I am not a strict gramma and syntax person but there are some regular syntactical errors that writers make over and over that do bother me. One of these involves the use, or, more accurately, the non-use, of the 'em dash'. So many writers use a hyphen or standard dash (en dash) where an em dash was supposed to be used. The three most common types of dashes used are:

1. The hyphen (-) [Alt+45].
2. The en dash (–) [Alt+0150, or Ctrl+Num- in Microsoft Office].
3. The em dash (—) [Alt+0151, or Ctrl+Alt+Num- in Microsoft Office].

Hyphen: The hyphen (-) is the shortest of these three dashes. A hyphen is typically used to join words to make a single logical word or to separate syllables of a word, generally for the purposes of word wrapping. There is no padding space used before or after a hyphen. On a standard PC keyboard the hyphen is the unshifted character between the zero (0) and the equals sign (=). On a Windows computer it can also be generated by holding down the Alt key and entering the number 45 on the numeric keypad (written as Alt+45). Examples of the first use: two-thirds, sub-section, pre-cursor, out-of-body, cul-de-sac, no-holds-barred, corporate-wide, face-to-face, and bail-out. Second use: With modern day word processing, and with fully justified text (justified left and right margins) falling out of favour, words are rarely hyphenated for wrapping with the exception of newspapers and novels; however examples would be: forbid-ding, Chey-enne, per-haps, feath-ers, and appre-ciate. [Examples taken from John Jakes' novel "Heaven and Hell"] The Economist Style Guide gives a useful run-down on the correct use of the hyphen. En dash: The en dash (–) is slightly longer than a hyphen. The en dash is generally used to indicate a range or to convey the meaning of 'through to'. An en dash is generally preceded and followed by padding spaces. For users of Microsoft Office tools (e.g. Word, Excel, etc.,) an en dash can be entered by holding down the Ctrl and Alt keys together and then pressing the numeric keypad hyphen key (above the plus key). On a Windows computer it can also be entered by holding down the Alt key and entering 0150 on the numeric keypad (Alt+0150). Examples: 100 – 500, 1980 – 2009, and Perth – Bunbury. Em dash: The em dash (—) is the longest of the three and probably the most used by writers on the Web, or it would be if they knew this was the dash they intended to use. Em dashes have three functions. Firstly an em dash pair can be used to inject a complementary or explanatory thought into a sentence. Secondly a trailing em dash at the end of a sentence indicates an unfinished statement or thought. Finally, an em dash can be used to add some final thought or clarifying comment at the end of a sentence. Most style guides indicate that em dashes should be used without padding spaces and this is how I have always used them, however when I went looking for examples I found that some publishers do use padding spaces around em dashes. I will note however that the local West Australian Newspaper here in Perth uses them correctly as does the national paper The Australian. Examples of the first use: 'This fundamental process issue—how to get bureaucracy out of the way—is one that our Human Resources staff are driving.', and '… to work closely with people—now partners instead of employees—doing the work'. Examples of the second use: 'What kind of physician are you—'; 'Look at you! You have let yourself go until you are as soft and as short of wind as an old priest—'; and 'It was his Holiness, the abbot of the temple of Osiris—'. [Examples taken from Wilbur Smith's novel "The River God"] Example of the third use: 'The pieces came together as the result of a strong relationship between the two companies—and between modern technology and manufacturing processes'. [Examples for first and third use are from the book "Business @ the Speed of Thought" by Bill Gates] Special note on using MS Word: If you use Microsoft Word you can also have an em dash entered by using two hyphens (- -) then as soon as you enter a space (which will happen after the word following the two hyphens), MS Word will automatically replace the two hyphens with an em dash—because it knows an em dash is required there. Okay . . . this post has gone well over the 500 words (it is 748 up to here) but it was a hard one to trim down. Barry.

  In a month or so—October 2009 as far as I know—Microsoft will be making Windows 7 available to us regular people. I understand that Windows 7 is already available to enterprise customers in its RTM version (Release to Manufacturing) via the various corporate licensing programmes and through TechNet Plus. I am an IT Consultant in the Windows infrastructure, design, and applications space, and Windows XP is still the operating system on my three production computers. I am one of the many that elected to bypass Windows Vista: partially because when I tried it I found it felt heavy and slow; and partially because none of my customers planned to upgrade to Vista. I am currently part of a project team deploying a new operating environment to 3,000 PCs for BHP Billiton and it is based on Windows XP Professional. BHP Billiton will be deploying the new Windows XP-based GOE (Global Operating Environment) to an estimated 20,000 PCs (assuming the project runs to completion in these troubling financial times). BHP Billiton made a strategic decision to base their new GOE on a tried and proven operating system, and wait for Windows 7 and Office 14 to arrive to build the future GOE (GOE v2) on—thereby leapfrogging Windows Vista. But back to Windows 7—I have Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) installed on one of my test PCs and I have to say I am enjoying it. I use it whenever I can. Even the RC1 release feels smooth and fast. Presumably the final release will be marginally better as the very last of any debugging or forensics collection code will have been removed. To quote Paul Thurrott (who runs the Windows Super Site): "Windows 7 is the sum of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tiny tweaks, none of which would be particularly interesting in isolation. But taken as a whole, the result is astonishing". For anyone interested in a comprehensive run down on Windows 7 I recommend a visit to Paul's Windows Super Site. If you want to get a brief summary of what's new in Windows 7 then go to the Microsoft Windows 7 "What's new in Windows 7" page. If you are an IT professional then Microsoft's TechNet pages featuring Windows 7 might be more interesting. As far as I can work out there are going to be five editions (packages) of Windows 7 that will be available in Australia. These are:

• Starter Edition.
  • This is a trimmed build of Windows 7 for Netbook computers.
  • Only sold with Netbook computers; cannot be purchased separately.
  • Can join Homegroups but cannot create them.
  • Cannot join a domain.
• Home Premium Edition.
  • Available as retail.
  • Targeted at home use laptop and desktop PCs.
  • Can create and join Homegroups.
  • Cannot join a domain.
• Professional Edition.
  • Available as retail.
  • Targeted at businesses and IT professionals.
  • Can create and join Homegroups.
  • Can join a domain and participate in Group Policy.
  • Supports offline folders.
• Enterprise Edition.
  • Special license only available to enterprises through volume licensing.
  • Basically the same as Ultimate Edition.
• Ultimate Edition.
  • Available as retail.
  • Contains everything Windows 7 has to offer.

As soon as Windows 7 becomes available I will be upgrading one of my production PCs and if that goes well with no issues (drivers, or applications that won't run) then I will upgrade another, just leaving one of the three production PCs running Windows XP. Barry.

As you may have noticed, assuming you have scanned over my previous posts, I am currently using Microsoft's Word 12/2007 to author my blog posts. There are a number of reasons for this:

1. I have been a heavy user of Word since Word version 2 (circa 1990). Although it was technically Word version 2 it was marketed as Word for Windows 1.0 and was for use on Windows 3.0—just to totally confuse everyone. Anyway, the point I am making here is that I have been using Word for some time now and know it very well.
2. Word allows me to easily use bullets, numbering, and indenting without having to think too much about it.
3. I can easily put in simple tables.
4. I can easily include images (mainly photographs) and position them how I want (within the limits imposed by Wordpress and conversion to HTML when posting).
5. I can colour and highlight text easily.
6. Spell checking happens as I key (as it always does in Word).
7. I can save a copy of each blog post on my PC.

I am sure there are other reasons I have overlooked, but those are the main ones I can think of. As is *always* the case with computers and computer software, Word is not a perfect solution. Take tables for example. Although they are quick and easy to include, as you can see from the following, they do not always format as expected when posted up into the blog. Here is a 75% downsized screen capture image of what the table looked like when I keyed it in Word. And following is how it posted into the blog.  As you can see:

• The centred text has become left justified.
• The sans-serif font used for the table heading has become a serif font.
• The wrapped first column heading has become un-wrapped into one line.
• The column sizes have been changed.

Such are the joys of automatic conversions to HTML. Even so, using Microsoft Word is still a good way to author and prepare blog postings. Barry.