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James Fallows

James Fallows - James Fallows is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and has written for the magazine since the late 1970s. He has reported extensively from outside the United States, and once worked as President Carter's chief speechwriter. His latest book, China Airborne, will be published in May.
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James Fallows is based in Washington as a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He has worked for the magazine for nearly 30 years and in that time has also lived in Seattle, Berkeley, Austin, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, and Beijing. He was raised in Redlands, California, received his undergraduate degree in American history and literature from Harvard, and received a graduate degree in economics from Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. In addition to working for The Atlantic, he has spent two years as chief White House speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, two years as the editor of US News & World Report, and six months as a program designer at Microsoft. He is an instrument-rated private pilot. He is also now the chair in U.S. media at the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, in Australia.

Fallows has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award five times and has won once; he has also won the American Book Award for nonfiction and a N.Y. Emmy award for the documentary series Doing Business in China. He was the founding chairman of the New America Foundation. His two most recent books, Blind Into Baghdad (2006) and Postcards From Tomorrow Square (2009), are based on his writings for The Atlantic; he is at work on another book about China. He is married to Deborah Fallows, author of the recent book Dreaming in Chinese. They have two married sons.

Fallows welcomes and frequently quotes from reader mail sent via the "Email" button below. Unless you specify otherwise, we consider any incoming mail available for possible quotation -- but not with the sender's real name unless you explicitly state that it may be used. If you are wondering why Fallows does not use a "Comments" field below his posts, please see previous explanations here and here.
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Watch out, beta testers!

By James Fallows

Sep 11 2006, 8:22 AM ET

The charmingly-named, and very informative, Woody's Office Watch sends out a free frequent newsletter with inside dope about Microsoft products. (Sign up page here.) The latest one contains this caution:

5. OFFICE 2007 BETA 3 IS NIGH
Sometime soon, perhaps even by the time you read this, the final public beta of Office 2007 will be released. Microsoft is calling it a 'Technical Refresh' but we'll continue to call it what it really is 'Beta 3'.

If you have Beta 2 (and millions are running it now) you'll want to switch over but don't rush. Most likely the changeover will require an uninstall of Beta 2 before installing the newer version. Even if an 'upgrade' is supported, past experience suggests that it's better to uninstall and reinstall instead of installing one test version over another.

Download 'Beta 3' / Technical Refresh but wait a few days to see if there's any major problems. In other words, let other people be the initial guinea pigs. We'll report on Beta 3 and let our readers know.


Without revealing too much, let me say: Boy, are they right! Installing this latest "Beta 3," on top of Beta 2, can have catastrophic effects. I don't know the exact sequence of events that can lead to destructive corruption of Outlook's .PST files -- but whatever that sequence is, I have been through it. If you have applied Beta 2, and have not yet tried Beta 3, heed the words of Woody: Don't rush.
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