MS raised prices so people will now start renting their office products instead

users
#101

A. so in your opinion people - both young and old - not yet
knowing anything about computers, perhaps buying their first unit,
are - not only "IT-illiterate" but also "morons"

The point is not whether someone is IT-illiterate or not, but whether
(s)he is aware of the limits of his/her IT competence or not. And
whether (s)he arrogates to impose his/her "decisions" onto those people
who have to do the actual work despite his/her demonstrated
incompetence.

B. so you agree that among these "IT-illiterate morons (= idiots)"
are bosses, persons in chief position (managers).

It is (unfortunately) indeed an empirical fact that people who are
career-competent enough to usurp a "management position" in a
hierarchically structured organisation are *exclusively* career
competent.

When responsible for their dept's/company's strategic

The usage of the word "strategy" or "strategic" etc. empirically
indicates pretty well the main focus of the author of the corresponding
statement - cheaptalk.

and operative effectiveness and economical result, these
"IT-illiterate morons" decide about the need of an IT-department --
and employ an IT-manager to that department to take care of the
company's IT-system, programs and personnel included.

See my other reply concerning the (all too well known and too
well documented) antipattern of dedicated "IT departments".

C. Obviously you qualify yourselves as highly "IT-literate" --
perhaps even "non-morons".

I never made any statement like that. But given the level of (not only
IT-related) competence that you exhibit through your statements, it
doesn't seem to take much to be more competent.

Some weeks ago LibO invited people to take part to make LibO better.
Would it not be an good idea that you - instead of blaming others -
took the opportunity to practice your high quality IT-knowledge to
the benefit of LibO.

My original message with the ID
20120925175229.00e623b1a418830757ecd282@gmx.net contains a few
recommendations for potential conceptual improvements to LO from the
perspective of an experienced information worker who has also used
something else than MS Office and LO.

Sincerely,

Wolfgang

#102

Yes, I need to look deeper at LO and "sends as" or "Save as" MS Office 97-2003 documents as my kids are complaining their LO docs from home ("sends as" or "Save as" MS Office 97-2003) are not opening properly in MO2010 at school. May be MO are doing this to force users to docx and break compatibility with LO.
steve

#103

Jay Lozier wrote:

  

<snip>

Girvin,

Most people I have talked to about databases find them less intuitive
than other typical office and general software.

Jay,
Yes, I can agree to that. Working with databases is not plug-n-play. It doesn't help when there are strangenesses in SQL that I don't understand the reason why they are there. For example, a while back I ran into a Join problem with at least MySQL joins that if any joined field of a record is null, the join will fail and that record, even though the other fields are valid, will not be in the result set. No warnings or errors are given - it is just missing. That causes missing data, which IMHO is a bad thing. As I said, I am not an SQL expert and maybe there is a way around that action, but I could not find a way by trial and error. I had to go back into all of my records and make sure I had a default value in all the fields that were part of any join.

It is my understanding that an expanded version of the Base manual is coming out soon. That will be a help too. With the exception of the Report Builder, Base works quite well as far as I use it, but the documentation is sparse and there is a lot of trial and error involved to get what I want. I am looking forward to the new version.

Of course, it is not within the scope of a Base manual to teach SQL, but since Base relies heavily on SQL and some Base functions require some SQL writing, some simple examples of how to use those Base features would be appreciated by all users. There are some examples in the manuals already, but it could use some expansion. Otherwise, the Base user base will continue to be minimal. Users need help to understand the concepts and make Base usable for them and their projects. Otherwise, they will continue to use Calc. I am sure the frustration level can be high for newbies and many would give up on Base, even though it would be the correct tool for them to use. I might have done so too, if it were not that I have a lot invested in my databases and I am now "locked in" to maintaining them.

Another good idea might be to add to the manual a "Further Reference" list of recommended books to read for more information. I would start a MySQL list with the "MySQL Reference Manual", which comes with most MySQL packages and is on the MySQL website and is available in paper from O'Reilly Community Press. That should be mandatory reading for all new MySQL users. Also, I have found the "Teach Yourself SQL in 24 Hours" book by Ryan Stephens and Ron Plew of value. (I have no affiliation with either of these authors or publishers.)
Girvin

#104

Doug,

MSO has some tools designed for real-time collaborative document
production that allow distributed groups to work on the same document
and track each person's edits, etc. I have not used these features;
primarily because I never needed to use them. Thus I do not know how
well they work. The implicit assumption is that all users can have
simultaneous access to the same document version.

Some the editing features such as track all changes are sometimes useful
for a large document. What you are describing is not what MS is trying
to push. Often what is needed for collaboration is what you are
describing: create, edit, revise, (edit, revise), release.

#105

Jay Lozier wrote:

<snip>

Girvin,

Most people I have talked to about databases find them less intuitive
than other typical office and general software.

Jay,
Yes, I can agree to that. Working with databases is not plug-n-play.
It doesn't help when there are strangenesses in SQL that I don't
understand the reason why they are there. For example, a while back I
ran into a Join problem with at least MySQL joins that if any joined
field of a record is null, the join will fail and that record, even
though the other fields are valid, will not be in the result set. No
warnings or errors are given - it is just missing. That causes
missing data, which IMHO is a bad thing. As I said, I am not an SQL
expert and maybe there is a way around that action, but I could not
find a way by trial and error. I had to go back into all of my
records and make sure I had a default value in all the fields that
were part of any join.
It is my understanding that an expanded version of the Base manual is
coming out soon. That will be a help too. With the exception of the
Report Builder, Base works quite well as far as I use it, but the
documentation is sparse and there is a lot of trial and error involved
to get what I want. I am looking forward to the new version.

Of course, it is not within the scope of a Base manual to teach SQL,
but since Base relies heavily on SQL and some Base functions require
some SQL writing, some simple examples of how to use those Base
features would be appreciated by all users. There are some examples
in the manuals already, but it could use some expansion. Otherwise,
the Base user base will continue to be minimal. Users need help to
understand the concepts and make Base usable for them and their
projects. Otherwise, they will continue to use Calc. I am sure the
frustration level can be high for newbies and many would give up on
Base, even though it would be the correct tool for them to use. I
might have done so too, if it were not that I have a lot invested in
my databases and I am now "locked in" to maintaining them.

I think Base is following MS Access in trying to use wizards to hide the
SQL code from most users. This may be a mistake because most users still
do not understand what is happening behind the wizard.

Another good idea might be to add to the manual a "Further Reference"
list of recommended books to read for more information. I would start
a MySQL list with the "MySQL Reference Manual", which comes with most
MySQL packages and is on the MySQL website and is available in paper
from O'Reilly Community Press. That should be mandatory reading for
all new MySQL users. Also, I have found the "Teach Yourself SQL in 24
Hours" book by Ryan Stephens and Ron Plew of value. (I have no
affiliation with either of these authors or publishers.)
Girvin

SQL is a beast to work with. There are two problems: one is its
sometimes flaky processing and two is the fact it is lacks features such
as file import as part of the standard. The first problem is usually
fixed by reordering the joins or using sub-queries. Loading data into a
file can be messy because different dialects do not do it exactly the
same way.

Another relational database problem is the proper design of the
database, its component tables, and the proper linking between tables.
This is often not a trivial or obvious issue and bad initial design will
haunt the maintainers.

There several very good books about SQL. I like Ben Forta's "MariaDB
Crash Course" for MySQL/MariaDb and general SQL.

#106

I have had a number of occasions recently to do
multi-person collaboration usually live during a conference call, and I
have to say that if you want to do that Google Docs is the tool of choice
and MSO doesn't come up to the mark.

#107

Both comments (Tim, Gorden) are valuable.
I switched to LO about 6 months ago and like it also I am missing (compared to MSO) a few features in IMPRESS badly I am not the expert to really compare LO features with MSO 97 and 2003. Which version ever is used to be the comparison standard is not that important to me. But what is IMHO important is that all MSO97 features in and all bugs out. But don't take out features which are beyond MSO97 only get the bugs out. LO must become a very solid bug free production tool.

#108

Could you tell which features do you mean, exactly?
I am always interested in such comparisons. People all over the web say "LO is
missing some features", but such statements tend to not be supported by
descriptions of features in question.

#109

One feature I miss isn't actually a feature in MSO as such, but LO behaves
differently. If I open a spreadsheet from an email or the web it places a
copy in the download folder/directory and Calc always opens it read-only
whereas Excel opens it as read-write. I would like at least an option to
get Calc to open it as read-write. To do so I have to save a copy
before I start, and as I do this around 100 times a day it becomes quite an
irritant.

#110

I thought LO was emulating MSO 97??

#111

It's just a "modify document" button click away. But I guess it's more a "problem" of the web browser or e-mail client rather than OOo/LibO as such.

The browser / e-mail client puts a read-only file in the user temp folder, then passes its full path to OOo/LibO for reading. OOo/LibO will just notice it's a readonly file and will behave accordingly.

Hopefully someone with more technicall indsight into this can confirm or correct me ?

#112

- actually useful formatting concepts for presentations like e.g.
LaTeX Beamer provides.

Could you elaborate? I don't know Beamer (I have heard the name, but
never really used it) and I am interested in knowing what it has to
offer that LO is not capable of.

Everything that you get from LaTeX: structure markup instead of
spaghetti formatting, parameterized formatting, etc...

Instead of clicking through dozens of dialogboxes for each and every
line of text, slide title, list item, figure, etc. to get everything the
way you want it, you just change a few parameters once for the whole
document and that's it.

LibO/OOo already provides this. As did MS Word 5.x for DOS around 1994. It's called "styles". Which incidentally don't provide only formatting information, but also tell the word processor where that particular paragraph (or title) sites in the document hierarchycal structure.

As side note of my question: I don't think that LO should mimic every
feature of LaTeX, especially WYSIWYM approach (instead of current
WYSIWYG). I strongly believe that target group of LibreOffice is
different than target group of LaTeX. LaTeX is already free, vital
community exists, there are dedicated editors - users who prefer
LaTeX approach can just use LaTeX.

I just cited LaTeX as one example for structure markup. Other examples
are Wordperfect or Framemaker. My point is that LO should not keep the
MS Office-style "spaghetti" content models that were already outdated in
the 80s and pile up features on top, but instead LO should focus on
providing a functional concept that allows users to work with documents
in a more structured and thus more efficient way. MS Office is by far
the worst "example" in the market. And, as such, the example *not* to
follow.

Are you complaining that OpenDocument format (which not long ago became an ISO standard) uses a "spaghetti content model" ?

#113

This open as a read only is a "security feature" from before LO came out. I remembering it doing the same with OpenOffice.org and MSO-2003.

The file, at least with Thunderbird, that come in an email attachment is stored in a TEMP folder. Those files are, by nature, read-only till they get saved outside the TEMP [/tmp for Linux] folder.

I know it is a hassle for people but I really do not want to have any email attachments placed in a "normal" data folder without me saving it there. That way I control what gets saved from the email and then all the other stuff is removed with the deletion cycle of the email client's TEMP folder content.

We must think safety first and deal with the hassles like this, or could suffer a email that places their attachment file anywhere it wants to be and may be overwrite a working file with the same name or worse a system file.

#114

If those files weren't read only there would be other, more serious complaints from users (I had one).
The user would doubleclick on an attachment and have it open r/w in OOo/LibO/MSO. He would start modifying it right away (no hassle!), then save it. Then close the word processor and forget about it.
Then after a little while go to the IT guy asking where the hell is that document that he just "saved".

Being readonly, instead, forces the user to click on that damned icon, so the program produces an in-memory r/w copy of the document that will trigger a "save as" procedure when the user would click "save".

#115

If MSO is a 90% market leader all its users cannot be complete idiots.

<cynism>

Thank you for this statement that clearly illustrates the typical
"pointy haired think" (i.e. un-think) of "leaders" (and their
followers).

The very simple fact is: LibO has to become better in a SWOT
analysis!

And what color should that SWOT analysis have?

Would Mauve have enough RAM?

</cynism>

Sincerely,

Wolfgang

#116

Hi :slight_smile:
Honestly, read "The Emperor’s New Clothes".

Also there was a vote to determine the most influential and important music of the 20th Century and "The Spice Girls" got in at number 1.  Does that really mean they really were the most influential?  Is there any validity in disagreeing with the results of the vote?

The assumption is that people using MS Office (or voted for the ladies) had a properly informed choice.  That they were aware of and were knowledgeable about alternatives and that they made a fair, unbiased logical and intelligent decision.  Since the average IQ is around 60 (or something utterly abysmal like that) i don't think intelligent decision-making really entered the equation.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#117

This thread has deviated 100% from its initiation, but in its present guise,
I offer this, re MSO: I am the editor of a small Newsletter (circulation ~1000)
and I am sent copy in .dos format that was made by MSWord on a Mac.
Most often, none of the programs I have on Linux will correctly open
the files. OO, LO, and Symphony all print the copy pushed off the the right
and over the edge of the page margin. Nothing will salvage the file and
make it useful. WordPerfect (XP or Win7) will write them perfectly.
A similar situation exists for the supposedly universal .rtf files, except
they are sometimes even worse to make readable than .doc files. I no
longer accept .rtf files at all.

--doug

#118

Hi Wolfgang,
Most certainly you must be right.
I only cannot understand what you mean and on what arguments.
But don´worry, be happy!
and have a nice weekend.
Pertti Rönnberg

#119

Hi :slight_smile:
Honestly, read "The Emperor’s New Clothes".

Also there was a vote to determine the most influential and important music of the 20th Century and "The Spice Girls" got in at number 1. Does that really mean they really were the most influential? Is there any validity in disagreeing with the results of the vote?

The assumption is that people using MS Office (or voted for the ladies) had a properly informed choice. That they were aware of and were knowledgeable about alternatives and that they made a fair, unbiased logical and intelligent decision. Since the average IQ is around 60 (or something utterly abysmal like that) i don't think intelligent decision-making really entered the equation.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

More often the choice was spend more money on a Mac or which brand of
Windows machine do you want. Add to the fact that very few of the sales
floor staff are very knowledgeable so the less informed buyer is often
steered into buying Windows.

Also, in business "buying IBM" has often been replaced by "buying
MS/Windows/Office" without any real analysis of needs, costs, etc.

#120

Hi :slight_smile:
Have a nice weekend too :slight_smile: and to everyone else out there too
Many regards from
Tom :slight_smile: