Re: Video Cards

On Tue, 2006-11-14 at 11:52 -0700, Eric "Shubes" wrote:
> Craig White wrote:
> >
> > As for not being able to run Microsoft Office on Linux...
> >
> > - Open Office opens/saves .doc/.xls/.pps files (as well as their
> > template brethren)
> > - These file types are soon to be extinct
> > - Open Office also opens/saves open document format (link provided last
> > email)
> > - Microsoft Office does not open/save open document formats
> > - Open Office also includes Draw & Base at no extra cost
> > - Open Office is free, open source, freely distributable
> > - Microsoft Office (depending upon flavor) costs between $300 - $600 per
> > user
> >
> > The only issue Microsoft Office presents is Outlook which is murderous
> > if you are not using Exchange Server and if you are using Exchange
> > Server, you get it free anyway.
>
> Let's not forget the time and expense of training staff who are proficient
> with M$ Office to use OO instead. I made that mistake once. Not a trivial
> endeavor.
----
You raise a valid point in a rather invalid way.

staff that is proficient in Microsoft Office won't need much training at
all because they already get it. There are a lot of PDF's at OOo now,
including one for users familiar with Microsoft Office.

The people who aren't actually proficient at using Microsoft Office -
which is just about everybody, merely know enough to launch the program
and type what they need to type. They need training anyway.

The dark, dirty secret is that the Office Suite programs are bloated
with features that exceedingly few people know how to use and most
people could get by with a simple text editor. Very few Microsoft Office
users understand sections, styles, etc. Very few Microsoft Office users
can create an Excel formula beyond the 4 basic math functions + - / *
Those that can do sections, styles, if/then/else formulas aren't gonna
need much training.

All of this misses the real point of what is really necessary...that is
going to become more obvious as time marches on...the Microsoft document
formats that everybody uses are essentially toast. Documents are headed
to XML whether Microsoft driven or Oasis Open Document format. Microsoft
steadfastly refuses to adopt the Oasis Open Document Format and wants to
drive the storage types to their XML formats. This can't be allowed to
happen if you value data.

I will repeat...take a look at the schema and also the issues about
licensing because Microsoft's licensing is patent encumbered...

Oasis Open Document Format for Office Applications
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/12572/OpenDocument-v1.0-os.pdf

Microsoft Office 2003 XML Schemas [*]
http://www.microsoft.com/office/xml/default.mspx

* note that I reference the page since the download is an 'msi' which is
a proprietary file type that only is useful to Windows Installer - thus
even the specification is meaningless to users on other platforms.

Craig

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