So my system has been as slow-moving as John Banville's The Sea, with continual beach balls and freeze-ups and inexplicable delays where what I type gets displayed what seems like hours after I hit the keys. Checking the logs I identified the culprit: Microsoft Office, which has been "phoning home" every three seconds... I can only assume it is nothing more sinister than Bill Gates et al. wanting a sneak peek at the King Dork Approximately glossary and discography while I was still reviewing the copy-edits. I believe the ostensible reason is to search for updates and report problems, and, just to play along, I'll give them a little feedback on this system: MSW itself is the problem. The solution is command-Q.
I wish we lived in a MS-free world (if Pages is spying on me, it's doing a way better job -- I hardly ever notice its shenanigans, despite the automatic "cloud" updating.) But MSW is the way everyone does the interlinear track changes commenting, so MSW it must be for this purpose. I try to use it as sparingly as possible, launching it only as needed and quitting immediately thereafter, like walking on hot coals, or using cell data in Europe, or turning on the Central Heating in a village in a post-war Agatha Christie novel. Sometimes, though, I forget and leave it running, and the result is carnage.
Posted by Dr. Frank at March 13, 2014 08:11 PM