Friday, February 03, 2006
OpenOffice.Org
Heh.
When I bought my new laptop (which I love) S. suggested that I check out OpenOffice as a software suite rather than MS Office.
"OpenOffice.org the product is a multi-platform office productivity suite. It includes the key desktop applications, such as a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, and drawing program, with a user interface and feature set similar to other office suites. Sophisticated and flexible, OpenOffice.org also works transparently with a variety of file formats, including those of Microsoft Office."
What is that in plain old english? Open Office is free, and it is compatible with the other software suites your friends are using. Since it was going to save me like $300, I opted for the Open Office, and for the most part I've been pretty happy with it.
This afternoon, since I'm pretty much ready for Brazil I was busy surfing blogs. A cousin hooked me up to the blog of a friend of his, and now she's got links to all kinds of blogs. I was pleased (no - flattered) to see mine under the link "Academics Unleashed". I was curious to see who these other academics were, and so I started surfing blogs. I'm am terribly impressed with some of the other blog sites out there - even if most of us are using Blogspot or Wordpress or whatever.
That led me to look at my own. Heck - I'm happy that I figured out how to change my template, but some of the formatting for these sites is phenomenal - especially for people who actually have non-computer programming jobs. Blows my mind. I wish I could figure it out - but when it comes down to it, my site may just remain "as ugly as the internet in 1995."
Heck - I'd be happy if I remembered to spell check. It's not that my spelling skills are lacking, but rather that my brain moves faster than my fingers sometimes. So I should spell check, which I rarely do.
*sigh* Which brings me back to my point. If any of you are considering OpenOffice - know this: how I got out of the habit of spell check, is that the spell check on OpenOffice leaves a LOT to be desired. The fact that it doesn't pick up "adn" and "teh" (my most common typos - intended as "and" and "the") disappoints.
Now - the thing about OpenOffice being open platform is that I could actually contribute to the correction of this heinous oversight. But - I don't know how. Even more - I don't particularly care to know how. So I guess I'll just have to live with proof-reading documents when it's really important (like scholarship and grant applications, or anything job-application-related), and people will have to suffer my mistakes in the meantime.
When I bought my new laptop (which I love) S. suggested that I check out OpenOffice as a software suite rather than MS Office.
"OpenOffice.org the product is a multi-platform office productivity suite. It includes the key desktop applications, such as a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, and drawing program, with a user interface and feature set similar to other office suites. Sophisticated and flexible, OpenOffice.org also works transparently with a variety of file formats, including those of Microsoft Office."
What is that in plain old english? Open Office is free, and it is compatible with the other software suites your friends are using. Since it was going to save me like $300, I opted for the Open Office, and for the most part I've been pretty happy with it.
This afternoon, since I'm pretty much ready for Brazil I was busy surfing blogs. A cousin hooked me up to the blog of a friend of his, and now she's got links to all kinds of blogs. I was pleased (no - flattered) to see mine under the link "Academics Unleashed". I was curious to see who these other academics were, and so I started surfing blogs. I'm am terribly impressed with some of the other blog sites out there - even if most of us are using Blogspot or Wordpress or whatever.
That led me to look at my own. Heck - I'm happy that I figured out how to change my template, but some of the formatting for these sites is phenomenal - especially for people who actually have non-computer programming jobs. Blows my mind. I wish I could figure it out - but when it comes down to it, my site may just remain "as ugly as the internet in 1995."
Heck - I'd be happy if I remembered to spell check. It's not that my spelling skills are lacking, but rather that my brain moves faster than my fingers sometimes. So I should spell check, which I rarely do.
*sigh* Which brings me back to my point. If any of you are considering OpenOffice - know this: how I got out of the habit of spell check, is that the spell check on OpenOffice leaves a LOT to be desired. The fact that it doesn't pick up "adn" and "teh" (my most common typos - intended as "and" and "the") disappoints.
Now - the thing about OpenOffice being open platform is that I could actually contribute to the correction of this heinous oversight. But - I don't know how. Even more - I don't particularly care to know how. So I guess I'll just have to live with proof-reading documents when it's really important (like scholarship and grant applications, or anything job-application-related), and people will have to suffer my mistakes in the meantime.
