Archive for the 'Word processor' category

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).

The first National Punctuation Day was on September 24, 2006. OK. It seems that it was a hit in many different medias and among the US English teachers.

This is now time to prepare the next one: Only one month left to collect the examples of the worse punctuation and to find ways to improve the situation.

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

To all the readers that are interested in keeping in touch with us without even the effort to visit us every day, there are two options that you should keep in mind:

1. Using the RSS feed for the web site. You need to have an RSS reader (one is included in recent versions of Safari, FireFox, Opera and Internet Explorer; Several autonomous specialized software programs exist; BlogLines, Google, AOL and others offer such services -See the Add-To category in the let-hand-side column). It has the advantage of using a now-common interface symbolized by the logo: You can keep in touch with several web sites at the same time and you are informed any time something new is published.
2. If you prefer to receive an email each time some new article is posted, you can use the RSSFWD tool. it reads the RSS feed and sends you an email to inform you. Just go to http://www.rssfwd.com/ and give the following feed URL: http://www.roumazeilles.net/news/en/wordpress/feed/, the service will work in a matter of seconds.

While I’m on the subject of RSS feeds, let me offer a link to the RSS toolbox of Mashable. It gives information about 120+ ressources (readers and utilities) useful to RSS lovers.

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.

I had been advising to use PDF Creator to produce PDF files from any program under Windows. It appears that the product does not work with Vista. Even worse, sometimes, it seems that its mere installation is breaking havoc in all Vista printing and when it happens, it may be difficult to uninstall.

Just wait for a future new version that would solve the issue.

We’re French, we’re finding this funny. Microsoft just confirmed that the installation of MS-Office 2007 rudely removes all non-French Outlook Express spelling checkers (why keep the French one?). I guess most non-French speaking people don’t like it since Microsoft does not seem to have a solution.

Again, I come back to the issue of free fonts of great quality. DaFont holds links to hundreds of character fonts readily downlodable for both Mac and PC. Usually, this leads to a bunch of crap fonts. Here, the top 100 list is really of impressive quality. Waltograph is copying Walt Disney’s signature, Evanescence is both sophisticated and elegant, Loki Cola will remind you of some cola brand, Shanghai is the archetypical Chinese font, and all the others are really pleasant.

Now, what is often left aside in most font libraries is the presence (or lack) of accented letters. DaFont tells you clearly which ones have those internationally-needed letters and adds also the Euro sign to it.

It’s pleasant to merely go sight-seeing.

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

After posting previously about 25 top quality fonts, I also got a link to an interesting web site providing a LOT of free fonts. It does not mean that they are all useful, interesting or good-looking, but you have some impressive choice: 13,000+ fonts in one search engine.

SearchFreeFonts

This T-shirt has been designed specially for typographers with a sense of humor. The word KERN (the spacing between two letters) is nicely printed on it, but cut in halves by a zipper that allow to change the kerning of letters E and R.

It is now the time to look back at the year 2006 and to check what you really liked in the Roumazeilles.net web site. So, here are the posts viewed the most in the past year. Is it a surprise?

• Canon 40D crushes 30D prices, at least, that was the rumour. But the prices went down anyway…
• Masai Mara – Lions
• No Canon 40D in view at the Photokina
• Internationale Zurich Gruppe, in defence of individual financial investors
• NikonCafe.com, a forum for the Nikon lovers
• Photo deer hunting during the rutting season
• Inkjet inks – Pigment or dye-based? A technical comparison

The same data for the posts in the French version of the web site.

Plenty of web sites try to attract you with free fonts (or other free items) and fail to deliver this. If you are lucky you will find a couple of ugly (but still free) fonts. Now, it is quite exceptional to find true top-quality fonts on the web. Vitaly Friedman just did this on his notebook with his 25 Best Free Quality Fonts.

According to my tastes, one of the best is Cardo. Have a look.

I had already told you about Yotophoto, the image search engine allowing you to choose the kind of copyright or legal rights associated to the image (and, thus, giving you an east way to find free images for your web site, while keeping you in the legal high road).

Today, Yotophoto disclose another very interesting and complementary development. You will be allowed to search images by its dominant color (They simply call this feature Search by color). The few already existing experiences in this direction were limited to choosing between red, green or blue – not enough to be of any use. But, here, you get a color picker to choose your color from. You get teh exact fine color tone you need. This way, you will be able to select your images in order to keep your fine WordPress post as elegant as requested by the high quality of your web site.

All the details are presented in the promotional page for this search feature. But, it’s as easy as selecting Advanced Search and using the color picker at the bottom right to choose you prefered color.

You are thinking about moving from Microsoft Office (expensive commercial bloatware ) to OpenOffice (free). A few questions you can ask to orgniaze your transition, before you jump ahead.

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