Slashdot Mirror

In my day we used Symantec GreatWorks. It fit on a floppy disk and only took up 4 MB of RAM. Of course, that was all the RAM we had back then, and roughly 1/20th of your hard drive. And it even had Kermit. Can MS Office do Kermit?

A modern equivalent would take up 1 GB of RAM and about 4 GB of Hard Disk Space. And it still probably wouldn't do Kermit.

Your mother in law paid cash for a copy of MS Office, yet is still using Dial-Up AOL? A standard-edition copy will fund the difference between AOL and a real internet connection for two years. Save some cash with VOIP and it pays for itself.

If you don't want to download 80 MB, try Ability Office, Abi Word, Atlantis, or the 602 suite.

Honestly, though, a real connection is worth the cash. 80MB is not that large... OO would be best served by looking into the other problems it has. After all, your mother in law did get the download fully, but she didn't like it. Let's work on making her like it.

If there are computer resource (memory, space, etc.) problems with OpenOffice, there are always a few free alternatives, although there might be some legal issues with the free version of the 602 PC Suite.

Now there is only office for 300 dollars, and you get MS(doesn't)works free w/ a new pc

Unfortunately, you are badly uninformed.

But hey, why let facts stop some good FUD?

Ever heard of Software602?

I've tried alot of spreadsheet programs on both sides of the fence. Whilst taking a MS Excel course a few months ago, I wanted to use a free alternative and not a warez copy of Microsoft Office for obvious moral reasons. And I sure as hell wasn't going to pay for a copy! I've tried 602Tab, an Excel clone and part of the impressive 602 PC Suite for Windows, KDE's spreadsheet program (the word "kludgy" comes to mind) and OpenOffice which was so damn sluggish I gave it the ole make uninstall; make clean routine after 5 nerve-fraying minutes.

If there's a better (and free) spreadsheet program out there, I haven't used it.

Well I did. here is the link. Ms Office Professional. $519.00 from warehouse.com. It does not include project, nor project server, no visio, no MapPoint, or Publisher. All of those cost extra.

Let's do a quick calculation shall we.

Office Pro $519.00
Visio Professional $439.95
Publisher Deluxe 139.95

And sorry warehouse does not sell mappoint and insight does not publish their prices on it so let's presume that mappoint is actually free. What have totaled so far? Why it's over $1098.00.

I am glad you Mr Anonymous Coward posted that message. I now feel proud to have educated not only you but all other slashdot users on where they can get quality Ms products and how much they should expect to pay for it.

For those users who are interested in getting most of the functionality of Office for free or a fraction of the cost may I reccomend the following links.

Open office
KDE/Koffice
The Kompany
602 Office
IBM/Lotus
Corel

Please people don't get ripped off voluntarily it makes you look stupid. I am sure you can put that thousand dollars to better use right? Don't you kids need dentures or a collage education?

Heh, only if you are programming with vi. If you want to get something done anytime soon, you're gonna want something a bit faster. I have no patience for slow machines.

You can do a lot with fast software. Right now I'm writing this in the freeware Easy Office because it launches to a pretty fully-fledged text editor in two seconds on my P3 800. There is also the excellent freeware office suite602 PC Suite, but it takes about 4 seconds. Either of these would be good alternatives to MS Office on a slower machine. There are great e-mail programs, browsers, etc, all readily available. I went to a friends house today who has a K2, running Windows 95, with lots of speed and response. He records television programs onto it. Don't underestimate the power of old hardware in the right hands.

I also know several network admins, so a console (and vi) is their work environment.

Not that I'd turn down a P4 3Ghz per say...

As for the rest of your comment, I apologize for jumping on you as if you were a drone: though you do have obvious, unwarranted biases, I see now that you were just being vocal about your preference, and holding your preferences up as a model hardcore gamer. I don't agree that the consoles will or will not unseat the PC as the hardcore gamer's platform of choice, as I do not agree that there is currently a seat or that the PC is in it. Personally, I use obscure consoles as one litmus test of a person's hardcoreness: if someone has a Neo Geo, they're hardcore. If they have a Neo Geo and a Supergraphix, they're very hardcore. I define hardcore gamer as one who is obviously and successfully obsessed with any portion of gamedom: Frag Parties, Cos Play, abnormally active emulation development, soundtrack obsession, anything involving a training regimen that lasts for more than 3 months (and preferably more than a year), and the collection of video-game themed breakfast cereals all qualify, in my opinion, for the hardcore gamer. Being hardcore is, by and large, platform agnostic.

One more thing. Despite your assertion, the PC does not offer "the freedom to create whatever [the developer] wants." Besides technical concerns, the developer is always limited by financial constraints. Many developers find it easier to achieve their budget-limited vision with a target, non-squirrely platform. The PC offers the developer a Hard Disk, a network connection, an interface device with 104 buttons, and freedom from a quality assurance department. These benefits are not true freedom, but an extension of the limitations already imposed upon software development, many of which have appeared on consoles. What hasn't appeared on consoles is the battle of OpenGL vs Direct X, the great vertex shader debate, switching target cards mid development between Nvida and ATI, XP SP1 compatibility patches, etc, etc, etc. Carmak will always be a computer game developer, but it isn't because the PC gives him the "freedom to create whatever he wants." That assertion is just bias.

And yes, to this day, the PC response time is less than that of the major consoles. It is only by several hundredths of a second, but many hardcore gamers notice, and can feel the difference. In many fighting games, that kind of lag can harm a finely honed play style. It's difficult to notice on most PC games because, as I mentioned, they develop PC games to PC's strengths and weaknesses. There is a bit of darwinian evolution to this too.

I too grew up with console games. I also grew up with Shareware and retail PC games. The console will never crash. It will never decide it doesn't like my graphics card. I will never have to check for compatibility. The OS will never steal focus. I will never have to even think about framerate. It will never be incompatible with my copy of Norton utilities. I will never have to download the latest Direct X. I will never have to revert to a previous version of Direct X. It will never freeze inexplicably for 5 seconds, then move on as if nothing had happened. I will never have to wait for it to boot or shut down. My console will never reject my registration code. In short, my console is a well behaved gaming environment where I can forget the technical background and focus on the enjoyment of the experience. I also love my computer, and am very protective of it. If a playmate gets loaded to the hard disk, and the playmate crashes my baby, that playmate is getting tossed out until it learns to behave. Pointing out crashing is not a pot-shot. Go play Black or White. It's an absolutely fun little playmate, that seems to punch you in the face every two hours.

Maybe I'm just very demanding, but if a game can't stay stable I'm getting my money back, period. We wouldn't put up with this at the movies, and being a young medium doesn't excuse it now.

BTW, I'm not arguing that your choice doesn't have merit. I'm arguing that the extrusion of your personal choice to proport to reflect all of gamedom is fundamentally flawed.

I'll have to get a Gravis Xterminator. Thanks for pointing it out. The last pad I bought was the original Eliminator, which stayed on my desk for about 2 hours until I realized that the reason characters would always go diagonally down when pressing left or right was because the D-pad had a gross design defect that had somehow made it through testing, if there was any testing.

- C

just emailed them on this account - suggest anyone who thinks the same, does the same.

the issues with the programs you mention are simply issues with bad programming. the old story with shareware like winzip that allows you simply to click 'yeah, i know i should buy it' and carry right on using it. dumb. 30 days is 30 days. after that, make the frickin' software stop working or lose the revenue from sales. it's a simple equation.

a thornier problem with demoes is if someone cracks the software - and that's usually in direct relation to how useful/cool it is, since its these programs that receive the attention, and gobe might well have a problem there. but unfortunately software houses have to eventually bite the bullet. for those in my position as IT evaluator for my company, without a demo - no way. if software 602 can do it (OK they're operating from a semi-free as in beer licence model), why not gobe?

Nalfy

602 Download

How can you say "So, there are not any serious alternative I'm afraid." if you have not investigated ALL alternatives?

Have you looked at 602 PC Suite?

It has Word and Excel clones, claims excellent file compatibility, is free (as in beer) for commercial use, and gets rave reviews everywhere I look.

If you want more features, the plus version is $20 or you can get a site license for $200.

Much more affordable than MS Office.

How can you say "So, there are not any serious alternative I'm afraid." if you have not investigated ALL alternatives?

Have you looked at 602 PC Suite?

It has Word and Excel clones, claims excellent file compatibility, is free (as in beer) for commercial use, and gets rave reviews everywhere I look.

If you want more features, the plus version is $20 or you can get a site license for $200.

Much more affordable than MS Office.

Another free (as in beer) office product for Windows is Software 602. People who I know that have tried it have really liked it.

There was a recent Gartner article that recommended abandoning IIS that you could use as justification for that part...

Plus, come one, people. It has 98% the functionality of office 2000. That is good enough for at least 75% of people out there, because most people don't use the bloated features avaliable in office. Yes, you have to do things slightly differently. But generally, whatever you wanted to do in office, can be done in staroffice.

I use windows and I really tried to start using StarOffice on my home computer. I use MS Office at work daily, and while it certainly is not a perfect piece of software, after using it StarOffice just felt hopelessly slow and annoying to use. I tried to get used to StarOffice for several months (partly because I hadn't found any better free alternative for Windows), but in the end I decided that it doesn't justify it's huge harddisk footprint. The problem certainly was not lack of functionality, but the user interface and the performance. All the time I was noticing small things that didn't work the way I would like them to work.

I am now using 602Pro PC SUITE 2000 on my home computer, and while it only has a fraction of StarOffice's features, I like it a lot more.

I never said that they have a right to your money. But if you choose to use free software over commercial products, don't whine about the commercial products going away. You don't have a right to become indignant when a commercial vendor chooses not to sell a product to the Linux marketplace when:

1. The vast majority of users would use a free alternative if it was available.

2. There is a faction within the Linux/GNU/"free software" community that will write a free alternative.

It's ironic, but the Windows market is much more capable of weathering free software than is the Linux market. It is a large enough market that if even 50% of the users chose the superb Software 602 alternatives to MS Word and Excel, there would still be an adequate customer base to support numerous commercial packages. Linux is not that big a market.

While you are shedding crocodile tears, there may be decent, hard-working, talented people at Applixware losing their jobs because of this. But you probably think that would be great if it happened in the name of the all-important GNU cause.