Ramblings, opinions, and general meanderings from the Deep South

Monday, July 04, 2005

Wordprocessing Samba

Interest in alternative wordprocessors and spreadsheets stems from my intense dislike of Word Perfect, really anything Corel and mixed feelings about Microsoft's newest versions of Office. You think you own Office? Read that EULA (end users license agreement). You are only renting it and Big Brother is watching everything you do with it. Believe me, they are tracking you at the speed of light. Want a robust and free suite? Take a look at Open Office. It's opensource and will readily save documents in Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc., formats. It is primarily found packaged with Linux and FreeBSD, but will install and run on a Windows PC with little effort.

This really kewl set of applications purrs smoothly on my Linux SuSE (pronounced Sousa although I like Susie better) PC, but there's a slight problem with the Linux Mandrake machine. It's in Portuguese. I know this because I googled a word that I thought meant help. The word is Ajuda. With 4,390,000 alternatives the first was chosen and then told to translate. Google immediately returned the translation about a Brazilian (native language is Portuguese not Spanish) site concerning aid for mental health in perfect English. Appropriate and uncanny, huh? Anyway, Ajuda does mean help. Now if I can just find a way to change the language inside the office suite. How did this happen? Duh!! Dancing with computers...truly into the mystic.

Happy 4th of July everyone.

"Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching."
-Satchel Paige, baseball pitcher

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