Re: Nota Bene and writing emails

[Leslie Bialler lb136@xxxxxxxx]

"Yo Intl." wrote:

> CD:
> >I suppose that programs like Outlook and Express are steps in that
> >direction. I'm unfamiliar with them, and I have no idea how
> >successful they are.
>
> They are extremely successful in regard to their market success -- most
> every newcomer seems to have them. At the same time they are extremely
> annoying in their MS-typical attempts to double-guess what you want to do,
> and what is going on and to "automate" conversion and "point" you in the
> right direction. Sort of like being put in the position of a first-grader,
> supervised by an imbecile teacher.

Ah! Perfect, Rene. The more I think about this the more I realize that this
must have been _precisely_ what Bill Gates's school days were like. He
perceived of his teachers as imbeciles (and they may well have been) and
perceive that the world was run by imbeciles, and therefore, when he went into
the software biz, decided that the best thing to do was to give as much
assistance as possible and to conceal the inner workings of the program (thus
preventing customization) from the imbeciles out there, supposing that they
would only screw things up.


>
>
> On mailing lists, you quickly learn to recognize Output/Express users by
> their dumping of formatted attachments without them knowing, and by their
> frequent absence caused by various virii feeding on their programs.

You will not have failed to note that most of the e-mail viruses about are
designed to execute under Outlook.

>
> Count me out on this one. I prefer to use an editor for editing, a mail
> program for mailing, and a fax program for faxing. And in todays operating
> systems, using different programs together should not be a problem. Isn't
> that the whole point of Windows/Mac? I thought *integrated* do-it-all
> programs (remember GeoWorks?) belong to the DOS world.
>

We-el there's something to be said on both sides of the issue here, but
essentially I agree with you, Rene.

--
Leslie Bialler, Columbia University Press
lb136@xxxxxxxx
212-666-1000 x7109 (phone) 212-316-3100 (fax)
> http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup