Old Age Kicking In

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[notbrl]

Why does MS feel the need to “improve” the look and feel of Excel with every version.  If it works, leave it the eff alone.  What is up with the circle to the right of the user log in name?  I have tried to work out what the various colors could mean and am at a loss.  It could very well be my age related grumpiness but what is the point of this?

I have searched for the purpose of this username initial circle but have had zero luck.  In the scheme of things this is of no importance… just wanted to rant.

• This topic was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by notbrl.
• This topic was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by notbrl.
• This topic was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by notbrl.

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Cybertooth

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Lots of companies are putting your initials as your “avatar” when you log into their app. I think Microsoft is just staying with the industry standard when they do this.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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It could very well be my age related grumpiness

If it makes you feel better I’m in my 20s and I think it’s dumb.

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notbrl, MrJimPhelps, Cybertooth

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notbrl: Some day you and I should really have to get together to play dominoes.

I still have Office 10 in my still Win 7 PC, and I thought it was a serious comedown from previous versions of Office, because (at least for me) of that annoyingly unnecessary ribbon!

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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notbrl

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Office 10 didn’t have a ribbon. Office 14 does:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office#Windows_versions

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Well b, you could have fooled me! But maybe you should check your facts…

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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But that’s what I’m asking you to do.

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b: I do have Office 2010 in my PC! [edited] The ribbon is optional and can be hidden. Maybe you have seen Office 10 that someone else had with the ribbon turned off? [edited]

EDITED: we’re here to focus on tech issues…

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Office 2010 is Office 14.

Your Office programs should be installed at C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14
(or C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14 for 32-bit Office), and if you check the properties of the Office executable files you’ll find they’re version 14.

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So we are both right. Thanks for the news. Be it as it may, for the next several months of its existence as supported software, I’ll continue to apply the forthcoming Office 10 patches to it, as I have been doing all the time until now.

And this is getting, by now, to be very, very, very off-topic, I would think.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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You went off-topic with Office 10, which was Office XP!

(Oh, and dominoes.)

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That was a joke about both of us, notbrl and I, being old enough (maybe also grumpy enough) to get together doing something old folks might do, and complain about those newfangled ribbons and what have you. So: joke, b: joke. Sorry I did not write “this is a joke.” Apologies.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Office 2010 is Office 14.

An interesting observation…

No one who USES or BUYS software wants to be confused by the versioning. Marketing (not just talking about Microsoft here) WANTS that confusion out there because it creates buzz. Chatter. Talk. Posts. Tweets. Uses up brain cells that might otherwise be used on someone else’s product.

It creates posts like mine, here, where people go and rant about the product versioning, and pushes topics to the top of lists.

Marketing of course feels that any free press is good press.

-Noel

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Mele20, MrJimPhelps, OscarCP

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Noel Carboni wrote:

An interesting observation…

No one who USES or BUYS software wants to be confused by the versioning.

It’s been that way for 25 years; version 7.0 was Office 95:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Office#Office_versions

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In the Wikipedia article that @b linked to, in the “History of Releases” section, there is the “Office Version” and the “Version Number”. The two are not the same.

For example:
* Office XP is version number 10.0
* Office 2010 is version number 14.0

The “Office Version” is the common name that the product is called, whereas the “Version Number” matches the folder that is created on your hard drive. I have Office 365, and the folder on my hard drive is:
C:\Users\Jim\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Office\16.0

Referring back to the Wikipedia article, Office 2016 is version number 16.0, which matches the folder on my hard drive. This makes sense, because the Office Version which currently matches Office 365 is Office 2016.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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Noel Carboni, OscarCP

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Thanks, MrJimPhelps for putting to rest this issue with your well-meaning and quite clear explanation, And thanks, I think, b, for being so determinedly insistent in putting the tiniest detail of my own knowledge of my own things to rights.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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b

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The circle is a placeholder for an optional photo: Add your profile photo to Office 365

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Cybertooth

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[Cybertooth]

From that link;

You can add or change your profile photo in Office 365 from Office.com, or while using Office 365 applications on your computer or in a browser on your phone. Your photo will appear everywhere there’s a profile photo circle in Office 365.

Unless one were a narcissist or an amnesiac, I can’t imagine why one would want to see a picture of oneself on the screen every time one went into Office.

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Cybertooth.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Cybertooth.

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Mele20, OscarCP

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In some cases, it’s to confirm you are logged in to the correct account, to give you a heads-up that someone else may have been on your computer and logged into a different account while you weren’t looking (as in a work environment, on online accounts).

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OscarCP

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In my Mac’s installed Office version 2016 I can see my first name and a blank avatar (with no obvious way to replace it with one’s own) in the front page, as it were, of Excel (for example). But only when just opening the application, but not, later, in a blank spreadsheet ribbon or elsewhere. So, is that place for inserting an avatar (or actual photo?), same as in what seems to be a ribbon in a picture posted at the start of this thread, something that came later, only available in Office version 2019? Well, I guess that’s progress, and I’m falling behind…

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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[Cybertooth]

@kirsty, I still don’t understand. In an office setting, why would anybody else sign into their account on my computer when I stepped out? It doesn’t make sense: they could simply go to their own computer. And if the idea were to make mischief on my computer, then they would do the damage on my account and not their own.

These are good reasons to lock one’s PC while out of the office, but not to have one’s picture on the screen. Ugh–it’s like hanging a portrait of yourself over your desk!  🙂

 

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Cybertooth.

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Cybertooth: That is at the office (although I’ve known some offices that, quite frankly…)

But let’s consider, instead,  some situations at home:

Several computers with different owners, but still less than one such device per capita, at home? And living there, a parent with adventurous children? These being a boy and a girl, brother and sister, that are usually at loggerheads, as brothers and sisters would?

…

Bad, granting all that, a nagging question remains: in such cases, how would Mom or Dad’s picture be a deterrent to irregular activities, when her or his living presence in person, as tends to happen these days, has not been enough discouragement, on occasion?

I await, expectantly, Kirsty’s further input.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Cybertooth wrote:

@kirsty, I still don’t understand. In an office setting, why would anybody else sign into their account on my computer when I stepped out? It doesn’t make sense: they could simply go to their own computer.

Kirsty wrote:

In some cases, it’s to confirm you are logged in to the correct account

Under no circumstances did I say that this would be happening to/on your computer! Not all businesses have “standard” set-ups, and sharing computers can be a thing, as can happen in home settings too. There are also cases where people can have home and work accounts, and this can differentiate between them.
There are many reasons how this could happen, plausible or otherwise. Sorry.

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I logged into my Office 365 account via office.com and put my picture as the avatar. When I am logged into office.com, my picture is in the upper right of the screen. However, when I run Excel 365, I see my initials, not my picture.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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Thanks, MrJimPhelps: now I think that, in my case (with Office 2016), to do something about this blank avatar I can see when I just open Excel, for example, I would have to be connected to some MS Cloud service — which I am not, as I studiously avoid anything “Cloud” I don’t need — except for my AV, that checks for bugs in my files by examining hashes of them in the AV company servers, somewhere.

Not that I need or even want to see my picture when I open one of Office’s applications. I sympathize with Cybertooth sentiments on this, except that, since he wrote his comment, I have read also Kirsty’s explanation of a reasonable practical reason for the avatar not being kept blank, in some circumstances unlikely to ever be encountered by me. But the avatar having been mentioned here, I got curious about it in the first place.

Still, maybe this is something for an old person to come complain about here, as I think was intended by its initiator, notbrl, or maybe not.

notbrl has been pretty quiet during all the brilliant debate that has already enriched this thread, this site, this world even, so much.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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I was on days off (playing dominoes on my phone) and thus missed this lively conversation until this morning.

The user initial / image circle just bugs the #@$% out of me.  At times the circle is gray, blue, magenta, green.  I can see no rhyme nor reason for the various colors or why they change – other than to annoy me.

Over the years I have received invaluable support / guidance / advice from members of the Woody sites.  It is nice to have a community to reach out to when flummoxed.

Enough of my 1st world issue, I have documents to review.

Thanks all.

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Cybertooth

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[notbrl]

Oh Come On…

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by notbrl.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by notbrl.

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geekdom

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Pretty colors. Do you get a prize for three cherries?

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notbrl

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