A new office
Sunday, 30. July 2006, 13:07:01
Well, virtually. For some reason the world still likes a lot of things on paper, written out hte slow way. I had to write up some expense claims, and I had to use a spreadsheet.
In the past I have used OpenOffice (for compatibility or for actual spreadsheeting, although there is no reason I can think of why I don't just have a widget that does it). But on Mac it requires X11, and I haven't yet installed that (since I didn't need it for anythng else yet - Amaya has "gone native", and I don't use a terminal often enough to need anything special).
So I decided to try NeoOffice. The OpenOffice team are now actively working to port to Mac native, and I look forward to them doing so. In the meantime, this is the branch of the project taht happens to meet my needs. Like all open source projects, you get a lot of duplication of relatively scarce effort. But for someone who uses even open office formats under duress, I'm bascaly bound to take the thing that interests me now. If I was going to make a serious contribution to anything, it would be to something that started by massively simplifying the data, and making it easier to re-use. OpenOffice went one step down that road, but it's still way too heavy for me.
But how is NeoOffice? So far, so good. Integrates nicely with my system, runs at a reasonable speed (on a great big monster macbookpro I would hope so - I suspect it might not be quick so snappy on my old machine), and lets me do my work. I guess I won't ever notice a lot of differences - I basically only use the spreadsheet, and on the rare occasions I accept a powerpoint presentation I look at it in NeoOffice.
Best of all, it came as a torrent. So as well as getting it effectively, I can contribute something
In the past I have used OpenOffice (for compatibility or for actual spreadsheeting, although there is no reason I can think of why I don't just have a widget that does it). But on Mac it requires X11, and I haven't yet installed that (since I didn't need it for anythng else yet - Amaya has "gone native", and I don't use a terminal often enough to need anything special).
So I decided to try NeoOffice. The OpenOffice team are now actively working to port to Mac native, and I look forward to them doing so. In the meantime, this is the branch of the project taht happens to meet my needs. Like all open source projects, you get a lot of duplication of relatively scarce effort. But for someone who uses even open office formats under duress, I'm bascaly bound to take the thing that interests me now. If I was going to make a serious contribution to anything, it would be to something that started by massively simplifying the data, and making it easier to re-use. OpenOffice went one step down that road, but it's still way too heavy for me.
But how is NeoOffice? So far, so good. Integrates nicely with my system, runs at a reasonable speed (on a great big monster macbookpro I would hope so - I suspect it might not be quick so snappy on my old machine), and lets me do my work. I guess I won't ever notice a lot of differences - I basically only use the spreadsheet, and on the rare occasions I accept a powerpoint presentation I look at it in NeoOffice.
Best of all, it came as a torrent. So as well as getting it effectively, I can contribute something
WIDGETIZE
Ben Buchanan # 30. July 2006, 23:56
I used XHTML for while, but that had to stop once I had to send stuff to upper management. I've never had a clear reason given, just that people weren't game to give things to managers and tell them to open in their browsers. I even had a template with an embedded GIF of our logo... ahh well.