yes, but this support for.doc is reverse engineered. it is not a normal situation.
with 1.2 you probably meant 2.0 (as there will be no 1.2) - actually, you can test that for yourself;)
just a couple of days ago a new developers build was released (1.9m125, aka beta2), so you can easily download that and test on documents that you have.
from my experience, compatibility has improved further, though there are also a couple of small regressions
i completely agree. i guess the reason was little testing happened in development branch - remember 2.6.0 that was released "to get more real-life testing" ?
it would be better though if we could have one stable branch that would get fixes (maybe some backports, but nothing big) and other that adventurous people would like to test.
the problem is, kernel isn't some small app that everybody could test easily - you have to configure it, compile, and it might crash your machine. i would do that now, but i wasn't ready to do that 3 years ago. also a big problem is finding out which component is guilty for a crash or whatever the problem was. it really helps if people point out the correct component instead of bashing the submitter;)
also there are a lot of times when i'm not sure wther kernel has a problem or i have misconfigured something. in some cases it is an obscure hardware problem, in some - misconfiguration, in some - kernel problem. finding out what exactly is going on is time consuming and requires some knowledge of the systems.
generally project maintainers want to know about problems with their products, so they should get ready for more and more reports that are misplaced or incorrect - dealing with them takes a lot of time already (for example, oo.org qa does a lot of work to find duplicate issues, test those that ar hard to reproduce etc - amount of time spent is comparable to amount of coding time, i think:) )and that will only increase as less experienced users start coming into gnu/kde/linux/* (hint to a recent story) land. we want them testing and reporting problems, but then we also have to deal with these reports in a sane and polite manner.
actually, there are some certs that are meaningful, though i agree - most are not. unfortunately.
and to distinguish between crappy and good certs you have to either take them yourself (if you are knowledgeable in the field) or find somebody you trust and who has taken exams.
it's the word of mouth that spreads through techies, but mostly little of it gets to hr/cios/ceos/phbs. by this word of mouth and personal experience, for example, i have developed an opinion that mcse in most cases is worth it's weigth. in paper. and lpi certification is pretty good. novell is rumoured to be a good one.
of course, requiring mcse for unix backend administrator or lpi cert for mswindows workstation administrator is an interesting practice, but inthese cases it is clear that in the position anyway will be requited incompetent person:)
a better example would be filenames & titles offered by msword that sometimes are trailing several years because poeple use the same document as a template
you might be interested in link hans reiser posted above in this article. http://www.namesys.com/whitepaper.html i just started reading it, but there is no way i could read it in one go.
did you try to get some help in oo.org mailinglists or file an issue regarding lockups ? if they were so easily reproducable, it should be easy to either resolve the problem or at least find the cause.
I'm not at home right now, but when I get back, I'll check what files Office loads, and which of those were already loaded by something else. I'm interested if they actually are using a pre-loader, even with the startup component disabled or not installed.
i once had a guy who was determined to prove to me that microsoft basically provides office with windows and 'msoffice' package simply just ties the components together & provides interface:)
i did not bother to check through that, but there are a lot of components that are very closely tied together.
Word and Excel, which are the main parts of Office that I use, tend to be very stable for me. They're not perfect, but I've only had a few crashes, and on the occasions it has crashed it's managed to recover my work from the autosave files.
you must be lucky. really. even on machines without almost any additional software i have seen crashing and/or weird msoffice installations. we still have a lot of complaints about unstable msoffice sessions at work - and these are not usual gaming kids' machines with 500 different packages installed, not counting spyware & viruses.
As for OO.o, I've had problems with it randomly segfaulting on me, taking my unsaved work with me. This might be something to do with the way my uni has it set up on their systems as opposed to the applications themselves - I'm not entirely sure. But, the uni support staff are generally competent when setting up apps for us to use.
usually they deploy one version and stick at it for years - maybe it was older version or first version in a branch ? as i said, 1.1.4 has not failed me from it's release date even once, and i am not the most polite user. maybe platform oo.org is running matters in this case ? i am running it on linux and have had only very pleasant experience:)
Missing features: the two off the top of my head are the lack of "normal mode" in the word processor, and the inability to get an equation from a trend line on a graph in the spreadsheet. These may have been added since I last used it, I'm not sure.
it's possible. last time i had a use for 'normal' mode was with msofice 95 or 97 when it was too slow in page layout mode with large documents;) have no idea about the other one, i use spreadsheets for relatively simple tasks only.
...when OO.o 2.0 comes out of beta, I'll give it another shot.
you can also get pre-2.0 builds and provide your input;)
even though it is somewhat too late to make any changes for 2.0 version except serious crashes, you can always aim for 2.0.1 or further. you are welcome:)
unless ms has silently changed something lately, this is all marketing speech. yes, you can get schemas, but nothing stops you from integrating binary streams in xml - and that's what ms are doing. it's the same format, just in a new box that is tailored to please those buyers who have been swayed by open formats - so ms figured out "let's make it look like open format, maybe slightly change the definition of 'open'... now, done".
actually, ms initially participated in oasis workgroup that developed standard now known as opendocument - but they dropped out.
microsoft office actually by default installs similar preloader (without asking, i think).
and even if you remove it from startup sequence, there still are a lot of files that are preloaded by windows that are used by msoffice.
of course, oo.org could be faster at startup, at least pre-2.0 builds tend to start faster than 1.x.
stability - uh-oh. i have seen a lot of stability problems with msoffice, people constantly complain that it is unstable, is unable to open docuemnts saved by itself (but these documents open just fine in oo.org) etc. 1.1 series of oo.org have gotten very, very stable - i was able to crash 1.1.3 now and then, but i have had no single crash or hang with 1.1.4 (and i am kinda skilled at making software crash;> ).
that's what i thought - the most interesting aspect is not breaking captchas, but the possibilities of an improved ocr.
ocrs are not good enough, but if there is software that can read some of these captchas with 100% precision (even though it is tailored for specific distortions), it might be a boost for ocr software.
i think it's somewhat it industry's basic principle that running linux/unix in servers works better than using windows for the same job. provided the person responsible knows his way around, of course:)
it's not only locking down the systems, but also maintenance required - we have here some servers that have been running for a lot of years without single failure - only a couple of easy software updates/upgrades.
these are linux boxes, but then when i think about it... we also have netware boxes that have been running for even longer periods of time and only hardware failures have interrupted them.
though now novell has gone linux path, so you can also say that they fall into linux cathegory of the mantra "linux and unix are stable and perform exceptionally well at server side":)
workstations - actually there is nothing hard about using a linux box once it is properly set up. and it is becoming more and more easy to set them up (novell, mandrake and a couple of other distributions installs are very, very easy to perform, other distributions also are improving).
also, ease of use differs a lot for different people and needs, so probably distinction between knowledgable and first time users should be assessed before evaluating (for exmple, advanced user will feel that slackware is easier to use because it is easier to make changes at lower level, but a new user will better like mandarke's ability to easily make simple changes).
for workstations good gui is important (well, those couple interesting people that would like everybody to use cli exclusevly we will not take into account;) ), but for servers it is almost of no use. you can do a lot more in cli if you must perform a lot of changes or unified actions. so, ease of use for workstation will be mostly determined by ease of use for gui tools, for servers it would be more functionality than straight ease of use that would determine overall ease of use.
for example, sed is far from easy to use, but it would be much more useless if it was easier to use, but had less functionality.
oh. now when i start to write sentences like this i probably have to end this working day at 20:00 =)
The idea/concept belongs to the company that developed it, not the people that develped it.
i don't know why, but this sounds scary. it's the opposite of everything for the poeple. maybe next should follow a legislation that disallow people to invent unless they work in a company...
also, there is another phrase in this sentence that i just can'tfully support. the owning of ideas.
there are so much trends today that might lead to serious constraints. think of 1984 on an even broader scale.
no, i do not delete cookies. i don't much care about them (though i do not accept those with incorrect paths). i just don't see ads - both on internet & tv. on internet this is somewhat easier with blockers, on a tv i have a reflex of turning down the sound when ads start and do something useful (like, er, make a tea).
if somebody can get out from my browsing habits what things i want - well, nice, in that case it shapes market in a way that i would prefer it.
i don't see the big deal with cookies & their deletion - just make good ads. there so few really good ads, it's disgusting how much crap people can create and handle. i actually try to see ads that look interesting (and sometimes even several times. for example, some sprite ads ar great, even though i do not drink sprite) - but i miss most of them because i don't watch tv during ads...
and i can't remember when was the last time i saw an ad on the internet - i just concentrate on the content and don't see them. of course, lately subtle advertising is becoming more and more popular, for example, positive comments, positive articles and so on (and to keep the analogy with tv - movies showing people using different brand products).
if case somebody really dislikes ads (i do), probably capitalism should be ditched. there is no way advertising is going away, it is becoming only more and more visible and obtrusive.
slashdot's sarch sucks, so i can't find original comment, it was worded very nicely:)
they will add marketshare. that will improve hardware (mostly drivers/specifications) & software (especially the ones that come with your digital photocamera, scanner etcetc) support.
they will use decent browsers, so there will be more motivation to create webpages that are closer to standards than browser bug workarounds.
more people will be exposed to oss at work, so when they will find out that this software is free and they are encouraged to use and distribute it, they might just do it.
some companies will buy support & pay programmers for coding that little simple but needed feature.
We (the community) need to understand that *every* user contributes to the success of Linux. By donating their tiny portion of mindshare, those users convince commercial hardware and software companies that Linux is worth supporting. Their existence convinces web designers that there is life beyond Windows, and that sites should work with 'alternate' browsers (and not rely on Macromedia crap).
oh. of i had modpoints... best post i have seen in this thread so far;)
of course, microsoft is perceived as the only dealer - but you must also take into account reasons why is it so. are there legacy applications ? are there compatibility issues ? or is it simply a lack of information about other dealers ? for mentioned most people that probably would be the latter.
i wouldn't say there is an extreme lack of choice - you just have to know what to choose.
just yesterday i spoke to a person that qualifies as "receiver of free family/friends support". he was interested in a new computer for basic word processing, spreadsheets and internet browsing. he already uses openoffice.org, firefox/opera, so he knew he doesn't have to buy some expensive software in that area. but he was pretty sure that he would have to buy (or pirate) windows anyway. given that he does not depend on legacy apps, his needs are relatively simple - there are a lot of 'dealers' that he can go to. and that's where i'm taking him;)
Re:I liked Internet Explorer 7 the first time...
on
IE7 Bugs and Reviews
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· Score: 1
i've never heard such claims. also, it can be customized pretty much, so it also can be really simple, if needed.
which parts exactly are referred to as complicated ?
Re:I liked Internet Explorer 7 the first time...
on
IE7 Bugs and Reviews
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· Score: 1
that's what i thought when i saw screenshots. of course, browsers can't differ much, but ie7 looks a lot more like ff/opera than ie-previous-versions.
well, nice to know that ms is following other browsers - what was it about copying being the biggest for of flattery ?
That's got some validity, but would you pay full price for a new car that had doors that wouldn't lock, the engine stopped at random times and required a minute to restart, and whenever you stopped at a gas station, strange heavy things were loaded into the trunk and you had to take it in for service to get them out?
let's see... i would by another car. will this do ?
I agree that this is troubling, but I don't think we need to panic yet.
this probably is the scariest part. remember all predictions about big brother, police state etc ? heck, even playing deus ex it was like "wah, this sounds too impossible" - and now we see these things happen. it's just that poeple are introduced to all kinds of restrictions/monitoring slowly, in the name of "own safety" - and do not notice that they would have screamed a couple of decades ago about such a situation.
Slashdot Mirror
yes, but this support for .doc is reverse engineered. it is not a normal situation.
;)
with 1.2 you probably meant 2.0 (as there will be no 1.2) - actually, you can test that for yourself
just a couple of days ago a new developers build was released (1.9m125, aka beta2), so you can easily download that and test on documents that you have.
from my experience, compatibility has improved further, though there are also a couple of small regressions
umm. for linux ? or is there a requirement to buy windows ?
i completely agree. i guess the reason was little testing happened in development branch - remember 2.6.0 that was released "to get more real-life testing" ?
;)
:) )and that will only increase as less experienced users start coming into gnu/kde/linux/* (hint to a recent story) land. we want them testing and reporting problems, but then we also have to deal with these reports in a sane and polite manner.
it would be better though if we could have one stable branch that would get fixes (maybe some backports, but nothing big) and other that adventurous people would like to test.
the problem is, kernel isn't some small app that everybody could test easily - you have to configure it, compile, and it might crash your machine. i would do that now, but i wasn't ready to do that 3 years ago. also a big problem is finding out which component is guilty for a crash or whatever the problem was. it really helps if people point out the correct component instead of bashing the submitter
also there are a lot of times when i'm not sure wther kernel has a problem or i have misconfigured something. in some cases it is an obscure hardware problem, in some - misconfiguration, in some - kernel problem. finding out what exactly is going on is time consuming and requires some knowledge of the systems.
generally project maintainers want to know about problems with their products, so they should get ready for more and more reports that are misplaced or incorrect - dealing with them takes a lot of time already (for example, oo.org qa does a lot of work to find duplicate issues, test those that ar hard to reproduce etc - amount of time spent is comparable to amount of coding time, i think
actually, there are some certs that are meaningful, though i agree - most are not. unfortunately.
:)
and to distinguish between crappy and good certs you have to either take them yourself (if you are knowledgeable in the field) or find somebody you trust and who has taken exams.
it's the word of mouth that spreads through techies, but mostly little of it gets to hr/cios/ceos/phbs. by this word of mouth and personal experience, for example, i have developed an opinion that mcse in most cases is worth it's weigth. in paper. and lpi certification is pretty good. novell is rumoured to be a good one.
of course, requiring mcse for unix backend administrator or lpi cert for mswindows workstation administrator is an interesting practice, but inthese cases it is clear that in the position anyway will be requited incompetent person
a better example would be filenames & titles offered by msword that sometimes are trailing several years because poeple use the same document as a template
you might be interested in link hans reiser posted above in this article.
http://www.namesys.com/whitepaper.html
i just started reading it, but there is no way i could read it in one go.
slackware.
:)
2.6 is in testing, 2.4 - default. there is full support for 2.6.
generally i tend to use 2.6 for workstations and 2.4 for servers that i would prefer to put up and forget
did you try to get some help in oo.org mailinglists or file an issue regarding lockups ?
if they were so easily reproducable, it should be easy to either resolve the problem or at least find the cause.
I'm not at home right now, but when I get back, I'll check what files Office loads, and which of those were already loaded by something else. I'm interested if they actually are using a pre-loader, even with the startup component disabled or not installed.
:)
:)
;)
...when OO.o 2.0 comes out of beta, I'll give it another shot.
;)
:)
i once had a guy who was determined to prove to me that microsoft basically provides office with windows and 'msoffice' package simply just ties the components together & provides interface
i did not bother to check through that, but there are a lot of components that are very closely tied together.
Word and Excel, which are the main parts of Office that I use, tend to be very stable for me. They're not perfect, but I've only had a few crashes, and on the occasions it has crashed it's managed to recover my work from the autosave files.
you must be lucky. really. even on machines without almost any additional software i have seen crashing and/or weird msoffice installations. we still have a lot of complaints about unstable msoffice sessions at work - and these are not usual gaming kids' machines with 500 different packages installed, not counting spyware & viruses.
As for OO.o, I've had problems with it randomly segfaulting on me, taking my unsaved work with me. This might be something to do with the way my uni has it set up on their systems as opposed to the applications themselves - I'm not entirely sure. But, the uni support staff are generally competent when setting up apps for us to use.
usually they deploy one version and stick at it for years - maybe it was older version or first version in a branch ? as i said, 1.1.4 has not failed me from it's release date even once, and i am not the most polite user.
maybe platform oo.org is running matters in this case ? i am running it on linux and have had only very pleasant experience
Missing features: the two off the top of my head are the lack of "normal mode" in the word processor, and the inability to get an equation from a trend line on a graph in the spreadsheet. These may have been added since I last used it, I'm not sure.
it's possible. last time i had a use for 'normal' mode was with msofice 95 or 97 when it was too slow in page layout mode with large documents
have no idea about the other one, i use spreadsheets for relatively simple tasks only.
you can also get pre-2.0 builds and provide your input
even though it is somewhat too late to make any changes for 2.0 version except serious crashes, you can always aim for 2.0.1 or further. you are welcome
unless ms has silently changed something lately, this is all marketing speech. yes, you can get schemas, but nothing stops you from integrating binary streams in xml - and that's what ms are doing. it's the same format, just in a new box that is tailored to please those buyers who have been swayed by open formats - so ms figured out "let's make it look like open format, maybe slightly change the definition of 'open'... now, done".
actually, ms initially participated in oasis workgroup that developed standard now known as opendocument - but they dropped out.
microsoft office actually by default installs similar preloader (without asking, i think).
;> ).
and even if you remove it from startup sequence, there still are a lot of files that are preloaded by windows that are used by msoffice.
of course, oo.org could be faster at startup, at least pre-2.0 builds tend to start faster than 1.x.
stability - uh-oh. i have seen a lot of stability problems with msoffice, people constantly complain that it is unstable, is unable to open docuemnts saved by itself (but these documents open just fine in oo.org) etc.
1.1 series of oo.org have gotten very, very stable - i was able to crash 1.1.3 now and then, but i have had no single crash or hang with 1.1.4 (and i am kinda skilled at making software crash
btw, what features are you missing in oo.org ?
mm. actually this is a pretty nice idea :)
supplying a false information has always been very efficient way for making enemy fail.
that's what i thought - the most interesting aspect is not breaking captchas, but the possibilities of an improved ocr.
ocrs are not good enough, but if there is software that can read some of these captchas with 100% precision (even though it is tailored for specific distortions), it might be a boost for ocr software.
i think it's somewhat it industry's basic principle that running linux/unix in servers works better than using windows for the same job. :)
:)
;) ), but for servers it is almost of no use. you can do a lot more in cli if you must perform a lot of changes or unified actions.
provided the person responsible knows his way around, of course
it's not only locking down the systems, but also maintenance required - we have here some servers that have been running for a lot of years without single failure - only a couple of easy software updates/upgrades.
these are linux boxes, but then when i think about it... we also have netware boxes that have been running for even longer periods of time and only hardware failures have interrupted them.
though now novell has gone linux path, so you can also say that they fall into linux cathegory of the mantra "linux and unix are stable and perform exceptionally well at server side"
workstations - actually there is nothing hard about using a linux box once it is properly set up. and it is becoming more and more easy to set them up (novell, mandrake and a couple of other distributions installs are very, very easy to perform, other distributions also are improving).
also, ease of use differs a lot for different people and needs, so probably distinction between knowledgable and first time users should be assessed before evaluating (for exmple, advanced user will feel that slackware is easier to use because it is easier to make changes at lower level, but a new user will better like mandarke's ability to easily make simple changes).
for workstations good gui is important (well, those couple interesting people that would like everybody to use cli exclusevly we will not take into account
so, ease of use for workstation will be mostly determined by ease of use for gui tools, for servers it would be more functionality than straight ease of use that would determine overall ease of use.
for example, sed is far from easy to use, but it would be much more useless if it was easier to use, but had less functionality.
oh. now when i start to write sentences like this i probably have to end this working day at 20:00 =)
yes, everybody must be native english speaker. especially this polish person.
dumbass
The idea/concept belongs to the company that developed it, not the people that develped it.
i don't know why, but this sounds scary.
it's the opposite of everything for the poeple. maybe next should follow a legislation that disallow people to invent unless they work in a company...
also, there is another phrase in this sentence that i just can'tfully support. the owning of ideas.
there are so much trends today that might lead to serious constraints. think of 1984 on an even broader scale.
no, i do not delete cookies. i don't much care about them (though i do not accept those with incorrect paths).
i just don't see ads - both on internet & tv. on internet this is somewhat easier with blockers, on a tv i have a reflex of turning down the sound when ads start and do something useful (like, er, make a tea).
if somebody can get out from my browsing habits what things i want - well, nice, in that case it shapes market in a way that i would prefer it.
i don't see the big deal with cookies & their deletion - just make good ads. there so few really good ads, it's disgusting how much crap people can create and handle.
i actually try to see ads that look interesting (and sometimes even several times. for example, some sprite ads ar great, even though i do not drink sprite) - but i miss most of them because i don't watch tv during ads...
and i can't remember when was the last time i saw an ad on the internet - i just concentrate on the content and don't see them. of course, lately subtle advertising is becoming more and more popular, for example, positive comments, positive articles and so on (and to keep the analogy with tv - movies showing people using different brand products).
if case somebody really dislikes ads (i do), probably capitalism should be ditched. there is no way advertising is going away, it is becoming only more and more visible and obtrusive.
slashdot's sarch sucks, so i can't find original comment, it was worded very nicely :)
:)
they will add marketshare. that will improve hardware (mostly drivers/specifications) & software (especially the ones that come with your digital photocamera, scanner etcetc) support.
they will use decent browsers, so there will be more motivation to create webpages that are closer to standards than browser bug workarounds.
more people will be exposed to oss at work, so when they will find out that this software is free and they are encouraged to use and distribute it, they might just do it.
some companies will buy support & pay programmers for coding that little simple but needed feature.
that is a lot to add, you know
We (the community) need to understand that *every* user contributes to the success of Linux. By donating their tiny portion of mindshare, those users convince commercial hardware and software companies that Linux is worth supporting. Their existence convinces web designers that there is life beyond Windows, and that sites should work with 'alternate' browsers (and not rely on Macromedia crap).
;)
oh. of i had modpoints... best post i have seen in this thread so far
well, that's probably of little use to us, pesky earthlings with only five fingers per hand.
of course, microsoft is perceived as the only dealer - but you must also take into account reasons why is it so. are there legacy applications ? are there compatibility issues ? or is it simply a lack of information about other dealers ?
;)
for mentioned most people that probably would be the latter.
i wouldn't say there is an extreme lack of choice - you just have to know what to choose.
just yesterday i spoke to a person that qualifies as "receiver of free family/friends support". he was interested in a new computer for basic word processing, spreadsheets and internet browsing. he already uses openoffice.org, firefox/opera, so he knew he doesn't have to buy some expensive software in that area. but he was pretty sure that he would have to buy (or pirate) windows anyway. given that he does not depend on legacy apps, his needs are relatively simple - there are a lot of 'dealers' that he can go to. and that's where i'm taking him
i've never heard such claims.
also, it can be customized pretty much, so it also can be really simple, if needed.
which parts exactly are referred to as complicated ?
that's what i thought when i saw screenshots. of course, browsers can't differ much, but ie7 looks a lot more like ff/opera than ie-previous-versions.
well, nice to know that ms is following other browsers - what was it about copying being the biggest for of flattery ?
let's see... i would by another car. will this do ?
this probably is the scariest part. remember all predictions about big brother, police state etc ? heck, even playing deus ex it was like "wah, this sounds too impossible" - and now we see these things happen. it's just that poeple are introduced to all kinds of restrictions/monitoring slowly, in the name of "own safety" - and do not notice that they would have screamed a couple of decades ago about such a situation.