It seems I’ll be playing MineCraft

A month or so ago I’d never heard of this game. Now, I see the name everywhere. Even MaximumPC gave it their game of the year award. It seems like a great deal of fun, harkening back to playing with Legos of an unlimited number. I even made mention that I would like to give it a try, but I suffer from a lack of the creative gene used for building. I think the best I will be able to pull off is an outhouse. With a shaky roof. But apparently my work confederates were distressed with my lack of commitment so they forged ahead and bought a copy of the game. Now I have to play lest I insult their most generous gift. And in the brief moment of playing so I could "find a safe haven for the night" I proved my ineptitude by not only not being able to open the door correctly, but by not having […]

A bit of Word redemption

I did some checking in the Ol’ Google Machine and found several pieces of information that led me to believe that Word could do some desktop publishing. And I was right. Sort of. I was able to get images to float around the page like I wanted. And I was able to make text boxes and even quotations appear as I wanted. That being said perhaps I need to dig deeper into the belly of the beast. I’m still getting PagePlus because I really like the features it offers and the price is extremely reasonable. But maybe Word isn’t the kludged together long document app of years gone by. Perhaps Microsoft has made amends. At any rate it’s definitely something to look into. I don’t think it can completely fulfill my needs but it has come a long way. I worked with PagePlus quite a bit yesterday and really do like the way it works. I think between it and […]

A bit of Word redemption

I did some checking in the Ol’ Google Machine and found several pieces of information that led me to believe that Word could do some desktop publishing. And I was right. Sort of. I was able to get images to float around the page like I wanted. And I was able to make text boxes and even quotations appear as I wanted. That being said perhaps I need to dig deeper into the belly of the beast. I’m still getting PagePlus because I really like the features it offers and the price is extremely reasonable. But maybe Word isn’t the kludged together long document app of years gone by. Perhaps Microsoft has made amends. At any rate it’s definitely something to look into. I don’t think it can completely fulfill my needs but it has come a long way. I worked with PagePlus quite a bit yesterday and really do like the way it works. I think between it and […]

Serif PagePlus X5 – Could this be my answer?

This whole desktop publishing adventure has been depressing and frustrating. I have a simple project in mind and I figured in this software rich world it would be easy to find something to fit the bill. Alas, that isn’t the case. Everywhere I turn people are talking about InDesign and FrameMaker. Even the now defunct Corel Ventura is mentioned (they haven’t made a new version since 2002). But, as I keep saying I don’t have a spare $600 lying around. Even the upgrade is $200. I even found MadCap Flare which can do the job for a mere $900. Well sure, here’s a sack full of money for a program that costs more than my entire computer! I tried Xara Designer Pro but it doesn’t even support Word files. I can understand not supporting the format but it’s not even an option for importing the text. Clearly that’s not gonna work. I even tried Microsoft Publisher. Strangely, it’s actually not […]

Wait a moment, I think a found program that will work

This whole desktop publishing adventure has been depressing and frustrating. I have a simple project in mind and I figured in this software rich world it would be easy to find something to fit the bill. Alas, that isn’t the case. Everywhere I turn people are talking about InDesign and FrameMaker. Even the now defunct Corel Ventura is mentioned (they haven’t made a new version since 2002). But, as I keep saying I don’t have a spare $600 lying around. Even the upgrade is $200. I even found MadCap Flare which can do the job for a mere $900. Well sure, here’s a sack full of money for a program that costs more than my entire computer! I tried Xara Designer Pro but it doesn’t even support Word files. I can understand not supporting the format but it’s not even an option for importing the text. Clearly that’s not gonna work. I even tried Microsoft Publisher. Strangely, it’s actually not […]