May 2nd, 2008

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

According to a poll I ran here on Monday, fully 48% (or over 2,000 respondents) see themselves running Windows XP in 2014. Another 10% expect to be running XP in a limited sense. How viable will it be to run an OS that is over a decade old?

Now, I’m going to come right out and say that I’m already skeptical that so many of you will be running Windows XP in 2014. In timescale terms, this is equivalent to running Windows 95 now – and I don’t know many people who are still doing that. XP’s already feeling long in the tooth to me and the idea that I’ll still running it in five or six years time just doesn’t appeal to me.

But there are going to be technical challenges facing those wanting to hold on to the security blanket that XP offers. These are the 4GB RAM limit that 32-bit offers and the gradual shift from 32-bit to 64-bit. When I shifted over from XP to Vista in November 2006 I didn’t really see many benefits. In fact, thanks to the fact that most drivers were still at the fetus stage of maturity (and shovelfuls of baked-in Microsoft bugs), performance and reliability took a dip. Over the months that followed the situation got a lot better as I was drip fed new drivers and Microsoft released patches and updates. However, the biggest performance boost that I’ve seen from Vista was when I moved from Vista 32-bit to Vista 64-bit. Finally, all the hassles of migrating to Vista felt worthwhile. I believe that the desire to break free of the 4GB addressable memory limit on 32-bit will become a powerful motivator for many over the coming years. After all, most motherboards now support in excess of 4GB of RAM, and RAM is cheap.

For me, breaking the 4GB barrier was a refreshing experience, and after you’ve experienced a PC with 8GB or more of RAM in it viagra label you no longer feel the need to mess about disabling services, defragging all the time and trying to squeeze more performance out of the system by optimizing the registry and nonsense like that.

I’ve made a note on my calendar to post a poll in 2014 so I can see just how many of you are running XP.

Do you use a lot of fractions in MS Word?

Do you love how it turns 1/2 into ½?

Have you ever noticed that it only does that neat little trick with the most common fractions? I'm also sure some of you have found access to a few additional choices via the Insert menu, Symbols choice, but I'd bet you're still frustrated that neither of those work for the other fractions that plague your day.

If that describes your current fractional state of viagra joke mind, I have some information that just might help!

The first thing you should know is you can format any fraction to "look right" using subscript and superscript text formatting.

Also, with frequently used fractions, you can put Word's AutoCorrect feature to good use by having it do the fraction "switch" automatically.

Here's the scoop!

For the actual formatting, you'll need to format the numbers as either superscript or subscript. If you're thinking you don't use fractions very often and will simply change them manually each time, I suggest you either add the buttons for this formatting to a toolbar using the Customize dialogue window (if you have MS Word 2007, the buttons are already on the Home Ribbon) or memorize these two key combinations:

Superscript formatting can be applied with Ctrl + Shift + = (also listed as Ctrl + +).

Subscript formatting can be applied with Ctrl + =.

1.) Type your fraction using the forward slash between the numerator (top) and the denominator (bottom). For example, 12/15

2.) Highlight the numerator and apply superscript formatting.

3.) Highlight the denominator and apply subscript formatting.

• Once you've formatted a fraction the way you want it, highlight the entire fraction.

• In Word 2007, go to the Office Button, Word Options button, Proofing Options section and click on the AutoCorrect Options button.

  

• Everyone else should go to the Tools menu, AutoCorrect choice.

• At the bottom of the AutoCorrect tab, you should see the Replace as you type list.

  

• Notice that on the right, in the "with" field, your formatted fraction is already entered. If it doesn't seem to be formatted correctly, double check that the Formatted text option is selected.

• On the left, in the Replace field, enter the plain text for the fraction that should be replaced with your formatted text.

• Click the Add button.

• Click OK to close the window.