Welcome!

My name is Doug Banwell and I live and work in Huntsville and Toronto.

This site is all about my computer consulting practice. If you're located in the Huntsville or Toronto areas and you're looking for help with your computer(s), you've found the right place. I cover all the basics: hardware, software, training, customization, etc. Please check out my Services page for a complete list of what's available.

By the way, if you're looking for Doug Banwell - Musician, that's me too! Click here to go to my music web site.

Windows 7 and Office 2010, anyone?

I've been using Office 2007 since it came out, and now I'm on Office 2010. To be candid, Office 2007 was good. Office 2010 is fantastic! Most users of Office 2007 found the "Office" button a little confusing. Good news: It's been revmoved from Office 2010. Here's a little glimpse:

All the Office applications get the ribbon in 2010, including Outlook and Access.

The big news is a completely new user interface called "the ribbon". This is essentially a horizontal rendering of the old vertical menus, but they are completely re-organized and context-relevant. They also contain a ton of information, usually in visual format.

My first impression is that the Microsoft designers have made it easier for non-"power users" to get at the deeper functionality of the programs.

In Word, for instance, Styles are now very visible. There are small graphic representations of the styles available and the there are default style sets that make it easy to create good looking documents quickly. Paragraph numbering, which is very important when creating legal documents, is drastically changed. It's not up to me to say it's better, but I can say that it is easier to get at.

Excel also benefits from the ribbon. Functions are more accessible and the wizards work well, as always. New features abound, like being able to add Tables within spreadsheets. It seemed a little weird to me at first, but there are definite advantages to this.

The good news for anyone who's afraid of change is: the underlying menus for advanced functions in all programs are not significantly different, and there is a matrix in each apps Help module that tells you where to find the new equivalents of the 2003 commands you are used to.

In my opinion, using Word as the example, the users who aren't afraid to grow with the program will love this upgrade. The users who resist change - the people who still insist on working in Word as if they're working in WordPerfect 5.1 - are going to need to take a new approach. It will be worth it!