Archive for the 'Spreadsheet' category

Just in passing, here are a few ideas to help the users of OpenOffice.org, the best replacement for Microsoft Office:

• “Impress: Using Master Slides” explains how to use master slides in order to make a presentation look better and more homogeneous.
• “Mail merge in OpenOffice.org” : Doing mail merge from a desktop software suite like OpenOffice.org is not often easy on the first time. So, why not be guided by an expert?

Isn’t it somewhat difficult to continuously check the status of security updates for the many software programs we have installed on our PCs, sometimes not even knowing it? Here comes Secunia PSI to help in this daunting task. It permanently observes the version of the programs on your PC and verifies if there is an available update. Thus, it efficiently protects us against the computer security risks we too often are submitted to.

Secunia PSI

OpenOffice.org 3.0 arrives and this is important. As a matter of fact, the free desktop suite (as interesting as the MS-Office suite) shift in high gear.

OpenOffice.org v3.0

The new features are quite noticeable:

• Support of MS-Office 2007 format for documents
• OOo 3.0 is now compatible with Mac OS X
• New multi-page mode in Writer
• Several users can now simultaneously edit and share a single spreadsheet
• Capacity to use MS Access databases from Writer

To freely download your MS-Word 2007, your MS-Excel 2007, you just have to run to the OpenOffice.org web site. This is free, this is legal!

Google Chrome

How could we ignore the launch of Chrome, the new browser from Google? Every is babbling about it, everybody tried it (it can be downloaded here).

But after one test run, I believe that I should explain something. Yes, this is a marvellous browser because it takes most of the good things from FireFox, Opera or Safari (all IE competition). I immediately noticed:

• No space is lost in useless graphical waste, everything is concentrating on user display,
• The good tab management,
• The impressive performance,
• The name-completion in the address bar.

Some will also have noticed the more technical features like:

• The separation of applications running in different tabs,
• The very small footprint (including for the Javascript).

But, all this is hiding a very critical reality: Google did not even try to make a mere browser (it even lacks a simple RSS feed manager). They are more interested in doing more than Internet Explorer competiton. Much more.

Chrome (tasks)

The impressive advantage of this browser is elsewhere: it will fight against Microsoft applications allowing to work online in the best possible conditions. Chrome is nearly an Operating System competing with Windows. Yes, because where Windows offered a vehicle to sell Microsoft Office, Chrome will allow Google to develop a wider range of online tools in the path opened by the Desktop applications and GMail.

It will hurt Microsoft real bad. Chrome is obviously the best browser to support this approach. Rock solide, fast (very), reliable and able to support application crashes.

A few templates for documents you would want to use with OpenOffice 3.0 or MS-Office.

Microsoft Office 2007 Templates

Free legal download.

We never can get enough of them, but our computers are sometimes overflowing. Software applications are everywhere, but how to choose the right one for the task at hand? I built a real collection of pages where you will be able to find nearly all you can dream for nearly all computers:

• Five important security apps for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows
• Superior Alternatives to Crappy Windows Software
• The Windows Apps You Never Need To Install
• Battle of the Free Windows Software Firewalls; We have to admit that there is no longer any good reason to pay for your computer security under Windows.
• Top 100 of the Best (Useful) OpenSource Applications
• Logiciels gratuits from TutoWeb.
• Now, to look into the future, Sneak peek at OpenOffice.org 3.0
• And, last but not least, for old dinosaurs, let’s remind you that you can still use VAX-VMS on your Linux PC. If you don’t know what I am saying, either you’re too young, or you never received a hacker education. Or both.

If you want to convert your Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint files into PDF, just email them to pdf@koolwire.com.

But there’s more:

• iphone@pdfonline.com to convert from Microsoft Word or Visio to PDF file
• doc@koolwire.com to convert from PDF to Word or RTF file
• mp3@koolwire.com to convert from WAV to MP3 format
• wav@koolwire.com to convert from MP3 to WAV format

The bane (correction: “one of the banes”) of the new opus of the Microsoft Office saga (MS-Office 2007) is that the Redmond developpers once again changed the file formats. I’m sure that this is for the best. But if you went the MS-Office 2007 path and not your colleagues or friends, they no longer can read your files.

Solution (partial because you still need to do something): Crunch all documents through a software to make them readable. This is basically the offer from Docx2RTF, Windows utility that you can download freely.

You wanted to be able to produce those pro presentations with PowerPoint. But Microsoft Office seemed to expensive to buy it, so you decided to download an illegal (but free) version. No! Hold your horses. Real solutions are appearing all over the place.

Up to now, you had the possibility to use Open Office (which just went to version 2.3). This free desktop suite is compatible with Microsoft file formats (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and gives you the ability to do nearly everything that PowerPoint does. And -we have to admit that- we do not use a lot from PowerPoint (bullet lists and titles).

But Google joins the race with the arrival of Google Presentations, which their online answer and free again (and more legal than any botleg copy downloaded from BitTorrent, DirectConnect or similar P2P network). There was already a Google Docs application suite; It is now complete.

Have fun with your free download of… PowerPoint competition products.

Even if I persist in advising you not to pirate-copy MS-Office, not to download Word, Excel or PowerPoint but to download OpenOffice for free, I can’t resist to the temptation to give some echo to a Microsoft proposal.

Steal Office!

MS-Office is still out of reach for normal people around $400 (for this price you can consider buying a computer). But Microsoft hides behind this slogan a proposal just for students starting September 20th: $60 for MS-Office, it’s a steal.

Not sure this is really a steal, I keep recommending to download OpenOffice for free…

Really! Who would like to have Microsoft Office. It’s expensive. If you donwload it for free, it’s just illegal.

However, you can download the excellent Neo Office for OS/X (a Mac OS/X port of OpenOffice). It’s now available.

Rather than downloading a pirated copy of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), I keep repeating that you should try a free download of OpenOffice. But some people complain that it is too slow. I am not of this opinion, but I found a post about how to accelerate OpenOffice on an Ubuntu GNU/Linux. But this advice is applicable to other configurations (OpenOffice is available for Windows, GNU/Linux, Apple Mac).

Portable apps for a portable USB key.

• Portable Office Software
• Portable Email/Calendar/ToDo Programs
• Portable Text and Voice Messengers
• Portable Media Tools (Audio / Video)
• Portable Graphics Viewers and Image Editors
• Portable Browsers and Web Tools (FTP, Feedreaders, Torrent clients…)
• Portable Security Software
• Portable Games
• Other Portable Utilities
• Portable Developer Tools (Techies Only)
• All-In-One Packages
• Portable Operating Systems (’HowTo’ Articles)
• USB ThumDrive Tips

In the spotlight: Sony Alpha 900 Canon EOS 5D Mk II Nikon D700 FX Download Nero for free

Do you happen to know that 5% of all male population is actually affected by some form of color-blindness (females are much less prone to it). It means that plenty of activities that tend to rely on color identification by the user is significantly flawed for about 2-3% of the user population. This can become a real issue for companies willing to support equal employment opportunities for all.

In software, if this was not reason enough to think seriously about it, we should also think about the impact of printing onto black & white printers (they are color-blind too and this affect 100% of B&W printer users). Most of the problems could be alleviated by following some simple rules that should be part of any software requirements.

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Software programs to do anything you want with your PC if you are a bit more geeky than most but do not want to pay much. Freeware & shareware.

NeoOffice is a OS X port of OppenOffice.org by a group of developers who have thought from the beginning that the Main OO.o team was taking the wrong tack in offering X-11 support on the Mac.

Aqua-native, includes both PPC and Intel binaries, allows Spotlight to index both content and metadata of OpenOffice and OpenDocument files.

Importantly, NeoOffice v2.1 arrives on March 27th, and it will immediately include support for Microsoft Office 2007 document formats.

OpenOffice, the free desktop suite competing directly against MS Office, reached an important milestone with the availability of version 2.2, Release Candidate 3. This time, we believe, the officiel release of v2.2 is near.

Some of the most sensitive improvements were expected by the users:

• Calc should improve notably the management of dynamic pivot tables from Excel origin Excel (a powerful tool that is too often under-appreciated or ignored).
• PDF files: More control possibilities/options, including the ability to generate in-PDF bookmarks.
• Adaptation to Vista for a better compatibility.
• Appearance of SQL requests inside requests for the database manager.
• Stability improvements on the Mac version (along with size reduction).
• Better compatibility with Slackware, NetBSD, Linux 64, Linux SPARC.

For a download (still free, of course), go and check on the OpenOffice web site.