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7 Best Alternatives To Microsoft Office Suite — 2019 Edition



 
 
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  #271  
Old December 9th 19, 04:32 PM posted to alt.computer.workshop,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
David
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Posts: 238
Default Linux user advises Windows newbies! (was - 7 Best Alternatives ToMicrosoft Office Suite - 2019 Edition)

On 09/12/2019 14:41, Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:
David the Lying Stalker of Devon wrote:

On 09/12/2019 01:21, Beauregard T. Shagnasty - still wriggling!
David the Liar of Devon wrote:
Amazing what happens when the truth is told!

It certainly is. You should start sometime soon.

[rest not worthy of a reply]


Other readers of Usenet groups will ...


..see your constant lying and stalking.


They won't! 'Cause I don't - but *YOU* do!

*WHY* does a Linux aficionado promote a website discussing Windows?


You are the one who is promoting it. Don't you realize that?


*NO*! That would be your cohort known as 'Shadow'.

He's recently mentioned that it should be taken down:-

"Those pages are from way back when he used Windows(or helped
someone with Windows, not anyone's business).

http://www.tekrider.net/general/wintip01.php

File last changed 15 April 2009

It not been altered in OVER 10 years. The text refers to
programs updated in 2005."

Ref: Message-ID:

=

Out of date websites do *HARM* - not good.

They are a breeding ground for malware. Websites need to be
properly maintained and administered. You have failed in your
role as Webmaster. :-(
Ads
  #272  
Old December 9th 19, 04:42 PM posted to alt.computer.workshop,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
Ken Blake[_7_]
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Posts: 569
Default 7 Best Alternatives To Microsoft Office Suite - 2019 Edition

On 12/8/2019 4:21 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 09/12/2019 00.03, nospam wrote:
In article , Carlos E.R.
wrote:

It should be obvious that information found online is useless, when the
user does not know how to go online.

it should be obvious that isn't actually a problem.

it's not 1985 anymore. just about everyone already *is* online, has
been for years and knows how to search for stuff.

It's also not 2185 where everyone has in implant, and is genetically
modified to know this at birth. Something you are unable to acknowledge.

strawman.

the reality is that being online is *not* an obstacle.

The reality is, not everyone knows how to do this.

nobody said 'everyone'.

the number who do not and have nobody to help them get online is a
tiny, tiny fraction (as in almost zero), nowhere near enough to justify
a company publishing written manuals that everyone else will never look
at, never mind read, and which would also need to be ordered online.

I know people that have to wait for their son to come for a visit twice
a year for that.


they are a tiny, tiny minority.


Maybe 25% of those I know. That's not tiny :-D


you're also ignoring that software distribution is almost entirely
online, so if they can manage to get various apps, they can get help
for it as well, should it even be needed, which is not a given.

this.

if someone wants something printed for whatever reason, download the
relevant pdfs and print them, either in its entirety or specific pages.

Something that some people need someone to demo in person before not
being afraid of trying. God forbid if something goes bad and they can't
stop the printer. Pull the plug! And the daft thing continues printing
the one thousand page book (the wrong book) after being plugged again.


that's a stretch.


Its happened :-D

Ohhh! Another one. Printer that dries or uses up all the ink and "it
does not work".

I installed a laser. Will not dry in years to come!



That's one of the reasons laser printers are much better than inkjet
printers, in my opinion. Another reason is that the per page cost of
using it is much lower.

--
Ken
  #273  
Old December 9th 19, 04:54 PM posted to alt.computer.workshop,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
nospam
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Posts: 4,718
Default 7 Best Alternatives To Microsoft Office Suite - 2019 Edition

In article , Ken Blake
wrote:

Ohhh! Another one. Printer that dries or uses up all the ink and "it
does not work".

I installed a laser. Will not dry in years to come!



That's one of the reasons laser printers are much better than inkjet
printers, in my opinion. Another reason is that the per page cost of
using it is much lower.


as with everything, it depends.

inkjet printers are *much* better for photos and some of them have a
lower page cost than laser.
  #274  
Old December 9th 19, 05:00 PM posted to alt.computer.workshop,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
Ken Blake[_7_]
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Posts: 569
Default 7 Best Alternatives To Microsoft Office Suite - 2019 Edition

On 12/8/2019 11:53 AM, Mayayana wrote:

There's nothing
but TBird that's completely an email and newsgroup
program.



Agent is another one.

But personally I think choosing a program because it does two different
things is a mistake. It's best to choose the program for each thing
that works the best for you. If the two happen to be the same program,
that's fine, but in my experience, that almost never happens.

I used to use Agent as my newsreader, but I preferred and used a
different program for e-mail. I recently switched to using Thunderbird
for newsgroups, because it did some things important to me me better
than Agent (but other things not so well). But I still continue to use
the separate e-mail client I used before.

I feel the same way about suites of programs. I often choose to use one
program in a suite because I like it, but I use competitors for other
programs in that suite because I like them better.



--
Ken
  #275  
Old December 9th 19, 05:04 PM posted to alt.computer.workshop,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
Ken Blake[_7_]
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Posts: 569
Default 7 Best Alternatives To Microsoft Office Suite - 2019 Edition

On 12/9/2019 7:11 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"Dan Purgert" wrote

| I explored it a fair amount but ended up feeling that
| it was a big time sucker. Everything changes. Everything
| requires tweaking.

| So, your basic progression of "new stuff changes". I mean, it's not like
| Windows behaves the same as XP (or 7) these days.
|
Big difference. Microsoft is religious about backward
compatibility. They provide support for 10 years and
lots of docs. (Though the end-user docs are pretty bad.)
I'm writing this on XP with OE6. Most software still works
on XP. OE was just a half-baked afterthough. A default
email program. Yet OE6 is arguably better than current
products despite being 18 years old. The program folder
is 4 MB. TBird is 90 MB, stuffed with dotnet crap, but no
help file in sight. Even the Mozilla people don't seem to
have full docs for things like prefs.

It's not difficult to write software that runs on
all Windows versions -- backward and forward. That's
like being able to write a program for current Linux and
have it work on RedHat 4 seamlessly, with no additional
support files or adjustments needed.

So, yes, stuff changes in Windows. Especially going
from XP to Vista. That was a big jump. But the API
didn't change. It was just added to. MS have to offer
that kind of support because business requires it.
Meanwhile, WINE took 20 years to get to v. 1, with
updates every 10 days. It was a training camp for
college students, not a professional piece of software.
GIMP is similar. And that pretty much covers Linux
software for people who are not programmers or scientists.

Linux support is typically 18 months. When I want
to install anything it needs numerous updates of system
files. Ridiculous stuff like 6.143.213.77 isn't good enough.
It has to be 6.143.213.88.

Docs? If you're lucky it's a man page. Ask the programmer
why there are no docs. The answer will probably be something
like, "I don't like to write." They say that with diffident pride:
"I'm a programmer, not a lackey!"

The programmer is a 35
year old teenager who's anxious to get back to his video
game where he's killed 1,723 bad guys since last Tuesday
and he's hoping to break his own record of 1,947 killed by
tomorrow. He's going to have to stay up all night eating
candybars and ramen to pull it off. And you want docs?!
Where's your sense of priorities, man?!

I actually came across something in WINE at one point
suggesting that programmers should put comments into
their code in a particular format. Those could later be
auto-converted to a help file without having to actually
write a help file. Any software sold for money has to be
far more dependable and complete than that.

| Nothing is simple because the people who use it like to feel like
| coding commandos.
|
| I haven't run into that myself ... maybe I got lucky.
|

And you don't use console windows? Or end up digging
down into /etc to change a program setting? Or maybe you
just regard that as simple? In Windows it's been almost
completely unnecessary to open console windows since
about 1995. The last time I did it was to swap out the HAL
file from single core to multi-core version.

| So everyone brags about using a "shell", by which they mean a console
| window where they run DOS-esque commands.
|
| Which can be the "easier" approach (in terms of less effort on your
| part) than using a GUI.

Yes. Exactly the answer I'd expect from a Linux fan.
It can be highly efficient as a scripting system, to do
batch operations, but for normal computer use -- to
copy a file, find system info, read help, list directory
contents, and so on -- it makes no sense.

| Even the OS itself gets very limited support.
|
| This certainly depends on the distro you choose. Some are better than
| others -- although if you're looking for "professional" support, that's
| pretty much limited to Red Hat.
|
I don't mean personal support. I mean supporting
their own product, so that necessary patches are
available and software will run on it for many years,
as with Windows. Many programmers use end of OS
support as an excuse to end their support, so if a
Linux version is only supported officially for 18 months
then whatever you set up initially is "all she wrote".
Once it no longer serves you'll have to start all over.

| | Didn't desktop publishing get it's start with Macs?

| Probably. And graphics. But that was way back when Apple
|
| "Desktop Publishing" being a graphical environment? I think Xerox or
| Sun was "first" in that regard. Apple just took it away from them
| pretty quick (and the whole "IBM (clone) with MS Windows" thing didn't
| really help anyone out).
|
He means being able to create your own printed
documents without having to paste-up photostat copy.
As you may know, not so long ago the only way to
print other than a typewriter was to order the text in
the desired font as a photostat. The people doing that
would set the lead characters, print it, and take a picture.
They'd send you the picture. You would then cut that
up with a razor blade and stick the words down on a
backing with rubber cement. Once done, you'd send
the whole thing to the printer. (I know this because I did
a bit of paste-up when I was young.)

Desktop publishing was the new ability to actually
print a finished product yourself. With high end
equipment people could print a professional, finished
product and cut the photostat people, the typesetters,
and the printers out of the picture. Remember those early
fliers stapled to telephone poles, in futuristic,
blocky fonts in the 80s? That was people with computers
showing off that they could print on a piece of paper:

"Cat missing. Black and white. Very cute. Answers to Frisky."
Below that would be a "picture" of a cat, composed of
printed squares, like an image from an early video game.

Since Mac had GUI first I suspect they also had
desktop publishing first. But I didn't have a computer back
then. If they hadn't developed an easy GUI I probably
still wouldn't have a computer. I've never needed to do
word processing for work so I never had a use for DOS.

| was ahead of Windows with graphics. They ended up having
| a reputation for being superior for a long time. Long after
|
| IIRC, the reputation was well earned -- the M68k and later PPC chips had
| better pipelines when it came to graphics processing than the Intel x86
| processors of the day.
|
Yes. But their reputation lasted far beyond that
time, for no reason. Some years ago a graphics shop
sued Apple after they bought Macs and found the
display's top setting was only 18-bit color/ 260K
colors, yet the menu selection for that setting was
marked "millions of colors". Leave it to Apple to
use cute slang to hide sleaze. But if they'd said
"tons of colors" they might have protected themselves
from a lawsuit.



If I knew about that suit, I had forgotten it. Just curious--who won?
And how much did they win?


--
Ken
  #276  
Old December 9th 19, 05:13 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Ken Blake[_7_]
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Posts: 569
Default 7 Best Alternatives To Microsoft Office Suite - 2019 Edition

On 12/9/2019 6:01 AM, Dan Purgert wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256


snip


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I don't know how anybody else feels about your PGP signatures, but I'll
tell you how I feel. I hate them. They add nothing to your posts and
just clutters them up. So I'd like to suggest that you stop
incorporating them in your messages.


--
Ken
  #277  
Old December 9th 19, 05:22 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Rene Lamontagne
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Posts: 2,549
Default 7 Best Alternatives To Microsoft Office Suite - 2019 Edition

On 2019-12-09 10:13 a.m., Ken Blake wrote:
On 12/9/2019 6:01 AM, Dan Purgert wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256


snip


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ltCCZsUps01BTGZEPXGtY0VVeIUIiQ==
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I don't know how anybody else feels about your PGP signatures, but I'll
tell you how I feel. I hate them. They add nothing to your posts and
just clutters them up. So I'd like to suggest that you stop
incorporating them in your messages.



+10

Rene

  #278  
Old December 9th 19, 05:39 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
nospam
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,718
Default 7 Best Alternatives To Microsoft Office Suite - 2019 Edition

In article , Rene Lamontagne
wrote:

On 2019-12-09 10:13 a.m., Ken Blake wrote:
On 12/9/2019 6:01 AM, Dan Purgert wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256


snip


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

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ltCCZsUps01BTGZEPXGtY0VVeIUIiQ==
=BAg7
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----



I don't know how anybody else feels about your PGP signatures, but I'll
tell you how I feel. I hate them. They add nothing to your posts and
just clutters them up. So I'd like to suggest that you stop
incorporating them in your messages.



+10


^10
  #279  
Old December 9th 19, 05:39 PM posted to alt.computer.workshop,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
nospam
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,718
Default 7 Best Alternatives To Microsoft Office Suite - 2019 Edition

In article , Ken Blake
wrote:

| was ahead of Windows with graphics. They ended up having
| a reputation for being superior for a long time. Long after
|
| IIRC, the reputation was well earned -- the M68k and later PPC chips had
| better pipelines when it came to graphics processing than the Intel x86
| processors of the day.
|
Yes. But their reputation lasted far beyond that
time, for no reason. Some years ago a graphics shop
sued Apple after they bought Macs and found the
display's top setting was only 18-bit color/ 260K
colors, yet the menu selection for that setting was
marked "millions of colors". Leave it to Apple to
use cute slang to hide sleaze. But if they'd said
"tons of colors" they might have protected themselves
from a lawsuit.



If I knew about that suit, I had forgotten it. Just curious--who won?
And how much did they win?


it wasn't a graphics shop.

it was two photographers filing yet another frivolous case, where their
own lawyer couldn't find people who were harmed by it, and ultimately
it was dismissed.

it's also not unique to apple. windows laptops also dithered.

https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-settles-the-amazing-multicolor-lawsuit/
Few others seem to care, however; The Tribune said the plaintiffs'
lawyer declined to take the case to the limits "because it was
difficult to find other people who were wronged because they had
bought Macs solely based on the 'millions of colors' claim." Terms of
the settlement were not disclosed.

A representative at the San Diego County Superior Court said the case
was actually dismissed last year, and so it's not clear why this took
so long to come to light. But the outcome is not all that surprising,
and I'm left wondering if it took "millions of dollars" for this case
to disappear.
  #280  
Old December 9th 19, 05:40 PM posted to alt.computer.workshop,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
Ken Springer[_2_]
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Posts: 3,817
Default 7 Best Alternatives To Microsoft Office Suite - 2019 Edition

On 12/9/19 5:04 AM, Dan Purgert wrote:
Imo, the quality of the icon design has gone downhill over the last few
years. Not just Apple, but every where. They are no longer visually
intuitive.

Were they ever though? I mean, about the only one that I can recall
(ever) looking like what it's supposed to be is trash / recycle bin.


There will never be a UI that is intuitive all users. Simply not
possible. So icons need to be intuitive for the majority, or at least a
number of groups.

Take a look at the desktop icon for for File Manager from Windows 3.x:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Manager_(Windows)

Now look at W10's icon for File Explorer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Explorer

The purpose of File Manager/Windows Explorer/File Explorer is to
organize your files on floppies or hard drive, thumb drive, etc. Which
of those 2 icons do you think better represent where you are going to be
working by referring to something you've seen in your life?

Document icons used to have lines on them that indicated something in
writing. A folder icon looked like a partially open folder with
something inside, when that icon was selected or the folder was not empty.

The icons were also large enough to be easily identifiable. Not the
small things you see today.

Your trash can example is so accurate. The icon used to look like a 33
gal. trash can. As opposed to the square with a triangle on top as was
used by Gmail for some time.

I've seen some icons that actually had the text as part of the icon.

Everything else I can think of is either a logo of some sort that really
doesn't mean anything (e.g. the "E" logo for IE, or the Chrome logo,
etc.)


Therein lies the problem. Icons are no longer intuitive. The more
intuitive an icon is, the less explanation you need to use it. I wonder
how many people deleted an email in Gmail using the icon I listed
because it didn't look like a trash icon to them? Or even said Delete?

We make computers more and more powerful, yet make them less intuitive,
and look harder to use (should I say the W8 Start screen?), and then
wonder why sales go down? This is not the only reason sales went down,
but it has to contribute to it.

Maybe I'm just too young for the meaningful logos


Maybe so. LOL I predate icons.


--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.6
Firefox 70.0.1
Thunderbird 60.9
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"
  #281  
Old December 9th 19, 05:45 PM posted to alt.computer.workshop,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
Dan Purgert
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 281
Default 7 Best Alternatives To Microsoft Office Suite - 2019 Edition

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Mayayana wrote:
"Dan Purgert" wrote

| I explored it a fair amount but ended up feeling that
| it was a big time sucker. Everything changes. Everything
| requires tweaking.

| So, your basic progression of "new stuff changes". I mean, it's not like
| Windows behaves the same as XP (or 7) these days.
|
Big difference. Microsoft is religious about backward
compatibility. They provide support for 10 years and
lots of docs. (Though the end-user docs are pretty bad.)


Agreed on the enduser docs. Debian & RHEL are (IIRC) both in the 7-10
year support camps; although most typical distros stick to 5 year
support cycles.

I'm writing this on XP with OE6. Most software still works
on XP. OE was just a half-baked afterthough. A default


Most linux software (of sufficient age, of course) also works on EOL
versions as well. Of course this may mean building from source (as
Linux has used "app stores" for considerably longer than other OSes).


email program. Yet OE6 is arguably better than current
products despite being 18 years old. The program folder
is 4 MB. TBird is 90 MB, stuffed with dotnet crap, but no
help file in sight. Even the Mozilla people don't seem to
have full docs for things like prefs.


OK, but how much of the OE stuff is crammed "somewhere else"? I'm only
asking, because I know that it's a little more "deeply integrated" than
Tbird.

Not that I think ~90MB is hiding out there.


It's not difficult to write software that runs on
all Windows versions -- backward and forward. That's
like being able to write a program for current Linux and
have it work on RedHat 4 seamlessly, with no additional
support files or adjustments needed.


Depends what the software is written in. I mean, as long as you're not
relying on some library that isn't available in RHEL4, it's quite likely
to work. Same with Windows, of course -- I mean, if I write something
that relies on whatever the current dotnet is, it's probably not going
to work in winXP.


So, yes, stuff changes in Windows. Especially going
from XP to Vista. That was a big jump. But the API
didn't change. It was just added to. MS have to offer
that kind of support because business requires it.


While the Linux API has itself changed, I believe it is fairly
consistent in that regard as well -- Linus is very adamant that the
kernel devs do everything they can to not break userspace.

Meanwhile, WINE took 20 years to get to v. 1, with
updates every 10 days. It was a training camp for
college students, not a professional piece of software.
GIMP is similar. And that pretty much covers Linux
software for people who are not programmers or scientists.


I don't think their choice to not go to a v1.0 necessarily implies what
you're trying to say it does. Especially when it comes to writing a
compatibility layer for a closed-source system that has zero interest in
actually allowing it...


Linux support is typically 18 months. When I want
to install anything it needs numerous updates of system
files. Ridiculous stuff like 6.143.213.77 isn't good enough.
It has to be 6.143.213.88.


That sounds very much like your only experience is with either "rolling
release" distros, or the "testing" releases of otherwise "stable"
distros (such as the three "short-term" releases Ubuntu puts out between
their 5-year-support "LTS" ones).


Docs? If you're lucky it's a man page. Ask the programmer
why there are no docs. The answer will probably be something
like, "I don't like to write." They say that with diffident pride:
"I'm a programmer, not a lackey!"


Yeah, those types are awful people.


The programmer is a 35
year old teenager who's anxious to get back to his video
game where he's killed 1,723 bad guys since last Tuesday
and he's hoping to break his own record of 1,947 killed by
tomorrow. He's going to have to stay up all night eating
candybars and ramen to pull it off. And you want docs?!
Where's your sense of priorities, man?!


ha, that sounds like my dad. Always disparaging what I did in my free
time, regardless of how good my grades were, or how little "free time" I
actually had between school / work / after-school stuff. "Oh, you're
playing on the computer ~again~" (as I'm trying to learn to program, or
whatever ... or yes, sometimes playing games).


I actually came across something in WINE at one point
suggesting that programmers should put comments into
their code in a particular format. Those could later be
auto-converted to a help file without having to actually
write a help file. Any software sold for money has to be
far more dependable and complete than that.


It's probably something like doxygen. It's helpful, but not a silver
bullet.

| Nothing is simple because the people who use it like to feel like
| coding commandos.
|
| I haven't run into that myself ... maybe I got lucky.
|

And you don't use console windows? Or end up digging


Of course I do, it's cleaner & faster to get things done (FOR ME). But
I was more commenting on not running into "coding commandos".

down into /etc to change a program setting? Or maybe you
just regard that as simple? In Windows it's been almost


As opposed to C:/PROGRA~1 ? Ultimately they're both the start of
hierarchies where you find config files.

I do like not having to navigate through C:/PROGRA~1/PROGRAM/directories
though (albeit, Win programs have gotten better in this regard too).

completely unnecessary to open console windows since
about 1995. The last time I did it was to swap out the HAL
file from single core to multi-core version.


I think winXP was the first version that didn't absolutely require some
cmd.com magic in order to get *something* to work. But then again I
played a lot of older DOS-based games back then, so that might've been a
reason.


| So everyone brags about using a "shell", by which they mean a console
| window where they run DOS-esque commands.
|
| Which can be the "easier" approach (in terms of less effort on your
| part) than using a GUI.

Yes. Exactly the answer I'd expect from a Linux fan.
It can be highly efficient as a scripting system, to do
batch operations, but for normal computer use -- to
copy a file, find system info, read help, list directory
contents, and so on -- it makes no sense.


Depends -- if I'm already in the terminal it may make more sense than
opening new windows to navigate around. Not to mention if I'm only
connected remotely (but that's its own case, of course).



| Even the OS itself gets very limited support.
|
| This certainly depends on the distro you choose. Some are better than
| others -- although if you're looking for "professional" support, that's
| pretty much limited to Red Hat.
|
I don't mean personal support. I mean supporting
their own product, so that necessary patches are
available and software will run on it for many years,
as with Windows. Many programmers use end of OS
support as an excuse to end their support, so if a
Linux version is only supported officially for 18 months
then whatever you set up initially is "all she wrote".
Once it no longer serves you'll have to start all over.


Those short-term versions are, for lack of a better word, beta releases.
Why should a developer support them after they've been dropped?

Best way to think of them is akin to those trash versions of Windows
(ME, Vista, 8...) that get released / everyone hates / replaced by
better (XP, 7, 10) options.


| | Didn't desktop publishing get it's start with Macs?

| Probably. And graphics. But that was way back when Apple
|
| "Desktop Publishing" being a graphical environment? I think Xerox or
| Sun was "first" in that regard. Apple just took it away from them
| pretty quick (and the whole "IBM (clone) with MS Windows" thing didn't
| really help anyone out).
|
He means being able to create your own printed
documents without having to paste-up photostat copy.


Ugh, yeah, that'd probably have been one of the later UNIX (probably
some Xerox release) talking to a typesetter of some sort.

Never was part of that -- the oldest I remember interacting with (and by
proxy of "hey what's this thing?") is a mimeograph machine. Though I do
know of the old photo-sensitive typeset machines.


Desktop publishing was the new ability to actually
print a finished product yourself. With high end
equipment people could print a professional, finished
product and cut the photostat people, the typesetters,
and the printers out of the picture.


Ah, see I was considering having a local operator of a typesetting
machine to be a valid direction for "desktop publishing". But yeah, if
the caveat is "printed directly to paper with either an inkjet or
laser or whatever was available back then ... "


| IIRC, the reputation was well earned -- the M68k and later PPC chips had
| better pipelines when it came to graphics processing than the Intel x86
| processors of the day.
|
Yes. But their reputation lasted far beyond that
time, for no reason. Some years ago a graphics shop
sued Apple after they bought Macs and found the
display's top setting was only 18-bit color/ 260K


I had a similar thing with a friend (or friend-of-a-friend). But it
came down to "yes, you _can_ get 24-bit color, if you get the high-end
display... but you chose the downgrade to save $100"

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--
|_|O|_|
|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O| PGP: 05CA 9A50 3F2E 1335 4DC5 4AEE 8E11 DDF3 1279 A281
  #282  
Old December 9th 19, 05:48 PM posted to alt.computer.workshop,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
Ken Blake[_7_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 569
Default 7 Best Alternatives To Microsoft Office Suite - 2019 Edition

On 12/9/2019 9:40 AM, Ken Springer wrote:
On 12/9/19 5:04 AM, Dan Purgert wrote:
Imo, the quality of the icon design has gone downhill over the last few
years. Not just Apple, but every where. They are no longer visually
intuitive.

Were they ever though? I mean, about the only one that I can recall
(ever) looking like what it's supposed to be is trash / recycle bin.


There will never be a UI that is intuitive all users. Simply not
possible. So icons need to be intuitive for the majority, or at least a
number of groups.

Take a look at the desktop icon for for File Manager from Windows 3.x:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Manager_(Windows)

Now look at W10's icon for File Explorer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Explorer

The purpose of File Manager/Windows Explorer/File Explorer is to
organize your files on floppies or hard drive, thumb drive, etc. Which
of those 2 icons do you think better represent where you are going to be
working by referring to something you've seen in your life?

Document icons used to have lines on them that indicated something in
writing. A folder icon looked like a partially open folder with
something inside, when that icon was selected or the folder was not empty.

The icons were also large enough to be easily identifiable. Not the
small things you see today.

Your trash can example is so accurate. The icon used to look like a 33
gal. trash can. As opposed to the square with a triangle on top as was
used by Gmail for some time.

I've seen some icons that actually had the text as part of the icon.



I use the smallest icons possible on my desktop and task bar, to provide
room for as many as possible. So, with a few exceptions, most of them
are unrecognizable. For most, I rely much more on the test accompanying
the icon.

Could the icons be better designed to be more recognizable? For some,
yes. For others, I can't think of how. But I hardly care. Again, I rely
much more on the text accompanying the icon.

--
Ken
  #283  
Old December 9th 19, 05:51 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Dan Purgert
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 281
Default 7 Best Alternatives To Microsoft Office Suite - 2019 Edition

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Mayayana wrote:
"Dan Purgert" wrote

| No. What I mean is that the basic English codepage includes
| most Euro characters in the 128+ range.
|
| Sure, but that's not typically considered to be the "ASCII" characterset
| anymore. At least as I recall, "ASCII" is only the characters contained
| in the lower 128 bits (0x00 to 0x7f) of the larger "ANSI English"
| character set (well, in Windows as codepage 1250 or something. As I
| recall, ANSI never released anything after the draft -- it got rolled
| into ISO8859)
|

I think there's an issue of terminology. I just
posted an explanation to Carlos. The problem seems
to be that few people know all the technical details
and history. On Windows, there's no ASCII. It's all
ANSI. Each character is a byte, not 7-bit. If you
use any character above 127 it displays according
to the local codepage.


Yeah, I think I saw it. MSFT made the goof -- sticking with the
draft-ANSI codepage (uh, 1250?) which got killed off in favor of
ISO-8859.

As I recall, ASCII characters were "only" 7-bit, because saving one bit
per character in the days of 300-baud modems was beneficial. But again,
memory is fuzzy

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--
|_|O|_|
|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O| PGP: 05CA 9A50 3F2E 1335 4DC5 4AEE 8E11 DDF3 1279 A281
  #284  
Old December 9th 19, 05:58 PM posted to alt.computer.workshop,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.comp.freeware
Ken Springer[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,817
Default 7 Best Alternatives To Microsoft Office Suite - 2019 Edition

On 12/9/19 7:11 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"Dan Purgert" wrote

| I explored it a fair amount but ended up feeling that
| it was a big time sucker. Everything changes. Everything
| requires tweaking.

| So, your basic progression of "new stuff changes". I mean, it's not like
| Windows behaves the same as XP (or 7) these days.
|
Big difference. Microsoft is religious about backward
compatibility. They provide support for 10 years and
lots of docs. (Though the end-user docs are pretty bad.)


Does this include the new support policy as stated he

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...cle-fact-sheet

snip

Linux support is typically 18 months. When I want
to install anything it needs numerous updates of system
files. Ridiculous stuff like 6.143.213.77 isn't good enough.
It has to be 6.143.213.88.


What about the Linux distros that are "Long Term Support"?

snip


--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.6
Firefox 70.0.1
Thunderbird 60.9
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"
  #285  
Old December 9th 19, 06:11 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Dan Purgert
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 281
Default 7 Best Alternatives To Microsoft Office Suite - 2019 Edition

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Ken Blake wrote:
On 12/9/2019 6:01 AM, Dan Purgert wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256


snip


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I don't know how anybody else feels about your PGP signatures, but I'll
tell you how I feel. I hate them. They add nothing to your posts and
just clutters them up. So I'd like to suggest that you stop
incorporating them in your messages.


Your request has been noted.

Please feel free to killfile me if the 12 lines are causing you that
much heartache.

HAND


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--
|_|O|_|
|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O| PGP: 05CA 9A50 3F2E 1335 4DC5 4AEE 8E11 DDF3 1279 A281
 




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