The local daily paper made a big splash the other day about the FCC removing the requirement for a ham radio operator to learn the Morse code to get a license. When I was active in hamming, I was a code nut myself and could easily do speeds of over 40 words per minute. I suppose that this change should have been more significant to me, but in fact I haven't been active as a ham in decades. The Internet changed it all for me. So another memory of my teen and early adult years fades away…
PCs loaded with the new Microsoft Vista have arrived. It looks like most of the major manufacturers are only selling Vista equipped PCs now. I just checked at one of the local electronics stores, and all the PCs there have Vista. Dell and the major made-to-order manufacturers are shipping XP now only on business PCs and then only by request. If you need to buy a new PC and will thus be forced into Vista, do your homework first and make sure your programs and external gear will run correctly under Vista. On the other hand, I haven't specifically run across anything yet that didn't run under Vista, but my sample size is very limited thus far.
I did two migrations from older PCs with XP to Vista last week, and both went pretty well. In fact, I saw very little difference from XP to Vista except that things looked different and had moved around. One disappointment was the "Files and Settings Transfer Wizard". This program is supposed to make it easy to migrate your data to a new PC. It existed in XP but I found it almost impossible to use or at least very, very slow. I was hoping that the Vista version would be better but alas not so. We started one up and it ran all night and still didn't finish. So I did the job manually (as usual) and got it done fairly quickly.
On the subject of migrating to a new PC, one of the questions that seems to always come up is "Where's My Word?". The "Word" I am speaking of is the Microsoft Office package, usually containing Word, Excel, and Outlook. Many people assume that Word is going to be supplied with Windows on their new PC, but 'taint so! Let me tell you why.
MS Office is Microsoft's flagship revenue producer. You can get various versions for about $180 to $400 - a lot of money for a CD and a little booklet, big profit for Microsoft. They don't give it away for free. If you order a PC from Dell, for example, you can get a basic Office package for about $180. You will certainly not find it for free in a $750 PC.
Software of this nature cannot be copied from PC to PC - you have to reinstall it. This is especially true when changing operating systems, as from XP to Vista. So the next thing I do after copying all of a client's data to their new PC is to ask for their Office CD so I can re-install it on the new PC.
About this time I get the blank stare, and they tell me that it is included in Windows, that they never purchased it, and thus don't have a CD. What happened?
There are probably three common explanations: 1) The client lost the CD and license code. 2) The client had "borrowed" a copy of the program from somebody else and thus doesn't have a CD. 3) Their old PC came with a 60 day trial evaluation copy, and they contacted Microsoft to purchase the full version. Sometimes a CD is shipped with the evaluation copy, sometimes not, but it was misplaced and/or the license code lost.
In the case of (1) and (3), my client would have to contact Microsoft to see if they are registered and to try to get a replacement CD. In any other case, a new purchase is required. So, if you are in the local store and are buying a PC, add Office to your shopping list if you need it. If you are ordering online, consider paying the extra money for the particular Office package you need, and make sure they ship an Office CD with it.
But if you buy a new copy, be aware that the latest Office 2007 has changed considerably and you will have a fairly steep learning curve - thank you Microsoft!
Just don't assume Word is going to be there - you know what happens when you assume!
(Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport - Oak Island area. You can visit his Website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail questions or column ideas to him at bsc@bobseidel.com. For specific inquiries, please call Bob Seidel Consulting, LLC at 278-1007.)