After three years of development, OOo 3.0 is finally here with a bunch of new features and enhancements. Linux Format looks at the changes and rates the suite's overall performance, and you can try it yourself by downloading a copy from here.
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Member since:2007-12-08
I think you might have forgotten what it's like to be in school. If the instructor wants a doc file, you do not send a pdf. If something like spacing, margins, or anything else is off they're probably not going to cut you slack for using openoffice or accept that different word processors are going to produce different results. Especially when you're the only one in class who seems to have trouble with it. Now, I 'was' able to do all my papers in openoffice. But I can see why someone might be nervous about it.
Member since:2006-09-27
I know exactly what you feel. In some situations, having 90% compatibility is almost just as bad as having 0% compatibility. IMHO, one has to live with the fact that sometimes you just can't use the tools you prefer. If you try to make do with bad compatibility you end up hating the not-quite-compatible FOSS application, when it may be a great tool on its own if you remove the strict format compatibility requirement. It's a good thing to raise awareness about alternatives, but you have to keep your marks and then your job.
I most appreciate OO's compatibility with MS Office when importing documents, but AFAIK, completely seamless interaction between the two office suites is just not possible at the moment.
Member since:2008-07-15
Yep I got bit by that one, funny thing is I was using Office 2003 at the time and they were using Office XP (no I didn't *want* to use 2003 but that was what they had on some of the systems at the time). Different versions of office don't always treat their own files the same, so that's an issue bigger than simply Openoffice's word compatibility. And don't even get me started on opening Office 2000-created files in 2007, that can be worse than OO in some cases, much worse. Same for office on the PC vs on the Mac, it can be a nightmare.
The thing is, even with a so-called standard document format, people have different ideas of what some of the features mean and how they behave. So I'm not sure we'll ever have 100% compatibility across office suites even with the same file formats. And then there's those that ignore the standard or deliberately use it differently to "add features."
Member since:2005-07-24
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it."I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)"."The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight.""And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.
Member since:
2005-07-24
You said that using OO.o would be "gambling with your grades":
That's spreading "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt" in my book. And when confronted you quickly changed the subject.
If it is that critical that the document look *exactly* as you want it, you should be using a format like PDF. MS Office documents don't print out or view exactly the same even between different versions of MS Office. Why gamble on your grades by using it?
Edited 2008-10-13 16:15 UTC