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Wow, this must be MS's fastest bug fix ever.

Aug 07, 09 - 12:52 pm Comment from: silverhawk

No thanks! You can keep it.

Aug 07, 09 - 01:03 pm Comment from: Jay-Z

Stupid programs still don't work with Spaces properly.

Aug 07, 09 - 01:48 pm Comment from: Micro Me

Pleased the MBU fixed this one, which caught me out recently.

Now, Apple, if you could just fix the bug that resets my Intel iMac under 10.5.8 to full screen brightness every time I restart, that would be appreciated. No point in following Microsoft's lead in releasing buggy updates, is there?

Aug 07, 09 - 01:58 pm Comment from: hagar57

Microsoft has released Office 2008 for Mac 12.2.1 Update which,...

Yawn! Are they still making it?

Using iWork and have no need for MS office.

Aug 07, 09 - 02:20 pm Comment from: LeftCoastDude

I would use iWork, but Numbers has some pain in the butt features that are not very useful. Sorting, column/row titles, macros, and a few other key features are not only different from Excel, but are implemented in a clumsy way. I know what Apple is trying to do with Numbers, allow it to work for the "common man", but in business, the spreadsheet is a financial and accounting tool. It has to work in a manner that is intuitive for accounting and finance, and Numbers fails in that matter.

I could go on. It has some nice features. It has some bad features. I'm unconvinced I can replace Excel quite yet, because Excel is extremely powerful, and I know how to tap that power.

As for Word and PowerPoint, I've moved to Pages and Keynote, because in neither case do I use them for anything more than memos and short presentations.

The question has to be ask yet again... WHY?

With iWorks and Pages... what the need in 2009 for World at all!

My business is getting along just fine with Pages.

Better to use 90% of Pages features then 20% of Words features!

Aug 07, 09 - 02:47 pm Comment from: Cubert

"Office 2008 for Mac 12.2.1 - This Time We Promise It Won't Suck As Much"

Aug 07, 09 - 04:01 pm Comment from: KingMel

@Jay-Z. That was my experience, as well. MS Office applications caused problems with Spaces after I set up a 2x2 arrangement with Entourage, PPT, Excel, and Word linked to the separate "windows." That ended up souring me on Spaces, in general, since MS Office is part of my daily work routine.

When something doesn't work well on a Mac, an M$ product is often the source of the problem.

Aug 07, 09 - 04:04 pm Comment from: toby

BTW these are not Bug fixes, they are Key Code crackers.

Most of you will have to call MS and reactivate your Key code, so they can know you actually paid for the product.


What jackasses they are.

I have both Office 2008 and iWork 09 installed and I find myself unfortunately going back to Office more. I do a lot of research-based work and the fact that MSWord will automatically format bibliography and works cited pages as well as one-click install citations makes it more valuable for what I need to do based on that alone (One of the few MS products that makes things easier for me than the Apple product, but making my life easier is a big deal for a productivity suite). I have tried to make Pages and Numbers work in ways I need them to so that I could dump Office, but it just doesn't work as well. The person above who noted Numbers' limitations vs. Excel is correct too. Though most of my number work is done in SPSS and doesn't use these.

Believe me, I have tried to make this work, but iWork is the one place Apple lags behind.

Aug 07, 09 - 04:14 pm Comment from: FatMac

Any one know why Word files stay hidden behind Skype until you click on Skype?

@ JQOswald

Have you tried to use EndNote X2 with Pages?
Or are you just trolling?

I don't know how to use iWork, therefore Office is better.

Aug 07, 09 - 07:00 pm Comment from: alansky

"BTW these are not Bug fixes, they are Key Code crackers." —toby

Funny you should mention that. I had to reactivate Office 2008 after the last update a couple of weeks ago. I wouldn't be caught dead installing Office on my Mac if I didn't have clients who occasionally ask me for help using it.

What's this thing call 'Microsoft Office' or something?

@LeftCoastDude,

"I know what Apple is trying to do with Numbers, allow it to work for the 'common man', but in business, the spreadsheet is a financial and accounting tool. It has to work in a manner that is intuitive for accounting and finance, and Numbers fails in that matter."

I doubt that Apple would rather forget about everybody else and target Numbers at accountants. What percentage of the population are they? I am glad Numbers works in a manner that is intuitive for most people.

Aug 08, 09 - 02:47 am Comment from: iworker

When are they going fix Word's launch speed? I'm no youngster and I'm wasting my life waiting for the damn app. to launch. I use Pages any chance I can get. Unfortunately Pages doesn't completely convert Word doc's so I'm stuck with Microsoft's second-rate software.

my keycodes don't work...time to look on the internet

@John Doe

My university gave us 30-day trials of End Note X2 and has offered earlier versions of End Note as well. I haven't found End Note to be all that intuitive, nor as easy as just having a citation/bibliography generator in the program itself. I wish Pages would add this feature, and it would seem to me that this would be a feature Apple would be quicker to implement than MS since it enhances the user experience, but they didn't. I hope they still do and haven't given up on Pages or iWork or anything. I still have both installed on my laptop. It would be great if iWork did this. The full purchase price of iWork ($99) is less than Office for Mac even with the student discount ($129). I'm a doctoral student and use the citation files all the time in Word. I would switch to Pages exclusively right now.

Also, I am typing this on my Macbook Pro 15 (last generation), which is currently syncing my iPhone (3G, only a year into my contract, not going to upgrade yet). Please don't accuse me of being an MS troll only because I have an ease-of-use issue with one product. I also do prefer Excel because Numbers is clumsy with some things. Like I said, though, I have and use both and would gladly stick with iWork, but I'm not going to dump Office just because it's an MS product when iWork doesn't do everything I need it to. That's just dumb and that's the thing that gives Apple fans a bad name.

The number one reason I prefer Word over Pages is the thesaurus. Apple doesn't know what that is. Yes, there are many more reasons, but even though Word is a catastrophy with spaces, it's still the numberwang. Wait, did I just say numberwang?

Aug 08, 09 - 06:04 pm Comment from: Cubert

Fitzo,
Hover your cursor over the word in question (no highlighting necessary) and then hit "Command-Control-D". It gives you the definition of the word and an option to switch to a thesaurus.

Fitzo,

What Cubert says works in more than just Pages. (i.e. Safari, Mail, etc.)

I'll second your motion to fix the full-brightness-at-startup issue. What a pain in tharse.

Maybe there's an AppleScript that could fire up from the log-in items to turn it down automatically. I used one since System 8 until the Preferences pane came along to mute the start-up chime.

I found this script that works. But it doesn't close the window at the end. Still, Cmd-W is faster than turning the brightness down.

Save it as an application and add it to the log-in items.

tell application "System Preferences"
activate
set current pane to pane "com.apple.preference.displays"
end tell

tell application "System Events"
tell process "System Preferences"
tell slider 1 of group 2 of tab group 1 of window 1
set value to 0
end tell
end tell
end tell

Aug 09, 09 - 09:35 am Comment from: yoshiTA

Cubert+rws,

thanks guys, knew about the dictionary, but can't remember to have ever seen the thesaurus switch. One of the reasons I rarely use Apple's dictionary is the lack of support for other languages. I'm switching between 4-5 different languages when I write, and have them all in Word. Oh well, in a couple of years...maybe.

This MacDailyNews take of "Do you really need MS Office?" is really annoying. I am a mac addict/fan just like everyone else and have converted at least couple of dozen people from PC to a Mac.

So please save the MS bashing all the time. IWork may be cool and awesome but I work in a very large company and use my MacBook Pro as my work computer - and whether i like, want it or ow MS office is the defacto standard and it just needs to work - 80% alternatives are not good enough - tried them all.

I am ok giving MS a hard time for treating Mac Office as a step child over the windoes version. But having used iwork i can say I am very happy with MS Office and that is all I want to use

re: JQOswald and MotoBell -

You guys got it right! I'm not a big fan of MS in general, but when your work(flow) requires things to be a certain way, waxing ideal about how everyone should use iWork is not at all helpful. Same goes with Macs in general. Ideally, we'd all be Mac users, but there are some unfortunate realities out there that dictate the necessity for Windows PCs. It doesn't matter what WE would prefer, we're sometimes simply at the mercy of necessity.

In other words - MDN, and all Apple zealots who think that people like JQOswald are just MS trolls, take your argument to their bosses/instructors/CEOs/whoever makes the decisions. Take your argument to Apple so they can add the features JQOswald prefers in Excel. Just because MS does it one way and Apple does it another doesn't mean MS is automatically garbage and Apple is automatically gold. I understand that it USUALLY works that way, but USUALLY does NOT equal ALWAYS, and it's disingenuous to think otherwise.