Windows plan underscores Microsoft struggle

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Another Example

Here is another case in point. My wife, an English teacher at a local University, is using Open Office at home. We could not afford the purchase of MS Office and I did not want to install a pirate version of MS Office. I did this with the guarantee that we would purchase a legal copy of MS Office if she found Open Office to difficult to use.

After 6 months side by side use, Open Office at home and MS Office at work, she has found Open Office easer to use. She has been using MS Office file formats to save her work in and for compatibility with the office computer. She has since asked me to install it on her University office computer. For two reasons:

1. As stated above she found Open Office easer to use.

2. A little bit of additional security. She will then be able to use the Open Office native file format both at work and at home. The students know only about MS products, a native Open Office file will not open directly in MS products. Should a student actually get hold of one of her tests before it is given they will have that much more difficulty in reading the file. Not impossible to read but every little bit helps.

With the MyDoom virus she has asked me to setup Mozilla Mail for her. We both like the built in anti-Spam features and anti-pop up in the bowser and I like the tabbed browsing. With multiple user profiles we do not have to log off and back on to the entire computer system to change users.

Since Mozilla and Open Office are available for Linux, she has asked me to install Linux on her home system. She has been trying a Knoppix Linux boot CD on her office computer.

Knoppix is a complete Linux OS, office apps, utilities, games and development tools, about 1.2 gig compressed on a single bootable CD. It runs strictly from CD and memory so it does slow down on older and low memory systems. Knoppix also mounts all hard drove partitions as read only so you can not easily damage the existing OS on the hard drive. When you are finished with Knoppix you just shut down the system, remove the CD and reboot from the hard drive and the original OS. Nothing has been changed.

Yes, I am an Open Source user and advocate. If my wife can use these tools and prefers them over the prevalent offerings for MS. Then I think Linux is not that big a next step for her. Yes there will be a learning curve and some frustration she is aware of that but she wants to make the move.

Maybe I will install Linux for her next weekend.

http://www.openoffice.org
http://www.mozilla.org
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html Scroll past ?Software Patents section? for more info

Posted by: phillips@...   Posted on: 02/02/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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