A New Thing...

It has finally happened - I have had to replace my trusty old Powerpoint for a new programme version.

Sometimes I jokingly say that as an archaeologist, I have a deep love for old stuff, and that includes running old (and very old) programmes on my computer. Part of the reason for this is a "never change a running system" approach, part is that I know the old ones so well that I am wary of getting used to a new one, part of it is the lack of desire to spend money on something new if the old thing still does its job, and part is just plain laziness. Probably.

However... I'm now on a computer with Windows 10. My oldest still-sort-of-working programme is CorelDraw, version number 7. That came out in 1996. That was back on Windows 95 - and it's a medium-sized miracle that the programme has been ported from computer to computer and OS version to OS version and still sort of works.

Sort of, I say, because these days (after the last port) it sometimes jumbles up text bits, and some other weird effects happen. I've worked on transitioning to Inkscape for a while now, and I'm almost there. Fortunately the photo editing programme, from the same suite as CorelDraw, still works flawlessly, because there are some processes that just go so smoothly and easily there as opposed to trying to find a replacement.

My PP issues were something else though - my Office Suite is not quite as old (about 3 years younger, actually), and at some point during the last ports it seems to have lost its ability to play video clips. Which is no issue in my usual presentations, but for the Bronze Age garment one on Thursday, the plan was to show a number of short videos, as the work stages are so much easier to explain that way.

So. New Powerpoint. Fortunately (as I don't want to lose my old trusty Word 2000, which also plays along with a very old citation programme, which the newer versions don't) the old Office suite is so outdated that the new one does not recognise it as kin, and I can still run the old one. Hopefully without glitches - I will find out in the next week or so, when I use it properly.

For now, though... placing those video clips where they are supposed to go, and finishing the presentation. Yay!