go figure

the other week, i installed Office 2007 Basic (word, excel, outlook) on my laptop. more out of curiosity than anything. in part because we have copies of it (dell sees fit to include them with their laptops and we don't plan on upgrading Office 2003 for some time) and because mickeysoft changed the interface around, going with what they call a 'ribbon'.

it takes a little getting used to as we are so used to the basic menu style which hasn't changed much since widespread adoption of GUI, but now that i'm beginning to figure it out, i'm starting to see some of the logic behind it.

anyways, as outlook is the program i use the most, it's easy for me to see the differences between 2003 (on the server at my desk) and 2007 (on my laptop). the biggest thing is the ability to drag emails to my little To Do/Tasks menu which is docked on the right hand side of outlook. it serves as a good reminder of what i need to do and i'm finding it is helping me to be a little more organized about my various tasks and projects (that is a very good thing, organization and i have a rather contentious relationship as it is).

i hadn't given it a great deal of thought until just now as i was connected to my server and wanted to set up a reminder/task/to do item and when i looked at my tasks, it wasn't there the way it would be in 2007. that mildly annoyed me, yet humored me into realizing that maybe the upgrade wasn't such a bad thing.

i know that we won't adopt it at work for a long time (took us 10 years to purge Office 97, think we're in a rush for Office 2007? and the majority of our employees qualify for luddite status? HA!) but i'm thinking that it isn't such a bad thing. i'm going to have to grab a 2nd copy (we have plenty) to install on my server. that way i won't go completely nuts trying to do something in outlook 2k3 that i'm doing automatically in outlook 2k7.

so, congrats microsoft - you've managed to make me into a slightly more efficient worker. (no I before E except after C?)