Entries from August 2011 ↓

For YEARS now, I have been having trouble with Microsoft Word (all versions) crashing on my Macs (all versions of hardware and Mac OSX) whenever I quit the program.

I would get an error dialog box prompting me to report the error (fat lot of good that seemed to do), and then it would restart Word again, open my file back up, and then I had to shut down all over again. Basically, shutting down Word would always take two runs at it.

I spent a bit of time trying to figure it out, but just couldn’t solve it. I thought it had something to do with the “normal” template, and I thought I had it solved at one point, but then it was back. Along the way, I thought that a common denominator was older docs in previous Word versions, and although I think this was somehow the case, I couldn’t figure out the issue. Frustrating.

This morning, after having it happen to me again, I did a bit of research and finally figured out that it was related to issues with Endnote (bibliographic software – you’ll know if you have it), and some weird stuff that it does, even when you think that you have uninstalled it. I wasn’t using it anymore, but there was some remnant left over on my system.

Anyways, I basically went through my system deleting all remaining files and folders, and especially the reference to Endnote which was still sitting in my Word startup folder, and hey presto!  All sorted.  No more crashing.  Woo hoo!

And, an interesting and very pleasant side benefit has been that suddenly my Word is running a LOT faster.  It loads faster and everything about it seems a bit zippier, and it now closes nice and smoothly with no crashing. Finally fixed.

There is a simple reason why Apple is on a serious rise at the moment, and it’s all about the experience…  the experience of buying their products, the experience of using their products, and the experience of what happens when you have a problem.

I recently noticed that my iPad had developed an interesting issue with a rubber seal beginning to pop out of the edge of the screen in the bottom corner.  It wasn’t much, but it clearly wasn’t normal.  And then, I happened to also note that my iPhone had begun to show a bit of a yellow patch on the screen.  It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t normal either.

I made an appointment and went into the Genius Bar of the Perth Apple Store to get them checked out.  Fifteen minutes later, I walked out with replacements to both devices, and all I had to do was plug each of them into my Macbook Pro to get everything back and happening.  Boom.  Done.  No arguing, no hassling, no issues.

I love that.

Now, if only my current (note how I say “current”) phone provider could get their act together, things would be just right…  my current dispute with them over some erroneous global roaming charges feels like a personal re-enactment of the beach scene in Saving Private Ryan.

Anyhoo, kudos to the Apple Store people.