Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude. (c) Ruffin Bailey 2001-2021

I hate the Office Tax. Seems like you need to have Microsoft Office to function with seemingly only a random regard of profession. Office ain't cheap (though for education customers it's $140 or so, I believe), and I like it when I find good alternatives.

For Word, I've found a couple of good alternatives to receive a Word doc and make it out, but still nothing that lets me submit a perfectly formatted document to people who expect to receive a .doc from me. That's a big dealbreaker. The .doc seems to be the standard entry point for publication for a number of outlets, and the people doing the accepting don't know what to do with other file types, including rtf's made in apps that aren't Word (even if they think they accept rtf's -- here's a hint: rtf isn't a hard standard in practice by a long shot).

But the case with spreadsheets is different. All you've got are cells. Formatting, to some degree, doesn't matter day to day. And I've been using what I'll recommend as an Excel [sub]Tax buster -- OpenOffice Even on my Mac using X11, it's a fast, full-featured, reliable [so far] application going from xls and, just as importantly, kicking back out from OpenOffice's format back to xls. Good stuff.

Some interesting news on the Watson Product FAQ:

Q. What are future plans for Watson?
A. [Updated July 1, 2004]
Sun Microsystems has made an agreement with Karelia Software for the technology in Watson. See the story here.

Watson was a great, Mac-specific app quickly done in by an "integrate into the OS" reminiscent of Microsoft and Internet Explorer when Apple added Sherlock to Macintosh (which has, in my experience, been horribly buggy at best on 10.2). Now Sun is creating/has created a Java version, and there are rumors it's going to be open sourced. That's great news for Java lovers. Will be interesting to see how that pans out -- I'm happy to see Sun do a great job attempting to pick up potentially great desktop apps and push them into Java.

Okay, well, this is the only one I know about, but it's good that they're starting somewhere. My biggest concern is this comment on the FAQ:

As part of the transition, Karelia is planning on having Watson reach its "end of life" on October 5, 2004. After this end-of-life date, Karelia will not be able to fully support and maintain Watson. (Between now and then, Watson will continue to be fully supported.) Hopefully, by that timeframe, Sun will have turned this project into a product that Watson users should be able to migrate to.

Does the author of Watson not know? Is there a chance it won't happen? That's strange to hear... A little more from the author here. A little bit about the Java port from its old manager here (yes, from another post, apparently this guy ain't on the project no mo'. Gotta love the flexibility of a corporation. Sheesh. Hate it.)

Btw, neat new find function in firefox 1.0. Very nice.

title: Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude.	descrip: One feller's views on the state of everyday computer science & its application (and now, OTHER STUFF) who isn't rich enough to shell out for www.myfreakinfirst-andlast-name.com Using 89% of the same design the blog had in 2001.
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Monday, September 27, 2004
I hate the Office Tax. Seems like you need to have Microsoft Office to function with seemingly only a random regard of profession. Office ain't cheap (though for education customers it's $140 or so, I believe), and I like it when I find good alternatives. For Word, I've found a couple of good alternatives to receive a Word doc and make it out, but still nothing that lets me submit a perfectly formatted document to people who expect to receive a .doc from me. That's a big dealbreaker. The .doc seems to be the standard entry point for publication for a number of outlets, and the people doing the accepting don't know what to do with other file types, including rtf's made in apps that aren't Word (even if they think they accept rtf's -- here's a hint: rtf isn't a hard standard in practice by a long shot). But the case with spreadsheets is different. All you've got are cells. Formatting, to some degree, doesn't matter day to day. And I've been using what I'll recommend as an Excel [sub]Tax buster -- OpenOffice Even on my Mac using X11, it's a fast, full-featured, reliable [so far] application going from xls and, just as importantly, kicking back out from OpenOffice's format back to xls. Good stuff. posted by ruffin at 9/27/2004 11:12:00 AM

Sunday, September 26, 2004
Watson Product FAQ Some interesting news on the Watson Product FAQ: Q. What are future plans for Watson? A. [Updated July 1, 2004] Sun Microsystems has made an agreement with Karelia Software for the technology in Watson. See the story here. Watson was a great, Mac-specific app quickly done in by an "integrate into the OS" reminiscent of Microsoft and Internet Explorer when Apple added Sherlock to Macintosh (which has, in my experience, been horribly buggy at best on 10.2). Now Sun is creating/has created a Java version, and there are rumors it's going to be open sourced. That's great news for Java lovers. Will be interesting to see how that pans out -- I'm happy to see Sun do a great job attempting to pick up potentially great desktop apps and push them into Java. Okay, well, this is the only one I know about, but it's good that they're starting somewhere. My biggest concern is this comment on the FAQ: As part of the transition, Karelia is planning on having Watson reach its "end of life" on October 5, 2004. After this end-of-life date, Karelia will not be able to fully support and maintain Watson. (Between now and then, Watson will continue to be fully supported.) Hopefully, by that timeframe, Sun will have turned this project into a product that Watson users should be able to migrate to. Does the author of Watson not know? Is there a chance it won't happen? That's strange to hear... A little more from the author here. A little bit about the Java port from its old manager here (yes, from another post, apparently this guy ain't on the project no mo'. Gotta love the flexibility of a corporation. Sheesh. Hate it.) Btw, neat new find function in firefox 1.0. Very nice. posted by ruffin at 9/26/2004 07:21:00 PM

If you haven't been recommending the Firefox browser to your non-geeked out friends yet, do it now. I grabbed the latest preview release of 1.0 last night and am glad I did. It's a little slow on the draw compared to 0.8, which I was using (if it ain't broke, etc) and many of the keyboard/menu shortcuts have changed since that version, but, most importantly it's pretty end-user friendly now. There are very clear remarks about blocking pop-ups, etc, that even an IE lover could understand. Anyhow, let your Windows-using family know -- there's a new, better, easy-to-use, more secure browser out there, waiting on them. And with type ahead find (combined with this hack on Mac for extra keyboard accessibility), tabs, ad blocks, etc, it's a no-brainer. This is the best browser out there if you have the processor to power it. posted by ruffin at 9/26/2004 09:55:00 AM

Wednesday, September 15, 2004
I don't use old software, shunning newer versions, because I mistakenly believe it's bug free. I shun new software and use older versions because I know what the older software's bugs are. posted by ruffin at 9/15/2004 11:18:00 PM

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