February 7, 2008
Buck 65, Microsoft Office Mac 2008
A little while back I posted my Top Ten for 2007, and there is a glaring omission.
It wasn’t intentional; I just slept on this record until this week. Don’t make the same mistake I did.
Buck 65’s latest, Situation, should not be missed if you’re into hyper-intelligent hip-hop wordsmithing with beats and samples you surely won’t recognize.
More varied in tempo and style than previous records, while still very much in his signature downtrodden vocal style, Situation should damn well put Buck 65 into the MF Doom/Kool Keith/Sage Francis level of notoriety.
His lyrics spin tales of everyday life and mental struggles with wit and a thesaurus deeper than the Marianas Trench. That Buck also handles his own beatmining and turntablism adds to the cementing of his talent. As usual, there are also live instruments–sometimes manipulated, sometimes not–that augment and twist the loops and samples into their own beast, each track standing on its own even without lyrics.
Highly recommended.
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On another note, the new Microsoft Office Mac 2008 is actually worth it.
The new suite features a true Mac aesthetic. It won’t be mistaken for an Apple application, as it’s distinctive from native products. But it certainly works well within the Mac visual milieu.
Gone is the hard-to-navigate, monochromatic color scheme, scrapped in favor of a more or less pastel scheme that’s easy on the eyes and suggests organization rather than forcing it. Even calendar events feature the Leopard-esque curved gradient that help Entourage blend in with its surroundings as no Microsoft application ever has.
The best part? It actually works. There are some fantastic additions, especially to Entourage, that will make it worth your while. The “My Day” option is especially welcome. Functioning somewhat like a desktop widget, the “My Day” pop-out shows you your day at a glance, including calendar events, to-do items, notes, etc.
Excel, Word, and Powerpoint are what you’d expect, so I won’t go into great detail. They do seem to be a bit slicker, but no more intuitive than any other Microsoft application. Maybe it’s just the aesthetic changes that make them feel a bit more comfortable and user-friendly. There is definite progress in the area of templates, allowing you to more easily create documents that are more attractive.
But let’s face it: you use these apps because you have to, not because you want to. I’ll stick with iWork and Google Apps whenever I can, thankyouverymuch.
Microsoft Messenger will never find a place in my dock or my day, but I can understand its inclusion. I just can’t justify using anything other than iChat and/or Adium, as they can both see across multiple chat networks.
Just be aware: there are three versions of Office Mac 2008. If you need Exchange support, the Home/Student edition won’t suffice. If you’re coming from the previous version, the Upgrade edition will suit you just fine. And of course it’s about $100 greater in price, for that one bit of added functionality.
Sounds like some Vista-style crap to me. Thanks, Microsoft. I much prefer the Apple method of releasing one version that just works rather than three or more with different options for different users, serving only to confuse and enrage.
So the overall tally:
Buck 65: great
Office Mac 2008: much better, hovering around good
Back to my site, Retired Time Bomb
I just spent hours last night typing a paper in Nisus Writer Express. I think I’ll actually fork over the $26 for the academic edition this time, considering how many papers I’ll be writing. NWE boyeee!
I reinstalled entourage from office 2004 today and almost cried.
Yup, Office still sucks.