Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Equivalence, Toilets, Hundredth
Screenshots to show the boss. Jim Hall writes: "The other day, I downloaded OpenOffice build 628C for Linux and for Windows. I use Red Hat Linux (7.1) at home, and I already use StarOffice (5.2) for my regular office needs. It works great. I think my main complaint with OpenOffice is the silly desktop. Other than that, I consider it a fully functional office suite that can replace my MS Office needs anytime.
I didn't see any cool OpenOffice screenshots, so I made my own of the text document program. I didn't do any (yet?) of the spreadsheet program, or presentation software. These were really captured for the benefit of my brother, but I'm posting them here so that others can see them."
When I was a boy, we didn't have "archives" ... jbrw writes "Occasionally complaints will pop up that the archives at groups.google.com aren't complete enough. Well, here's your chance to help. Google is conducting an archive hunt to find some CDs from the "NetNews CD Series" pre-dating 1995, to help fill out their archive. I'm sure there's a whole heap of useful information hidden away in there, so it would be nice if it was available for all. Google says they will pay a spotter's fee for any of the CDs they don't have yet. I imagine the /. crowd would be more impressed with some sort of custom t-shirt, but there you go..."
We've mentioned this before, but it looks like they're still looking, or at least haven't updated the page.
Pinch your salt well, folks. Sir_Real writes "The RIAA wants to re-establish the CPRM standard. It is also lobbying lawmakers to make the ISP responsible for content shared by the people they provide for. Sound Cards are being targetted also. If Ms. Rosen has her way, "Watermarked" content will not be rippable because of hardware protection implemented in the new cards. The Register has the full story."
My advice would be to take this one more as a thought experiment than anything else, though it would be interesting if some sort of substantiation emerges.
The site named after a game show noise hits a milestone. Zanthrax writes: "ZZZ Online just got their 100th edition out ! You should go see this site if you allready haven't. Lots of cool stuff on the site gets submitted to /. , Like their ornithopter story which was on a lot sooner than here on /."
Just good, clean, vicarious bathroom fun. random-nerds writes: "Following a suggestion from a Slashdot reader, we built and installed a display in our bathroom so all you crazy Int0rnet junkies can send us messages while we're in our bathroom. Now the MIT Bathroom Server is fun for the whole family. Check it out at http://neurosis.mit.edu/foo/"
There's something wrong there.
I use SO5.2 on my Linux laptop and my Win tower at home. And I like the desktop, and can't figure out why so many people bash on it.
All of the office apps are neatly tucked away under a single entry in KDE's task window. I click that open, and I can see every one of my documents in a neat little desktop.
In SO6.0beta, I get a individual window for every single document for each application (i.e. if i have two text documents and three presos open, I have 5 entries in the KDE task window, and I can't tell them apart until I onMouseOver them)
btw - the load times for 5.2 with desktop seem to be about the same for me as loading just one app in 6.0 beta. In fact, it seems faster to use 5.2 once it's loaded when I create new documents.
Some things aren't so useful, like the start button, and yes it does cover up other windows in the background, but I usually send SO to Window 4 or something all by itself, so that's no big deal
Are you guys gonna be making trips to Europe to buy non-crippled hardware or will economies of scale ensure that everyone gets copy-protecting hardware?
My money is on the latter, though not due to any kind of economy. You can already get arrested in Sweden for defying the MPAA, and South Korean college students are carrying their MP3 collections on portable hard drives to evade the local equivalent of the RIAA. Rest assured that the Copyright Industry is bent on world domination.
As an alternative, if you simply must have currrently popular music, get it from secondspin.com or switchhouse.com or any other shop that sells used CDs. They sound just as good as the original, and more importantly, you are neither breaking any laws (yet) nor supporting the RIAA. Write your congress-critter anyways. It's the only way to keep your liberties.
Mirror here if you need it
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
When 6.0beta came along, it asked if I wanted to import my settings from 5.2 into 6.0. Sure, sounds good. It worked great. Until I needed to retrieve my files from my personal doc directory. They were ALL GONE!!! The installer followed my symlink and "accidentally" deleted all my files in my document directory. It left the directories intact, but all the files were GONE!
Fortunately, I had just made a backup of my system a couple days before, but I still lost a bit of work. !@$#.
Moral of the story: backup early and often. Moral #2 of the story: beware of using beta software on production machines.
You can read all the details of my experience on Sun's newsgroup that they collect bugs for star office on. It wasn't pretty.
Looking for a computer support specialist for your small business? Check out
Sheesh. Misinformation abounds about this product! First off, the current build is 638C. That build of OpenOffice contains much of the same base code as the official StarOffice 6 Beta that was released on Oct. 4.
Let me be bold and italicized for this next one: There is no more integrated desktop. None. It sucked, and everyone knew it, so it's gone. Each component is seperate, with it's own icon (Text Document, Spreadsheet, Presentation, etc.)
One last thing, because I know it will come up. Previous builds of OpenOffice did not contain a spell check. Before you flame about that, let me mention two things: I just downloaded a build of Mozilla a few weeks ago, and it had no spellcheck either (yet the version of Netscape that used that Mozilla build *did* have a spell check...keep reading). Second, I'm pretty sure this build has a spellchecker in place, or it's right around the corner. Beyond that, if it's not there already, there will be options for different languages (I know German is mentioned often on the discussion list.)
StarOffice 6 Beta has a spellcheck, because that's one component that Sun owns and did not open source. There are other components in StarOffice that aren't in OpenOffice, but not many.
Whether you go with StarOffice or OpenOffice, you won't be disappointed. It's an incredible product. It is the product that will allow me to convert my clinic (250+ employees) away from MS Office, which will pave the way for more free (as in speech, and possibly beer) software down the road. I'm very excited about it!
--SC
You read fiction? I write it! Lemme know what you th
But telephone companies are ALREADY [at least in the UK] exempt from responsibility for their networks, ie they can't get prosecuted if someone plots to kill the PM over telephone. SO this is saying one kind of carrier is responsible, and should be prosecuted, and another one isn't - hypocrasy abounds!