February 22, 1996
Dear Everyone:
I guess I spoke too
soon about it not flooding around here.
The skies have really opened up on us the past few days.
Still, I’m sure we’ll be “sunny” California again soon enough.
I decided to give
myself an early birthday present this year.
I got Windows
95 for my computer.
After all, I’d already taken a class on it and you know what they say
about knowledge (among other things):
Use it or lose it.
This way I can practice at home until we get it installed at work.
And I’ll be that much further ahead and therefore better prepared
to help the other people at work when they get it.
Windows 95 lets you
work faster and easier...after you spend weeks figuring out how to do in
“new” Windows what you already knew how to do in “old” Windows.
Those Microsoft engineers can be quite ingenious, not to mention
devious. For example:
In “old” Windows,
when you wanted to close a window, you went to the control box in the
upper left corner and double-clicked on it with your mouse.
In “new” Windows, you single-click on the Close Button.
You just saved a whole click! Over the
course of a year, you could potentially save
thousands of clicks.
Is this a boon for mankind, or what?
Then, those little
pranksters at Microsoft decided to put this clever new Close Button in
the upper right corner instead of the upper left corner.
In “old” Windows, the upper right corner held the maximize
button, which would make a small window expand until it filled the whole
screen. So what happens?
You open a window like, say,
Word.
The window only fills half the screen and the printing is really
small and hard to read, so your hand just naturally goes to the upper
right corner to maximize the screen.
You click and...where’d it go?
You just closed the
window. Hope you saved your
work.
And then there’s the
File
Manager, so beloved by Windows enthusiasts around the world because
it saved you from having to remember commands like:
copy
c:\msoffice\winword\wklyltrs\022296.doc a:
You just click, drag
and drop.
But the File
Manager, while still there, is buried deep in the inner confines of some
dark corner of Windows 95.
It has been “replaced” by the
Explorer.
Doesn’t “exploring” files sound more exciting than “managing”
them? Isn’t it more fun to
have “folders” than “directories”?
Coming soon, a
dictionary to tell you where to look up the new name for your old way of
doing things. Remember:
Change is Good.
By the way, installing Windows 95 took only about an hour, most of which was spent waiting for the system to go “beep!” and ask to swallow another diskette. Went without a single problem. And now that I have it, I can use a nifty CD-ROM that I got last Christmas called CINEMANIA 96, a film reference library. Way cool.
Spent the rest of
the long (not long enough) weekend watching all
six hours of
Jane Austen’s
Pride and
Prejudice, which I’d taped a few weeks ago, and which (if you
can believe it!) actually has a happy ending.
Came out of it saying “shall” and “indeed” a lot, but that was OK
because I had no one to talk to but my calculator as I was doing my 1995
Income Tax Returns.
And yes, I will be
getting refunds from both state and federal governments.
A refund is what happens when they take more money than they
should have and they have to give it back.
It’s not much, but it generally arrives just in time to pay the
premium on my auto insurance.
Money doesn’t stay long around here.
Did I mention I’m
thinking of getting a
sound card? For the
computer, of course.
Love, as always,
Pete
| Previous | Next |