Need to vent...

Few things make for a nice,peaceful Sunday morning of trying to do something simple, but then realizing one has to do it using a Microsoft product.

Styles in Orifice 365 just suck beyond human comprehension, mostly because they change (apparently spontaneously) leaving behind a document that looks like the dog chewed on it for a while and spit it out.

More later (I hope not)...

Not going there, right now...

At this point of the evening, it makes no sense for me to work myself up (again) just to be able to enumerate the sins of Big Software in general and Microsoft in particular. It is sufficient to note that having to relearn how to do pretty simple and straightforward things is not exactly a productivity booster, on top of which one sometimes finds that the new and "improved" way of doing things is buggy (as in: having styles spontaneously scramble themselves—e.g., font size changes from 12 points to 8.5 points—for no apparent reason).

This sort of leads me to a general consideration of the eventual need to migrate away from systems like Office 365 and Windows 10, although I think it's a lot more likely that Big Software will eventually have two versions of everything—one that's free because they'll have access to whatever data they can mine from your use of it, and another that's suitably priced for business (read: private) use.

I am here reminded of the bad old, old days when landlines were the rule and new-fangled mobile phones were the exception, when "the phone company" charged business customers quite a bit more for providing essentially the same service as was provided to private customers (although presumably, business customers got nibs on service calls or maintenance of business exchanges). And don't get me started on the mandatory listing (and hefty charge to appear) in the Yellow Pages, like it or not. However, in the end, not counting the Yellow Pages ad "tax," it is my opinion that a "business line" represented a hefty serving of monetary gravy for the phone company, certainly as far as small business was concerned.

This two-tier approach seems to me to be a dandy way to avoid the problems associated with (a) wanting to rummage through users' files while at the same time (b) not running afoul of the law. For example, if Microsoft Windows 10 really does, as promised in the EULA, open files with information covered by HIPAA, whose fault is it? Who is liable?

Technically, I suppose, if Microsoft (or whoever else for whatever other software) failed to notify the end user of such access, the fault and liability would/should be the software company's, regardless of the usual "we ain't responsible for nothing" weasel words that are part and parcel of almost every EULA in existence.

But if the end user is notified, and protected information is thus exposed to outsiders, isn't said end user responsible?

Barring a special version of the operating system (which basically runs the computer), other than switching operating systems, I don't see many options for end users or IT managers.

About half the day was spent on what should have been a one-hour job reformatting files. Another third was spent finishing a translation due Tuesday. Another hour or so was spent OCRing.

I been busy, and look forward to tonight's rack drill.

Cheers...