A downloading guide for freeloaders

watoday ^ | Sean Dodson

[JoeProBono]

[JoeProBono]

Open Office

[Star Traveler]

Yeah, I’ve got a good number of them, the open source kind, for the Macintosh. And I guess there are a whole bunch of UNIX ones, too, but I’m not too much into those...

[Star Traveler]

But, I’ve also got a “free” Microsoft Office, too... :-)

[... but I barely ever use it, maybe once or twice a year, so I’ll be darned if I’m gonna pay them... LOL...]

[microgood]

It really depends on what you are doing. If you are a small village in India that wants to become computer literate, Open Office is fine.

If you employ a power user you are paying a six figure salary, the cost of MS Office becomes inconsequential compared to its value.

[Concho]

The first thing I did was to uninstall the teaser version of MS Office and install Open office on this machine. Then I went to www.filehippo.com and downloaded tons of other free open source software and utilities. It is fast and secure.

[guitarplayer1953]

Becareful free software can be like free sex which you can end up with the clap.

[max americana]

Agreed. OpenOffice sometimes is flaky when it comes to user-friendly tools in the ‘actual’ Office. Used (or forced) by our boss to use it after the cheap company I worked for part-time started implementing it. One of our newbies then said he has a ‘copy” of Office (code for illegal download) and been using it since.

Now GIMP...love it. It’s used by tweeners to create their own banners and avatars, especially in the anime-manga world and I occasionally fansub so I use it as well. The learning process is less than Photoshop CS3 if you have the discipline.

[bigbob]

The extent of free and open source code is the main thing that keeps me using Windows. I’ve found some incredibly useful utilities and apps - all freeware

[miliantnutcase]

Blender!

[Freedom56v2]

Becareful free software can be like free sex which you can end up with the clap.

---

Interesting analogy...

[Smokin' Joe]

I got my first copy of MS Office at a rummage sale, unopened, on 25 floppy disks for two dollars. I did not even have a computer yet but I knew the price was good and when I got the machine I was going to need it.

I have been running Office 97 since that version chugged to a halt with my second computer. It does everything I need, and is much cheaper than the newest version.

It also has the advantage of being thorouchly tested in the marketplace, and aside from that annoying paper clip thingy, does what I need without problems.

If you want the latest, with all the whistles and bells, it usually costs more.

I haven't checked out Open Office yet, but will get it for the next computer and 'play' with it.

[ShadowAce]

[Still Thinking]

If you employ a power user you are paying a six figure salary, the cost of MS Office becomes inconsequential compared to its value.

True. I tried the latest version of OO, 3 point something and while it is good, I still rate it at about 90% the quality of Office (which I think has been in decline since Office 97). There were several things missing in Writer and Calc that I use almost daily in Word and Excel. Try searching for tabs in Writer, for instance. I've been doing that since Word for Dogs, I think. Certainly far back into the Windows days.

Now it could be that I'm just wierd, and OO is fine for what 98% of people use Word and Excel for, but for my tasks, it ain't there yet. Oh, yeah, I also hate how the recently edited file list is common between all the OO apps.

[Still Thinking]

As opposed to paid sex? I do agree however, that Microsoft sometimes acts like a bunch of whores.

[Richard Kimball]

Office 2007 was a huge step backwards. They moved all the menu commands and made it very confusing, then began zipping the files to create the docx format. They did this primarily to fubar the open office suites and force people to upgrade.

That being said, Office 97-2000 was probably the best Office Suite. If Apple would fix a few things in iWork, it would be great, and only costs $79.

[Still Thinking]

I’m not impressed with Office 2003 either. I’ve been reverting everything to 97, which is much better than 2003. Never tried 2000 or 2007 though.

[Smokin' Joe]

I would have kept using the old word 6 and Excel 5, but most of the clients I worked for would have had trouble with the older files. So I bought 97 which was more compatible. It has run on every platform from Win 95 to XP for me, and done well.

Iirc, I paid $75 for it because it was not the latest version.

I did not upgrade to the others because few of my clients were in a hurry to run out and buy the latest stuff, and none complained of compatibility problems.

If it isn't broken, don't fix it (oil patch maxim).

[guitarplayer1953]

My comparison was that sometime when you play in the streets or go where your not suppose to go you get in trouble. I am not saying that freeware is bad but some who give stuff away free have an different motive for giving it away. Back in my younger days it was not uncommon for me to get pirated software because damn Bill was just charging to damn much. I found out quickly that some of these folks planted virus and horses and other things in their free stuff.

[ShadowAce]

Try searching for tabs in Writer, for instance.

It can be done, though it may not be as simple, or intuitive, as people would like.

To find a tab in Writer, search for "\x0009" without the quotes.