Seriously Microsoft, Gimme Something

I am sick and tired of using microsoft products even though, for the most part, I am a huge fan of Powerpoint, excell, and to a lesser extent word. But seriously there are some ridiculous little things that could help me out so much and they do not include these things in any of the releases across the 15 years or so I have been using their products. Since I have a blog I am gonna list some and just because I am a fair guy I am going to point out one they finally did include. For years I thought it was ridiculous that the only colors you could changes cells to in excel were the list of 40 colors available in the drop down. The most recent excel finally lets you use any color you fancy. Unfortunately it also saves your files with a different extension so all the files I need to share with anyone else always get reverted anyway...grrr

THE 'DUH' LIST:
1. File History. You only let me see the last 4 files I opened? Are you serious? What is would be the big problem putting a link that lets you see the last 400 files you opened? You don't need to display them all but give me a button that checks. I can't remember what I named a file from this morning let alone something I may have been working on weeks ago. Hook a brother up with some simple ways to find the file he is looking for using history.

2. Losing my formatting. I may not be an expert so maybe there is a way to prevent this I don't know but I want to throw my PC every time I past something into PPT or word using a certain font, size, etc and it just changes it willy nilly. I could understand if it changed the format to be consistent with the other text in the text box or document. But no, thats not how it works, it doesn't retain the size/font of what I copied from nor does it lock in consistency to other text. WTF microsoft.

3. Double spacing. When I copy and paste something from other documents sometimes it gets double spaced. I have no idea why this happens and it is such a pain because you can't just hit ctrl +1 like you could in the old microsoft works days to turn it back to single space. I usually paste the offending text into a flat text editor and then paste that into my document. My guess is there is some hidden something that the text editor drops off, but c'mon why do you make this such a pain?

Ok, I feel better. I will probably add to this at a later date, microsoft will get to me again!

-dan

Like the Post Office, Health Care Office

You know what I hate about the private sector public sector argument about health care. First is the way that republicans make national health care seem like a bad thing when by every measure of how much we pay for healthcare and the results all the nationalized systems are better. But what really bothers me is the either or rhetoric. I say we have a "Health Care Office" just like we have a post office. The post office operates at a loss because if UPS and FedEx were to drop off the face of the earth having messaging service would still be crucial to the nation. The post office is like the off brand version of these fantastic and effecient companies but little by little it gets better competing with them. This is the same way the health care system should work. Blue cross and blue shield and pacificare aren't going to be put out of business. Instead a post office type health care system will develop to provide care for government employess, the poor, and anyone who is kinda healthy and can deal with the low cost (almost no cost) off brand health care the goverment provides.

I think the post office's co-existence with the other mail companies should be a model for how national and private health care can co-exist and I am sick of hearing the boogey man rhetoric from the right or the sky is falling we must act now rhetoric from the left.

The 80s are over

Reagan did the right things. He was a hero because of success. But to be a follow of a former great leader is not Obama's goal. He needs to be the next great leader and this is why he won. we need a new generation that understands deeply the way things and is well versed on the way things were. the republicans live in the past and they live in a stalemate where they don't attack the problems such as governement inefficiency but accept it as unavoidable dogma.

What worked for reagan was the right fit for the time. Lowering taxes after decades of fat cat democratic rule were the right fit. after 8 years of fat cat republican rule where the rich got their money back enmasse is not the right fit for the current times. tax cuts fall under the law of diminishing returns and in reagans day each dollar cut in taxes fed innovation and growth because the tax burden was stifling. it would be great if there were no taxes but they are far from stifling anymore.

I agree with so much of the republican dogma but can't ever see myself supporting them because they take past facts as if they were current events, they take issue with the way government functions and think the only way to solve the problem is to not govern or regulate, and they have no solutions just a blind belief that what worked in the past surely will work again.

Please, start a new party devoted to efficiency, transparency, and operating our government according to a creed of a ounce of empathy and pound of cold hard measurable goals, plans, and score cards. Fix the government, just solve the problems.