Views from Medina Road

That in the new Microsoft Office suite, which is obsessively security-conscious, you can avoid the extra click or three that's required when opening Excel or Access files containing macros, asking you to confirm that you trust the contents of the file, by clicking on the "Open the Trust Center" link and designating the *directory* where the xls or mdb file is located is always to be trusted.

It may seem like a little thing, but any reduction of extra clicks while performing routine tasks is a valuable tip worth passing on. I won't explain how this tidbit of knowledge came to me during the convention.

I should note that my earlier comment about the apparent limitation of WFC members to a single program item was apparently misinformation -- something someone mentioned to me, and which seemed plausible, but which David Hartwell (see comment to earlier post) has corrected.

I also failed to mention another positive quality about the convention hotel: delivered every morning outside your door was The New York Times, even on Sunday! -- rather than the mere USA Today (which has no weekend editions), as in virtually every other convention hotel I can remember...