Carputers News and Computer Tips

Actually, school here in metro Birmingham, AL has been back in session since mid-August.  However, since this is Labor Day weekend with tomorrow being the “traditional” start of school for many, we thought we’d note some resources that would be useful for students and parents.

The first is a post we wrote a couple of years ago about web-based applications for students.

The second is an article written for Mashable by Josh Catone entitled Back to School: 15 Essential Web Tools for Students.  He writes:

“From staying organized to improving study habits to making sure you reference your research sources properly, the web can help you be a better student.”

The third is a call from blogger Bill Mullins urging High School/College Students (to) Line Up Here for Your Free PC Software.  Bill’s picks are, in his words:

“…recommended free downloads that will help you communicate, get those assignments done, have some fun, and manage and protect your system while you’re surfing the Internet.”

Bill mentions Open Office in his picks.  We’ve pointed out several Microsoft Office Alternatives over the last few years.  As we’ve said before, “free is good”, especially in this day and time of belt-tightening.

Looking for other sources for legitimate, free software?  We maintain a list on out links pages!

We posted almost two years ago on word processors.  Recently, the FreeLine blog did their own comparison of the six latest and greatest free word processing programs out there.  Their picks?  IBM Lotus Symphony, Google Docs, and SoftMaker Office 2006. 

Another interesting tidbit from this comparison which was news to us - Novell has a custom version of OpenOffice.org 3.0 available for download.  What makes their version different from the mainstream version of OpenOffice.org? 

OpenOffice.org Novell Edition for Windows contains enhancements and bug fixes, especially for interoperability with Microsoft Office and other word processing programs, that are not available in the standard edition. These enhancements include:            

• Microsoft Excel*: Compatibility: Improved Excel compatibility for certain built-in functions (e.g., CELL, INFO, INDIRECT), hyperlinks and filters, improved ergonomics, and support for “R1C1″ style addresses. Improved performance on certain text functions such as SEARCH.  Natural sorting option in cell range sorting.
• Excel VBA Macro Interoperability: OpenOffice.org Novell Edition eases the migration of many macros from Microsoft Excel.  Although not all macros can be successfully migrated, this interoperability offers more than the standard edition, which does not support migration of macros.
• Data Pilots: Data Pilots are interoperable with Microsoft Office PivotTables*.  OpenOffice.org Novell Edition substantially improves the Data Pilot feature, making it possible to edit pilots after creation.
• Enhanced Fonts: Licensed fonts from Agfa* Monotype* which are metrically identical and visually compatible with some of the key Microsoft fonts.  This allows OpenOffice.org Novell Edition to match fonts when opening documents originally composed in Microsoft Office, and very closely match pagination and page formatting.
• EMF+Support: The ability to render EMF+ formatted graphics
• SVG Support: The ability to import scalable vector graphics.
• Import File Formats: Microsoft Works, WordPerfect* text and graphics, T602 files, OfficeOpen XML, and more.
• Groupwise® Integration: OpenOffice.org Novell Edition includes improved integration with ODMA (Open Document Management Architecture) services, for example for GroupWise.  If you have the GroupWise client installed on the machine, OpenOffice.org Novell Edition will offer to open documents from GroupWise, or save documents in GroupWise.

Yes, OpenOffice.org Novell Edition opens Microsoft Office 2007 (.docx, .pptx, .xlsx) files!

Free registration with Novell is required to download OpenOffice.org Novell Edition.  For those who regularly share files with MS Office users, this might be the way to go.

Here, in .pdf format is Novell’s FAQ for OpenOffice.org Novell Edition.

Here is a direct link to download the suite in .iso format, without registration.  This page provides instructions on how to burn .iso files to a CD via many popular CD burning programs.

Edward Mendelson writes for PC Magazine:

Even though OpenOffice.org… can’t do everything (Microsoft) Office can, it can do a lot, and it has some of its own tricks that even (Microsoft) Office can’t manage.

Mr. Mendelson’s article makes a nice addition to our series of OpenOffice.org posts.  Tip #5 in his article is a shorter version of our post on Configuring the OpenOffice.org suite for use in a Microsoft Office world… 

As we’ve said before - you can’t beat the price!

We frequently get requests for help with using different software and applications.  For example, users changing to Microsoft Office 2007 from earlier versions sometimes find it difficult to locate familiar features and commands.

There are several good, free sources of just-in-time training guides and “cheat sheets” for popular software applications on the web. Here are our picks:

The University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business maintains a great, publically-accessable Computing Documentation Library full of handouts and ”cheat sheets” for many software programs.

CustomGuide is a software training company based in Minneapolis, MN. They offer several FREE Quick References for popular programs and operating systems.

OpenOffice.org user guides for Version 3 (their latest version) are available here.

As discussed in our Lotus Symphony posts, ”cheat sheets” in the form of reference cards are available here.

If you have any others to add, leave a reply below or contact us!

Following three years of continuous improvement, OpenOffice.org has now released as of this week the landmark version 3.0, with a host of new features.

OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more.  It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.

Follow our previously posted directions for making OpenOffice.org 3 save in Microsoft-compatible file formats by default.  The procedure is still the same for this new release. 

Edit 12/21/2008: 

OpenOffice.org 3.0 is now also available as a Portable App, which will run directly from a USB drive.

Dennis O’Reilly’s Workers Edge blog has some nice tips on Writer / Word compatibility settings and tweaks.  This article takes our own post on using OpenOffice in a MS Office world to the next level!

This serves not only as an informational presentation about good office freeware but also as a test of a new Google Docs feature that allows Powerpoint presentations to be imbedded in blogs and webpages. Note that the three suites mentioned (OpenOffice.org, StarOffice and IBM Lotus Symphony) that can create presentations will all save those presentations in .ppt format. In fact, the presentation shown was created in StarOffice using a free downloaded template before being uploaded to Google Docs.

A full-screen version of this presentation is available here for those that are interested.

Need more information? Here’s a great article from PC Magazine on The Best Office Alternatives.

Edit 11/22/2008: 

Google has dropped StarOffice from the Google Pack, with no explanation as to why. 

From the Unofficial Google Operating System blog:

Google Pack, the collection of applications recommended by Google, includes a new software: StarOffice, an office suite developed by Sun. In 2000 Sun released StarOffice’s source code, which became the foundation of OpenOffice.org, an open source project sponsored by Sun.

The posting has full details.  StarOffice normally sells for about $70, but Google is making it available for free.

StarOffice is very similar to OpenOffice.org.  For a list of differences, see the OpenOffice.org FAQ along with the StarOffice FAQ.

As we’ve stated here before, either would be a good choice for 90% of the office suite users out there.

Edit 08/14/2007: 

Ryan over at CyberNet News has a good article on this as well.

Why can’t I see all the available programs on the Google Pack homepage?  If you cannot see StarOffice as one of the choices at http://pack.google.com, go to Add/Remove Programs, uninstall the Google Updater and then visit http://pack.google.com again and follow the directions there to download.

Also, Google has verified that the Google Updater and all of the available Google Pack software may be legitimately used in a business environment. See the response by the Google Pack Guide in this discussion.  We make this important distinction because many freeware licenses stipulate home or non-commercial use only.

In order to install the Google Updater and the programs offered through Google Pack (including StarOffice), please use Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or above or Mozilla Firefox 1.0 or above. You must also have Microsoft Windows XP or Windows Vista with administrator privileges on your computer.

Edit 11/22/2008: 

Google has dropped StarOffice from the Google Pack, with no explanation as to why. 

Etan Horowitz writes for the Orlando Sentinel newspaper.  His column for Saturday, July 7 listed three free alternatives to Microsoft Office.

“OpenOffice.org is downloadable software that is nearly identical to Office.  The programs have catchy names “Writer” for word processing, “Calc” for spreadsheets, and “Impress” for presentations.  If everyone had to create PowerPoint-like presentations using a program called “Impress,” I think we’d all be better off.  I was able to do virtually everything I could do in Office, such as create pivot tables from spreadsheets and add animations to slides.  If you want free software that operates the most like Microsoft Office, this is it.”  

Mr. Horowitz is absolutely correct in his assessment, in our humble opinion.  OpenOffice.org is the ticket, and it can be downloaded for free by clicking this button:

Be sure to see our post on Configuring the OpenOffice.org suite for use in a Microsoft Office world for instructions on how to easily set OpenOffice.org up to save files in the default Microsoft formats.  This will make it much easier to exchange files with Microsoft Office users.

All modern flavors of Windows ship with Notepad and Wordpad.  For some, who prefer to keep things simple, these are all the writing or word processing applications that are necessary or needed.  Others will need more features and horsepower in a word processing application. 

We like OpenOffice Writer as a free alternative to Microsoft Word.  The only problem with Writer is that you must install the entire OpenOffice suite to get it.  Another popular free standalone alternative is Abiword. 

The DonationCoder website recently posted a comprehensive review of modern word processing applications.  It was  written by Zaine Ridling, who runs The Great Software List.  The ending summary is linked here for those who wish to “cut to the chase”. 

The Web Worker Daily blog has also recently posted an article listing 10 free minimalist word processors for greater productivity.  In their words, “if you don’t need a million features and don’t want to shell out 400 clams to write something, give one of these great alternatives a spin”.

We couldn’t have said it any better ourselves…