G
Gyrovague
Do the Entourage folks read this? I couldn't find any other outlet
for giving feedback, but I'll feel better if I rant a little bit, so
I'll post here.
Anyway, I've been using OS X since it was beta, but only last month
started using the Office Suite. Entourage is the one that's causing
me the most trouble. Specifically, and in no particular order:
1) What's with the application pausing (spinning rainbow wheel and
everything) for a full 10 or 15 seconds or so every now and then? I'm
typing away, and all of the sudden...nothing. No reaction. Then a
few seconds later the wheel starts spinning, so I hang out and watch
for a while until the characters I typed appear, then go back to
typing. What on earth is Entourage doing? Whatever happened to
multithreading?
2) Then there are the all-out hangs. Entourage will be in the
background, and when I try to switch to it discover that, in fact, I
can't. I have to force quit. Sorry I can't be more specific about
how to reproduce it, but thought I'd pass on that this does happen.
Probably once a day.
3) Double-retrievals. Ok, this one is weird. I'm using Exchange
(THANK YOU for being Exchange compatible) and every single email that
comes in shows up in my mailbox, then a few seconds later disappears,
then comes in a second later and stays. Sometimes the second one
shows up before the first one disappears. This has actually been a
problem because I've clicked on an email, hit reply, typed a few quick
words, then pressed 'send' before I realized that, in fact, I
responded to the previous email. In one case this caused some
embarrassment, because the previous email was on the same topic but
from a different sender. Ouch.
4) Slow scrolling. I tend to keep a lot of old email in my in-box (a
few hundred messages) and the scroll bar can't keep up with fast
scrolling. I can't just drag it from top to bottom, I HAVE to go
slowly and let it catch up with me. I'm on a 1.25 ghz G4, by the way.
5) Broken calendar: sometimes when I'm entering new calendar items and
clicking/scrolling (with arrow keys) to set the time, the keyboard
freezes up. That is, I can still use the mouse but can't type letters
anymore. The dialog box totally ignore keyboard input. I can switch
to other applications, but I come back and still no keyboard input. I
have to quit the dialog (I can't save if I haven't typed the subject
yet) and then I get keyboard control back and I can start over. This
one might be replicable. If any MS people are reading this and want
me to reproduce it, I will figure out what actions lead to this
behavior.
6) VPN/Exchange problems. This might not be en Entourage thing. But
here's the deal: I downloaded Cisco's VPN client for OS X and loaded a
security policy (emailed by an IT guy using Windows). I go home, fire
up the VPN, fire up Entourage, and bingo, I'm in Exchange.
Yayyyyy!!!!! But then I quit Entourage and the VPN, and later in the
evening try it again. No dice; can't connect. The VPN is working
because I can do some browser based things on the company network that
only work with a VPN, but no Entourage/Exchange. After a couple of
days looking for answers and doing all the typical restart sorts of
activities, I tried deleting the security policy, re-adding it, and
trying again. This fixed it...but again only once. Exact same
behavior: the next time I tried to connect it wouldn't work. Anybody
seen anything like this? (I strongly suspect Cisco and MS will both
point the finger at each other, but thought I'd ask anyway.)
David
plaintext email: david at code as art dot com
for giving feedback, but I'll feel better if I rant a little bit, so
I'll post here.
Anyway, I've been using OS X since it was beta, but only last month
started using the Office Suite. Entourage is the one that's causing
me the most trouble. Specifically, and in no particular order:
1) What's with the application pausing (spinning rainbow wheel and
everything) for a full 10 or 15 seconds or so every now and then? I'm
typing away, and all of the sudden...nothing. No reaction. Then a
few seconds later the wheel starts spinning, so I hang out and watch
for a while until the characters I typed appear, then go back to
typing. What on earth is Entourage doing? Whatever happened to
multithreading?
2) Then there are the all-out hangs. Entourage will be in the
background, and when I try to switch to it discover that, in fact, I
can't. I have to force quit. Sorry I can't be more specific about
how to reproduce it, but thought I'd pass on that this does happen.
Probably once a day.
3) Double-retrievals. Ok, this one is weird. I'm using Exchange
(THANK YOU for being Exchange compatible) and every single email that
comes in shows up in my mailbox, then a few seconds later disappears,
then comes in a second later and stays. Sometimes the second one
shows up before the first one disappears. This has actually been a
problem because I've clicked on an email, hit reply, typed a few quick
words, then pressed 'send' before I realized that, in fact, I
responded to the previous email. In one case this caused some
embarrassment, because the previous email was on the same topic but
from a different sender. Ouch.
4) Slow scrolling. I tend to keep a lot of old email in my in-box (a
few hundred messages) and the scroll bar can't keep up with fast
scrolling. I can't just drag it from top to bottom, I HAVE to go
slowly and let it catch up with me. I'm on a 1.25 ghz G4, by the way.
5) Broken calendar: sometimes when I'm entering new calendar items and
clicking/scrolling (with arrow keys) to set the time, the keyboard
freezes up. That is, I can still use the mouse but can't type letters
anymore. The dialog box totally ignore keyboard input. I can switch
to other applications, but I come back and still no keyboard input. I
have to quit the dialog (I can't save if I haven't typed the subject
yet) and then I get keyboard control back and I can start over. This
one might be replicable. If any MS people are reading this and want
me to reproduce it, I will figure out what actions lead to this
behavior.
6) VPN/Exchange problems. This might not be en Entourage thing. But
here's the deal: I downloaded Cisco's VPN client for OS X and loaded a
security policy (emailed by an IT guy using Windows). I go home, fire
up the VPN, fire up Entourage, and bingo, I'm in Exchange.
Yayyyyy!!!!! But then I quit Entourage and the VPN, and later in the
evening try it again. No dice; can't connect. The VPN is working
because I can do some browser based things on the company network that
only work with a VPN, but no Entourage/Exchange. After a couple of
days looking for answers and doing all the typical restart sorts of
activities, I tried deleting the security policy, re-adding it, and
trying again. This fixed it...but again only once. Exact same
behavior: the next time I tried to connect it wouldn't work. Anybody
seen anything like this? (I strongly suspect Cisco and MS will both
point the finger at each other, but thought I'd ask anyway.)
David
plaintext email: david at code as art dot com