Where to go next

[olderTechnology]

All right guys & gals, help me out here.

I'm as loyal as anyone -- bought the TH55 the day it came out -- member of the Nutcase club -- but time marches on.

I want to move my desktop computer to Office 2007. So that means Documents To Go has to move past Version 8. Version 8's hotsync conduit is permanently disabled by Office 2007, according to DataViz. Version 9 is the minimum, and Version 10 is preferred, but neither is supported on the TH55.

My TH55 is still trucking along, but what happens when its desktop base station moves beyond it?

Seems like I have two choices: move to Treo (PalmOS) and keep my favorite programs (but live with the TINY screen), or go to the dark side with a shiny new Windows Mobile device like the HP 110. Maybe StyleTap will let me bring over a few of my faves (like Bible+????), but it will solve all my Microsoft Office and Outlook problems.

In favor of the Windows Mobile solution is that DataViz has abandoned (with version 9) the Inbox To Go product which is essential for me. I need my home inbox with me, not a bunch of wireless email. At least Windows Mobile still has inbox synchronization (according to my friends anyway).

What do you think?

(by the way, I own an iPod Touch, and it won't be threatening real PDAs for a while yet.....)

[LupeValenz]

Darn, I was ready to type iPod touch then I saw the end. Its pretty good for me as a PDA with contacts, calendars and such and with DataViz interested in porting their Docs2go over to iPhone/iPod touch, I thought that would be a great deal. Personally I'd say the treo because it just feels right, I'm used to Palm OS and the Treo is very user friendly, can even be stylus free if you like. Yeah the screen is tiny but its picture quality is pretty crisp for packing so many pixels in a tiny screen area. Maybe some WM device users can help point out some positives as I don't use them >.<

[dmitrygr]

v 10 will run fine on a TH 55 AFAIK

[intellidryad]

I want to move my desktop computer to Office 2007. So that means Documents To Go has to move past Version 8. Version 8's hotsync conduit is permanently disabled by Office 2007, according to DataViz. Version 9 is the minimum, and Version 10 is preferred, but neither is supported on the TH55.


You could still use Office 2007 and save to older office file formats.

[olderTechnology]

That's true for Version 9, but not Version 8, which is totally locked out by Office 2007. The explanation is here. (http://support.dataviz.com/support.srch?docid=14134)

Maybe I'll try the upgrade to 9 or 10 and just lose the Inbox capability. I've seen people who say that 9 will run with a bit of instability on the DIA, but I've not heard of anybody running version 10 on a TH55.

[El Maquinas]

Maybe I'll try the upgrade to 9 or 10 and just lose the Inbox capability. I've seen people who say that 9 will run with a bit of instability on the DIA, but I've not heard of anybody running version 10 on a TH55.

Hi, I tested version 10 of DTG on my TH55 and the DIA problem is still there, see the following thread for more information:
http://www.1src.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125372

[jj2me]

Can you wait for Windows Mobile 8 (http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/what.s-wrong-with-windows-mobile/whats-wrong-with-windows-mobile-and-how-wm7-and-wm8-are-going-to-fix-it-333536.php) ?

[olderTechnology]

Thanks for that thread, El Maquinas. I'll try version 9 to start with, since I already own it. Sounds like the entire DTG experience has suffered a huge downgrade, although (apart from the spreadsheet) Documents To Go has never been a very pleasant experience. The undead Wordsmith was a much better word processor but never got upgraded to keep its customers up to date. Also, Wordsmith syncs with two computers without complaining, but multiple versions of DTG have continually lost and renamed my documents when using two computers.

Ultimately, will it be some disk-drive-in-the-cloud that really solves this problem? Not sure but I do want to install Office 2007, so I'll see what happens.

[tonyreynolds]

Sounds like the entire DTG experience has suffered a huge downgrade, although (apart from the spreadsheet) Documents To Go has never been a very pleasant experience... Not sure but I do want to install Office 2007, so I'll see what happens.

I have an older version of DTG (I think 8.0 ???) and have used it sparingly because the user experience (for me) is just not the best. I have resisted upgrading because I started using DTG with version 6.0 and saw no improvement beyond additional bloat with successive genterations of the product. Mobile Office on a Pocket PC (in my Pocket PC days) was a much better experience.

As for Office, I've seen no compelling reason to upgrade. My IT department still installs Office 2003 for a company of 225 employees. I run Office 2000 on my notebook. Same thing as DTG: not that much more functionality and a whole lot more bloat...

YMMV

[Aces]

I had a good laugh recently at work. a co worker was getting a "hand-me-down" PC from our comptroller. they fdisked it and started over. Once he got his PC, he was continually complaining about how word and excel didn't work worth a darn anymore, wondering if the IT guy had goofed up the installation. his office was just far enough away that it took a over a week for me to stop by his office, and I quickly saw what was wrong. I'd thought they upgraded him from office 2000 to 2003. But they actually put 2007 on it. If you've never seen it before, think "Vista" for Office. :( it's interface is nothing like any of the previous versions. In my opinion, it was actually a step BACKWARD in functionality (try saving your file...3 mouse clicks just to save a file!)

[olderTechnology]

Well, no, actually.

The "Ribbon" interface just dresses up the previous menu structure with a different structure. Given that you could never find anything on the previous set of Word menus, how can that be a big problem? And the new "Office Button" with an automatic list of 17 previous documents is a big time saver in my opinion.

The whole thing seems to be a pretty well thought out attempt to use some of the bigger screen space we all have. No more pulling stuff down, it's all there in front of you. (In tabs of course :))

As for saving a document, it's one click. The icon looks like a floppy disk (that's pretty radical) and it's always visible, no matter which part of the ribbon you're on.

[Cyker]

<angry bile-filled rant>

I hate it for that reason.

I want to look at and edit the ****ing document, not look at a ****-load of icons that I can only guess at the functions of!

I *liked* the old menus. They told you what they did at a glance. Frequently used things could go in the unobtrusive icon bars, and they frequently used so you knew what they did; Put anything not-oft used elsewhere.

With the ribbons, I have to guess the function of almost every icon, and if I can't find it, drill down and search the expansions with even more guessing! The tooltips are no help; You'd have to hover your mouse over EVERY SINGLE ****ING ICON!!!

Some people like the new interface, but the majority of people, esp. people that have used Office since version 6.0, really hate the new interface and just don't understand why they changed it.

The clutter is worse than Office 2003! With 2007 (And Vista for that matter), you need a 22" monitor at max rez to compensate for all the space-wasting crap that they filled the screen with!

Try running Vista/Office 2007 at 800x600 or even 1024x768 and you'll feel the claustrophobia.

It's like CPUs - The faster CPUs we have, the more they feel the need to use up the power, when, actually I'd like to use the power for WORK and not pissing about with useless wastes of CPU time for functions that I never needed or, in fact, use.

When I buy a bigger monitor, I want the extra screen space FOR ME, not for screen clutter and useless window decorations which I have to otherwise disable!

This isn't to say I want a crippled bare-bones UI like TWM or something, but seriously... these attempts to 'boost my productivity', are not!!!

<obligatory get-off-my-lawn comment>
I swear I could type stuff out faster when I used a DOS word processor, and formatting was represented by different colours!

</rant>

[tonyreynolds]

There is so little improvement in most of the software packages I use from day to day. That goes for Office as well as Photoshop, Illustrator and many others.

The product development teams sit around and dream up new features to add to justify the higher price for the updated package, adding bloat but rarely adding functionality. Change for the sake of change. What the hell is "reading layout" in Word and why would I want that rather than "print layout" for example?

Referencing the thread-link regarding the Windows Mobile 8 discussion above, why ARE we faced with an operating system that has been obviously flawed FOR YEARS, that is on version 6 and we're supposed to WAIT FOR VERSION 8 FOR A FIX???

I don't think so.

I'm NOT BUYING INTO the update cycles that Microsoft, Adobe and Autodesk dictate. I WILL NOT buy the latest and greatest just to discover that there is decreased functionality. And that goes for hardwaare as well.

WHEW!

Anybody else?

[Cyker]

Yeah! That was strangely therapeutic :D