You can use your favorite social network to register or link an existing account:
Or use your email address to register without a social network:
Sign in with these social networks:
Or enter your username and password
Forgot your password?
Yes, please link my existing account with for quick, secure access.
No, I would like to create a new account with my profile information.
Tips
How-to
News
Videos
Stories
It never fails. I'm at a party or a family gathering or even interviewing a new dog sitter, and the conversation eventually winds around to, "So. What do you do?" Sometimes I want to collapse onto the floor into a horizontal position and start twitching and drooling (and maybe gesturing in an unladylike way) and look up and say, "Sometimes I do this—usually just while I'm sleeping, though." And then that would bring the ha-ha-has but eventually I would have to fess up and tell Curious George or Georgette that I'm a writer and I work for Microsoft and I used to write a column and now I write a blog and it's a sort of techie and sort of humorous and it's supposed to help people use the Office products and survive life in the office.
And then the questions begin.
What does this X mean? What's a protocol? What's a profile? What is SMTP? What's a macro? What are BIOS? What's CSS mean? What's the difference between a Rumba and a Beguine??? Why don't you guys talk in regular language? Is it a conspiracy?
Yep, that's it: It's a conspiracy. And me with all my Crabby Office Lady power, I have all the time in the world to be in on this. And whoa, they're paying me whopping you-know-what-loads of money to conspire to...to...confuse all of our customers to so that they hate and poke fun at us and won't buy our software. Yeah, that's gotta be it.
But you know what? The last few weeks I've been way too un-Crabby talking about accessibility and computing help for seniors... and that is NOT how I captured this gig. So yeah, I'm like Gumby: flexible (though not green—yet). But I have a moniker to live up to.
If you want to know how to work your computer and its programs, it behooves you—yes I know: behooves is one of my signature terms I use too much but it's just too delicious to resist tonight)—yes it BEE-HOOOOOVES you to at least attempt to learn about what certain terms and figures of speech mean in this world of computing so that you can walk-the-walk AND talk-the-talk. (Because I don't think you can do one without the other.)
And so my Crabby children: Next week (and possibly the week after) be prepared to learn a new language. I will attempt to be your Theogony, your Theravada, your Tao Te Ching, and your Ketuvim. I'm going to try to illuminate the language of Microsoft Office software for you so that when you need assistance, one unknown term doesn't stymie you as you attempt to cross that highway of knowledge.
Have a great weekend and be ready to slap on your thinking caps Monday.
Crabby's Find of the Day: It's 2011; how're we supposed to say it anyway?
— Crabby
Comments: (12) Collapse
Ok, I know it's not MS related...but what does CSS mean? Also, can you translate English into Spanish too?
CSS means Cascading Style Sheets. It's a web language used to describe the presentation (formatting and such) of web pages. You can read more about it here: en.wikipedia.org/.../CSS . But it DOES have something to do with MS because we use CSS to style our webpages (sometimes and some sites; not al of them).
Can I translate English into Spanish? Me? I don't speak Espanol. But there are some really great online (ands free) translation tools out there. This one is my favorite: www.microsofttranslator.com
And now I'll translate into Spanish using that Bing translator and you tell me if it's at least partially understandable, ok?
Hola Jomamma,
CSS significa "Hojas de estilo en cascada". Es un lenguaje de web que se utiliza para describir la presentación (formato y tal) de las páginas web. Puede leer más acerca de aquí: en.wikipedia.org/.../CSS. Pero tiene algo que ver con MS porque utilizamos CSS para estilo de nuestras páginas Web (a veces y algunos sitios; no alk de ellos).
¿Puedo traducir de inglés a español? ¿Yo? No hablo a español. Pero hay algunas herramientas de traducción en línea (y libre) realmente genial por ahí. Este es mi favorito: www.microsofttranslator.com
- Crabby
P.S. Cascading Style Sheets explained in spanish:
es.wikipedia.org/.../Cascading_Style_Sheets
How gifted and talented you are, Crabby. Your wit and charm continues to amaze me!
Wit AND Charm? Surely you must be referring to my alter ego, the Cloying Office Lady?
Thank goodness I knew what "cloying" meant and didn't have to look it up! Oh, if you could only explain DOI to me and actually get me to understand it.
DOI...DOI... Digital Object Identifier? it's like bar code for intellectual property on the web? Is that sorta right? I can go deeper (and in fact am already diving in) by asking a few smarty-pants around here who can explain it in plain English like this site (www.doi.org/.../intro.html) thinks it does...
I'm teaching a college class that needs to use the DOI instead of a web address for sources. I guess I am showing my age.....had never heard of DOI.
You have no IDEA about what age is, youthful Spirit. (I mean I imagine you're youthful.) I didn't know what DOI was either until I looked it up. And me, the COL who thought she knew it all! Well, you know what they say about old dogs (and I still cry every siingle day since mine died 5 months ago).
But I digress. My friend Maya who (along with her mamma from India), cooks WONDEFUL Indian food but alas does not nearby, pointed me to this, which I think explains it pretty well.
liblogs.albany.edu/.../when_do_i_use_a_doi_1.html
Good luck Shpirit. Let us know how it goes and always reference Crabby!
thanks for the beginner's lesson. We are thinking of redesigning our website and your blog will help me when I am talking to my webgeek friends.
Ramie: What a great thig to say! I'd love to see your site (either now or when it's redesigned). There is a LOT of info round abuot web design (and re-design) and even about a really important topic: How to GET people to your site. (SEO is the new hot acronym: Search Engine Optimization. If you don't know what it is, look it up.)
Have a nice weekend and thaks for writing.
I have not figured any of this out yet.........but......i'm sure i have a lfetime!lol
Comments: (loading) Collapse