I'm a little taken aback at the direction this topic has taken. First off
the character is easy to get rid of. But most importantly the individuals
discussing this don't seem to realize the incredible power (albeit somewhat
inconsistent) in the natural-language querying capabilities this technology
offers. I've found that once you are able to properly form questions, the
choice of key word being most important, getting information on product
capabilities is far quicker and easier than searching through the contents
of the help file.

I hope MS continues to develope this for all their products. It would be
nice if we had access to the technology sans the character (I must admit I
like the Cat) and hopefully this will be an option in the future.

Marcus

Glenn Cole wrote in message ...
>Those of us who "strongly dislike" the MS Office Assistant --
>the intrusive animation of a paper clip -- can take heart in
>a story on CNN:
>
>  "Brian Valentine, general manager of the Application and Tools Group at
>   Microsoft, and product manager Tom Rizzo showed developers how to get
>   rid of the agent with a line of Visual Basic code that Microsoft will
>   post to its Web site for downloading."
>
>The full story is at:
>
>   < http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9810/16/clipdeath.idg/ >
>
>--Glenn Cole
>  Software al dente, Inc.
>  [log in to unmask]
>