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#76
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Atlantis Word Processor
On Sat, 8 Feb 2014 22:38:25 -0500, "Mayayana"
wrote: | Apart from Mozilla FF or TB, I don't use any other open source products | and I have no plans to change my habits. | | My website runs on Linux but it is maintained by my host and I have | involvement with it. | My website also runs on Linux. I use Filezilla for FTP. Do you use commercial software? While I agree that a lot of OSS programs are projects that are never finished (Linux, GIMP) or solid projects that will always lack adequate GUI polish (7-Zip), I've only bought two commercial products in the past 10 years or so: 1) BootIt for disk management and disk imaging. 2) Corel Paint Shop Pro. Everything else I use is either OSS or free. And all are the best products I know of for the purpose. I'm willing to pay for something that's worth it to me. I just don't see such products. (I wouldn't touch anything from Adobe or Symantec. And I don't like to use software that's designed to call home without asking.) The free products I use are *at least* adequate: OSS: Acrylic DNS 7-Zip Filezilla (FTP) Libre Office SumatraPDF (which I was able to recompile, fairly easily, to ignore PDF file restrictions) VLC Media Player Audacity (audio editor) Free but not OSS: IrfanView HxD hex editor CPUID DVDFlick Imgburn (CD/DVD writer) Agent Ransack (Windows Find replacement) Sysinternals utilities Online Armor 4.0.0.15 for XP (last version before it was sold) Private Firewall for Win7 (I don't use AV, but install Avast for people who's PCs I manage.) Someone who uses MS Office for work is likely to say that Libre Office doesn't compare. I don't doubt that's true. But Libre Office is free and opens all versions of MS Office files. As a casual user who only needs to occasionally print business cards, receipts, contracts, etc. it's more than adequate. And it allows me to open anything from any MS Office user. If I wanted to do that with MS Office I'd have to keep buying each [wildly overpriced] version. (It's amazing how many MS Office users don't know how to write even a simple note without firing up MS Word, and then assume that everyone else can easily open their docx file.) The only thing I find I'm unable to really be satisfied with is browsers. IE is not even worth critiquing. Chrome is spyware from the biggest spyware company going. Opera is out of the running. I've never tried Safari, but I wouldn't have high hopes for anything from Apple. They're not known for catering to end-user choice. Firefox keeps changing. They get most of their money from Google, and it shows. Gradually the flexibility and privacy options have been disappearing. Every time I update it takes more work to get the functionality back. I'm finding that I'm ending up with "extension creep": adding more and more extensions to get the functions that used to be built in. A browser that requires numerous, arcane prefs edits and a handful of add-ons in order to work properly is a bad piece of software. I've been using Pale Moon in general, but that's really just a leaner version of Firefox, not a better one. I keep thinking it's time for a new, honest browser to appear, but nothing does. I suppose all the idealistic, young, genius programmers are too busy diddling their Facebook on their cellphones to think about Internet browsing. Very good post. Maybe you should crosspost to alt.comp.freeware. Wondering what you compiled SumatraPDF with. Site says "You'll need Visual Studio 2012". I did not realize that DRM could be switched off, I thought it was in some micro$oft library the program used, and one of the reasons I was using other PDF-readers. Maybe I'll just Ollydbg Sumatra. Write a binary patch if the code is +- consistent through versions. I also do not trust AVs anymore, specially the cloud-enabled types, but I do recommend them for the clueless. You forgot Nirsoft, and a text-editor (Notepad++), both essential, IMHO. And CPU_id (CPU-Z) and Imgburn both phone home (check your logs) Maybe we could start an about:config thread back in alt.comp.freeware. To make Firefox freeware again. IE and Chrome are built as malware, there is nothing that can be done to avoid the spyware. []'s -- Don't be evil - Google 2004 We have a new policy - Google 2012 |
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Atlantis Word Processor
On Sun, 09 Feb 2014 11:51:34 +0700, Yvonne York
wrote: On 05/02/14 18:35, Ken Springer wrote: [snip] I still want to give Linux a try, I even created a partition on my boot drive for that. Haven't had time and energy to do it. I've read some nice things about Netrunner (I think) and it's attempt to make switching from Windows less painful. It's supposed to include Flash, Java, and who knows what else. Try http://solydxk.com/ and be pleasantly surprised I run LXDE on Wheezy (Debian 7.3). My old hardware runs it as fast as XP(which I still use). Whatever floats your boat, I suppose. Advice - NEVER use Ubuntu. You will be unlearning Linux. Best to start with one of the classics. []'s -- Don't be evil - Google 2004 We have a new policy - Google 2012 |
#78
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Atlantis Word Processor
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote
in message A *spreadsheet* is for data on which calculations are anticipated. Granted, not _all_ the columns/rows will have sums done on them - I've nothing against column and row headings - but if _all_ you want is the _layout_, don't use a spreadsheet. (VanguardLH [what's the origin of that name by the way?] are for once in agreement on something!) Are you asking the origin of the word "spreadsheet"? If so, it pre-dates computers. The first microcomputer spreadsheet was Visicalc,circa 1979. It is still available, BTW. -- dadiOH ____________________________ Winters getting colder? Tired of the rat race? Taxes out of hand? Maybe just ready for a change? Check it out... http://www.floridaloghouse.net |
#79
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Atlantis Word Processor
In message , VanguardLH
writes: J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: Is the HTML code it produces (a) standards-compliant (b) compact? I only ask because I'm most unimpressed with what Word produces. Try the following (change the {} to ): {HTML}{HEAD}{/HEAD} {BODY} {FONT COLOR=RED}red}{/FONT} {FONT COLOR=YELLOW}yellow{/FONT} {/BODY} {/HTML} create that (e. g. in notepad), save it as colours.htm, load it into Word, re-save it, look at the size, look at it in notepad ... (I think Word's output might just be standards-compliant.) Alas, while the FONT tag is easy to understand, W3 decided to deprecate it in favor of the more complicated CSS method. The FONT tag isn't supported in HTML5. You're supposed to now use CSS (well, whenever they actually get around to ratifying HTML5 which looks to be around 2021). Apparently they think HTML shouldn't be easy to decode. Yes. I don't agree with the W3 - and am surprised that Sir T B-L has anything to do with them on that matter. (Another one they "deprecate" - I _hate_ that word, it smacks of smug superiority - is CENTER. Easy to understand, you see.) I _can_ see the point of CSSs - but _not_ that _all_ pages should use them. With MS Word, configure it (if possible) so NOT add all the Word-only specific tags. HTML generated by Word will, by default, include a bunch of tags that are non-standard (not true HTML tags) and only understood by MS Word. All of it is fluff if your intention is to publish the document outside of Word, like on a web server or to recipients who you don't have a clue as to what client they use to view your document. Not only Word-specific, but (and this applies to all machine-generated HTML I've seen - Word isn't actually the worst) lots of _spurious_ code. Some emails I've received, when I've saved them, have had ten or twenty {DIV}{/DIV} tags, usually with virtually - or, in fact actually! - nothing separating them; and, at least three sets of nested tables. Oh, and they might have a single & n b s p ; inside lots of {DIV} and {FONT} tags. (Come to think of it, they tend to include both {DIV} _and_ {FONT} tags, so they _aren't_ even doing away with FONT, just adding DIV _as well_. (And they rarely give more than a cursory nod to code indenting, either.) Alas, in the Word 2010 that I now have (had Word 2003 before), I cannot find the option to omit Word-specific tags in HTML output files. There was such an option back in Word 2003. In Word 2010, under Options - Advanced - General - Web Option, I don't see this option. There is, however, a "Rely on CSS for font formatting" option that is enabled by default. [] Although Word used to have an option to omit its Word-specific tags from a changed HTML document, I cannot find it in Word 2010 (which I haven't used much since changing from Word 2003); however, any time you use Word to edit an HTML document will result in a significant increase in size and not just due to converting deprecated tags, like FONT to an over- bloated CSS equivalent. It's just Microsoft's view that they own and can control a technology in which they choose to participate late. (-: After some hunting around, and after still not finding the old option to omit all the extraneous Word-specific tags from the .htm[l] file, I noticed in the Save As dialog that you can select "Web Page Filtered". That gets rid of all the Word-specific tags and meta-data. Word still Useful - I'll try to remember it. Though I only have (imposed, of course) Word 2010 at work, where I don't generate any HTML (any I generate for unofficial purposes I do with Notepad or 1-word; I think for corporate webpage generation, some bloated style-thing is imposed on us, that is even worse). converts the deprecated tags (FONT) to CSS to define a class that gets used as an attribute in the p paragraph tag so the file will still get larger but this time the 125-byte simple code file will only mushroom to 703 bytes after converting the deprecated FONT tags to CSS classes. Gee, only 703 instead of 125! So when HTML5 gets ratified and after an adoption period (which could be around 6 years) then HTML won't be so simple anymore. I have to wonder by 2027 if something won't have replaced HTML by then rather than attempt to keep rewriting an old document formatting standard. Will browsers _actually_ stop parsing the old tags anyway, whatever W3 and HTML5 say? I rather doubt it. -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf "Does Barbie come with Ken?" "Barbie comes with G.I. Joe. She fakes it with Ken." - anonymous |
#80
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Atlantis Word Processor
In message , Ken Springer
writes: [] To me, a text editor mimics what can be done with the last of the mechanical typewriters and a few electric typewriters, like the IBM Selectric and daisy wheel typewriters, where you can insert a different ball or wheel and change font size and typeface. Spellchecking? No. You've just crossed over into having created a very simple computer. [] As others have said, all our lines are in different places; for me, if I have to put my finger on a specific line, it's that for me, a text processor handles text, i. e. pure ASCII; that might _possibly_ be extended to "extended ASCII" or one of the two-byte character sets, but _doesn't_ even _know_ anything about fonts, colours, sizes, and so on. In short, something whose output could be displayed on a "glass teletype" (or real one) without losing anything. (I'd prefer it to be one whose electronics know about 8-tabs, though.) Any _formatting_ - or even non-monospaced spacing - makes it a word processor to me. But it's academic; we all have our own line/definitions, and it doesn't _usually_ matter if they don't coincide. -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf "Does Barbie come with Ken?" "Barbie comes with G.I. Joe. She fakes it with Ken." - anonymous |
#81
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Atlantis Word Processor
In message , dadiOH
writes: "J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message A *spreadsheet* is for data on which calculations are anticipated. Granted, not _all_ the columns/rows will have sums done on them - I've nothing against column and row headings - but if _all_ you want is the _layout_, don't use a spreadsheet. (VanguardLH [what's the origin of that name by the way?] are for once in agreement on something!) Are you asking the origin of the word "spreadsheet"? If so, it pre-dates No, I wasn't. computers. The first microcomputer spreadsheet was Visicalc,circa 1979. It is still available, BTW. BBC Micro wasn't it? But even that was a true spreadsheet, i. e. designed for doing sums. If I just want a grid, I'll use the table features of a WP (I think the temporal equivalent of Visicalc was View, though I can't remember if that used tables, as I never used it much) - I won't use a spreadsheet (as I understand the term). -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf "Does Barbie come with Ken?" "Barbie comes with G.I. Joe. She fakes it with Ken." - anonymous |
#82
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Atlantis Word Processor
In message , Shadow
writes: On Sat, 8 Feb 2014 16:00:40 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote: In message , Shadow writes: [] Nice = The clickerty sound. It does not phone home. It saves [] Since you don't explain what you mean by "The clickerty sound", I can only assume you mean keyclicks. If you want those, http://www.leeos.com/noisy_keyboard.html (and the mouse one!) is (are!) still there - get them while they are, as the site doesn't seem to have been altered since 2003, so I imagine it may not be there much longer. It (they) work fine under XP (and many previous); whether 7 or not I don't know (I'd say there's a good chance as the integration seems to be well written). Don't use unless you live alone ... (-: That worked. Though I wish it could be limited to just my word processor. TY []'s It (on this system, under XP, anyway) puts a click-to-toggle icon in the tray area. (Just trying it to make sure, I found how much I've come to rely on the clicks - silent typing was most unsettling!) -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder... |
#83
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Atlantis Word Processor
| Very good post. Maybe you should crosspost to
| alt.comp.freeware. | Thank you. I've never used that group. Maybe I'll check into it. Though I'm ambivalent about supporting people with a "free or bust" attitude. | Wondering what you compiled SumatraPDF with. Site says "You'll | need Visual Studio 2012". I did not realize that DRM could be | switched off, I thought it was in some micro$oft library the program | used, and one of the reasons I was using other PDF-readers. Maybe I'll | just Ollydbg Sumatra. Write a binary patch if the code is +- | consistent through versions. | I'm a bit behind with versions. My last version was 2.1.1. The current version is 2.4. I think I used VC 2008 Express. The new version may require VC 2012. In the past the Express versions have been free, though I can't say for sure that VC 2012 is free. The restrictions in PDFs are not DRM. They're just flags, presumably stored in the header. It's really just a clever scam instituted by Adobe to make PDFs seem as "concrete" and immutable as printed pages, which is something business people very much want to think is feasible. Thus, a format that's not good for much of anything other than accurate printing has become the default for anything official in business or gov't. The only reason PDF locking works is because people writing PDF readers respect the flags, and unlike, say, HTML or DOC files, PDF is extremely complex. So if the people writing the software respect the flags then the format is lockable for all practical purposes. But one need only ignore the flags, editing the source code to bypass the flag checks. And in doing so one is not bypassing any DRM or reverse engineering anything. (Nevertheless, I don't distribute my Sumatra version. I figure it's not for me to override the authors wishes.) Unfortunately, in many cases the restriction flags are set for no reason: Authors who don't know what they're doing; gov't documents locked for no reason other than frivolous, overzealous officiality; etc. Which can be quite a pain. To copy text from a PDF like that usually requires a screencapture sent to OCR software, followed by some editing of the result. | I also do not trust AVs anymore, specially the cloud-enabled | types, but I do recommend them for the clueless. | Yes, it's hard to argue with having AV if people don't want to keep track themselves. Anyone who wants Facebook, webmail, or anything else that requires allowing script and/or Flash indiscriminately, has no way to be reasonably secure online. But it's a shame. In my experience AV programs have become extreme resource hogs, comparing byte streams to 10's of thousands of "virus definitions" every time a file is touched, and updating several times daily. It's become an untenable approach. Many attacks are using zero-day exploits, anyway. There have even been articles about a market in zero-day exploits, with the NSA apparently even more involved in criminal hacking than Russian mobsters: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175803/ AV is mostly useless for that kind of thing. | You forgot Nirsoft, and a text-editor (Notepad++), both | essential, IMHO. | And CPU_id (CPU-Z) and Imgburn both phone home (check your | logs) It is getting hard to find truly clean software. Some of it's well intentioned. But even with those, I don't know how the idea became popularly regarded as reasonable that all software should be placed on an update drip-feed; programs being changed willy nilly, without notice. It's not a stable approach. If I remember correctly, ImgBurn shows a message at first start allowing updates to be disabled. I never had to block it. But I do have cpuz.exe blocked. I'm using a firewall that blocks unauthorized outgoing. I usually also unplug the network cable when installing anything. Some installers will hang if they detect a network connection but are blocked from getting through. Even the Mozilla products and extensions have an annoying habit of trying to track installs by sending the browser to their homepage on first run after an install or update. | Maybe we could start an about:config thread back in | alt.comp.freeware. To make Firefox freeware again. IE and Chrome are | built as malware, there is nothing that can be done to avoid the | spyware. There is a lot that can be done. Last week I discovered that I could replace the normal download window in FF 23. By downloading the relevant .xpi and examining the code one can make the pref changes and avoid installing more extensions. And some extensions can replace the missing settings in the Options window. But it seems to be a losing battle. Those solutions are only feasible for a very few people, and even then they're limited. According to what I read, the download window is removed altogether from FF 26! They break a function pointlessly one month. The next month someone writes an XPI fix. A month after that the Mozilla people break it permanently! The only decent solution I have at this point is simply not to upgrade. | []'s | -- | Don't be evil - Google 2004 | We have a new policy - Google 2012 |
#84
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Atlantis Word Processor
On 2/8/14 9:51 PM, Yvonne York wrote:
On 05/02/14 18:35, Ken Springer wrote: [snip] I still want to give Linux a try, I even created a partition on my boot drive for that. Haven't had time and energy to do it. I've read some nice things about Netrunner (I think) and it's attempt to make switching from Windows less painful. It's supposed to include Flash, Java, and who knows what else. Try http://solydxk.com/ and be pleasantly surprised Added to the list of distros to try. Thanks. -- Ken Mac OS X 10.8.5 Firefox 24.0 Thunderbird 24.0 |
#85
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Atlantis Word Processor
On Sun, 9 Feb 2014 09:55:14 -0500, "Mayayana"
wrote: | Very good post. Maybe you should crosspost to | alt.comp.freeware. | Thank you. I've never used that group. Maybe I'll check into it. Though I'm ambivalent about supporting people with a "free or bust" attitude. Not like that, but since the NSA scandal people are so scared of updating software or trying new stuff (I mean American or European), that the group has been rather trollish. I myself am a culprit. | Wondering what you compiled SumatraPDF with. Site says "You'll | need Visual Studio 2012". I did not realize that DRM could be | switched off, I thought it was in some micro$oft library the program | used, and one of the reasons I was using other PDF-readers. Maybe I'll | just Ollydbg Sumatra. Write a binary patch if the code is +- | consistent through versions. | I'm a bit behind with versions. My last version was 2.1.1. The current version is 2.4. I think I used VC 2008 Express. The new version may require VC 2012. In the past the Express versions have been free, though I can't say for sure that VC 2012 is free. Sorry, I expressed myself badly. Visual Studio 2012 is the only one available from MS ATM, but it probably compiles under the previous versions. Update: I found the 2008, 2010 and 2012 editions on MS servers. All are 600-900 Mb isos. Wondering if they are worth my while installing. The restrictions in PDFs are not DRM. They're just flags, presumably stored in the header. It's really just a clever scam instituted by Adobe to make PDFs seem as "concrete" and immutable as printed pages, which is something business people very much want to think is feasible. Thus, a format that's not good for much of anything other than accurate printing has become the default for anything official in business or gov't. I fired up Ollydbg and removed the restriction on copying text in about 3 minutes. It's a one-byte edit. Search for: "Copying text was denied (copying as image only)" the jump above that, make it unconditional. I'm using v2.5.8*** portable. I don't have any other PDF's to test for other restrictions. The only reason PDF locking works is because people writing PDF readers respect the flags, and unlike, say, HTML or DOC files, PDF is extremely complex. So if the people writing the software respect the flags then the format is lockable for all practical purposes. But one need only ignore the flags, editing the source code to bypass the flag checks. And in doing so one is not bypassing any DRM or reverse engineering anything. (Nevertheless, I don't distribute my Sumatra version. I figure it's not for me to override the authors wishes.) The good thing about open-source is that, being communist, you can alter it to fit your needs ... Unfortunately, in many cases the restriction flags are set for no reason: Authors who don't know what they're doing; gov't documents locked for no reason other than frivolous, overzealous officiality; etc. Which can be quite a pain. To copy text from a PDF like that usually requires a screencapture sent to OCR software, followed by some editing of the result. | I also do not trust AVs anymore, specially the cloud-enabled | types, but I do recommend them for the clueless. | Yes, it's hard to argue with having AV if people don't want to keep track themselves. Anyone who wants Facebook, webmail, or anything else that requires allowing script and/or Flash indiscriminately, has no way to be reasonably secure online. But it's a shame. In my experience AV programs have become extreme resource hogs, comparing byte streams to 10's of thousands of "virus definitions" every time a file is touched, and updating several times daily. It's become an untenable approach. Many attacks are using zero-day exploits, anyway. There have even been articles about a market in zero-day exploits, with the NSA apparently even more involved in criminal hacking than Russian mobsters: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175803/ AV is mostly useless for that kind of thing. Yep, and there are the ones that do not detect the NSA backdoors by default. Google for Kaspersky's recent declarations on NSA snooping. He thinks it's "great". McAfee and Norton never detected the old FBI trojans. And Avira is going cloud for the free versions. | You forgot Nirsoft, and a text-editor (Notepad++), both | essential, IMHO. | And CPU_id (CPU-Z) and Imgburn both phone home (check your | logs) It is getting hard to find truly clean software. Some of it's well intentioned. But even with those, I don't know how the idea became popularly regarded as reasonable that all software should be placed on an update drip-feed; programs being changed willy nilly, without notice. It's not a stable approach. +1 A wee DNS hack and you are updating to the latest Banking Trojan[TM] If I remember correctly, ImgBurn shows a message at first start allowing updates to be disabled. I never had to block it. It connects to 3 sites to "check if there is internet connectivity" before going to the update site. Then it checks to see if you have enabled updates. Well, it used to, so I block it just in case. The author is a bright lad. Maybe he changed that. But I do have cpuz.exe blocked. I'm using a firewall that blocks unauthorized outgoing. I usually also unplug the network cable when installing anything. Some installers will hang if they detect a network connection but are blocked from getting through. Even the Mozilla products and extensions have an annoying habit of trying to track installs by sending the browser to their homepage on first run after an install or update. Noscript comes to mind | Maybe we could start an about:config thread back in | alt.comp.freeware. To make Firefox freeware again. IE and Chrome are | built as malware, there is nothing that can be done to avoid the | spyware. My \Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\*******.default\prefs.js is over 22Kb, but a lot of that was not manual editing. There is a lot that can be done. Last week I discovered that I could replace the normal download window in FF 23. By downloading the relevant .xpi and examining the code one can make the pref changes and avoid installing more extensions. And some extensions can replace the missing settings in the Options window. But it seems to be a losing battle. Those solutions are only feasible for a very few people, and even then they're limited. According to what I read, the download window is removed altogether from FF 26! They break a function pointlessly one month. The next month someone writes an XPI fix. A month after that the Mozilla people break it permanently! The only decent solution I have at this point is simply not to upgrade. I use 17 ESR. Yep, I know it's backdoored, but so are the more recent ones. []'s -- Don't be evil - Google 2004 We have a new policy - Google 2012 |
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Atlantis Word Processor
On Sun, 9 Feb 2014 14:46:56 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote: Since you don't explain what you mean by "The clickerty sound", I can only assume you mean keyclicks. If you want those, http://www.leeos.com/noisy_keyboard.html (and the mouse one!) is (are!) still there - get them while they are, as the site doesn't seem to have been altered since 2003, so I imagine it may not be there much longer. It (they) work fine under XP (and many previous); whether 7 or not I don't know (I'd say there's a good chance as the integration seems to be well written). Don't use unless you live alone ... (-: That worked. Though I wish it could be limited to just my word processor. It (on this system, under XP, anyway) puts a click-to-toggle icon in the tray area. (Just trying it to make sure, I found how much I've come to rely on the clicks - silent typing was most unsettling!) Yes. I just noticed it buried in the dozens of icons I have. TY again. []'s -- Don't be evil - Google 2004 We have a new policy - Google 2012 |
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Atlantis Word Processor
"Ken Springer" wrote in message ... On 2/8/14 9:02 AM, BillW50 wrote: On 2/8/2014 8:35 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: In message , BillW50 writes: "VanguardLH" wrote in message ... snip A *spreadsheet* is for data on which calculations are anticipated. Granted, not _all_ the columns/rows will have sums done on them - I've nothing against column and row headings - but if _all_ you want is the _layout_, don't use a spreadsheet. (VanguardLH [what's the origin of that name by the way?] are for once in agreement on something!) Odd? If I need a blank form let's say for daily blood glucose readings, a spreadsheet is the way to do it. Why what would you use to create such a form? You would use a word processor? I think, in this discussion, we've omitted two pieces of information... The definition of a "form", and the purpose for which the table/form is being created. I'm assuming "form" means something printed on a single piece of paper, paper size being irrelevant. Not the "form" you would create in a program like MS Access for data entry. As for the purpose, using the blood glucose readings example... If I simply wanted something printed to hand write the sugar level readings, and nothing else, I'd use a word processor in a heartbeat. You get immediate visual feedback of what it will look like when printed, and fitting it to the page size is easy. Simply tell the program how many rows you want, and how many columns you want. If your mental calculations are close, you're basically done. Then you can fine tune the result to fill the printable area of the paper if you wish. But with a spreadsheet, you have to define a "printable area", I.E. which columns and rows will print on a page, and then use Print Preview to see what is may look like. Change the number of columns and/or rows you want to include, and you have to reset the printable area. No immediate feedback. But, if I were going to do some type of calculations on the individual readings, creating graphs of averages, total, whatever I wanted to know, I'd use the spreadsheet to create the table/form. Although, I'd probably take that initial setup and import it into something like Access and create a custom form on the monitor for the data input. Depending on the data you are including for your glucose readings, the Access way is possibly better, if you're also keeping track of what and when you're eating, the times the readings were taken, what you ate, etc. Truthfully, if I wanted something that sophisticated, I'd just use the software that comes with my meter! LOL Basically, you have to determine how that table/form is going to be used if you wish to use the software that will give you the best end result. All very good and valid points Ken. Although here are some others things you can chew over. And yes, I do use the software that came with the meter and I personally find it very useful myself. And you don't have to input any data, as a cable runs between the meter and the computer. Then it downloads everything and imports it into the program. The problem is some doctors doesn't understand the data in this format and confuses them, go figure. What they like to see is the commonly found log sheets. Sure I suppose you can create one using a word processor that supports tables. Although I prefer using a spreadsheet. Sure I can print a log without any data and fill it in by hand. Then later enter this data into the spreadsheet. Of course, it also uses the data and creates averages, max and min, etc. So in my case, printing empty log sheets or filled in logs from Excel makes total sense. Although you mentioned using the meter's software. And now that I think about it, it acts more or less like a database vs. a spreadsheet. So I was thinking if I could be doing this on a database instead? Surprisingly, I think that would work well too. Even printing blank log sheets too. Here is something else to think about. I know lots of people and say my accountant friends who live in Excel all day long. And they will use Excel for tasks that you and I won't even bother with. I guess they know it so well, it just makes sense to them. Heck I used to use WordStar for both light duty database and spreadsheet use too. It could only add a column of numbers for spreadsheet use. Although for database, you could sort on any column. So you could sort any field of data. Word also can do this and do more than just adding columns of numbers. ;-) -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows Live Mail 2009 v14 Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 8 Pro w/Media Center |
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Atlantis Word Processor
In message , BillW50
writes: [] I prefer using a spreadsheet. Sure I can print a log without any data and fill it in by hand. Then later enter this data into the spreadsheet. Of course, it also uses the data and creates averages, max and min, etc. So in my case, printing empty log sheets or filled in logs from Excel makes total sense. [] Indeed; you're doing sums on it, therefore a spreadsheet is the right thing to use - so it probably wasn't a good example to pick. I remain convinced that just wanting a GRID is not a reason to use a spreadsheet PROGRAM, however. By grid, I mean something with rows and columns, with or without visible lines between them. For things like: a rota, a comparison chart, a Christmas card list. -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf Actors are fairly modest...A lot of us have quite a lot to be modest about. - Simon Greenall (voice of Aleksandr the "Simples!" Meerkat), RT 11-17 Dec 2010 |
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Atlantis Word Processor
| Sorry, I expressed myself badly. Visual Studio 2012 is the
| only one available from MS ATM, but it probably compiles under the | previous versions. | Update: I found the 2008, 2010 and 2012 editions on MS | servers. All are 600-900 Mb isos. Wondering if they are worth my while | installing. VS or VC? Express or regular? I mostly use VB6 and only installed VC Express for little things like editing Sumatra. I don't remember exactly what the licensing terms are. I don't think there are any notable restrictions on VC Express, though it's possible that there's a non-commercial clause. If you work in C++ and want an IDE/compiler then VC Express seems to be a good bargain. And a lot of OSS source code comes as one or more VC project version. Unfortunately, Microsoft keeps changing things around, so it can be a pain to convert a project from one version to another. | I fired up Ollydbg and removed the restriction on copying text | in about 3 minutes. It's a one-byte edit. Search for: | "Copying text was denied (copying as image only)" | the jump above that, make it unconditional. | I'm using v2.5.8*** portable. | That's impressive. I'll have to look into Ollydbg. The edit I had made in the source code was to just skip calling the functions to check the flags and assign "no restrictions" values to those variables. | My | \Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\*******.default\prefs.js | is over 22Kb, but a lot of that was not manual editing. It's too bad that whole file can't just be given to non-technical people, but there are too many basic choices built into it. Even giving people a user.js would require them making a lot of choices they won't care to understand. | I use 17 ESR. Yep, I know it's backdoored, but so are the more | recent ones. I don't understand. Could you explain that? Is 17 ESR a version of Firefox? Firefox is backdoored? |
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Atlantis Word Processor
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message ... In message , BillW50 writes: [] I prefer using a spreadsheet. Sure I can print a log without any data and fill it in by hand. Then later enter this data into the spreadsheet. Of course, it also uses the data and creates averages, max and min, etc. So in my case, printing empty log sheets or filled in logs from Excel makes total sense. [] Indeed; you're doing sums on it, therefore a spreadsheet is the right thing to use - so it probably wasn't a good example to pick. I remain convinced that just wanting a GRID is not a reason to use a spreadsheet PROGRAM, however. By grid, I mean something with rows and columns, with or without visible lines between them. For things like: a rota, a comparison chart, a Christmas card list. I agree. Although I noticed many people might use what we think would be a poor choice for a given task. One main reason why they might do this is because they know a given application far better than other generally more beneficial program for the job. -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows Live Mail 2009 v14 Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 8 Pro w/Media Center |
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