RE: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Kevin Kinsey Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 9:57 AM To: Ted Mittelstaedt Cc: freebsd-questions Subject: Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher? Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: When I wrote my book Addison Wesley used Quark internally, but required me to submit my manuscript -on paper-. They then retyped it, sent me the proofs (which had enormous numbers of typos in them) I corrected and sent back. I asked them if I gave them the manuscript in Quark source files if they would take that, (because I had access to a pirated copy of Quark and figured I would import what I had written my book in) and they would not. They required a paper manuscript. Thus, use whatever you want to write your book - if your going to get it published most likely your publisher will not be using what your using. :-D --- a good insight. Team written books with some of today's publishers are even worse --- some friends of mine had a tome published with plenty of errors, including Microsoft Word auto-corrections inside their code blocks (I will grant that the publisher wasn't quite Addison-Wesley in stature). It's pretty easy to understand why many people choose to publish their work privately these days. :-) Actually, that's not it. Excuse my ranting but there's several bad things driving private publishing these days. The publishers got the scent of blood with the Harry Potter books, in some ways those books ruined the book publishing industry. Before, nobody thought a mere book could garner that kind of money. Today, they all think this and so are all looking for the next Harry Potter series. As a result the publishing companies are buying manuscripts that they think are going to be big sellers based on what their marketing people think is selling, and not caring if the work is crap or not. Good work that would likely have a niche market is being turned down, crappy work that they think is widely appealing is being published. And for example my book - well, it did make money. But, not a lot of it. 20 years ago, all the publishing houses wanted was for a book to make money, they didn't care if it was a lot of money as long as it made some. They made their living off of a huge stable of books, all not making a lot of money, but making some. But, today, it's not good enough for a book to make some money, it has to make a phenominal amount of money. That's not to say that AW treated me badly, quite the contrary. But, once my book had it's run, and they had a reading on what they could make off of the FreeBSD market, they had no further interest in any more FreeBSD books. At least, for then. (that was 7 years ago, of course) No doubt if I were to decide to write a Linux book they would probably be very interested. Of course, such a book would have to be aimed at desktop users, and that's not my interest area. I suspect that eventually when another decade has gone by and we don't see another Harry Potter series rearing it's head out of the unknown muck, the publishing houses will get back to the work of just looking for good works for large and small markets, developing up and coming authors, and all the stuff they used to do B.H.P. I might put my foot back into the water at that time, as well. Ted ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?
Ted Mittelstaedt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The publishers got the scent of blood with the Harry Potter books, in some ways those books ruined the book publishing industry. Before, nobody thought a mere book could garner that kind of money. Today, they all think this and so are all looking for the next Harry Potter series. As a result the publishing companies are buying manuscripts that they think are going to be big sellers based on what their marketing people think is selling, and not caring if the work is crap or not. Good work that would likely have a niche market is being turned down, crappy work that they think is widely appealing is being published. This has nothing to do with Harry Potter, it started long before that. I suspect that eventually when another decade has gone by and we don't see another Harry Potter series rearing it's head out of the unknown muck, the publishing houses will get back to the work of just looking for good works for large and small markets, developing up and coming authors, and all the stuff they used to do B.H.P. I doubt it. You know why? Because the publishers are at the mercy of retailers, and retailers - especially supermarkets and large chains - aren't in the business of selling books, they are in the business of selling *a* book. You know which book I mean: the one that's piled waist high on a pallet right inside the door. Everything else in the store is a loss. A book doesn't have to stay on the shelf very long for the hypothetical profit to be eaten up by the cost of storing it and of tying up your cash in inventory. They might as well glue the books to the shelves, and save the cost of processing a hypothetical sale and restocking. The pallet is *it*. Customers don't seem to mind - when you're looking for something to read on the train or give away as a present or you just want to be able to follow the conversation around the water cooler at work, you rarely go further than the pallet. The odds are, that's the book your colleagues are discussing anyway. This is the same phenomenon that, in the game industry, killed the combat flight simulator and almost killed the adventure game. It's not that people don't buy them, it's that retailers don't want to sell them because they don't sell in large volumes immediately upon their release. It's slightly better for technical books, because they're not interchangeable to the same degree that novels are. Things might change if consumers shift massively from buying books in stores to buying them online. They haven't yet, and I don't know when (or whether) they will. DES -- Dag-Erling Smørgrav - [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Dag-Erling Smørgrav Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 9:36 AM To: Ted Mittelstaedt Cc: freebsd-questions Subject: Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices,Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher? Ted Mittelstaedt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The publishers got the scent of blood with the Harry Potter books, in some ways those books ruined the book publishing industry. Before, nobody thought a mere book could garner that kind of money. Today, they all think this and so are all looking for the next Harry Potter series. As a result the publishing companies are buying manuscripts that they think are going to be big sellers based on what their marketing people think is selling, and not caring if the work is crap or not. Good work that would likely have a niche market is being turned down, crappy work that they think is widely appealing is being published. This has nothing to do with Harry Potter, it started long before that. I suspect that eventually when another decade has gone by and we don't see another Harry Potter series rearing it's head out of the unknown muck, the publishing houses will get back to the work of just looking for good works for large and small markets, developing up and coming authors, and all the stuff they used to do B.H.P. I doubt it. You know why? Because the publishers are at the mercy of retailers, and retailers - especially supermarkets and large chains - aren't in the business of selling books, they are in the business of selling *a* book. You know which book I mean: the one that's piled waist high on a pallet right inside the door. Everything else in the store is a loss. A book doesn't have to stay on the shelf very long for the hypothetical profit to be eaten up by the cost of storing it and of tying up your cash in inventory. They might as well glue the books to the shelves, and save the cost of processing a hypothetical sale and restocking. The pallet is *it*. Customers don't seem to mind - when you're looking for something to read on the train or give away as a present or you just want to be able to follow the conversation around the water cooler at work, you rarely go further than the pallet. The odds are, that's the book your colleagues are discussing anyway. Sigh. All very true. And the worst part of it is, I kid you not, SEVEN FRAGGING YEARS after AW has shipped books to some of these retailers I am STILL getting chargebacks on my royalties for returned books. Oh, the quantity isn't high - it's down to about maybe 5-10 books a quarter now - but those retailers appear to have no problem with letting a book sit for 5 years, then returning it for credit back to the publisher. I have no clue why AW gives them credit. Probably, they are afraid of never getting an order from the retailer again. Luckily I had the foresight to not sign an advance contract, so they have no legal claim to get the money out of me - but if I ever publish with them again, I'm sure that negative balance will come out of the woodwork. This is the same phenomenon that, in the game industry, killed the combat flight simulator and almost killed the adventure game. It's not that people don't buy them, it's that retailers don't want to sell them because they don't sell in large volumes immediately upon their release. Yes, and that is why I buy less and less specific stuff from retailers. I only buy commodity items nowadays from retailers. Case in point. When I put together my latest server from leftovers, 3 fans were bad, one was on the CPU heatsink and the other two were in an odd area of the case. There was no way in hell that I could buy replacements locally. And these were not strange sized fans. The best I could do is a local electronics distributor could order them for me. At about $10-$15 per fan. And I'm in the middle of a city, not in podunkville. I ended up waiting a few days and buying them online - grand total for all 3 was under $15, and they were good quality ball bearing, not sleeve bearing junk. Time was that the retailers understood that at any given time, 1/3 to 1/2 of their inventory wouldn't make money because it would just move too slow. However, the existence of said inventory would draw the customers into the store and keep them coming back. And when they were in the store they would be buying the profitable stuff because it was convenient, because they were standing right there. Then the MBAs moved in and told the retailers to dump everything that didn't move fast. So the retailers trimmed inventory, and reduced the number of sku's on the shelf. Now the retailers are wondering why all the customers are leaving them and buying at the big box stores. It's because when the strip mall retailer has the same inventory that the big box retailer has, you might as well save money at the big box. I've seen
Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?
Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: When I wrote my book Addison Wesley used Quark internally, but required me to submit my manuscript -on paper-. They then retyped it, sent me the proofs (which had enormous numbers of typos in them) I corrected and sent back. I asked them if I gave them the manuscript in Quark source files if they would take that, (because I had access to a pirated copy of Quark and figured I would import what I had written my book in) and they would not. They required a paper manuscript. Thus, use whatever you want to write your book - if your going to get it published most likely your publisher will not be using what your using. :-D --- a good insight. Team written books with some of today's publishers are even worse --- some friends of mine had a tome published with plenty of errors, including Microsoft Word auto-corrections inside their code blocks (I will grant that the publisher wasn't quite Addison-Wesley in stature). It's pretty easy to understand why many people choose to publish their work privately these days. Kevin Kinsey -- Credit ... is the only enduring testimonial to man's confidence in man. -- James Blish ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?
Murray Taylor wrote: -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Garrett Cooper Sent: Sunday, 29 April 2007 4:28 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher? [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: OpenOffice in OSX still isn't that great either because there still isn't a native (Aqua) build. I suspect the NeoOffice folks would be surprised to hear that :) Yes _.. I mean that the latest and greatest version of OOo isn't available for Aqua native yet. It's going to take another year to port, as someone has claimed already. There was a big leap in terms of functionality from 1.x vs 2.x in OOo, but then again considering that the OP was asking about running Office 98 (:D..), I don't think he'd mind running the 1.x version binaries. -Garrett As the original poster wants to write books may I suggest that he use a text editor and then a typesetter combination rather than any form of WYSIWYG wordprocessor. IE use (insert favourite text editor here) then use the LaTeX / Tetex port to actually properly format the material as a book. Yes there is a learning curve here, but the end result is all over a wordprocessed attempt. mjt Good point. I fully agree with Murray, because I've found many WYSIWYG editors to have large shortcomings when it comes to writing properly formatted documents. I still have to fight Word 2003 to not erase bullets in a larger document I maintain, at its own whim, not mine. I can't begin to imagine what Publisher 98 would be like (ew..). LaTeX works wonderfully for regularly written documents and Texinfo for technical documents or procedure manuals. Then for writing web documents, you can always invest some time in just learning VIM + colorizing the output, or maybe invest in a WYSIWYG HTML editor, and touch up little things here and there. Bluefish works wonderfully for this purpose I've discovered. -Garrett ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Murray Taylor Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2007 7:28 PM To: Garrett Cooper; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: RE: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices,Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher? -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Garrett Cooper Sent: Sunday, 29 April 2007 4:28 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher? [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: OpenOffice in OSX still isn't that great either because there still isn't a native (Aqua) build. I suspect the NeoOffice folks would be surprised to hear that :) Yes _.. I mean that the latest and greatest version of OOo isn't available for Aqua native yet. It's going to take another year to port, as someone has claimed already. There was a big leap in terms of functionality from 1.x vs 2.x in OOo, but then again considering that the OP was asking about running Office 98 (:D..), I don't think he'd mind running the 1.x version binaries. -Garrett As the original poster wants to write books may I suggest that he use a text editor and then a typesetter combination rather than any form of WYSIWYG wordprocessor. IE use (insert favourite text editor here) then use the LaTeX / Tetex port to actually properly format the material as a book. Yes there is a learning curve here, but the end result is all over a wordprocessed attempt. When I wrote my book Addison Wesley used Quark internally, but required me to submit my manuscript -on paper-. They then retyped it, sent me the proofs (which had enormous numbers of typos in them) I corrected and sent back. I asked them if I gave them the manuscript in Quark source files if they would take that, (because I had access to a pirated copy of Quark and figured I would import what I had written my book in) and they would not. They required a paper manuscript. Thus, use whatever you want to write your book - if your going to get it published most likely your publisher will not be using what your using. Ted ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?
On Sun, Apr 29, 2007 at 12:16:58AM -0700, Garrett Cooper wrote: LaTeX works wonderfully for regularly written documents and Texinfo for technical documents or procedure manuals. Then for writing web documents, you can always invest some time in just learning VIM + colorizing the output, or maybe invest in a WYSIWYG HTML editor, and touch up little things here and there. Bluefish works wonderfully for this purpose I've discovered. There's still another alternative: use a Wiki like MoinMoin to write your book. You can then export the final version into a format that can be ultimately converted into PDF. For example, MoinMoin Wiki supports DocBook, which can be converted into HTML, LaTeX etc... As a bonus, with a Wiki, you can retrieve previous versions of pages for free and look at diffs you made between them, without having to learn how to use a source code control system like CVS or Subversion. With FreeBSD (or Linux, OSX ...), it's trivial to install MoinMoin with an internal web server (Apache or Lighttd). You could then use your favorite browser on the same machine or, if you prefer, on any other machine (e.g. @home, @work, ...) and could always access your (password protected) book draft. You may even have it peer-reviewed and copy-edited by your publisher's team once it's ready. It all boils down to this: what works best for you is just a matter of personal taste and work habits. Regards, -cpghost. -- Cordula's Web. http://www.cordula.ws/ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?
On Sat, 2007-04-28 at 16:32 +0800, Zhang Weiwu wrote: Frankly it's so much easier on wine. If something doesn't work on wine, s/on/than/ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?
-Original Message- From: Ted Mittelstaedt [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, 29 April 2007 6:41 PM To: Murray Taylor; Garrett Cooper; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: RE: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices,Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher? -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Murray Taylor Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2007 7:28 PM To: Garrett Cooper; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: RE: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices,Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher? -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Garrett Cooper Sent: Sunday, 29 April 2007 4:28 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher? [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: OpenOffice in OSX still isn't that great either because there still isn't a native (Aqua) build. I suspect the NeoOffice folks would be surprised to hear that :) Yes _.. I mean that the latest and greatest version of OOo isn't available for Aqua native yet. It's going to take another year to port, as someone has claimed already. There was a big leap in terms of functionality from 1.x vs 2.x in OOo, but then again considering that the OP was asking about running Office 98 (:D..), I don't think he'd mind running the 1.x version binaries. -Garrett As the original poster wants to write books may I suggest that he use a text editor and then a typesetter combination rather than any form of WYSIWYG wordprocessor. IE use (insert favourite text editor here) then use the LaTeX / Tetex port to actually properly format the material as a book. Yes there is a learning curve here, but the end result is all over a wordprocessed attempt. When I wrote my book Addison Wesley used Quark internally, but required me to submit my manuscript -on paper-. They then retyped it, sent me the proofs (which had enormous numbers of typos in them) I corrected and sent back. I asked them if I gave them the manuscript in Quark source files if they would take that, (because I had access to a pirated copy of Quark and figured I would import what I had written my book in) and they would not. They required a paper manuscript. Thus, use whatever you want to write your book - if your going to get it published most likely your publisher will not be using what your using. Ted I suppose the only true response to this situation is to note ( with / without interest ) that Luddites(*) still exist. (*) Ludd*ite Pronunciation: 'l-dIt Function: noun Etymology: perhaps from Ned Ludd, 18th century Leicestershire workman who destroyed a knitting frame : one of a group of early 19th century English workmen destroying laborsaving machinery as a protest; broadly : one who is opposed to especially technological change mjt --- The information transmitted in this e-mail is for the exclusive use of the intended addressee and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, re-transmission, dissemination or other use of it, or the taking of any action in reliance upon this information by persons and/or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please inform the sender and/or addressee immediately and delete the material. E-mails may not be secure, may contain computer viruses and may be corrupted in transmission. Please carefully check this e-mail (and any attachment) accordingly. No warranties are given and no liability is accepted for any loss or damage caused by such matters. --- ### This e-mail message has been scanned for Viruses by Bytecraft ### ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?
On Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 10:20:27PM -0400, james thompson wrote:
How difficult is FreeBSD to use in place of MS windows, say compared to
Apple OSX?
Setup is difficult to compare, since OSX always comes pre-installed, and
has a limited range of hardware to contend with.
FreeBSD is more difficult for a novice, because you have to learn a lot
before you can use UNIX effectively. OSX hides all the gory details that
FreeBSD administrators have to deal with.
OTOH, FreeBSD (and UNIX in general) is a very powerfull toolbox. OSX
hides this toolbox under a lot of eye-candy. Mastering that toolbox
takes more effort that dealing with the eye-candy, but it is well worth
the effort, IMHO.
Windows OTOH comes with an empty toolbox.
I believe it may be able to run Offide 98; can Office 98 with
Publisher be ran on FreeBSD?
Maybe it can be run under the wine emulator. See www.winehq.com.
But there is an excellent free alternative: http://www.openoffice.org/
(which incidentally runs on a lot of operating systems, including
Windows, FreeBSD and OSX)
I want to use FreeBSD to compose articles, and
combine them into a Book for publication, as a Home Office Operation by a
person with little experience beyond windows.
For you it would probably be best to stick with OSX, because it it a
good combination fo ease-of-use for a novice and powerfull tools that
you can learn at your leisure.
But beware that office suites might not be the best tool for writing a
book. MS Word ('97 and 2000) has trouble with large documents. Adding
lots of pictures will make word extremely slow and will crash it and
corrupt your file at some point.
For books and articles I can recommend the TeX typesetting software
with the LaTeX macros. I've written a 300+ page book with 100+ figures
and tables, and several 40+ pages reports with dozens of pictures,
tables and mathematical formula in LaTeX.
Comparing LaTeX to Word/Writer is like comparing UNIX to Windows. The
former has a steeper learning curve buyt is much more powerfull.
Roland
--
R.F.Smith http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/
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Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?
Dear James I am afraid the answer is no. FreeBSD is simple enough on its technical structural but not the kind of simple as to novice user (so the right question might be if FreeBSD is novice-user friendly enough or easy to learn enough). The OS best fitting your requirement could be Ubuntu Linux or SuSE, while both can run Office 98, but you probably need to buy and install a software called CrossOffice (around 65$) before you can run Office 98. However the OpenOffice office suit which by default installed in SuSE and Ubuntu is superior than Office 98 in functionality, and can open your old Office 98 documents just fine (except, if you are in China, the Chinese compatibility is not very good for both Office 98 and OpenOffice). If you install CrossOffice, Microsoft Publisher 2000 can run on it, but better check with CrossOffice sales people first, this company designed and sells CrossOffice: http://www.codeweavers.com The interface of Ubunti Linux is very easy to learn and is not very different from Windows. I myself use OpenOffice Draw for making publications. For me it's enough, however it lack the feature of template publications which Publisher offers, so if you think templates are very important (e.g. being able to use template to create a Christmas Card in minutes without having design knowledge like match color) then maybe you still need Publisher. I myself use OpenSuSE for desktop, making publication and doing spreadsheet for business, writing documents, contracts and invoices, using email etc. (Right now I am using it). I know many friends use Ubuntu that can do these things just fine. FreeBSD is used as server system here in my office. FreeBSD also can run a lot of desktop software but all through the years I generally see much more Linux users using desktop software. Best Regards On Fri, 2007-04-27 at 22:20 -0400, james thompson wrote: How difficult is FreeBSD to use in place of MS windows, say compared to Apple OSX? I believe it may be able to run Offide 98; can Office 98 with Publisher be ran on FreeBSD? I want to use FreeBSD to compose articles, and combine them into a Book for publication, as a Home Office Operation by a person with little experience beyond windows. In 1995, I took a MicroComputer Operating Systems course in Windows 3.11 and DOS 6.22. I have used Windows 95, 98, and XP Home upgraded to Media Edition. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?
On Sat, 2007-04-28 at 14:30 +0800, Zhang Weiwu wrote: Dear James run Office 98. However the OpenOffice office suit which by default installed in SuSE and Ubuntu is superior than Office 98 in functionality, and can open your old Office 98 documents just fine I forgot to mention: using OpenOffice is completely free of charge, this software can also be used on MacOS. It's my everyday office life. And using OpenOffice you don't need to buy CrossOffice (65$) which is used to run Microsoft Office (which again is not free) If you have questions using OpenOffice, there are a lot of OpenOffice users there on the forum that are very willing to help. See www.oooforum.org I think both Ubuntu and Mac OS are your good choice! If you are interested in and have time on learning managing powerful system like FreeBSD it's also a good choice. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?
Zhang Weiwu wrote: On Sat, 2007-04-28 at 14:30 +0800, Zhang Weiwu wrote: Dear James run Office 98. However the OpenOffice office suit which by default installed in SuSE and Ubuntu is superior than Office 98 in functionality, and can open your old Office 98 documents just fine I forgot to mention: using OpenOffice is completely free of charge, this software can also be used on MacOS. It's my everyday office life. And using OpenOffice you don't need to buy CrossOffice (65$) which is used to run Microsoft Office (which again is not free) If you have questions using OpenOffice, there are a lot of OpenOffice users there on the forum that are very willing to help. See www.oooforum.org I think both Ubuntu and Mac OS are your good choice! If you are interested in and have time on learning managing powerful system like FreeBSD it's also a good choice. A few things: Why are you stuck with Office 98? Arguably, there have been great advances from 98 to 2000, to XP, to 2003, and 2007. Don't think that using Office on OSX will be better than on Windows, because frankly given experience, it sucks. Having to have a compatibility checker to see if a given document is viewable on OSX as well as Windows, even in Mac Office 2004, is a horrible hack by Microsoft, and in my opinion the Mac Office devs should be taken out into the street and shot for this. I've had to do a lot of workarounds in documents with Windows users because of this. OpenOffice in OSX still isn't that great either because there still isn't a native (Aqua) build. It's done through some pain in the arse steps with X11 (not standard with OSX; need to install XFree86, and then optionally move up to Xorg-x11 with Fink, Darwinports, or something similar). As for running Windows binaries of Office on Wine / Crossoffice, this is tricky at best.. particularly with newer MS products (what with the validation mess MS has made). But even then with older products it's not easy in all cases (in particular with complex products like Office), because Wine does a lot of hacked up emulating in newer versions that tends to break Windows binaries. I gave up on Wine and use OpenSource producets after trying to use it because trying to make Windows binaries run on Unix typically took up 2-12 hours searching, testing, and validating that things work. And even then there are a large number of quirks in terms of how Wine does things, which breaks Windows apps.. If you really need Windows products and want FreeBSD stability, run them from a virtual machine like Qemu (runs well for most) or Xen (full support coming soon hopefully; runs better than Qemu on Linux from what I've read because of its design). All you need is a little bit of RAM, and possibly a bit more patience while stuff loads sometimes. -Garrett ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 2007-04-27 22:20, james thompson wrote: How difficult is FreeBSD to use in place of MS windows, say compared to Apple OSX? I believe it may be able to run Offide 98; can Office 98 with Publisher be ran on FreeBSD? I want to use FreeBSD to compose articles, and combine them into a Book for publication, as a Home Office Operation by a person with little experience beyond windows. In 1995, I took a MicroComputer Operating Systems course in Windows 3.11 and DOS 6.22. I have used Windows 95, 98, and XP Home upgraded to Media Edition. Hi James, As far as being able to easily create articles, create a book, and publish to a website, IMHO Apple OSX's ease-of-use and seamless design takes the cake. All new Macs (including the iMac) come with a very easy to use (and powerful) set of applications called 'iLife'. Included is the 'iWeb' application, which makes the task of creating and updating an attractive web space quite simple. More information on this 'iWeb' app can be found here: http://www.apple.com/ilife/iweb/ On top of this, a 30-day trial for the 'iWork' bundle, which includes a word processor/desktop publishing app called 'Pages' and presentation software called 'Keynote' (basically PowerPoint on steroids, this is what Al Gore used to create his much-ballyhooed 'PowerPoint' presentation with). If you want to keep using it, it's only $79 (versus $200+ for the basic MS Office Suite for Windows). Pretty good value for software that fuses simplicity and power. It can also import all of your old MS Word documents without too much fuss. Here's some info on that: http://www.apple.com/iwork/pages/ I really don't mean to sound like I work for Apple, but since everyone has given the opensource/FreeBSD side of your questions a fairly good beating, I thought I'd present the other end of your email a fair treatment. All of this can be done very well on FreeBSD (or Linux, or Windows) just the same, but as far as what you're asking, OSX truly does make the whole job a heck of a lot easier, without sacrificing much functionality. I hope this information helps! - - Chris - -- Chris Slothouber ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) -=- Mercenary Sysadmin BIZ: http://www.hier7.com -=- building.better.ideas PGP: 7A83 F021 5AC3 4BD7 6738 21D8 B348 0B16 79C0 C27F -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGMwJks0gLFnnAwn8RAr2AAJ45Eh92jVzp4hDnZj9+82FoIaJlTACeMT7O zCmBRFqiOuFBbpFHGXz8aOo= =lyJs -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?
On Fri, 2007-04-27 at 23:58 -0700, Garrett Cooper wrote: As for running Windows binaries of Office on Wine / Crossoffice, this is tricky at best.. particularly with newer MS products (what with the Did you really try to run Windows applications on Crossoffice that crossoffice claimed to be supported? Frankly it's so much easier on wine. If something doesn't work on wine, after some search I probably can fix it; if something doesn't work on crossoffice I simply don't try spend one more minute searching for a solution, because generally that means there is no solution. Install some software on crossoffice is breezy: you follow a wizard and later it's working. That's only from my limited experience because I really didn't try a lot of windows software but I had this feeling. That's why when the original poster ask the question I even didn't mention the word wine, I did this intentionally so that I can save him time searching for solutions to fix wine or get disappointed by it. To techies like us we have 3 solutions: 1) use OOS replacement; 2) dig into wine and google around for a solution and 3) try buy crossoffice, for NOVINCE user there are only two choices: 1) use OOS replacement; 2) buy crossoffice if the software is supported. I simply give user-aspect opinion from me. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?
OpenOffice in OSX still isn't that great either because there still isn't a native (Aqua) build. I suspect the NeoOffice folks would be surprised to hear that :) ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?
On 4/28/07, james thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: How difficult is FreeBSD to use in place of MS windows, say compared to Apple OSX? I believe it may be able to run Offide 98; can Office 98 with Publisher be ran on FreeBSD? I want to use FreeBSD to compose articles, and combine them into a Book for publication, as a Home Office Operation by a person with little experience beyond windows. In 1995, I took a MicroComputer Operating Systems course in Windows 3.11 and DOS 6.22. I have used Windows 95, 98, and XP Home upgraded to Media Edition. Hello, It's very easy, I suggest for new bsd users to go for PC-BSD http://www.pcbsd.org/ since it's one setup CD with complete desktop interface. -- Regards, -Abdullah Ibn Hamad Al-Marri Arab Portal http://www.WeArab.Net/ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: OpenOffice in OSX still isn't that great either because there still isn't a native (Aqua) build. I suspect the NeoOffice folks would be surprised to hear that :) Yes _.. I mean that the latest and greatest version of OOo isn't available for Aqua native yet. It's going to take another year to port, as someone has claimed already. There was a big leap in terms of functionality from 1.x vs 2.x in OOo, but then again considering that the OP was asking about running Office 98 (:D..), I don't think he'd mind running the 1.x version binaries. -Garrett ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Garrett Cooper Sent: Sunday, 29 April 2007 4:28 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher? [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: OpenOffice in OSX still isn't that great either because there still isn't a native (Aqua) build. I suspect the NeoOffice folks would be surprised to hear that :) Yes _.. I mean that the latest and greatest version of OOo isn't available for Aqua native yet. It's going to take another year to port, as someone has claimed already. There was a big leap in terms of functionality from 1.x vs 2.x in OOo, but then again considering that the OP was asking about running Office 98 (:D..), I don't think he'd mind running the 1.x version binaries. -Garrett As the original poster wants to write books may I suggest that he use a text editor and then a typesetter combination rather than any form of WYSIWYG wordprocessor. IE use (insert favourite text editor here) then use the LaTeX / Tetex port to actually properly format the material as a book. Yes there is a learning curve here, but the end result is all over a wordprocessed attempt. mjt --- The information transmitted in this e-mail is for the exclusive use of the intended addressee and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, re-transmission, dissemination or other use of it, or the taking of any action in reliance upon this information by persons and/or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please inform the sender and/or addressee immediately and delete the material. E-mails may not be secure, may contain computer viruses and may be corrupted in transmission. Please carefully check this e-mail (and any attachment) accordingly. No warranties are given and no liability is accepted for any loss or damage caused by such matters. --- ### This e-mail message has been scanned for Viruses by Bytecraft ### ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?
On Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 10:20:27PM -0400, james thompson wrote: How difficult is FreeBSD to use in place of MS windows, say compared to Apple OSX? Well, it depends on your personality and work habits and expectations. I find FreeBSD easier to use than MS and have had very little contact with MAC so can't say much about that one.But, I don't like the windows way of working. I prefer a command line and text based environment. I believe it may be able to run Offide 98; can Office 98 with Publisher be ran on FreeBSD? You can get utilities called emulators and virtual environments to allow many MS type things to run, but you need to know that FreeBSD is not at all like MS Windows except that it runs on a computer and you can bring up multiple screens. The two are completely different and incompatible systems. As an Operating System (OS), that is robust and secure and powerful, FreeBSD is much superior to MS-win, but it does things very differently. Generally, if you really want to mainly use actual MS programs, then you probably really want to run MS, rather than trying to run them on FreeBSD. I want to use FreeBSD to compose articles, and combine them into a Book for publication, as a Home Office Operation by a person with little experience beyond windows. In 1995, I took a MicroComputer Operating Systems course in Windows 3.11 and DOS 6.22. I have used Windows 95, 98, and XP Home upgraded to Media Edition. There are many good alternatives to MS utilities for these things. The OpenOffice system can substitute for MS Word and Excel, etc. But those might not be the best for book writing. Learning to create with a straight text editor and include text markups for some formatting language is probably a better solution. Those are all readily available in FreeBSD and are better in FreeBSD than in MS, actually. But, FreeBSD takes some learning to use well. Although once you do learn about it, it will seem quite natural to use, it takes a while to get to that point. Learning by doing with handbook readily availble is the way to go. In the [not very] long run, it will be worth it. jerry ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?
How difficult is FreeBSD to use in place of MS windows, say compared to Apple OSX? I believe it may be able to run Offide 98; can Office 98 with Publisher be ran on FreeBSD? I want to use FreeBSD to compose articles, and combine them into a Book for publication, as a Home Office Operation by a person with little experience beyond windows. In 1995, I took a MicroComputer Operating Systems course in Windows 3.11 and DOS 6.22. I have used Windows 95, 98, and XP Home upgraded to Media Edition. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
