Like its Vista operating system, Microsoft's Word 2007 qualifies as one of the greatest mistakes by a company everyone loves to hate. Unlike Vista, Word 2007 is actually an advance on the previous version.

You do not need Word 2007 if you are not a design and Internet specialist and only use the software for writing. Yet Microsoft persists in pushing every new fangled doodad at its helpless audience, whether they need it or not. The company should have targeted Word 2007 at a specific market.

I have been using Word 2007 at home almost every day for two years now and I still cannot easily find my way around it. I use Word 2002 at work with ease, and I believe if IT were to put in the latest version, there would be a rebellion, or at least a serious slowdown in production for weeks.

What is wrong with Word 2007 are not the new features, which I have not needed so far. What is wrong is changing the names of the menus, and where you can find the commands to do even the most basic of tasks. I have to guess each time I try to use a feature, or I find myself switching constantly between command menus to do what I want.

Here is what Computerworld wrote about Word 2007 last year after it was released: "Baffled by Word 2007's new interface? Join the club. Making the switch to Word 2007 can be exceedingly disorienting — like coming home and finding out that not only has all your furniture been rearranged, but the house itself has been moved to the next county." I agree completely.

I gave it a chance but it still baffles me. While generally praising Word 2007, the magazine created a cheat sheet and other orientation maps to clue its readers in. Get it at www.computerworld.com. Cheat sheets also exist for Excel and for PowerPoint.

Microsoft has also had to create an Excel spreadsheet, the 'Word ribbon mapping workbook', mapping where the commands are in relation to Word 2003. Find it at http://office.microsoft.com.

Once you start needing cheat sheets and workbooks I think the software defeats itself. After building up customer familiarity with its products over the years with its products, Microsoft suddenly changed the map with Word. I only mention this problem again, one I pointed out when I first reviewed the product, as it is a good lesson for any software designers out there.

While software must always be cutting edge, it is always good to keep user habits and usability in mind when designing software. OK, now I have finished the bashing, let me commence with the praising. If you do need to learn the features of Word 2007 and the rest of Office 2007, Microsoft has a series of great training courses online. Go to http://office.microsoft.com/training. These courses are well thought out and cheap (they are free of course). These are a way to get everyone in your company on the same page, so as to speak.

For example there is a training course on how to create and manage e-mail signatures in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. The length is given (40-50 minutes) and the goals are outlined from the start. You are told that after completing the course you will be able to create your own signatures using text, hyperlinks, pictures, or an Electronic Business Card; use your signature in every message or just when you want to; and create different signatures for your different roles or e-mail accounts and switch between them to suit your needs. The course on just signatures is divided into three self-paced lessons and three practice sessions. After each session you complete a short test and at the end you get a quick reference card to remind you of what to do.

For many of us who are adept at all of this, the length may seem a bit of overkill. But I outline this course as an example of excellent teaching practice. And even old dogs can learn features they may not have used in the past, such as adding a company logo to a signature. If you are a manager I advise you to pick the courses you think your employees need, schedule them in slowly (perhaps one every two weeks), and most important, give them the time to do them. Not everyone needs to do particular training sessions. Some staff may need to know certain features, others may not. I also advise standardising ways of doing tasks once a course is completed. There are different ways of doing tasks, and sometimes — not always — it might be wiser to get some standardisation in practice.

I have to say my life is becoming more Google-eyed everyday. Before I used to use three different online e-mail providers. Now I only use Google as my main e-mail, and Yahoo as an email dump for all my subscriptions. I used to regularly scour other search engines. Now it is only Google since I almost always get what I want. I use the Google calendar, even for work. The Google RSS Reader sits just a click away from my email.

I have Picasso and other Google applications on my home computer and have been trying others that regularly pop out of Google Labs. If this company is starting to look like the next Microsoft, I would be worried. Everything is free. Let us hope that it stays ahead of its game without wiping out the competition.

To keep it honest I am going to keep searching for alternatives, and occasionally use another search engine.

If you have any comments or suggestions for a topic, send them to elamin.ahmed@gmail.com.