It’s been four years in waiting since Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit (Mac BU) gave the world a fully-fledged version of Microsoft Office. Sure, ask anyone from the Mac BU and they “but, but” and splutter until the cows come home that there was that wonderful Service Pack release a while back but just like their Operating System release schedule Office 2008 has been a long, long time coming.

For me there was really only one reason that I cared about its release, and no it wasn’t for a Universal Binary so it ran faster on my Intel Mac, although that is a very nice bonus, no for me all I wanted was a version on Entourage that actually had some real Exchange support in it.

In less time than it took to install the Standard version (the cheaper Edu/Home version has no support at all for Exchange in Entourage) I tried connecting to my work’s Exchange server and was greeted with the same crap message that it couldn’t connect. Game over, Office 2008, you suck balls, just like 2004 and version X.

You see ever since the last, and still to this day best, Exchange email client that Microsoft ever released, Outlook 2001, operations for the included email program in Microsoft’s Mac Office suite has been handled not by the Exchange development team but by the Mac BU. You’d think, “Hey, these two divisions still work for the same big company don’t they? Can’t they have a little meet & greet to sort this out?” But obviously that’s just a pipe dream and once again Mac users are left in the dark.

Entourage does have some limited ability to connect to Exchange servers but it does require that server to be running the option of Outlook Web Access (OWA) in order for the client to connect successfully rather than the Outlook standard of MAPI & HTTP-DAV. Unfortunately for me my employer’s IT gods deem OWA unnecessary as 99% of desks are PC’s and I’m left running Outlook 2001 via Classic or Outlook 2007 in Parallels.

I may be being a little harsh on poor old billion dollar Microsoft, Office does have some neat little things in it, namingly the ability to open their new whizz bang Office 2007 XML formats and the best feature I’ve found so far…. No more retarded transparent floating menus! Thank you!!! I’m sure there’s more in there too but frankly I could care less until Entourage grows some balls and gets out the kiddie pool.

If you’d like to know more about how inept Entourage’s Exchange ability really is there’s a great article by John Welch over at MacWorld.

Quite often I find myself walking down the street at any particular random time of the day in any just as random city approached by complete strangers who want to know if I’m the guy behind this website. More often than not almost immediately after I’m approached I also get to meet the warm embrace of their open palm or on particularly lucky occasions I have a more hard, clenched fist approach to the upper bridge of my nose further perpetuating my never ending quest to join the crooked likes of Hollywood greats such as Adrien Brody or Owen Wilson. You see, just in case you hadn’t figured it out already, these “fans” are in fact random persons who have no knowledge of myself and are probably wondering just who is this weirdo and why on earth should I know him?

Whilst the previous scenario may be entirely fictional it does provide a rather convenient segue into this particular post’s topic of who actually reads this blog? Someone must, there’s a few hundred hits every week and judging by the wonderful world of web statistics you’re pulled in from all corners of this big round ball I like to call “Earth”. So what I thought would be an interesting social experiment that I’m sure a tiny, tiny majority of you may partake in would be to ask you, the reader, to comment at the bottom of this article and tell me a little about yourself. I mean it’s only fair, you know all about me and my petulant ways why not tell me a little somethin’, somethin’ (to borrow a phrase from the kids these days) about your bad self!

“But Raj, what is it that you want to know about me?” I hear you painstakingly asking yourself. It’s OK my child, don’t fret I will help you out by providing some wonderfully well rounded and scientifically deduced questions below this very paragraph of all places! All you need to do is copy and paste them into the comments field and fill in the blanks! Ready?? Here we go…

The Questions about your “bad self”

• What is your name?
• Where are you from? (ie. City/Country)
• Do you know Raj in the real world and not just in a stalking online fashion type of way?
• Two part question… Do you come here often? Can I buy you a drink? Hang on; 2nd part applies to females only.
• Why is it that you’re reading this? Work that boring?
• What would you like me to write about more/less?
• How many roads must a man walk down before he can call himself a man?
• Tell me something interesting, anything… quickly, first thing that just zipped through your head!

There you go, they’re not hard at all are they?! To prove it I’m going to answer them myself to show you exactly what I’m expecting from you…. oh and if you’re wondering how to get to the comments section you need to click on the article’s title to take you to the right page.