Thursday, October 16, 2008

New Love Affair

I love Microsoft Word. Have for a long time. All the way back to my first computer (a Mac, actually, when I was in middle school.) I love all the toys and tools. And I'm happily wed to Word2003. With the Thesaurus in the Reference pane, with Styles and the Document Map. And Track Changes in bubbles.

I've been married to Microsoft for a long time. My whole family is in on it-- so there's plenty of site licenses to around. I consider licensed copies part of my dowry in my marriage to Microsoft. Afterall, my parents were the ones who first introduced me to Microsoft. I've accepted my computer partner as it's grown and changed over the years from "Shrug and Pray" to actual "Plug and Play." We both love my flashdrive.

I love Microsoft, in spite of their flaws. Like a lover who leaves socks on the floor. We had a little tiff for a while of Media Player, for example. Like any marital spat, it revolved around different ideas of how things should be. Microsoft wanted to be extra helpful and go to the internet for everything. I just wanted to play my music, dammit. But we found a common ground (and I rolled the Media Player version back to version 9).

We're comfortable now, Microsoft and I. WindowsXP, Word2003 (though the Laptop does have the snazzy, hip new version.) We know what to expect from each other. We do our thing, usually without stepping on each others toes. Though, we both have our moments of stupidity where we do something we really shouldn't. Sometimes it's a stop (or illegal) error. Sometimes it's a d'oh where something is overwritten or updated incorrectly. But over all, it's pretty good.

However, in spite of this long term relationship with Microsoft, I'm having a fling with Firefox. It started slowly, innocently enough, as do all love affairs. But, I admit it. I'm falling in love with Firefox. Especially the spellchecker! Oh my. I usually know I've spelled something wrong online, in a forum on here, but my give-a-damn doesn't extend to pulling out the dictionary. It is, after all, just the internet. Now, with Firefox, I have a spellcheck. Yes, I'm a fickle lover. The rest of the features are comparable. And I still default to clicking IE when I go surfing. But I swoon over the little orange fox.

Don't tell my computer (I call it Spud.) I don't want it to get tempermental on me. But, have you seen Firefox? How can I resist?

4 comments:

Travis Erwin said...

I'm with you. I use word to write and Firefox for browsing.

Ray said...

Confused a) because never heard of Firefox.
b) Happy with word as it has spell check - I have Word 2003.

Mind you all this computer wizardry is, for the most part, new to me. It took me ages just to sign up for the Internet - and, then, it was so that I was able to go on Ebay. Then I got into geneology - now five years on and I found out what blogging is about.
Yes, it is a love affair and it kind of grows as new places and ideas come up.

Reb said...

I have been on Firefox forever, before that I used Netscape. I am seriously thinking of switching my pc over to a Linux o/s. I really don't want to go over to Vista, but my XP is starting to show it's age.

I will be polite and not say anything about Word. ;)

Unknown said...

oooohhh! firefox. I can't get enough of version three. it's replaced both IE on the laptop and Safari on the Mac. So fast, so durable. Not even IE 8 beta can compete with it