In a separate item of some concern, I've begun seeing comments regarding the likelihood that Microsoft will soon KILL OFFICE.

The argument here is that there are too many competitive programs that are "just as good." While for casual users, and idiots like magazine editors, the claim has some validity, Microsoft is built as much on Word and Excel as on Windows, and those two were respected, useful, and incredibly powerful programs long before Windows existed.

Unfortunately, to discover the power one has to RTFM, and the intent appears to be to culture a society in which nobody has the ability to do that. (The "manual" has been removed in recent Office versions.) Recent versions of Word, as an example, make it nearly impossible for anyone to discover anything beyond copy/paste/send. The skeletal vestiges of the old program are still there, but are obscured to the point of being "undiscoverable" by anyone who doesn't know about "what it was" from prior versions. From "lots of idiots use Word" Microsoft has gone to "lets make something only idiots can use."

PowerPoint should never have been produced, and any manager who PERMITS those reporting to him/her to display PP pitches demonstrates an incompetence (and complete disinterest) that should be cause for dismissal. PP is an excuse for the boss to take a nap while pretending to be interested in something the crew is doing.

Beyond Microsoft, Flash and current Adobe PDF are basically malware walking - poorly maintained, buggy holes supporting mostly whatever malware anyone wants to piggyback on them. PageMaker, once a good program, is virtually dead, although there are rumors that FrameMaker may survive in some isolated caves. PhotoShop (expecially recent Elements) has more chrome and go-fast stripes than visible functional features. "Improvements" in Corel seem questionable unless one really likes crayon art.

Maybe I'm lucky being old enough that I may not live to see all that much of "the new world" that's coming.

(If this sounds like a rant, maybe you don't understand the situation.(?) ;·)

John