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[stoutfellow]

I forgot to mention two other negatives about the new computer, one minor, one major.

I like WMP's ability to seek out and apply album covers. Unfortunately, it's not always accurate; at least two of my albums have the wrong cover. Also, it doesn't find all of them - which is reasonable, but I refuse to believe that it can't find the cover of Carole King's Tapestry, which is only one of the most successful albums ever....

The major problem is that the computer has no word processor more sophisticated than Notepad. I don't need much at home - I've got Scientific Workplace at the office for anything heavy-duty - but I do need a bit more than Notepad. My old computer has MS Word, but I don't have the disc for it, so I can't move it over. Also, apparently you can no longer buy Word by itself - it's MS Office or it's nothing. Now, it would be nice to upgrade my copy of Access (currently 2002), but that's only available in the most expensive of the three Office packages. In any case, every Office package contains several programs, like PowerPoint, for which I have no use whatever.

I either need to pick up some other mid-level word processor, or I need to bite the bullet and get Office. (I know, complaining about a $250 purchase after shelling out five times that much for the computer is a little inconsistent; do I need to quote Whitman at this point?)

Grmph.

Comments

[sraun]

Check with your school's IT department or bookstore - they should have an MS Office deal available. If nothing else, microsoft.com lists an academics version for $150. If you do get a full-blown Office, you always have the option of only installing the programs you want.

Otherwise, check out http://www.openoffice.org/ - I've been pretty happy with their free product.

[stoutfellow]

mbernardi also suggested OpenOffice, and I downloaded it. It works fine with Word documents, so that's good. I opened one of my Access files with Base, though, and it transferred the tables and queries (apparently in table form), but not the macros and forms. Do you know of any way of bringing those across as well?

[sraun]

Unfortunately, I've done next to nothing with MS Access or OpenOffice Base. I haven't the faintest idea.

[stoutfellow]

The answer turns out to be "no". I've put too much time into those forms to be anxious to reconstruct them. I believe that our OIT does offer an MS Office deal; I'll probably go that route. Thanks.