OpenOffice.org Training, Tips, and Ideas

Lots of Extra Settings for Firefox

This is another tip I've cribbed from Dave Richards, of the City of Largo. 

The reason that Firefox took off where Netscape floundered is that they had the guts to just take stuff out and make it what most people need: a nice little no-fuss browser that loads fast. (Bill Joy also has a good quote about how it takes real guts to cut features -- wonder what he thinks about Java now. )

So that's what Firefox is. However, there are many features, some very useful and some perhaps more obscure, like the number of threads to keep open for downloading graphics. If you want to get at them, just type about:config in a Firefox browser window.

Right-click on an option if you want to modify it. To learn about each option, you'll need to google. Here's one page.

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Educators: Do schools really care about Vista? (Or Microsoft Office 2007?)

Wesley Fryer has a nice take on Vista and schools.

http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2007/01/30/vista-is-out-but-do-educators-care/

He says, among other things:

Well, Windows Vista is now on the market, but my question is: Do any educators care? I don’t know of any midwest U.S. school districts planning to make the transition to Vista anytime soon.

I'm skeptical too.  (But you knew that. ;> )  Really, though. What's the attraction? I'm not sure what genuine benefit, matching the amount of money that would have to be spent and the effort to upgrade, that schools get.

What happens when your current licenses run out, though, or when MS comes aknockin' and says, upgrade or else? (I'm not exactly sure how all the licensing systems work but I believe in general, you have to upgrade sooner or later.)

Open source, perhaps?

I'm not saying OpenOffice.org and Linux are for everyone, but I think they deserve serious evaluation by any educators with limited budgets.  (I assume that's pretty much all school districts.) When the software doesn't cost anything, that frees up an awful lot of money. Which means students and teachers can get a better education, better facilities and supplies, and better salaries.

But it's a pain to switch. Yes. Any change is a pain. Switching from WordPerfect to Word was a big pain for most people, who left WP kicking and screaming. It's part of using computers.

Just take a real look at each side. For staying with Microsoft and for going with open source, evaluate all the money and  training and lost time and converting the documents and installing the software and networking and everything else. Then when you have all the facts, do a comparison of what it really would be like on Vista and MS Office 2007, versus what it really would be like on Linux and OpenOffice.org (and Firefox and Moodle and the other cool education-related pieces of open source software out there).

One public organization with 3000 employees is saving 2.8 million dollars over the next six years, just by switching to OpenOffice.org. That's a lot of money.

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Getting Started With Firefox

As mentioned on Monday, I recently wrote and taught a class on Thunderbird and Firefox for the first time. 

At any rate, I thought I'd post an excerpt of some of the instructions I wrote for the class. These are not exercises per se, just instructions.

Click here for an excerpt of my Firefox  instructions, including using tabs or windows, and changing the default download location to something besides the desktop.

And here's an additional tip I just picked up. If you close a tab that you didn't mean to close, type Ctrl Shift T  to get it back.

Also:

F6 (or Alt-D or Alt-L) = switch focus to the address bar and highlight address. So you can hit F6 and then start typing the address immediately

Ctrl-PageUp and Ctrl-PageDown = move to next or previous tab. You might find it easier than Ctrl-Tab and Ctrl-Shift-Tab

Hold Alt while scrolling a page to scroll one line at a time instead of three.

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Getting Started With Thunderbird

I recently wrote and taught a class on Thunderbird and Firefox for the first time. I tell ya, I like it. It's a nice little program. Not overblow;  I'm not one for the big Outlook-style programs that tell you when you need to blow your nose and offer to schedule it for you (and also, Thunderbird doesn't have scheduling features).

At any rate, I thought I'd post an excerpt of some of the instructions I wrote for the class. These are not exercises per se since with email it's harder to control, and less necessary to control, the files and environment in which one uses the program.  If you're looking for a nice little email program for Windows or Linux, give Thunderbird a whirl.

Click here for an excerpt of my Thunderbird instructions including setting up accounts.

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