Excel requires an internet connection

I've seen Microsoft Office 2010 do many bad, and even stupid, things. But this one really tops them all:

Right, so I can't open Excel 2010 because there's something wrong with the internet connection (or so it thinks - I'm actually writing this blog post so I have no idea what Excel smoked). But seriously, why the hell does Excel need the internet to open a spreadsheet?

Downloading Microsoft Office?? Dude, it's installed on my machine.

This is the single most annoying 'feature' I have ever encountered in a piece of software. A close second is having to open Excel twice, because it doesn't open the spreadsheet I double-clicked, the first time.

A new category of facepalm needs to be invented for Microsoft. The silly bugs encountered in LibreOffice are nothing in comparison. Goodbye, MS Office. Hello, LibreOffice.

Early Sierra games playable online

Some interesting stuff that surfaced between yesterday and today:

• Old Sierra Games Playable In Browser Through Open Source Game Engine - a great piece of work at Sarien.net.
• Microsoft Suffers Leaks, Lagging Sales Numbers As They Look Forward To Windows 8 - article about the leak of Windows 7 Release Candidate, and the fact that Microsoft are already beginning to plan Windows 8.
• My thesis is going through a public evaluation beta this week - check out the chatbot evaluation page.
  

Microsoft 'Songsmith'

An article by Slashdot has a few links about 'Songsmith', a program from 'Microsoft Research'.

A shame for any software company.