The Bob Chronicles. Whats the most efficient way to deride a technology product as a stinker andor a flopEasy Compare it to Microsoft Bob. Bring up the infamous Windows 3. Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Arabic Numbers 1-100' title='Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Arabic Numbers 1-100' />Keep in mind, Im not a therapist or any other kind of health professionaljust a guy whos willing to tell it like it is. I simply want to give you the tools. L6AMf7SiN3g/T2iDSyNJBpI/AAAAAAAAAFU/fD-uicA52zY/s1600/office-black-2010.png' alt='Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Arabic Numbers To English' title='Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Arabic Numbers To English' />OnePlus told Gizmodo that theyre working with customers individually to solve the issue, but it did not provide any details on the bug. We have contacted the. Office 365 Threat Intelligence is a cloudbased service that provides organizations broad visibility into their threat landscape, delivering actionable insights. March 3. 1st, 1. 99. Everything from OS X to Twitter to Google Wave to inevitably Windows Vista has gotten the treatment. Bobs pervasiveness as an insult long ago transcended its brief period of prominence as a product. By now, its unlikely that the vast majority of people who use it as shorthand for embarrassing tech failure ever actually used itany more than the average person who cracks jokes about the Ford Edsel has spent time behind the wheel of one. But Bob didnt start out as one of technologys most reliable laugh lines. It may strain credulity given Bobs current reputation, but back in 1. And even though Bob died just one year later, Microsoft continued to Bob ize major applications for yearsmost notably every version of Office from Office 9. Office 2. 00. 3, all of which featured the notorious Office Assistant helper, better known as Clippy. In its own odd way, Bob is ripe for rediscovery. Hence our fifteenth anniversary celebration, which includes the story youre reading a guided tour of Bob in slideshow form and memories of Bob and its offspring from Tandy Trower, who worked at Microsoft for 2. Whether youre appalled by Bob, defiantly enchanted by Bob, or never knew Bob at all, read onand let us know what you think. Thanks to Dan Rose, Rogers Cadenhead, and David Worthington for their help with our Bobfest. The Birth of Bob. Bob was an outgrowth of a  product that debuted in 1. Microsoft Publisher. The well reviewed desktop publishing software was the first Microsoft application to simplify complicated tasks via Wizards that took users through complicated tasks step by step. Just give me this duck to always be there and tell me what to do. After finishing up Publisher, its designers, Karen Fries and Barry Linnett, pondered what to tackle next. Check Texas Drivers License Suspension. Their minds remained focused on making software more approachable to newbies. Which was a logical goal In 1. American didnt even have a computer at home. When Microsoft released Bob, it quoted projections saying that 4. PC by 1. 99. 7and that was supposed to be a surprisingly high percentage. Fries and Linnett held focus groups and showed neophytes an interface with an animated waterfowl as an on screen helper. Team Fortress 2 Items. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Fries remembered one mans response This guy was very emotional about ithe grabbed my armHe said, Save all the money on the manuals and just give me this duck to always be there and tell me what to do. The two then composed a provocative internal memo, arguing that Publisher was still too hard to use, and requested resources to develop a new interface for inexperienced users that would run on top of Windows. Bill Gates was intrigued. He gave the go ahead for a project that was code named Data Wizard at first, and then Utopiaand which eventually shipped as Microsoft Bob. Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Arabic Numbers 110Stanford professors and Bob influencers Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves. Melinda French was named to head work on the product. A Microsoft employee since 1. Bill Gatess fiance in 1. Bob was a lousy idea which never would have gone anywhere if it wasnt for her involvement. But she was a Bob convert rather than its originator Speaking of Fries and Linnetts work, she told the Wall Street Journal that they were breaking the rules of things wed done in software beforeI wanted to be a part of it. And while the Journal reported that there were doubters inside Microsoft, others both inside and outside the company drank the Bob Kool Aid early. As work on Utopia proceeded, two Stanford professors, Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves, signed on as consultants. Their research showing that people attribute human like qualities to machines proved influential. Reeves was later quoted in a Stanford news release The question for Microsoft was how to make a computing product easier to use and fun. Cliff and I gave a talk in December 1. We said that people are good at having social relations talking with each other and interpreting cues such as facial expressions. They are also good at dealing with a natural environment such as the movement of objects and people in rooms, so if an interface can interact with the user to take advantage of these human talents, then you might not need a manual. A Bob patent drawing. Nass and Reeves eventually joined Microsoft staffers on a press tour to promote Bob and the concept of social interfaces in general. With a beta onscreen, these two academics summarized their research, which suggested that people found social interfaces helpful, friendly, and effective, remembers PCWorld Editorial Director Steve Fox, who was briefed during a previous PCW tour of duty. The two editors in the room were trying not to snicker at the presentation. On July 8th, 1. Microsoft filed a patent for the idea behind Bob, detailing both the look and feel of its real world interface and behind the scenes aspects like the editing tools used to create and animate animated assistants. It was the first of many patents the company would seek for animated helpers. Ultimately, the thinking that went into Bobfrom Fries talking duck prototype to Nass and Reeves university researchresulted in an integrated personal productivity suite in which cartoon characters led users through apps that used images of a home as backdrop. The characters were called personal guides, and included a dog named Rover the default guide, a French cat, a rabbit, a turtle, a sullen rat, a gargoyle, William Shakespeare himself, and others. Each sat in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, providing instructions in word balloon form and performing bits of schtick as you used the software. They spoke aloud, but only occasionallya sound card was a recommended accessory, but it wasnt mandatory. The package ended up with eight programs a word processor, an e mail program, a calendar, an address book, a checkbook writer, a personal finance info app, a household organizer, and a geography quiz. Microsoft envisioned that both it and third party companies would release additional programs which could be installed within the Bob environment. For a full walkthrough of Bobfrom the word processor to the e mail service to the estate planner visit our guided tour. Fairly late in the game, the product apparently still didnt have a name According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft considered monikers such as Home Foundation, Essential Home, and Portico before its ad agency, Wieden Kennedy, suggested the name Bob in September of 1. Microsoft later touted the name as being familiar, approachable, and friendly, and acquired Bob. Boston area techie Bob Antia so it could give users e mail addresses at that domain. After Microsoft Bobs demise, it eventually struck a deal with another guy named Bob to swap Bob. Windows. 20. 00. com. Bob was personified as a smiley face wearing Bill Gates like spectacles, but even though the software that bore his name was rife with animated characters, he wasnt one of them. He appeared in the application itself only as a design elementfor instance, he was the tag on Rovers collar. In October of 1. 99. Microsoft designer named Vincent Connare saw a beta of Bob, and found the use of the staid Times New Roman typeface in its word balloons to be out of whack with the softwares playful personality. He began work on an aggressively casual font that wound up being dubbed Comic Sans it didnt make it into Bob, but was later bundled with Windows itself. Comic Sans ended up as the Microsoft Bob of typefaces Its famous mostly for being unloved. Bob Revealed. Karen Fries left, in Bob t shirt and Melinda French look pleased by Bobs CES unveiling in this AP photo. On January 7th, 1. Bill Gates strode onstage at the Consumer Electronics Show and revealed Bob to the world. 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