Nuke and Burn? Probably not...

I''ve had Microsoft Office Mac:2011 on my desk for the best part of two weeks now, still wrapped in its shrinkwrap.

The problem has been I've just been crazy busy trying to prepare for next year's MacWorld and MacMania cruise.

Along with all the prep for the presentations, I need to organise and prepare for the shows to deliver whilst I'm away.

However, this morning I needed to do some heavy number crunching on some huge spreadsheets and unfortunately,  Numbers just wasn't cutting the mustard.

The version of Office 2011 I have includes Word, PowerPoint and Excel, and to be honest, it was only Excel I was interested in.

So I rip open the shrinkwrap and pop the disk into the drive, expecting to be presented with a selection menu to just install Excel.

Unfortunately this wasn't the case and the installer ended up installing all three applications, and even some apps I wasn't I wasn't even aware about. Seriously Microsoft, Remote Desktop Connection?

I have to admit, I was even more miffed on discovering that Microsoft Office installs itself automatically into my dock without asking - bad show!

Update: My bad! There is a customise button on the installer as pointed out in the comments. Don't know why I never noticed that! Apologies Microsoft ;-)

But anyway Excel was now installed, along with Word but also Powerpoint.

Excel I wanted, Word is probably worth me taking a look, but as a hardened Keynote user, PowerPoint was really wasn't on the radar and surplus to requirements.

Couldn't find an uninstall option, so I sent out a tweet to find out how to install it.

As you might expect, I received a mixture of responses,  from nuking or burning the machine (a bit drastic there chaps!) but also the advice to just drag PowerPoint to the trash. It looks as though there's no uninstall in this latest version of Microsoft Office.

I was just about to trash Powerpoint when I received a solitary direct message from someone suggesting

...you should give PowerPoint a fair chance. In many ways it is better than Keynote, especially when it comes to diagrams.

I have to say that I wasn't expecting that!

My knee jerk reaction was just to get rid of the app and stick with Keynote. In retrospect, this perhaps was a bit blinkered of me.

Powerpoint 2011 is obviously the result of many months of work by teams of people and it's very dismissive of me to just delete without even trying it out.

So although I haven't got a chance at a moment to try it out, I'll leave PowerPoint on my hard drive and when I do get a minute, I'll will give it a spin.

As I expected, Excel is much more suited to handling the large spreadsheets, so I'm happy for now and can get on with all this number crunching. I'd forgotten just how powerful Excel is and I look forward to being re-united with Pivot Tables again.

I'll check out Word and Powerpoint soon, but wouldn't it be funny if I ended up using PowerPoint for my MacWorld and MacMania presentations after all!

MacBook Air is in the building...

Less than 24 hours from ordering to doorstep delivery! Many thanks to Leon Walsh from GBM Digital in Manchester for the personal service. Yes, the MacBook Air has arrived and I've created the ceremonial unboxing photo set if you're that way inclined :-) You can check out the photos here: MacBook Air Unboxing Gallery Initial thoughts:

• Damm, Apple really know how to package something
• Yes, it's light, really, really light
• It feels very solid

What, you want me to switch it on? OK I'll probably not be able to post a full report until Monday, probably Tuesday due to some family commitments over the weekend. So check back or even better, subscribe to the RSS feed.

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Resistance is Futile....

Ever since Macworld, I've started to harbour a strange desire for a MacBook Air.

It's taken a while and it wasn't the immediate knee jerk reaction that sometimes occurs when Apple release a new product. No, I thought it was a great machine, but a little bit too expensive for me. I was in the mind set to upgrade my 1st Gen MacBook Pro but knew that the new MacBook Pros would be along soon. So I waited..... Then I started to re-evaluate what I needed my existing MacBookPro for. It's a 17" and the original thought process was that the beast would be my portable Video editing machine. I needed that huge screen for FCP and some raw horsepower to encode that video when on the road. In the two years I've had the machine, I must have done this, ooh. let me see... a total of three times! So I need a 17" MacBook Pro for working when not tied to my desk. You know, such processor intensive tasks such as answering emails in front of the TV, answering emails when in hotel rooms, browsing the web, reading RSS feeds, writing blog posts...... Hmm, not really very processor intensive stuff really. And then there's the weight and the heat! It's impossible to use the MacBook Pro as a proper laptop as I need some thermal protection between it and my lap. Plus it's very unwieldy, it's a great desktop replacement but not very portable really. Then I started to read some blog posts and see repetitive twitter posts.. After consistent MacBook Air usage since it shipped, I now feel comfortable calling it the best notebook I have ever owned. - Dan Pourhadi - Twitter I agree, and I've owned everything back to the old Mac Portable (which wasn't). The MBA is one sweet machine Steve Sande Twitter The MacBook Air: What a Laptop Should Be - Kirk McElhearn Blog Everyone I meet who has a MacBook Air loves them Scoble Blog MacBook Air Haters: S**k My D**k (Ahem!) Wil Shipley Blog MacBook Air: Rambling First Impressions (PG!) Wil Shipley Blog MacBook Air early review: GAME CHANGING! Jason Calacanis Blog Need I go on...There's plenty more rave reviews if you need them! And so the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros were released this week and although good in every way, nothing really that caused me to whip out the credit card and replace my existing beast. I toyed with the idea of selling the 17" MacBook Pro and getting a new 15" MacBook Pro for portability but you know....... I really want a MacBook Air and it would fit the bill of portability, lightness, coolness (in heat terms!) and plenty enough horsepower to do what I need to do with a laptop - just basic computing. So with that m'lud, I rest my case and complete the self-justification for the fool-hardy action of ordering a new MacBook Air this afternoon. I'll keep you posted on my findings! PS In case you think I've recently won the lottery or something as I've only just got my Mac Pro, well no! They're both business expenses and investments for the future of ScreenCastsOnline (or something like that!) I fully expect these machines to pay for themselves over the next few years - mind you, the Mac Pro feels like it's paid for itself already with the time I've saved in encoding - magic!

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More Wild Apple Speculation

Regular readers of my blog will no doubt be aware of the wild and wacky predictions I made during MacWorld 2007 - a day or so after the iPhone was announced. You know, all about multi touch coming to the Mac. Following the launch of the iPhone, various comments made once people have started to use the device in earnest have only re-inforced my opinion that this surely must be on the cards albeit possibly slightly modified. I've heard a few people really liking the visceral nature of touching your data with your finger on the iPhone and wanting to touch the screen on their laptop in the same way. The introduction of coverflow into the finder in Leopard is surely a sign that sweeping through your files with your finger on the mac is coming. One comment that did make me re-consider this approach was from an ergonomic expert (lost the reference) wh indicated that multi touch on a vertical or near vertical screen is a no no due to the stresses and strains it will put on your arm. OK, So multi touch needs to be on a horizontal surface on the mac. How does this sound.... On a MacBook or MacBook Pro, a separate large multitouch panel where the track pad currently lives. Perhaps twice the width and length of the current track pad. But make it a display as well, just like the iphone so you can customise the functionality of the trackpad. On an iMac or Mac Pro, have a separate multitouch panel to replicate the multi touch features on the desktop. Just pure speculation on my part but it's always good fun to second guess Apple :-)

Technorati Tags: Apple, MacWorld 2007, Leopard

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Apple TV Delays - What's the Problem?

Sob! Yes, I got my email advising me that the release of the Apple TV has been pushed back a few weeks. Mine isn't now due until 28th March. I wonder what the delay really is? Is it manufacturing the hardware? - can't see it myself. These babies are probably all stacked up in a warehouse somewhere. iTunes Store? - probably not. The Apple TV doesn't directly interface with the iTunes store. Availability of European content? - Could they hold it back until we have some content to play on it over here in Europe - Wishful thinking! Nah, they wouldn't hold back the US release as well. iTunes? - Most probably. They need to release an updated version of iTunes to communicate with the Apple TV. It could be that they are finalising the release. Leopard - Possibly? Are there some design clues or other elements surrounding Leopard that they don't want to let out of the bag just yet? Leopard Secret Stuff? And what about the fabled Leopard Secret Stuff as mentioned in the WWDC keynote last year? Again, could this release be part of the unveiling of some of the secret stuff which either isn't quite ready or needs to be orchestrated as part of a bigger announcement? Only time will tell! PS At least my Apple TV leads have been dispatched

Technorati Tags: Apple, Apple TV

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