Oh, Word. Why must “Comment” be the only noun here that has an adjective before it? I keep staring at this menu looking for “Comment” only to give up and go to the Review tab of the ribbon.
Of course, I wouldn’t have to worry about digging through these menus if adding a comment was in right-click context menu.
Jury duty summons have a habit of arriving at my Philly house after people move out…and one came for me today apparently. Since this has happened before, we know that you have to contact them to tell them you’ve moved out of the area. There’s supposedly a form online that should allow you to do this, but it’s always “unavailable” (we ran into this a few months ago with another roommate). Thus, the only way to respond is to have the folks in the house now (my old roommates) mail the form to me in Boston so I can fill it out and sign it, circling “NO” where asks if I’m currently a resident of Philadelphia, and send it all the way back. Seems a little silly, because if my roommates no longer lived there then I wouldn’t know about it at all and they would have no idea if I was just ditching jury duty or if I’d moved away. Right? So what’s the point of me responding?
Also, my mail is supposed to be forwarded as of August 10th, according to the email confirmation of the request I put in 10 days prior…and according to the snail mail confirmation I got today both in Boston and in Philly. The Philly notice makes sense as a security measure to make sure someone isn’t hijacking my mail. But the Boston notice was just frustrating considering it said my mail started forwarding August 10th (which it apparently didn’t), and it said to call a number if the address listed was incorrect. But if the address was incorrect, how would I have gotten the notice and known to call to tell them it was incorrect…?!
I was excited to see USPS’s recent site redesign and how easy it was to request mail hold/forwarding…but now I’m just confused…
</rant>
PS: Philadelphia Courts, the z-index of your nav must be something really high…at least higher than your overlay background, because it totally pokes through. I’d like to see that fixed…but really that form should be a higher priority :)
Dear Google,
I want my screen real estate back. For the past four years I have organized my life with Calendar, and while the new look is generally cleaner, it reduces the area for the main focus of the page — the calendar. The week view on my wee little netbook screen loses an hour of visible time and has thinner day columns.
Normally I wouldn’t be miffed over a few pixels, but one of your key design principles for these changes is
Elasticity: The new design will soon allow you to seamlessly transition from your desktop computer to your mobile phone to your tablet, while keeping a consistent visual experience. We aim to bring you this flexibility without sacrificing style or usefulness.
It’s clear that more emphasis was put on style in this change. I have to wonder where netbooks fall in that classification — we still behave like desktops, but we have similar sized screens to a tablet; did tablets experience this misappropriation of space as well, or are they given a platform-specific design?
The standardized treatment for the search bar struck me as a huge waste of space at first (in 4 years I’ve used calendar search maybe a handful of times), but on comparing to the old version it is only a pixel or two taller; where most of the space is lost is the added padding in and around the navigation bar. Reasonable, but aggravating. It would be nice to be able to collapse the search bar and left sidebar (like you can with Tasks on the right), enabling some sort of “full-screen” view. Also, I never use the “Create” button…and while it may be considered a primary call to action on the page, I resent all the space and emphasis it’s getting. And what’s up with that big margin on the left of everything?
Yours Overcritically,
Jamie
