Year: 2008

Coming soon to an OS X near you, the latest installment of Microsoft Office 2008 for the Macintosh. It has been four years since the last release of Office for the Mac and I’m honestly glad even just for an updated user interface. But Office 2008 does so much more, obviously.

What’s the deal with Microsoft releasing several editions of Office though? They’ve gone version happy with Vista and now MS Office as well? Why can’t they just release one, Microsoft Office 2008 “Really Good” edition? Is one office suite less productive than the other? Gee.

According to MacWorld, Office will be available in three versions: Office 2008 for Mac ($399.95; $239.95 upgrade), Office 2008 for Mac Home and Student Edition ($149.95) and Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition ($499.95; $299.95 upgrade).

I’m not liking the way the Microsoft software division sees consumers. So does being an educator or student dictate how I’m going to use my computer all the time? This sort of degenerated access to software is actually limiting to consumers instead of allowing them to explore. If all the students need is a discount, then offer a special student promo, not a completely different version. What’s in the “special media” edition? More clip arts? Just offer it as an add on, or heck, offer the whole damn package in one REALLY GOOD edition. Stop with the scrimping.

[Office Tweaks]

December 2007 was a complete slowdown for me. As I isolated myself from the world and spent the days and nights cooped in front of the PC, I reintroduced myself to the wonderful world of gaming. Apart from Christmas and airsoft, December can be summarized as follows:

Bioshock 2
Command and Conquer 3 (my high school friends have a yearly tradition where we do an 8-hour C&C marathon between Christmas and New Year.)
Team Fortress 2
Call of Duty 4 (kick ass game – finished the campaign in an afternoon)
Gears of War
The Witcher (still playing — load times are horrendous but the game is solid, like you’re reading a novel)

As my calendar is slowly getting filled with new appointments for January, I slowly bid goodbye to a lax December. It was fun while it lasted.

Image of the Ion Cannon pwnage taken from Gamepro.com.