MSOffice 2013 EULA ties license to one assembly forever?

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

One note is great... but Evernote is nice too, just a suggestion.

Some news for the Office suite lovers. Aimed directly at EverNote and OneNote Keep is currently only available for Android SmartPhones and Internet browsers (Though I don't doubt the other platforms will be released shortly)

I've played around a bit with basic functionality. It's pretty basic at this point, so it's very intuitive since it doesn't DO all that much It claims to save with Google Drive but I don't see any Keep files on my drive, so I'm thinking at this point it doesn't interface with Google Docs at all.

Well, I can copy and paste from Keep to a text document, but I can't figure out how to directly save a web link to a note or search a note or a group of notes for specific text.

It's attractive and well designed, but at this point I'd say it's OK for basic list making, not much more. I hope they add some serious tools to the thing and make it a serious part of their office suite. It REALLY needs to have a serious search capability. Without search, it's just a not very good text editor.

Well, it IS less than 24 hours old, I'd be surprised if they consider it a completed project.

[VydorScope]

The problem with Google products, and keep in mind I have an Android Tablet and use many of them, is that you never know when they are going to randomly cancle them. See Google Reader this week for example.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

The problem with Google products, and keep in mind I have an Android Tablet and use many of them, is that you never know when they are going to randomly cancle them. See Google Reader this week for example.

There's a world of difference between the Reader project and Google Docs, but point taken. On the other hand I'm still trying to get my head round the changes to Word and Excel made in 2007. I'm a power user of both and still, 5 years later, I am not as fast in either product as I was before the interface changes.

I don't completely dislike them, I think the improved right-click menus are superb, but I don't just 'know' where everything is any more. Surely by now I should have learned the new toolbars if they are genuinely better than the old menu system?

Graham

[VydorScope]

I recently upgraded my VM to Windows8 and the newest build of Office for Windows (at work, not at home. No need for the VM at home).

UGH. Its ugly and stupid. I'll stick with the Mac version!

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

The problem with Google products, and keep in mind I have an Android Tablet and use many of them, is that you never know when they are going to randomly cancle them. See Google Reader this week for example.

I don't think it's random, if you look at that which is getting cancelled (and those that seem in some sort of decline, like Picasa) all of them are those that lie outside the business model Google is pursuing.

Regardless of their popularity, all of them are discrete projects that receive no benefit from the common code and infrastructure Google is building. All take a separate effort to maintain.

My years in IT tells me that ongoing maintenance is THE major expense in a software product that can prevent it from ever being profitable. You have to keep people on who understand the code, the reason's why this 'thing' was done 'this' way and not some 'other' way. And no one is ever good enough to get all that stuff down in documentation, and few are good enough to completely absorb the documentation provided.

When you have a coherent and cohesive planned set of software sharing a common core of code, ongoing maintenance is much less costly and more effective since maintenance on one software title automatically provides that maintenance to all SW titles. And you avoid those numerous little pockets of highly paid technical expertise that are never fully utilized.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

I don't think it's random, if you look at that which is getting cancelled (and those that seem in some sort of decline, like Picasa) all of them are those that lie outside the business model Google is pursuing.

Regardless of their popularity, all of them are discrete projects that receive no benefit from the common code and infrastructure Google is building. All take a separate effort to maintain.

My years in IT tells me that ongoing maintenance is THE major expense in a software product that can prevent it from ever being profitable. You have to keep people on who understand the code, the reason's why this 'thing' was done 'this' way and not some 'other' way. And no one is ever good enough to get all that stuff down in documentation, and few are good enough to completely absorb the documentation provided.

When you have a coherent and cohesive planned set of software sharing a common core of code, ongoing maintenance is much less costly and more effective since maintenance on one software title automatically provides that maintenance to all SW titles. And you avoid those numerous little pockets of highly paid technical expertise that are never fully utilized.

You got it, Boss....

[ApK]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

I don't think it's random, if you look at that which is getting cancelled (and those that seem in some sort of decline, like Picasa) all of them are those that lie outside the business model Google is pursuing.

Sound right, but you'd think they could make a little money/goodwill by selling/giving away the stuff they are shutting down for those reasons so someone else might take them over and people could still benefit from them.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by ApK

Sound right, but you'd think they could make a little money/goodwill by selling/giving away the stuff they are shutting down for those reasons so someone else might take them over and people could still benefit from them.

Yes, I agree.

But I asked on a technology site (I think TechCrunch, maybe) if this was a candidate for some sort of OpenSource situation. The general consensus from the respondents was that there are already Open Source projects that really need only minor tweaking to replicate the Reader functionality so the effort to get an OpenSource reader project going would be a lot of work and costly in time resources that could get a project going just in time to see its unique niche already filled by the competition.

So my gut feeling is that while the Reader situation is disruptive in the short term, that in 6 to 18 months no one will care very much.

You know there is also an upside to this situation, with Google out of the way and using up all the RSS air in the room, this frees up OTHER developers to think about how THEY would go about providing those services. Competition is a good thing and a hegemony usually leads to eventual stagnation.

[Penforhire]

<puts tin foil hat on> Another concern about Google Keep is your privacy. Google makes the bulk of its income off advertising. The more you tell them about yourself the more of a view into your life they will have.

I consider the trade to be fair... today. Some day in the future they may cross a line but it will be too late for me to retract all the information they have on me.

[gmw]

I noticed you didn't take the tin foil hat off again, Penforhire. Possibly a wise move.

For my own part, I think Google and others have already crossed the line. These days I'm not as mobile as I once was, but if that changes I would still much prefer to keep my data to myself. I'm not a fan of the way all this stuff has gone, even though I can understand the reasons (both users' and suppliers'). I trying to work out if that makes me cautious, paranoid, or just old.

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

I don't think it's random, if you look at that which is getting cancelled (and those that seem in some sort of decline, like Picasa) all of them are those that lie outside the business model Google is pursuing.

Regardless of their popularity, all of them are discrete projects that receive no benefit from the common code and infrastructure Google is building. All take a separate effort to maintain.

My years in IT tells me that ongoing maintenance is THE major expense in a software product that can prevent it from ever being profitable. You have to keep people on who understand the code, the reason's why this 'thing' was done 'this' way and not some 'other' way. And no one is ever good enough to get all that stuff down in documentation, and few are good enough to completely absorb the documentation provided.

When you have a coherent and cohesive planned set of software sharing a common core of code, ongoing maintenance is much less costly and more effective since maintenance on one software title automatically provides that maintenance to all SW titles. And you avoid those numerous little pockets of highly paid technical expertise that are never fully utilized.

Oh, they have reasons, I am not contesting that. The point is - they have a history of starting and stopping projects at unpredictable intervals. So any Google service dependency should be made with caution.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by gmw

I noticed you didn't take the tin foil hat off again, Penforhire. Possibly a wise move.

For my own part, I think Google and others have already crossed the line. These days I'm not as mobile as I once was, but if that changes I would still much prefer to keep my data to myself. I'm not a fan of the way all this stuff has gone, even though I can understand the reasons (both users' and suppliers'). I trying to work out if that makes me cautious, paranoid, or just old.

Shoot! We lost the battle for privacy the day the internet popped into existence! At this point, I think the question to ask is, "does this thing make my life easier in some significant way and is the trade in even further reduced privacy worth it?"

The internet is forever, and we are all out there, so how do we thrive in such a situation?

[ApK]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

Oh, they have reasons, I am not contesting that. The point is - they have a history of starting and stopping projects at unpredictable intervals. So any Google service dependency should be made with caution.

Good point. I have a free Google voice number and love it. I've started giving it out as my primary contact. If they started charging a small amount, I'd pay, but if they dropped it, or charged a prohibitive amount, I'd be disrupted.

I also rely heavy on my Google Apps account for all my family's email needs. That would be a far more serious disruption if it went away. They have already eliminated the free version of that, and I'm grateful for my grandfathered status.

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by ApK

I also rely heavy on my Google Apps account for all my family's email needs. That would be a far more serious disruption if it went away. They have already eliminated the free version of that, and I'm grateful for my grandfathered status.

Yeah, I have some of my domains email on their servers too. That will suck if they drop that. For now, its the best deal there is and massively better then hosting it myself like I used to. I can always fall back to that, but that just a mess I do not want back.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

Shoot! We lost the battle for privacy the day the internet popped into existence! At this point, I think the question to ask is, "does this thing make my life easier in some significant way and is the trade in even further reduced privacy worth it?"

The internet is forever, and we are all out there, so how do we thrive in such a situation?

There are ways to exist on and use the Internet without giving up very much of your privacy. But it is much more difficult to create devices and develop software that effectively supports such use - and there is little incentive to try when there's money to be had in taking the easy way out and selling what the users don't seem to value.

I am far from convinced that locking yourself into the services of particular providers such as Google and Apple is a good long term strategy for thriving ... but that is probably a discussion for a different forum.