[Gllug] Microsoft was distributing Ubuntu

[John G Walker]

On Sun, 1 Jul 2007 13:17:33 +0100 Richard Jones <rich at annexia.org>
wrote:

> I had a grumpy hangover this morning...  Here are some concrete
> problems that I have observed:
> 
> (1) In the way that people typically use it (emailing "stacks" back
> and forth) you end up with loads of different versions with no
> versioning and no way to tell which is the latest version.  This is a
> general problem with Office docs.

User problem: If you're going to collectibvely prepare a presentation,
you next to establish a framework for how you pass things back and
forth. True of any medium you use.
> 
> (2) Large files containing very small amounts of text.

Why is this a problem?

> 
> (3) Slide format can't contain enough text.  Using multiple slides
> means that people have to remember the contents of slides across
> slides.

User problem: If you're putting large amounts of text onto a slide,
then you're doing it wrong, whatever means you use to prepare the
slide.

> 
> (4) People who read off the slides and say little else.

User problem: How can software stop people reading off a slide? You can
do this using an overhead produced with a felt-tip pen.

> 
> (5) Hitting keys accidentally causes things to move around - you
> quickly get to the point where you're lining stuff up manually.

Huh?

> 
> (6) Doesn't work well when the screen size or aspect ratio changes, or
> when there's a missing font.  You often get parts of the slides
> disappearing off the bottom of the screen.

User problem: People need to take care when designing an overhead slide.

> 
> (7) Docs don't store well in traditional version control systems,
> because they're binary.

And an acetate produced with a felt-tip pen scores how, in this respect?


> 
> (8) Impossible [Office] or very hard [OpenOffice] to process or
> generate the files automatically.  And yes, I have generated OO.org
> files from programs, and was deeply unimpressed with the format
> (although I'm sure OOXML is worse).  IMHO they should have used
> DocBook/XML, which is a far better format only let down by the tools
> used to process it.

User problem: You shouldn't be trying to produce overhaeds
automatically. You should prodcue them to enhance what you have to say.

> 
> (9) Can't view the structure so you often get the situation where
> boxes are on top of each other, with lower ones "disappearing"
> (actually obscured / invisible).

Use problem: you need to take care when designing an overhead. Plus,
this seems to me to emphasise what I've said elsewhere: the main problem
is that PowerPoint allows the user to do stupid things easily. In this
case, it seems like you're trying to produce a far-too complicated
slide, that'll distract the audience from listening to what you have to
say.

> 
> (10) Frustrating, imprecise diagram tools.

User problem: Paste the picture you would otherwise photocopy onto an
acetate. Big difference is that you can do more with a computer image
than you can with a photocopy.

> 
> (11) How do you apply a uniform style to all slides?  (I'm sure that
> PP experts will tell me how to do this, but I never worked it out).

User problem: RTFM. (You knew that anyway, didn't you?)


These are only software problems in the sense that you always get a
problem if you try to use software as a substitute for thinking,

-- 
 All the best,
 John
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