Here is a hilarious and ingenious parody/spoof at Microsoft’s expense which basically takes apart the new Microsoft Office 2003 version: Microsoft Office 2003: Compare Previous Editions..
I just bought Outlook 2003 (part of the Office suite) because the New York Times lauded its spam filtering capabilities. Personally (and I may not use Outlook like you), I don’t see that many changes for me from the way I operated before. Not much better, not much worse. The spam filtering system does seem to pick up more spam than previous MS filters. But it still doesn’t get nearly everything (the Times reviewer claimed it intercepted 95% of his spam!).
In addition, opening Outlook 2003 is a much slower process. I’m guessing the new version is a memory hog and perhaps that the improved spam filter is delaying the initialization when you open the software.
If you liked the old Outlook Bar (which contained icons representing individual OTL folders like Contacts, Calendar, etc. and which provided you one-click access to them) in pre-2003 versions, you’ll miss it here. Instead, those brilliant programmers came up with a Navigation Pane, which ties (actually I should say ‘chains’) together what the new version calls the Folder List with a set of graphic icons which functions something like the former Outlook Bar.
Those programmers must’ve been pretty excited by their Navigation Pane because slipstick.com mentions this neat little nugget of MS lore:
‘WunderBar’ was the working name for the Outlook navigation pane during the Office 2003 beta.
Surely they jest??! It ain’t no wunder to me, that’s for sure!
In Outlook 2002, these two features were separate and could be displayed or not depending on the user’s preference. Not anymore! Leave it to those whacky Microsoft programmers to take two separate good things and turn them into one really bad thing. What were they thinking when they locked these two features together?
Now, in Outlook 2003 either you display the Outlook Bar AND Folder List together as the Navigation Pane or you don’t display them at all. There’s no way to display the Outlook Bar alone (as I would like). Go get ’em MS! You rock (not)!
