I too get sick of reading stuff on the screen, and often print stuff to read. And, I believe there is something to it, "eye burn" or whatever they call it.
But, I do also reconize that there have been some advances in the ability of these things to create less eye strain. I think very shortly I am going to look into getting some glasses. I have heard from several people that I work with (who don't where prescription glasses) that there is a great benifit to getting some special glasses for using the computer. Some kind of filtering and anti-glare stuff, and it reduces eye strain.
And, have you looked at some of the newer laptops lately? CRT displays still suck on eye strain, and these "tablet" devices still use really cheap LCD (and usually grey and black, not exactly high contrast). But some of the newer laptops are really making some great progress in displays, and eyestrain while using them is a lot less than it use to be.
I think that right now they are mostly working on the other end of technology, making progress in the software and the size and power consumption of the electronics... and somewhat neglecting the displays. When they get the other hardware down, then i think they will get around to reducing eye strain (clearer, sharper, brighter displays).
As for the keyboard, well, I for one can type WAY faster than I can write, and would really miss having a keyboard. But I could deal ok with a pointer or other mouse replacement.
I remember getting harassing emails (with physical threats) from a guy a couple years ago. He was using HotMail (one of the free, anonymous emails) to send letters to me about what he was going to do. I couldn't figure out who could actually be a that angry with me, so my only clue was to track him through the net.
Well, with some investigation, and the help of a few other System Administrators, I got his exact location, and narrowed down the suspects to a single computer lab, which told let me figure out who it was (one of the ex-boyfriends of a girl I was dating frequented that computer lab, and he was a nut).
But, during this process, I the tricks I used to track him were some of these IP to Longitude and Lattitude things, and found them wildly inaccurate. It gave me his position as a networking center, and he was actually on the oppisite end of the state. The networking center held the ownership for this IP block, and therefore was the position of the IP address that was returned. But infact, this center was NOT his location, because the internal network was elabraote enough that he was actually in a related facility on the other end of the state that I tracked him to.
It wasn't the IP to Longitude and Lattitude thing that helped, it was more network tools, routing information, and mostly good System Administrators willing to help that did the job.
BTW, for what it's worth, HotMail was no help what-so-ever either. They canceled his account, and he quickly just got another through them, and kept sending stuff.
Michael Scott DeWitt, Legal Counsel for userfriendly.org, to invent such a name for a joke, where would you get such a name? Hmm, I tried to figure out if there was any real basis to this persons existance, and a net search showed no Michael Scott DeWitt that I could find. A porn site, michael-scott.com exists. Wonder if Illiad is spending a day reading that insted... and it was is insperation as for the creation of the name of the legal counsel...
There has to be a way to see if the name Michael Scott DeWitt is registered as a lawyer somewhere. Where is Userfriendly located, it might be likely if this were real that he would hire a lawyer in his area, and a quick search of a local phone book might back up his story. If this isn't a joke (which I believe it is, as are most things that will be on/. today), then I would say that verifying the existance of Michael Scott DeWitt may be the key to uncovering the legitmacy of this shutdown.
I suspect this is a joke, BUT. Given the actual possabilities for mobile computing....
I remember the day when people were stuffing like 4 or more AA batteries into calculators and when no one ever thought solar power would be enough to be used for anything. Then the first few solar calculators that only worked in direct sunlight. Now, a dim flourecent light is enough to power them.
A lightweight (power wise) laptop could potentially be powered by something other than a battery in the near future, it's a possability I don't write off so quickly. Technological challanges are more than power sources though, and a battery may always be nessessary for something similar to a UPS (save data before unexpected power failure).
Solar is a serious consideration, and add to that this mouse consept... I think the mouse thing isn't so far fetched, during WWII I believe there were some "crank" powered radios... It could be a "supplemental" power source for a laptop in theory. The fact of the matter is, the thing holding it back would be that the resistance (physical resistance, not electrical) would have to be very high for a mouse. It would be a mouse you would have to put some serious physical energy into in order to move it. If users could deal with giving a trackball a good healthy push to move a pointer, or a mouse pad that was more like sandpaper, this might actually generate a small amount of power. The next steps though would be decreasing the power consumption of the hardware... Where I point back to the idea of calculators in the 70's, no one ever would have believed a "solar calculator" would be anything that could be taken seriously.
Mind you, the first "adding machines" were just that, machines, not electrical devices. Physical power produced mathmatic results.
Sort by Score is the best thing to happen to Slashdot since,... uh... Slashdot itself, IMHO.
I was getting sick of the rapid growth of Slashdot, and the crap that was getting mixed in, and haveing to sort through all of it. Now, I can sort by score, and see the best at the top. If I want to spend the time, I can scroll down and see the junk at the bottom (where it belongs) if I wish.
Let's see... To me, I see this whole story as a series of "What if Red Hat Did X?" questions asked to any big names in Linux they could get at in a time frame to write the story.
Then, they get it ran on CNN?
I loose respect for CNN in this case. Sorry. I see no REAL evidance at all that Red Hat is doing this, or going to do this. Therefore, it's FUD in my eyes. Something I thought CNN was above.
I agree that "conflict sells." But to do something that is an overview of the negitive "what if's" that they picked up from places like SlashDot which is (Dare I say this) and insider discussion about Linux, and very casual, is just plain lame.
All the negitives I have about Slashdot aside, I still respect the fact that it's an OPEN FORUM where a Senior Programer with 30 years of experiance under his belt can get into a flame war about a technical detail with a 14 year old who just bought Red Hat at Best Buy after saving up his lunch money! That is a good thing. It opens eyes, and keeps Linux alive. It's an open window to keep seeing things from a "fresh" point of view.
But to take this as "a crediable source" for something like a CNN artical, that's FUD, and something I use to thing CNN was above publishing.
The benifit of what doubt? The whole story read to me like an interview where they asked a bunch of people "What If Red Hat did this?" and they got the answers they wanted to publish.
I don't doubt for a second that Red Hat will do the Right Thing(tm).
Take a look at all the discussion about the LSB from inside at http://www.debian.org/Lists-Archives/ down at the bottom of the page. All the LSB work is done open, and in the public eye. I don't see it there.
Looking at the LSB web site and I see no news of Red Hat falling off the supporters list. I don't see it there.
So, what is CNN's source? Off to the CNN artical and I read Red Hat's PRO LSB statements and quotes. I don't see it there.... Oh wait "And other Red Hat officials in recent weeks have referred to standards groups as "overhead." " Ahhh... This is the bad news? Wait a minute.
Let's see, most Buisnesses call things they have to spend money on "overhead." Not a bad thing, it's simply something needed to function. So, in a sence, it's even like saying Red Hat sees that it NEEDS the LSB to keep it's product (LINUX) alive. Without it, Red Hat would die out because of the lack of community support, and it's users would flock to any of the other dozen Linux choices (and vendors would soon follow).
So, where is the leaked internal Red Hat memo, where is the source? Where is this comming from? I don't see it. Take ONE WORD, "overhead", out of context, and do a complete "why Red Hat Sucks" spin on one out of context word from a Red Hat statement?
Bad CNN, Bad Bad Bad..... No table scraps for you tonight, go back to the dog house...
"Olde English" is a cheap beer that usually only get's purchased by people who are broke and wanna get sloshed.
English is a human language, Fortran is a computer language. The Robot is a Drunkard (as seen it the previews). Thus, drinking something called "Olde Fortran" is a pun.
If Futurama is chuck full of these little (usually un-noticed) puns, it will be like the true classics in the cartoon world, where there is humor going on at many levels, and watching something the second time (in a diffrent frame of mind) makes even the re-runs really funny.
"Bender getting sloshed on "Olde Fortran" malt liquor"
Heh... The robot, Blender, get's drunk on something called "Olde Fortran".... Uh, am I the first one here looking forward to these kinds of jokes, or am I just old, and everyone here can't remember Fortran?
"How do we then get hundreds of different computer owners to update their systems when they didn't know what they were doing in the first place?"
I believe the case is more that your worried that _you_ don't know what _they_ are doing, not that they don't know what they are doing.
This is interesting, as I have learned from history (local department security hole where hacker comes in, and tries to get somewher else on campus from hacked box). But the problem isn't yours so much as it is the users... Just follow me for a moment...
Basically every box on your network is it's own little world, and security problem, and that problem is isolated to that IP address, if you take the right precautions. The person who set that box up is responsable for security of that system, not the campus at large or the computer department or the computer gurus.
The key to good security is to insure your not relying on inadaquite security protocol. And by inadaquite, I mean, "If the request comes from a box in our IP block, then it's safe, and we can allow it special privlages." That's LAZY security management, and the source of the bulk of your security risk.
Here, in my department, where we live in the massive IP space of ".nodak.edu" we don't want people telling us how to fix our security problems, at all! ".nodak.edu" covers the whole state, and North Dakota Higher Education Computer Network (NODAK-DOM), which means every university in the state relys on people in one city at one center for management. They are 70 miles away from us, and they don't know what we do, or why we do it.
We are very thankfull that they keep the backbone up, and keep our bandwidth sufficent, and keep the main servers and routers running. But to think about having them try to manage security for the whole state is rediculus! There are boxes I know of on our LAN with know security holes, and we realize they are there, and are leaving them there for the time being. Because the case is this, when the security patch is installed for a know hole, the applications we rely on no longer function, we submit a bug report, which takes up to 2 months to get addressed (IF it even gets acknoledged), and wait. Meanwhile, what are we to do? Fix the hole and make the rest of the campus happy, meanwhile not being able to do any work or research? Or, leave the hole, closely monitor connections and contacts, and keep doing research (which is why the computers were purchaced in the first place).
People make judgement calls, and assume risk. That's a fact of life. In order to achieve a goal, sometimes risks are taken. But, I still say, everyone has to see it's simply a case of "breach my box, my fault for not keeping track. Breach your box from my breached box, it's YOUR fault, not mine."
Ultimately, it's the hackers fault, not the admin. But the admin's job is to keep a secure box. If your worried about something being breached on your network, then you admin it. If your administration range covers more than you can the boxes you can admin, deal with the fact that you managed to work your way up the bandwidth chain, and from your level you have to deal with bigger issues, so make it clear that security on an indivual box basis is the responsbility of the person who uses that box.
Seems as thought there are drivers there. IPP seems to be the "language" of communication between a computer and a printer, and the printer either contains the nessessary ability to understand this, OR (big OR) Enter the use of a Print Server. The print server (from what I understand) can translate this IPP language that you sent and use the required driver for the printer and send the info to the printer.
So, how close is that? Is this what all the fuss is about? Seems to be the next logical step for a Print Server to me, my question would be this:
If you can use a print server, can you alias it to other IPP's so the same print server (physical box) can run multiple printers?
I think the LSB is a good thing, and the only fault I can find has nothing to do with Red Hat.
IMHO, the LSB is only weak because of lack of manpower. And I don't know if Red Hat supplying that would be a good thing. The LSB just needs people with time to get things going. They recently some stress over time to even keep the HTML up to date, and that's still an ongoing battle.
If you wanna see compatability, then lend a hand in the LSB, it's that simple. If you wanna see Red Hat Dominate, do nothing and just keep buying CD's from them. I don't have a problem with Red Hat, I use it on several boxes, but I would like to see the LSB get some more momentum, and that will just have to come from manhours.
If Red Hat is so secretly anti-LSB as the FUD artical says, why is Alan Cox (who works for Red Hat) one of the most active members on every LSB list?!?
I would rather just see a plain old "no OS" option, and subtract about $100 from the price!
Screw Dell's support of software (OS), if I bought a Dell, I would only call them for help if the hardware itself failed anyway, so why would I want to pay them for any OS?
"KDM works perfectly. If you can't get it working, maybe just read more manuals and howtos and don't post nonsense about the things you don't understand."
Believe me, I understand it. It doesn't work. I have tried it, I have read the docs. Unless it's changed in the last 2 weeks, it is not finished.
KDM works for general logins, and that's all. XDM is a tool to allow more than just general logins from localhost, it has a chooser implemntation, allows remote logins, and allows you to choose a remote host to login to also. KDM doesn't even include a chooser, and when you use -query or -indirect it cause X to respawn to the point where it could potentially distroy a monitor!
I don't think you realize what xdm is, and what it does, and what kdm is missing. And your flame is was un-nessessary, considering you haven't looked at the man pages and how-to's yourself, becuase it's clear it's missing chooser.
As a matter of fact KDM actually "invents" a chooser "2.2 Different window managers with kdm (chooser)" which is NOTHING to do with the actual xdm chooser! chooser allows a user to choose the SYSTEM to login to, not the window manager to be used. So, this was something where kde even went out of bounds with conventional X standards on.
For a single un-networked system, KDM is fine I guess, but for LAN management of multiple systems, KDE isn't there yet, sorry.
I would probably consider buying MSOffice for Linux, just for compatability sake for others where I work. It's not thier applications I dislike, it's there OS. I would probably be supportive if MS dumped the OS stuff or split it off into a sepreate comapany. MS Office is fairly "standard" and would make integrating Linux into corporate and educational environments a lot easier today.
I use Applix and WP8 now, and although they are ok, since I travel a bit, it does cause problems. If I have to ftp home for a file, it's almost impossable to convert to MSOffice (which is ususally the only thing avaliable on the road in places like Kinkos or something). So, you have to remember to convert before you leave, and then, the conversions never look quite as good as the original.
MS Office is ok, I HATE how it can't seem to convert HTML to a.doc in it. MS Office becoming an HTML editor was a LAME move in my opinion. But, untill a GNU Office suite matures more, I think MS Office isn't really THAT bad.
Slashdot Mirror
But, I do also reconize that there have been some advances in the ability of these things to create less eye strain. I think very shortly I am going to look into getting some glasses. I have heard from several people that I work with (who don't where prescription glasses) that there is a great benifit to getting some special glasses for using the computer. Some kind of filtering and anti-glare stuff, and it reduces eye strain.
And, have you looked at some of the newer laptops lately? CRT displays still suck on eye strain, and these "tablet" devices still use really cheap LCD (and usually grey and black, not exactly high contrast). But some of the newer laptops are really making some great progress in displays, and eyestrain while using them is a lot less than it use to be.
I think that right now they are mostly working on the other end of technology, making progress in the software and the size and power consumption of the electronics... and somewhat neglecting the displays. When they get the other hardware down, then i think they will get around to reducing eye strain (clearer, sharper, brighter displays).
As for the keyboard, well, I for one can type WAY faster than I can write, and would really miss having a keyboard. But I could deal ok with a pointer or other mouse replacement.
Well, with some investigation, and the help of a few other System Administrators, I got his exact location, and narrowed down the suspects to a single computer lab, which told let me figure out who it was (one of the ex-boyfriends of a girl I was dating frequented that computer lab, and he was a nut).
But, during this process, I the tricks I used to track him were some of these IP to Longitude and Lattitude things, and found them wildly inaccurate. It gave me his position as a networking center, and he was actually on the oppisite end of the state. The networking center held the ownership for this IP block, and therefore was the position of the IP address that was returned. But infact, this center was NOT his location, because the internal network was elabraote enough that he was actually in a related facility on the other end of the state that I tracked him to.
It wasn't the IP to Longitude and Lattitude thing that helped, it was more network tools, routing information, and mostly good System Administrators willing to help that did the job.
BTW, for what it's worth, HotMail was no help what-so-ever either. They canceled his account, and he quickly just got another through them, and kept sending stuff.
There has to be a way to see if the name Michael Scott DeWitt is registered as a lawyer somewhere. Where is Userfriendly located, it might be likely if this were real that he would hire a lawyer in his area, and a quick search of a local phone book might back up his story. If this isn't a joke (which I believe it is, as are most things that will be on /. today), then I would say that verifying the existance of Michael Scott DeWitt may be the key to uncovering the legitmacy of this shutdown.
I remember the day when people were stuffing like 4 or more AA batteries into calculators and when no one ever thought solar power would be enough to be used for anything. Then the first few solar calculators that only worked in direct sunlight. Now, a dim flourecent light is enough to power them.
A lightweight (power wise) laptop could potentially be powered by something other than a battery in the near future, it's a possability I don't write off so quickly. Technological challanges are more than power sources though, and a battery may always be nessessary for something similar to a UPS (save data before unexpected power failure).
Solar is a serious consideration, and add to that this mouse consept... I think the mouse thing isn't so far fetched, during WWII I believe there were some "crank" powered radios... It could be a "supplemental" power source for a laptop in theory. The fact of the matter is, the thing holding it back would be that the resistance (physical resistance, not electrical) would have to be very high for a mouse. It would be a mouse you would have to put some serious physical energy into in order to move it. If users could deal with giving a trackball a good healthy push to move a pointer, or a mouse pad that was more like sandpaper, this might actually generate a small amount of power. The next steps though would be decreasing the power consumption of the hardware... Where I point back to the idea of calculators in the 70's, no one ever would have believed a "solar calculator" would be anything that could be taken seriously.
Mind you, the first "adding machines" were just that, machines, not electrical devices. Physical power produced mathmatic results.
Did you get that to work?
May I refer you to http://slashdot.or g/comments.pl?sid=99/03/27/1518214&pid=151#260> ?
I was getting sick of the rapid growth of Slashdot, and the crap that was getting mixed in, and haveing to sort through all of it. Now, I can sort by score, and see the best at the top. If I want to spend the time, I can scroll down and see the junk at the bottom (where it belongs) if I wish.
Let's see... To me, I see this whole story as a series of "What if Red Hat Did X?" questions asked to any big names in Linux they could get at in a time frame to write the story.
Then, they get it ran on CNN?
I loose respect for CNN in this case. Sorry. I see no REAL evidance at all that Red Hat is doing this, or going to do this. Therefore, it's FUD in my eyes. Something I thought CNN was above.
I agree that "conflict sells." But to do something that is an overview of the negitive "what if's" that they picked up from places like SlashDot which is (Dare I say this) and insider discussion about Linux, and very casual, is just plain lame.
All the negitives I have about Slashdot aside, I still respect the fact that it's an OPEN FORUM where a Senior Programer with 30 years of experiance under his belt can get into a flame war about a technical detail with a 14 year old who just bought Red Hat at Best Buy after saving up his lunch money! That is a good thing. It opens eyes, and keeps Linux alive. It's an open window to keep seeing things from a "fresh" point of view.
But to take this as "a crediable source" for something like a CNN artical, that's FUD, and something I use to thing CNN was above publishing.
I don't doubt for a second that Red Hat will do the Right Thing(tm).
Looking at the LSB web site and I see no news of Red Hat falling off the supporters list. I don't see it there.
So, what is CNN's source? Off to the CNN artical and I read Red Hat's PRO LSB statements and quotes. I don't see it there.... Oh wait "And other Red Hat officials in recent weeks have referred to standards groups as "overhead." " Ahhh... This is the bad news? Wait a minute.
Let's see, most Buisnesses call things they have to spend money on "overhead." Not a bad thing, it's simply something needed to function. So, in a sence, it's even like saying Red Hat sees that it NEEDS the LSB to keep it's product (LINUX) alive. Without it, Red Hat would die out because of the lack of community support, and it's users would flock to any of the other dozen Linux choices (and vendors would soon follow).
So, where is the leaked internal Red Hat memo, where is the source? Where is this comming from? I don't see it. Take ONE WORD, "overhead", out of context, and do a complete "why Red Hat Sucks" spin on one out of context word from a Red Hat statement?
Bad CNN, Bad Bad Bad..... No table scraps for you tonight, go back to the dog house...
Fortran isn't as disgusting as Olde English! ;-)
English is a human language, Fortran is a computer language. The Robot is a Drunkard (as seen it the previews). Thus, drinking something called "Olde Fortran" is a pun.
If Futurama is chuck full of these little (usually un-noticed) puns, it will be like the true classics in the cartoon world, where there is humor going on at many levels, and watching something the second time (in a diffrent frame of mind) makes even the re-runs really funny.
Heh... The robot, Blender, get's drunk on something called "Olde Fortran".... Uh, am I the first one here looking forward to these kinds of jokes, or am I just old, and everyone here can't remember Fortran?
"How do we then get hundreds of different computer owners to update their systems when they didn't know what they were doing in the first place?"
I believe the case is more that your worried that _you_ don't know what _they_ are doing, not that they don't know what they are doing.
This is interesting, as I have learned from history (local department security hole where hacker comes in, and tries to get somewher else on campus from hacked box). But the problem isn't yours so much as it is the users... Just follow me for a moment...
Basically every box on your network is it's own little world, and security problem, and that problem is isolated to that IP address, if you take the right precautions. The person who set that box up is responsable for security of that system, not the campus at large or the computer department or the computer gurus.
The key to good security is to insure your not relying on inadaquite security protocol. And by inadaquite, I mean, "If the request comes from a box in our IP block, then it's safe, and we can allow it special privlages." That's LAZY security management, and the source of the bulk of your security risk.
Here, in my department, where we live in the massive IP space of ".nodak.edu" we don't want people telling us how to fix our security problems, at all! ".nodak.edu" covers the whole state, and North Dakota Higher Education Computer Network (NODAK-DOM), which means every university in the state relys on people in one city at one center for management. They are 70 miles away from us, and they don't know what we do, or why we do it.
We are very thankfull that they keep the backbone up, and keep our bandwidth sufficent, and keep the main servers and routers running. But to think about having them try to manage security for the whole state is rediculus! There are boxes I know of on our LAN with know security holes, and we realize they are there, and are leaving them there for the time being. Because the case is this, when the security patch is installed for a know hole, the applications we rely on no longer function, we submit a bug report, which takes up to 2 months to get addressed (IF it even gets acknoledged), and wait. Meanwhile, what are we to do? Fix the hole and make the rest of the campus happy, meanwhile not being able to do any work or research? Or, leave the hole, closely monitor connections and contacts, and keep doing research (which is why the computers were purchaced in the first place).
People make judgement calls, and assume risk. That's a fact of life. In order to achieve a goal, sometimes risks are taken. But, I still say, everyone has to see it's simply a case of "breach my box, my fault for not keeping track. Breach your box from my breached box, it's YOUR fault, not mine."
Ultimately, it's the hackers fault, not the admin. But the admin's job is to keep a secure box. If your worried about something being breached on your network, then you admin it. If your administration range covers more than you can the boxes you can admin, deal with the fact that you managed to work your way up the bandwidth chain, and from your level you have to deal with bigger issues, so make it clear that security on an indivual box basis is the responsbility of the person who uses that box.
I thought XiGraphics has done (is doing) more than mentioned in this FAQ. No?
So, how close is that? Is this what all the fuss is about? Seems to be the next logical step for a Print Server to me, my question would be this:
If you can use a print server, can you alias it to other IPP's so the same print server (physical box) can run multiple printers?
Can you give some more detailed instruction, or put up a How-To or something?
IMHO, the LSB is only weak because of lack of manpower. And I don't know if Red Hat supplying that would be a good thing. The LSB just needs people with time to get things going. They recently some stress over time to even keep the HTML up to date, and that's still an ongoing battle.
If you wanna see compatability, then lend a hand in the LSB, it's that simple. If you wanna see Red Hat Dominate, do nothing and just keep buying CD's from them. I don't have a problem with Red Hat, I use it on several boxes, but I would like to see the LSB get some more momentum, and that will just have to come from manhours.
If Red Hat is so secretly anti-LSB as the FUD artical says, why is Alan Cox (who works for Red Hat) one of the most active members on every LSB list?!?
- GPL'ed all software developed in house.
- Allow free download of product they sell (including manual).
- Openly communicate with competitors.
If you think those fit Microsoft, well, then maybe the two are the same.I just don't see it (and haven't since the first time I heard this FUD over a year ago).
Screw Dell's support of software (OS), if I bought a Dell, I would only call them for help if the hardware itself failed anyway, so why would I want to pay them for any OS?
Believe me, I understand it. It doesn't work. I have tried it, I have read the docs. Unless it's changed in the last 2 weeks, it is not finished.
KDM works for general logins, and that's all. XDM is a tool to allow more than just general logins from localhost, it has a chooser implemntation, allows remote logins, and allows you to choose a remote host to login to also. KDM doesn't even include a chooser, and when you use -query or -indirect it cause X to respawn to the point where it could potentially distroy a monitor!
I don't think you realize what xdm is, and what it does, and what kdm is missing. And your flame is was un-nessessary, considering you haven't looked at the man pages and how-to's yourself, becuase it's clear it's missing chooser.
As a matter of fact KDM actually "invents" a chooser "2.2 Different window managers with kdm (chooser)" which is NOTHING to do with the actual xdm chooser! chooser allows a user to choose the SYSTEM to login to, not the window manager to be used. So, this was something where kde even went out of bounds with conventional X standards on.
For a single un-networked system, KDM is fine I guess, but for LAN management of multiple systems, KDE isn't there yet, sorry.
A cool looking login thing like login.app, kdm, gdm, etc... Can be found at ftp://ftp.mindspring.com/users/genec/
RPM directories are empty... If they started a mirror, they didn't finish it.
I use Applix and WP8 now, and although they are ok, since I travel a bit, it does cause problems. If I have to ftp home for a file, it's almost impossable to convert to MSOffice (which is ususally the only thing avaliable on the road in places like Kinkos or something). So, you have to remember to convert before you leave, and then, the conversions never look quite as good as the original.
MS Office is ok, I HATE how it can't seem to convert HTML to a .doc in it. MS Office becoming an HTML editor was a LAME move in my opinion. But, untill a GNU Office suite matures more, I think MS Office isn't really THAT bad.
Your probably missing this line in your XF86Config file:
DefaultColorDepth 32