Slashdot Mirror

Use page styles. As a simple case, where you want the first page to actually be numbered 1, but just not display the number in a footer or header, create a page style for the first page of the document. Set the header or footer to be off in the page style attributes. Apply the style to the first page. On the second page, make sure the page style is set to "Default". Select Insert->Footer->Default. Place your cursor in the footer on page 2, then select Insert->Fields->Page Number. The default is to have separate left/right footer settings, which will mean you'll also need to insert the page number in the footer on page 3. If you want the footers to be the same regardless of left/right orientation, go to Format->Page...->Footer and check "Same content left and right" for the Default page style.

Some tutorials for OpenOffice.org are here.

I'd also recommend any of the OpenOffice.org/StarOffice books co-authored by Solveig Haugland.

"download Excel spreadsheet"

Download OpenOffice Spread file.

this is slashdot?

So if we're all here high and mighty that Linux Will Solve World Hunger because of this, why aren't we doing everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) we can to solve this? It is certainly true that almost everything has been ported to Linux, but many applications have yet to appear on places like Sourceforge and Freshmeat. Sure, yeah, I've started Yenta on sourceforge as a replacement for Act! or Goldmine, but it was only recently started - with little useable code to speak of.

(Yes, I need help with that project.)

Point to this rant is that we still have a way to go before it becomes acceptable to just drop Windows in favor of Linux, but it is also up to us to make sure that if, God forbid, a worm or series of them comes out, we can patch in a hurry.

At my last job, I used Evolution with MS Exchange connector to survive without having Windows on my desktop.

At my current job, I've been lucky enough to get a beta copy of Hydrogen, Sun's iPlanet Calendar Connector, and it works reasonably well, though not a fully integrated as I'd like.

Now, GLOW, OpenOffice Groupware's calendar is a standalone app, but also works with WCAP servers. It's new & buggy, but does both local calendaring and server-based, if you have a WCAP backend. It's certainly promising, and if integrated with OpenOffice would be quite nice.

Install

OpenOffice.Org

Mozilla

VideoLAN

7-Zip

WinGimp

Open AntiVirus

Then see if the users can use them and get used to them. Then maybe when you do switch to Linux, they will be using the same apps, but under Linux. With maybe the exception of 7-Zip, no Linux port yet?

• Abiword - Word processor, supports .doc, .rtf, GPL.
• Open Office - Whole Office suite, including a database frontend and BASIC macro language.
• Perl - Scripting language
• Python - Scripting language
• Cygwin - UNIX emulator. Can create Windows programs, reliant on a cygwin1.dll.
• MinGW - Port of some of the UNIX utilities (BASH, gcc, vi...) to Windows.
• djgpp - UNIX emulator for DOS.
• Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird - Web browser, e-mail client, IRC client, lots more.
• Filezilla - FTP client.
• xchat - IRC client.
• putty, pscp, psftp and others - Telnet/SSH clients.
• Gaim - Client for IRC/Yahoo/MSN/ICQ/AIM and more.
• gzip - Compression (usually better than .zip).
• tar - Extracts/Makes tar archives.
• bzip2 - Totally ace compression (usually better than gzip).
• Info-ZIP - Support for .zip. Good free substitute for Winzip.
• 7-zip - Support for multiple compression formats.
• frhed - Hex editor
• Ext2fs - Several programs for doing Ext2 under Windows.
• Antiword - Converts documents out of the proprietary .doc format.
• MySQL - RDBMS.
• Apache - Web/Proxy server
• sendmail - Mail server
• squid - Proxy server
• freeamp - Audio player
• winlame - MP3 encoder
• cd-ex - MP3/OGG encoder?
• gimp - Very detailed graphics program.
• imagemagick - Graphic manipulation. Provides the 'convert' utility under UNIX.
• freeciv - Civilisation clone.
• gnuplot - Plotting package.
• TightVNC - A fork of VNC, with enhancements.
• RealVNC - The original VNC.
• rdesktop - Access Windows Terminal Services and Remote Desktops.
• Nmap - Well known port scanner.
• John the Ripper - Password cracker. Does NT and MD5.

Its biggest perceived flaw (slow execution speed) is largely a thing of a past.

Just to back you up, my group does some pretty extensive image and dataset processing using Java based code. While most of the images are a couple hundred megabytes in size, it's not unusual for a several gigabyte image to to be processed too. Processing time is definitely a concern of ours and we've found the more recent Java versions to perform quite nicely.

As for the Java Desktop System, I think the bigest issues it faces are related to hardware support (device drivers) from the various vendors.

For as much complaining people here seem to do against Sun, remember how some of the popular open source projects got large chunks of their code (Apache Jakartaand Open Office are two that come to mind). I know that Sun hasn't open sourced everything, but at least they follow open standards.

----------
Create a WAP site

It's easy to create Word documents in Linux.

Yes, because no-one is going to make things if other people can just take a copy without paying.

is just to use art that nobody would want to copy anyways. OpenOffice.org figured this one out earlier this week.

I've never understood why the Open Source community is so quick to praise Sun

Gee, I wonder ...

Hell, except maybe IBM, no single company has done more for the open source movement than Sun !

Thomas Miconi

Yeah, its about Sun claiming to be supporting the open source community, while simultaneously refusing to do anything for said community.

Some of it comes with the base debian install:

GCC,G++
<flamewar>vim/emacs</flamewar>
links-ssl/curl-ssl-wget
ssh
Perl

Then a whole lotta debs for Gnome/KDE...

Then the actual desktop GUI:
GDM
IceWM
Idesk
Endeavour 2


Then the base apps
Anjuta (C++ IDE)
Gedit Notepad
Mplayer + plugins
XMMS + plugins
ALSA framework
Frozen Bubble!
the GIMP
Open Office
Thunderbird+Firefox
GAIM
Gnome-meeting

And the latest 2.6.x kernel

I've created a CD which will give you all the above in one disk. Automatic installations. Just create a linux/swap partition, and it will install to the largest available 'nix partition, also adding any windows partitions to the lilo.conf

ALSA Sound support is ready (though you must edit /etc/modules with whatever soundcard module you have)

X GUI starts in SVGA mode (best to xf86config and choose your GUI)
USB mouse support through /dev/input/mice

I'm considering putting it up online, but at about 620MB for the ISO I'd need some decent hosting space for that. So far we're using it at work to convert windows desktops to dual-boot... it's XP themes so the windows lusers can figure it out rather easily.

It's also configured to build the base menu structure when a user logs in... and idesk will mount a CD+browse with endeavour on doubleclick, or unmount+eject on a right-click.

This is a great idea for a thread. I'm assuming this is after I've downloaded the eight jillion patches for Windows I need, but in no particular order:

• A virus scanner (This definitely comes first!)
• WinRAR (I should look into 7-Zip, though.)
• Firefox (and a few choice extensions)
• Thunderbird (I love sharing one mailbox between two operating systems.)
• Filezilla
• Trillian
• iTunes
• Various programs for web development
• OpenOffice.org
• Real Alternative (Screw you, Real! I don't need to take your crap any more!)

After that, it depends on my OS. For most of the Linux installs I do, the next few things I install will be MySQL, OpenLDAP, Apache, and PHP, which takes care of most of my needs. My Windows box (which, I admit, I use at home) is a little more fun:

2. iTunes
3. Whatever freeware Shisen-Sho app I can find
4. Starcraft
5. Several games later, OpenOffice.org

Let's be honest: does a computer really need anything else? I certainly don't think so.

7zip lacks multi-part archiving with error recovery volumes, or any other kind of error recovery information, so I use WinRAR instead. You get what you pay for with WinRAR.

WinRAR
Ad Muncher
Opera
Foobar2000
Paint Shop Pro
the current Kazaa Lite variant of my choice
OO.o

That's all I ask of my Windows machine.

1. FireFox, how else am I going to find and download the rest?
2. AVG AV, so that the next 8 actually are what I want.
3. Net Transport, to get the next 7 faster.
4. WinRAR, some of the rest require extraction, and whatever one might say about WinRAR, I prefer it.
   
5. WinAmp, so that I can listen to RadioStorm while I wait for the rest to download.
   
6. Trillian Pro, so I can tell everyone I am reinstalling.
7. NoteTab Pro, I paid for it for a reason after all.
8. OpenOffice.org, so that I don't have to wait an hour for it to download when I need to use it later.
9. Scorched Earth 3D, for a little fun.
10. Synergy , check it out if you wanna know.

• Putty - A free (GPL) SSH terminal emulator
• Winzip - Yeah, you know what this is
• VLC - Free media player
• OpenOffice.org - I should stop doing these descriptions, its not as if youve heard of these things before!
• GIMP for windows - Yup, the infernal/eternal image editor
• Sharpdevelop - Free (GPL) .net IDE, requires the .net framework and SDK
• Bloodshed Dev-C++ - Excellent free (GPL) C and C++ IDE, using the Windows GCC port
• Thunderbird - Mail client
• Firefox - Web browser
• Adobe Acrobat Reader - PDF Reader
• PDFcreator - GPL PDF print driver for windows
• MessengerPro (Clickatell) - Non free SMS sender for windows, company does good bulk buy sms rates, i buy 500 at a time for less than $5
• Lavasoft Adaware and Spybot SS - For the essentials in life
• Topstyle - Free version of the excellent CSS editor for webdevelopment, if anyone knows a good free alternative, im open to suggestions :)
• SmartFTP - Great free for personal use FTP client, not found a better one yet! (I have, Filezilla it is excellent AND fully GPL, none of this non free shit, bub. :-) )
• MySQL-Front - Old version of the MySQL windows front end, much much better than the new one you pay for. Source isnt open and the old developer discontinued development, possibly one of the best advertisements for why OSS is good :(
• Editplus - Possibly the best editor ive found, not free im afraid, costs around $25

VLC -, like you mentioned, Free media player is a great media player, it blew me away. Better then Window's media player, and I know that my porno viewing habits are not going straight to Bill Gates.

One you didn't mention is Filezilla which is a good GPL ftp program instead of SmartFTP if you want to try another one out. (I must confess I use LeechFTP since I haven't gotten use to Filezilla just yet, although if you are into hosting files Filezilla is even better).

1. Firefox
2. The Adblock extension for Mozilla/Firefox
3. mplayer
4. Flash and Java plugins for the browers

Windows:

1. Putty
2. Firefox
3. Mozilla
4. The Adblock extension for Mozilla/Firefox
5. Spybot S&D
6. Flash/Java/Acroread plugins for the browsers
7. WinSCP
8. Cygwin (including XFree86 and Windowmaker)
9. OpenOffice

The only Windows I use is Windows XP Professional as a unix admin in a corporation, so some items may be notably absent. My entire Windows list is software that can be used royalty-free for commercial use )with an obvious emphasis on Free Software).

For example, I use XFree86 shipped with Cygwin for my X server, WinSCP for secure file transfer, Spybot S&D (and not AdAware, which is another excellent product, but would require a licensing fee be paid).

I don't use Winzip at all, since that functionality is built into the explorer interface in Windows XP Professional (don't know about the others), and is also available through Cygwin.

On the occasion I'm visiting a friend who runs Windows on a personal desktop, I also recommend Zinf, the audio player, since it's free software and just plays the music without any corporate spyware tie-ins, eg., contacting a server based on mp3 header fields as WMP and Winamp have started doing.

MicroSoft won the Word (editor) war?
Guess we better let OpenOffice.org and Star Office know right away!

After installing all the appropriate device drivers, the first ten items on my list would be -

1. Symantec Drive Image 2. OpenOffice.org 3. Sygate Personal Firewall Pro 4. NOD32 Anti-Virus 5. PestPatrol 6. iolo System Mechanic 7. WinRAR 8. Mozilla Firefox 9. UltraEdit 10. Nero Burning ROM

1. Fink - get the GNU POSIX environment on!
2. OSXVNC - get somewhere else
3. OO.o
4. Mozilla / Firefox / etc. - and the plugins:
   • Flash
   • Acrobat Reader
   • StumbleUpon toolbar - it's like having your own personalized fark (not that I read fark, but this is probably why)
5. MPlayer - it handles just about all the codecs
6. WS Manager - Multiple desktop manager. I'm too cheap to pay to upgrade from OS 10.2 to 10.3 for Exposé, even with my wife's educational discount.

• gentoo linux
• FreeBSD
• bash
• vim
• perl
• ruby
• MySQL
• PostgreSQL
• Apache
• PHP
• links www browser
• wget
• K Desktop Environment
• Mozilla Firefox
• xchat
• gimp
• Openoffice.org

1. Cygwin - get the POSIX environment on!
2. PuTTY - the only terminal I've found that handles colors and stuff right.
3. TightVNC - get to some other computer
4. OO.o
5. vim - I'm not even a VI guy, but it's fast and has nice hooks into explorer and I'm too lazy to deal with registering TextPad or whatever. JEdit's also nice, but way too slow for casual use... I usually go straight to emacs for that kind of editing.
6. Mozilla / Firefox / etc. - and the plugins:
   • Flash
   • Acrobat Reader
   • StumbleUpon toolbar - it's like having your own personalized fark (not that I read fark, but this is probably why)
7. Winamp - get the groove on
8. MPlayer - it handles just about all the codecs
9. MultiDesk - usable multiple desktops for Windows... like getting that 10% productivity improvement for having dual monitors without having to pay 100% more in displays. If only it had a visual pager...
10. Windows PowerToys - because every little option matters

More on Linux and MacOS X later, I guess...

OpenOffice
Crimson Editor (programmer's editor; free, not open source)
Audacity (WAV editor)
CDex (ripper)
Firefox
Thunderbird
Navicat (MySQL admin tool)
MySQL Snap (MySQL backup tool)
Top Style (CSS Editor)
Photoshop (Gimp ain't ready for primetime yet. Sorry.)

That's 10. Next up: WinAmp, WS-FTP, AdAware, and 17 million IE/Win patches.

• Mozilla
• Spybot S&D
• AVG Anti-virus
• Microsoft Visual Studio
• ActiveState Perl
• America's Army (gotta test the graphics card, you know.)
• Winamp 5.0
• Open Office

I install Mozzie first, then I download and run Spybot Search and Destroy and run the cleanup/immunize functions, and then I install AVG. Nothing else is an "absolute" but I usually install them. (I don't install Visual Studio on other people's boxes, of course!)

You drink Pepsi directly from the can, so you don't need a glass. If you want to switch to water you'd need to buy a glass first, which may be expensive. But that doesn't really matters, because in the long run you recover what you spent on the glass since water is cheaper than Pepsi.

"What i meant is that the PAID version you get support for (Microsoft Ofice), and the FREE one (Open Office), you simply don't."

That statement could be confusing to people who know that you get good support with OpenOffice. Where did you get the information that OpenOffice was unsupported? A simple glance at their website would be all that's needed to check.

Actually, the Open Office Groupware Project (Glow) has been created to address these criticisms.

Seems to me that OOo still wants me to perform an eleven-step process to satisfy a basic usability requirement for applications on current versions of Microsoft Windows.

Not prime-time ready, but it's getting there... (OpenGroupware). It's getting built on much better foundations than Microsoft's, of course.

For the time being, if you want a solution that works now and if you don't mind that it's not so closely integrated to your Office apps, you might consider Plone.

I love the principle behind OOo and wish them all the luck, but until they fix some of the major bugs, like the three-year-old autofilter bug in calc that allows you to modify/delete data that you can't see (Bug 2977), OOo will remain the tool of secretaries and non-power-users. One cannot use calc for serious scientific work (yet). *sigh*

Or you could download it. What's the educational discount for, anyway? Knock 50 cents off a preprinted CD?

The simpler seagull shape works pretty well for that. You know, the bird in this one.

Why would I want to run win32 programs? I can't think of one Windows program that doesn't have a better equivalent for Linux.

OpenOffice, LaTeX + emacs, eclipse, blender, gimp, mozilla, maple, mathematica, ut2004, etc. What do _you_ need Windows for?

Ummm, then why does http://www.openoffice.org/ have it right on the front page?

I've already been thanked.

Now I'm saying "you're welcome."

There are other currency systems than "money", you know.

There is a free word viewer or a free version of Open Office will do the trick.

Fine, then I'll just start sending all my documents in .sxw format. Then you can just quit whining and go download the free Open Office viewer/editor.

All good right?

It also means dropping OpenOffice for KOffice

This only needs two responses:
1) OpenOffice.org
2) Crossover Office
In order of preference

I will never use an office suite after Office 2000.

Really?

What's wrong with Openoffice.org?

Actually, it's not called OpenOffice. The program is actually called "OpenOffice.org". Care to guess why?

OpenOffice.org is still free and available for Windows.

"and $400 for a copy of Microsoft Office"

Huh? $0 for a copy of office software with more features than what you'll need for SOHO or home use.

You mean that one that is going to be shut down in the next 6mos?

I think they're about 4 years and one office suite too late.

Well, OASIS file format is nearly finished and open for anyone to use. So far, OpenOffice.org, StarOffice and KOffice are set to standardise on it as their native file format. As long as WordPerfect offers a possibility of reading/saving this format flawlessly (which is certainly doable as the format is open), they will score many points in the Free Software community. This would be the real signal that Corel is taking us seriously.

I sure hope WP for Linux is cheaper than what they're asking for what they've got now. I love wordperfect. For Windows, it's my word processor of choice. My main gripe about OO.o is that it tries to mimic Word's organization and functionality rather than WP's, but for $300 (USD), I'll stick with OO. I think most Linux users are with me. Maybe they'll have a student discount or allow you to pick it up for a measly $20 when purchased with hardware like you used to be able to with WP 10. I'm hoping. I'd really like to see this take off.