No space for an email address in 2003?
By Toby Allen
Friday, November 28, 2003
We all see the headlines. Some new grand scheme that microsoft has undertaken to improve, destroy, cripple or champion the world (depending on your point of view). However in their rush to provide all us computer geeks out here with the latest and greatest tools and toys, some things get left behind. A few months back I commented on how it was kind of bizarre that MS Excel doesnt allow you to open two spreadsheets with the same name, even if they are in different folders. Recently, I've come across a few more examples of things being left in the wake of new advances.
I have a friend who uses Microsoft Money and he was trying to email one of the invoices you can create within the program to a client. You can't do it! Now I dont know whether you can do it in Microsoft Moneys' competitors within this space, but in the 'New Economy' most of us use email, and many people expect to get their invoices by email. While looking at this with him I remembered that Excel comes with an invoice template, so we took a look at that. Its not the most pleasing to the eye, but really its only a simple invoice. However again it looks like this template hasnt changed since way back when (Excel 1.0 anyone). There is no space in the template for either an email address for your company or a web address.
Anyone designing an Invoice template now, would provide a facility to insert an email and webaddress as quickly as a telephone number, the only conclusion I can draw is that this template hasnt been updated since the heady days of Office 95. Its great getting all this excitement with new products and features, but every now and again it pays to go back and take a look at stuff your including because you always have. As many people before me have pointed out its the little things that people notice. Ok the new features and functions are great but many of us but not all of us (ever heard of the 80/20 rule) dont every use them. What we do use are the things we've become familiar with. Its important not to forget these things.