Digital Frustration

"Ah, the wonders of technology." Considering how totally reliant and trusting we are of computers to perform our most critical tasks, and store our most important information, we continue to be entirely conscious of its inevitability to screw up (and screw us). I've recently encountered several particularly infuriating issues with Microsoft Word, which continue to haunt me as I struggle to find enough time in the day to get all my work done, while still permitting time to eat and sleep.

Before I started school, I bought a brand new macbook, and outfitted it with the pleasure to use and thus far, consistently reliable iWork (mac's Office equivalent, at a reasonable $79). I also purchased MS Office 2008 for Mac (purely out of necessity, and for a bank-breaking $200), aware that I would need it to avoid compatibility issues while doing group work at school. Excellent, now I have no money, and for the duration of the school year, my assignments are left in the slippery hands of Microsoft.

Office 2008 is a much improved version, and offers a much sleeker, appealing look (oddly similar to that which Mac has been using for years), and easier to use and access features. Doc files are upgraded to docx files, and when working in Word 08 format, it's been nothing but bunnies and rainbows. However, when I receive a document from someone using an older version of word, and have to work with it, the bunnies are boiled and the rainbows are replaced by ominous clouds, symbolic of my impending doom. Mix in the volume of group work we have to do, and short of a little Chinese water torture, it's been the best time ever.

Word 2008 does all these impressive and smart things, but stubborn older versions of word render their documents totally immune to the aforementioned features. Instead, you end up dealing with fantastic phantom commands, where every click is a surprise - thought you were placing that photo on page 3, did ya? Enjoy, as it surprises you with appearing on an entirely different page, upside down and backwards! Oh, you wanted to edit documents with track changes on? That's a great idea, but don't even think about trying to paste those changes, because the magical word troll will arbitrarily decide to keep only a select few of your comments/changes! And imagine the fun, when you have to retype 30 pages of text, because it won't justify properly, and there exists no known workaround!

So, are old versions of word jealous of the newer one, as siblings are of a new baby, so choose to spite it with a little teenage rebellion? Or is this just another insidious plan by Microsoft to make all the different versions just compatible enough that users have to deal with all these frustrating and inexplicable issues, which will ultimately result in an enraged trip to the store to purchase the newest version of Word just to avoid having to deal with this? Of course not, because Microsoft would never base its entire business upon the concept of forced monopoly, and then charge a ridiculously high price for its products, knowing that as much as consumers will be annoyed, they have no choice but to buy it anyway.

In conclusion of this much needed rant, I find myself wondering how Bill Gates feels when he has a major assignment due and Word doesn't work properly? Oh, right - he probably uses iWork for those ones.