The FireFox Explosion

The FireFox Explosion

The above link takes you to a full page image is from this coming month's Wired. The image shows various open source software that is fighting the Microsoft fortress. It shows both desktop and back office software types. What is really missing though is the Open Office. Open Office can save things in Microsoft formats or its own. While in one sense this is a copy cat to Microsoft Office, it has much more capability than MS Works. If you are not familiar with MS Works, it is a little office suite which often comes with Windows.

In a sense word processing, spread sheets and presentations are very basic to simple computing. While Firefox has made a big hit in the news and we all know about Linux, Open Office is key to people feeling comfortable leaving the MS family since it has the de facto standards for creating documents. While I'm sure there are design features of MS Word that I am just not getting, the main feature seems to me to be one which serves the company who owns it, that is making the world of home and office computing impossible to survive in without using MS Word. While there are many ways to get around using MS Word, most people are not willing to leave the comfort zone of having MS Word. That is one reason that Apple had to start putting MS Office on their Machintosh line of computers. Apple Works (a.k.a. Claris Works) was a fine suite of office software. I believe Apple made the switch from Claris to MS Office as a survival mechanism, not a design feature.

I for one would gladly place an image on my blog encouraging people to use Open Office if one existed.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In The Hours

Image
In The Hours Words by Helen L. Parmelee Music by Kevin Twit http://www.igracemusic.com/hymnbook/lead/inthehours.pdf This song by Indelible Grace is one that really moves me. I think it moves me because it reminds me of my own story. The words remind me of God's work in my life through the blessing of suffering. A lot of my best days walking with my Lord has actually been days of suffering. Verse one reminds me of growing up when I felt rejected by others but God was my song. 1. In the hours of pain and sorrow, When the world brings no relief When the eye is dim and heavy, And the heart oppressed with grief While blessings flee, Savior Lord we trust in Thee! While blessings flee, Savior Lord we trust in Thee! Verse two talks about my drifting from the Lord when I was caught up in pride and the sin of self-sufficiency. 2. When the snares of death surround us, Pride, ambition, love of ease Mammon with her false allurements, Words that flatter, smiles that please Then ere we yield, S...
Read more

Was the New Testament Letters Only Written to Male Brothers?

  Question:   Was the Bible written to men only and not to women?   Some teach that the New Testament letters address brothers exclusively.      Executive Summary Answer:   Women and men share in the blessings of the gospel, Scripture was written for both women and men. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Gen. 1:27 ESV) Answer:   The Bible recognizes differences between genders but also recognizes the commonality between male and female genders.   The book of Proverbs is written to sons to gain wisdom.   “Hear, my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.”   (Prov. 1:8-9 ESV) The book of Proverbs was written in order to teach young men wisdom.   Even so, often it is the female gender that teaches wisdom.   Early in the book, the male gender,...
Read more

Bridging the Chasm

My good friend the Jollyblogger has been writing on Bridging the Chasm , meaning the church communicating with the secular world. In the early 80's YWAM put out a pamphlet on missions prayer. One of the things they encouraged Christians to pray for was different areas of influence: * Government * Business * Media/Journalism * The Arts * Education * Entertainment (I'm not sure that is the complete list.) As I prayed for these areas of influence, I found that Christians really wrote about a couple of these in the early 80's; Government and Business. For government you had movements like the Moral Majority and Focus on the Family writing actually about a very narrow aspect of government; moral issues. Yes, I'm grouping all Focus on the Family's issues in the area of moral issues. The government is so much more than moral issues. The business issues were mostly addressed by Bill Gothard, Larry Burkett and later Ron Blue. I'm not sure how ade...
Read more