Hi, So I am otherwise very appreciative of your product, especially since it is free. It is in most ways has all the features I want and they are easy to find. The main complaint I have had is the complexity by which one adds page numbers -- two steps are involved, first adding a footer and then adding the page number. I wish there were one single option under "Insert" that said "Add Page Numbers", and then had a little menu for it.
Anyway, that's not what I am writing about. I work on a Dell Inspiron 1200, with an Intel Celeron processor and 512 mb of RAM. I use Windows XP. I don't know how useful that information is to you. Of late, something utterly terrible starts happening. The computer starts "thinking" (the little green light turns on or flashes, and something is loading internally). When this happens, OpenOffice shows up as "not responding". Invariably it returns to the land of the living. Before, this took only a little while to happen. Now it is taking longer and longer, and is happening more frequently. Sometimes when I am typing in Writer, brief little blips happen, such that what I have typed registers later (it writes it all out slowly, or adds it when it comes back). Other times, it gets started "thinking" and only comes back a minute or two later. Only one has it actually crashed. This would happen in Mozilla, but for much shorter periods, and anyway, it's gone away now. I don't know what the problem is. I figured that parts of the program were in different places on my hard drive and the program had to go an access them, so I defragmented the hard drive. Nothing. My brother told me that XP will use a bit of RAM, then "mark" it as used (i.e., in use), and not use it again. He said therefore that I need to restart my computer often. This seems like a possible answer. I don't turn my computer off, and Java is continually using RAM (I think?). I guess these problems don't happen as much right when I turn on my computer. I'm not sure. Anyway, I wanted to tell you about this. It's driving me absolutely up the wall, and I have a masters thesis to write. Thanks for listening. Ross W. Martin
