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 Toronto area 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.

Office 2007, anyone?

I've been using the beta2 versions of the new Windows Vista OS and Office 2007 for the past few weeks. Click any of the following for a Windows Media File recording of an overview of the application.

Vista Desktop (approx. 10 minutes)
Internet Explorer 7+ (approx. 10 minutes)
Word 2007 (approx. 20 minutes)

Here's what's coming:

Word, Excel and PowerPoint are the applications most affected by this VERY ambitious upgrade. Outlook and Access are - based on what I've seen so far - little changed.

As for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, they get 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 too early for 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.

The good news is that 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 be in a great deal of pain!

I'll update this post in a few days. Stay tuned....