amounts of time to figure out what the file tab turned into, because people were already speaking.
QuoteI also had Office 2007 installed on my work computer.
Sounds like you had plenty of time to find it.
Drives me nuts when people use a program forever and then bitch about not knowing the basic fucking functions. And saving is pretty freaking basic after typing content in.
You fail at being meeting secretary.
Quote from: Darth Wagtaros on October 23, 2009, 07:05:36 AM
QuoteI also had Office 2007 installed on my work computer.
Sounds like you had plenty of time to find it.
Drives me nuts when people use a program forever and then bitch about not knowing the basic fucking functions. And saving is pretty freaking basic after typing content in.
You fail at being meeting secretary.
As I said, I had someone install the Office 2000 interface on top of Office 2007 on my work computer :P
That doesn't excuse you.
Learn keyboard shortcuts.
Quote from: Monoriu on October 23, 2009, 06:58:03 AM
Quote from: Syt on October 23, 2009, 06:36:03 AM
Personally, I love Office 2007. Ganted, I customized the menu bar next to the "Office" button a fair bit.
The only improvement that I noticed was that all my favourite buttons were gone. Or hidden somewhere. Is there any reason why they have to turn the file tab into a circle with funny pictograms on it? :mad:
Ease of use. YOU PUSH THE BIG BUTTON.
Quote from: Grey Fox on October 23, 2009, 07:24:07 AM
That doesn't excuse you.
Learn keyboard shortcuts.
Those belong to the dark side of the force.
Quote from: Monoriu on October 23, 2009, 08:04:01 AM
Quote from: Grey Fox on October 23, 2009, 07:24:07 AM
That doesn't excuse you.
Learn keyboard shortcuts.
Those belong to the dark side of the force.
ctrl+x, ctrl+c and ctrl+v are the best thing ever. You can do it, Mono, you can...change.
Quote from: Monoriu on October 23, 2009, 02:35:01 AM
When the technician arrived, the battery had 5% left.
And even if it had finished, you wouldn't have lost the document anyway.
Quote from: Monoriu on October 23, 2009, 08:04:01 AM
Quote from: Grey Fox on October 23, 2009, 07:24:07 AM
That doesn't excuse you.
Learn keyboard shortcuts.
Those belong to the dark side of the force.
Shift+Insert is where the real power is! Succomb to the Dark side.
Freaking Chinese. I think I understand why they have so much trouble running our hardware.
I agree with Mono. I like the old style menus.
Quote from: Monoriu on October 23, 2009, 06:58:03 AM
Quote from: Syt on October 23, 2009, 06:36:03 AM
Personally, I love Office 2007. Ganted, I customized the menu bar next to the "Office" button a fair bit.
The only improvement that I noticed was that all my favourite buttons were gone. Or hidden somewhere. Is there any reason why they have to turn the file tab into a circle with funny pictograms on it? :mad:
I thought you east asian types loved nice shiny pictures in your programs?
At least that's what the teacher said when on about cultural differences in interface design :lol:
We use Sharepoint directly to write our meeting protocols. That way everybody has his tasks readily at hand and you can track tasks immediately in the tool.
Anyway, even if the battery had run out on you, Word would have saved your document, so no worries about that.
And why did you not just e-mail yourself your meeting notes?
Quote from: Zanza on October 23, 2009, 09:33:45 AM
We use Sharepoint directly to write our meeting protocols. That way everybody has his tasks readily at hand and you can track tasks immediately in the tool.
Anyway, even if the battery had run out on you, Word would have saved your document, so no worries about that.
And why did you not just e-mail yourself your meeting notes?
It was not my computer. I didn't have the lotusnotes log in ID for that computer. And, if I couldn't save it somewhere I couldn't email it, could I?
I don't know how the HK government has set up its computers, but the place I work also has Lotus Notes and my Lotus Notes password works on all computers in the company. You might try that in the future.
And even Office 2007 still has the good old "Copy" button right on the first ribbon. So you could have copy and pasted it to Notes. My Word also has the "Save" button right next to the big round button, but it's possible that I put it there.
I'm not sure what the point of this topic is. Almost all of my meetings are paperless. :mellow:
It's not paperless meetings that fail, it's you. Even my 79-year-old dad can work out how to save in new versions of software.
Here we log in as ourselves over the wireless network in meetings and do everything there and then on the laptop.
The other day there was a diagram on the whiteboard we needed to keep, so I took a photo of it on my phone and emailed it to attendees.
Quote from: Monoriu on October 23, 2009, 06:58:03 AM
Quote from: Syt on October 23, 2009, 06:36:03 AM
Personally, I love Office 2007. Ganted, I customized the menu bar next to the "Office" button a fair bit.
The only improvement that I noticed was that all my favourite buttons were gone. Or hidden somewhere. Is there any reason why they have to turn the file tab into a circle with funny pictograms on it? :mad:
The one I heard is, MS is preparing the way for the migration to tactile screens. If you are going to use your fingers rather than a mouse cursor, you need quite bigger buttons... But in my humble opinion tactile screens for PCs are the lousiest idea ever. Not only will screens get very dirty quite soon (even if no pizza is involved), a mouse allows faster moves and much finer control, and on top of that when you move the cursor with a mouse your frigging hand doesn't obstruct the view. Imagine selecting text with your fingers, for example... we are going to need BIG fonts if we use tactile screens for word processing in the future.
Probably only 90 years old grandmas would love using her fingers on the screen... if they didn't tremble too much to be of use anyway!
Tablet PCs or those relying on tactile screens will be an important niche Alster, but will probably not replace what we have now except for certain functions.
Quote from: Zanza on October 23, 2009, 11:19:13 AM
I don't know how the HK government has set up its computers, but the place I work also has Lotus Notes and my Lotus Notes password works on all computers in the company. You might try that in the future.
And even Office 2007 still has the good old "Copy" button right on the first ribbon. So you could have copy and pasted it to Notes. My Word also has the "Save" button right next to the big round button, but it's possible that I put it there.
Oh really? I thought my LotusNotes password only works on my work computer. But it is still useless, because I don't even know what my password is. I use a feature called single signon or something. I only need to remember my windows password. That'll unlock some pre-set programme and helps me type out all other passwords automatically. So I have no idea what my LotusNotes password is.
As I said, I almost exclusively use the drop down menus whenever I am in Office. I just ignore the buttons. And keyboard shortcuts. I NEED the dropdown menus!!!!!!1111
Quote from: Alatriste on October 23, 2009, 01:25:07 PM
Quote from: Monoriu on October 23, 2009, 06:58:03 AM
Quote from: Syt on October 23, 2009, 06:36:03 AM
Personally, I love Office 2007. Ganted, I customized the menu bar next to the "Office" button a fair bit.
The only improvement that I noticed was that all my favourite buttons were gone. Or hidden somewhere. Is there any reason why they have to turn the file tab into a circle with funny pictograms on it? :mad:
The one I heard is, MS is preparing the way for the migration to tactile screens. If you are going to use your fingers rather than a mouse cursor, you need quite bigger buttons... But in my humble opinion tactile screens for PCs are the lousiest idea ever. Not only will screens get very dirty quite soon (even if no pizza is involved), a mouse allows faster moves and much finer control, and on top of that when you move the cursor with a mouse your frigging hand doesn't obstruct the view. Imagine selecting text with your fingers, for example... we are going to need BIG fonts if we use tactile screens for word processing in the future.
Probably only 90 years old grandmas would love using her fingers on the screen... if they didn't tremble too much to be of use anyway!
Actually, the laptop in the story is a tablet PC. We specifically bought them so that the higher-ups could write on the screen.
Quote from: Brazen on October 23, 2009, 11:38:10 AM
It's not paperless meetings that fail, it's you. Even my 79-year-old dad can work out how to save in new versions of software.
Here we log in as ourselves over the wireless network in meetings and do everything there and then on the laptop.
The other day there was a diagram on the whiteboard we needed to keep, so I took a photo of it on my phone and emailed it to attendees.
I thought the user is always right and all that :P
I don't trust wireless networks. We have that, but it is so unstable that it is as good as useless. Cables all the way.
And my phone is not capable of sending emails.
Quote from: garbon on October 23, 2009, 11:21:37 AM
I'm not sure what the point of this topic is. Almost all of my meetings are paperless. :mellow:
Point 1 - from now on, I'll bring a USB storage device to all paperless meetings.
Point 2 - I'll try if I can get someone to install the office 2000 drop down menus to the paperless meeting laptops.
If Office 2007 is like IE 2007(or whatever) that I use at work, you can right-click and restore the old-school "menu bar" with "File" and what-not.
Quote from: Monoriu on October 23, 2009, 06:39:02 PMOh really? I thought my LotusNotes password only works on my work computer. But it is still useless, because I don't even know what my password is. I use a feature called single signon or something. I only need to remember my windows password. That'll unlock some pre-set programme and helps me type out all other passwords automatically. So I have no idea what my LotusNotes password is.
So did you ever try Lotus Notes with a computer other than your own? If they have single sign on, it might just work on every computer, not just yours. After all, you probably had to login into that meeting room laptop too, no?
Quote from: Monoriu on October 23, 2009, 06:52:37 PMPoint 2 - I'll try if I can get someone to install the office 2000 drop down menus to the paperless meeting laptops.
If you have sufficient rights on your computer, you can just download and install it yourself:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/CE102412891033.aspx
EDIT: Just noticed it costs money, so better try via an admin. ;)
Quote from: The Larch on October 23, 2009, 08:05:53 AM
Quote from: Monoriu on October 23, 2009, 08:04:01 AM
Quote from: Grey Fox on October 23, 2009, 07:24:07 AM
That doesn't excuse you.
Learn keyboard shortcuts.
Those belong to the dark side of the force.
ctrl+x, ctrl+c and ctrl+v are the best thing ever. You can do it, Mono, you can...change.
And that works up until you use eMacs or some other program that refuses to use the standard shortcuts. ;)
Quote from: Zanza on October 24, 2009, 03:37:30 AM
Quote from: Monoriu on October 23, 2009, 06:39:02 PMOh really? I thought my LotusNotes password only works on my work computer. But it is still useless, because I don't even know what my password is. I use a feature called single signon or something. I only need to remember my windows password. That'll unlock some pre-set programme and helps me type out all other passwords automatically. So I have no idea what my LotusNotes password is.
So did you ever try Lotus Notes with a computer other than your own? If they have single sign on, it might just work on every computer, not just yours. After all, you probably had to login into that meeting room laptop too, no?
At our work we had Lotus Notes ( :bleeding: ). It required setting up your mail account on every computer you logged in on.
Quote from: HisMajestyBOB on October 24, 2009, 06:53:19 AM
And that works up until you use eMacs or some other program that refuses to use the standard shortcuts. ;)
It does use standard shortcuts... for Unix. :P
Seriously though, I find emacs' religious devotion to "The Unix Way" highly annoying. Gvim by default conforms to whatever platform its being installed on.
Quote from: HisMajestyBOB on October 24, 2009, 06:53:19 AMAnd that works up until you use eMacs or some other program that refuses to use the standard shortcuts. ;)
I suspect that won't be a problem for Mono. :P
Quote from: Zanza on October 24, 2009, 03:37:30 AM
So did you ever try Lotus Notes with a computer other than your own? If they have single sign on, it might just work on every computer, not just yours. After all, you probably had to login into that meeting room laptop too, no?
No, I've never tried to log onto Lotus notes on another computer. In my mind, every computer is a stand alone.
No, I didn't have to log into that meeting room laptop. See, we prepared the laptops for use by the higher-ups. We don't want them to worry about things like login-ids and passwords, so we got that one out of the way before they came in.
HK seems to have a major security flaw right there.
Quote from: Grey Fox on October 26, 2009, 06:19:20 AM
HK seems to have a major security flaw right there.
Yeah, something like that would be immediately shot down by our IT policies and procedures.
Quote from: Syt on October 26, 2009, 06:22:22 AM
Yeah, something like that would be immediately shot down by our IT policies and procedures.
To be fair, most of mono's story thus far would be shot down by standard IT policies and practices. Every place I've worked around a computer, everyone was retrained when software was changed, nonstandard frontends were verbot (for the reason of employees similar to mono whom I've worked with who absolutely refused to learn the new software), and logins are always, always required. Hell, if I took a bathroom break, I had to log out and log back in.
Quote from: Grey Fox on October 26, 2009, 06:19:20 AM
HK seems to have a major security flaw right there.
If one of my bosses forgets his password or login ID, the only way I can get out of that room is in a coffin.
Quote from: Monoriu on October 27, 2009, 10:56:21 AM
Quote from: Grey Fox on October 26, 2009, 06:19:20 AM
HK seems to have a major security flaw right there.
If one of my bosses forgets his password or login ID, the only way I can get out of that room is in a coffin.
Your bosses are worse than mine. In fact, *they* might get fired in such an instance (though a call to the IT helpdesk will solve the issue by resetting the passwords).
Quote from: Monoriu on October 25, 2009, 11:51:15 AM
Quote from: Zanza on October 24, 2009, 03:37:30 AM
So did you ever try Lotus Notes with a computer other than your own? If they have single sign on, it might just work on every computer, not just yours. After all, you probably had to login into that meeting room laptop too, no?
No, I've never tried to log onto Lotus notes on another computer. In my mind, every computer is a stand alone.
No, I didn't have to log into that meeting room laptop. See, we prepared the laptops for use by the higher-ups. We don't want them to worry about things like login-ids and passwords, so we got that one out of the way before they came in.
If they can't figure out how to log in, they don't have the skills necessary to do their jobs. Let them look like fools.