OpenOffice.org Training, Tips, and Ideas

Summary of new features in OpenOffice.org 2.3

Here’s a summary of the features from the 2.3 new features list that I considered the most useful or important to write about. This page  http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/New_Features_2.3 about the new features is an excellent guide, as well.

General

• This is convenient for anyone who prints to multiple printers, all over the world. You can load or ignore the printer settings for your documents. This means you don’t end up accidentally printing to the printer in building 4 which is on the opposite side of the country, just because you were on a business trip there last week and that’s where you last printed your document.
  

• If your document isn’t wider than the OpenOffice.org window, then it will be centered in the window, not left-aligned.
  

• Lots of locale information was added, for locations such as Tagalog, Frisian, and Hausa.
  

Writer and Web

• The HTML editor now has a preview feature. Choose File > Preview in Web Browser and the document opens in the default browser.

• I love this feature. You know how when you get a hyperlink but then want to retype it or reformat it, but clicking on it takes you to the target of the link? No more. You can select hyperlinked text all you want; you now have to Ctrl Click to open a link. This is very nice.
  

• The notes say that there is a new compatibility option on Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer > Compatibility: Do Not Justify Alignment in Lines Ending With Manual Line Break. However, I’m mentioning this because I couldn’t see it. The illustration shows the compatibility options that are there.
  

• When you open the Styles and Formatting window (Format > Styles and Formatting), you can set what kinds of styles you wanted to see: Applied, Custom, Automatic, etc. Previously, you had to reset this every time you opened a new document or re-opened OpenOffice.org. Now, thankfully, that category will stick. The setting is saved per application. However, the choice you make for Paragraph, Character, Frame, List, or Page doesn’t stick.
  
  

• When you right-click on text, you used to see Default as one of the options. Now you see Default Formatting, which is clearer. (Default Formatting is a great way to just clear out any extraneous formatting and apply the default style to the selected item.) This is a very nice feature regardless of the text; for one thing, it’s the best way to remove the hotlink from a URL.
  

• A new export filter lets you export to MediaWiki format. Choose File > Export and select MediaWiki in the file format list.

Calc

• This is a very, very smart change. By default, the print options for Calc are now set to Print Only Selected Sheets and Suppress Output of Empty Pages. If the Print Only Selected Sheets option is enabled, the Calc page preview shows only the displayed sheet and the message “There is nothing to print.” To change these options, choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Calc > Print, or choose File > Print and click the Options button.
  

• Here’s another very smart change that will screw up all my documentation. :) The SUM icon on the main Calc toolbar has changed. Now you can select the range of numbers to add, click the SUM icon, and get the total in the first cell below the selected range. Phew. But if you liked it the old way, it still works that way, too.
  

• Graphics can be linked to macros. This should help with Excel compatibility.
  

• The Excel export filter now handles the cotangent functions COT, ACOT, COTH, and ACOTH.

• Calc now supports inline matrix/array constants in formulas. An inline array is surrounded by curly braces '{' and '}'. Elements can be each a number (including negatives), a logical constant (TRUE, FALSE) or a literal string. See this link for more detail. http://sc.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=features&msgNo=230

• You can now use dynamic ranges, rather than absolute ranges defined with $, in lists in Data Validity. Choose Data > Validity, and under the Criteria tab select Cell Range from the list.
  
  

• The GETPIVOTDATA function returns a result value from a DataPilot table, so it can be used in a cell formula.
  

Mail Merge, Databases, and Forms

• The infamous checkbox on the print message when you print a mail merge document, Do Not Show Warning Again, is gone. Phew! See this blog http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2006/10/how_to_get_the_.html for why that caused problems.
  
  

• This is nice. When you choose File > Print with a mail merge document, in the Mail Merge window, you can choose to save the document as separate documents or as one document.
  
  

• Unfortunately, in Base there is still no File > Export or File > Import feature. File > Export does appear, but it’s dimmed.

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Review of Edubuntu from the School Library Journal

If you'd like to learn about Edubuntu, check out this review.

Making OpenOffice.org Work the Way You Want It (Repost)

 

(Originally posted in October 2005.)

Note: Here's a related article I wrote for TechTarget.com.

What's better, software that does what it thinks you want, or software that does what you tell it to?

If it's rocket-launching software, and I don't know much about rocket-launching, I guess I would let the software do what it wants. However, I know what I darn well want my office suite software to do. I know how I want it to behave. I know what features I want and I know, for instance, that I do not want it suggesting to me what word I am typing and offering to help me finish the arduous task of typing it.

OpenOffice.org has its default behavior and default settings just like any other software but is very cooperative in letting you customize those behavior and settings the way you want them. Which is refreshing. You just have to tell it how to behave.

So I've put together a list of the top  customizations I think are the most helpful and/or powerful. I make sure that everyone in my classes learns these by lunchtime, and review them afterwards. When the software behaves the way you want, that makes everything better.

(By the way, this is a little bit off topic, but I wanted to mention that the scroll graphic at the top of this blog is a drawing shape in OOo 2.0.  I'm a bit of a giggly schoolgirl when it comes to the OOo drawing tools, especially the new 2.0 features.)

1. Turn off the word completion.

I hate word completion, and it’s really easy to turn off. Choose Tools > AutoCorrect and click on the Word Completion tab. Make sure the Enable Word Completion option is unmarked, and click OK.

2. Turn off any automatic formatting that you don’t want.

Would you let people live in your house who you didn’t know? Then you don’t want automatic formatting going on that you don’t understand. Choose Tools > AutoCorrect and click on the Options tab. Unmark everything except the top option, Use Replacement Table. Then go back through and see if you really want anything.

(You can unmark the Use Replacement Table option too....but that table is handy, as you'll see in the next item.)

3. Use the automatic formatting to create handy shortcuts.

The same tab where you turned off word completion has a really great feature for creating shortcuts. Let’s say you type the word supercalfragilisticexpealidocious a zillion times a day, or your name and title, or anything kinda long. You can set up a shortcut for it. It's a much more reliable approach than word completion.

To do this: Choose Tools > AutoCorrect and click on the Replace tab.

A. In the left-hand field type your shortcut like sig and in the right-hand field, type the word you’re tired of typing all the time.

B. Click New, then click OK.

C. Click the Options tab and be sure that both checkboxes for the top item, Use Replacement Table, are marked. That just means "use the stuff in the Replace tab."

D.  In your document, type the shortcut, followed by a space, and your word will appear.

Note: You can also delete anything in the Replace tab that you don't want.

4. Display the icons that you want.

There are a zillion icons in OOo as with any software and you probably don’t use all of them. There’s also that dandy little result of having to click on the black arrow to get to the icons you want, while the ones you do want sit there taking up space and, quite frankly, smiling a bit smugly. So take off the ones you don’t want, leave room for the ones you do want, and add some other ones.

First step is to take off the ones you don’t want. Click on the dropdown arrow and choose Visible Buttons. Find the icons you don’t want, like double spacing, and select them. That’ll remove the checkbox by them, and that removes them from the toolbar.

Now add the icons you want. The first thing to try is to click the dropdown arrow again and choose Visible Buttons. If the icon you want is there, select it and it’ll appear.

If the icon you want isn’t there, click on the dropdown arrow again and instead of Visible Buttons, select Customize Toolbar. Find the toolbar you want to add icons to. Click Add, and in the window that appears just keep looking through the categories on the left til you find the feature you want in the list on the right. Select it and click Add.

 

Back in the customization window, you can leave the icon as is and just click OK, or change the icon by clicking and holding down on the Modify button and choosing Icon.

5. Get to know the choices under Tools > Options.

Choose Tools > Options, and you’ll see the big fat configuration window. Just as the items under Tools > Autocorrect were about default behavior, Tools > Options is about default settings, default values. Anything about the program, from icon size to language settings to where the program looks when you choose File > Open, is set here.

I suggest that you open the OpenOffice.org (or StarOffice as in this illutration) item at the top, then select Paths, and change the values for any paths you use a lot. Change the My Documents item, for instance, to change the default for where OOo tries to save documents. You’ll save a lot of time scrolling around in your Save windows.

To change the path, select it in the window, click Edit, and just point to the new location.

You might also want to expand the StarOffice Write item, select Default Fonts, and choose the ones you prefer.

When you’re done, just click OK.

You can turn off the Save for Autorecovery feature if you want--or increase the save interval
I find this feature entirely un-annoying, but you can turn it off easily if you want. Autorecovery means if OpenOffice.org crashes or you have to coldboot your machine, at least you'll have something recent to return to. If you're hypervigilant, increase the interval to every minute or 5; if you don't care about it, set it to every hour or just turn it off.

Choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Load/Save > General. You're looking for the Save AutoRecovery Information Every  option. Unmark it, or change the interval.

Click the thumbnail below to see a bigger image of the window.

Now OOo is more like a well-behaved pet and less likely to jump up at you, licking and biting inappropriately.

Those are not all the configuration steps you can do, by a long shot. But I like them, and students seem to like them. And they're an important set of steps in the general process of showing that OpenOffice.org does what you tell it to do.

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Top Ten Reasons to Start a Healthy New Relationship With OpenOffice.org (Repost)

(Originally posted in October 2005.)

I'm not a raving crazy open source OpenOffice fanatic. Not quite, anyway.

I do like it quite a bit, though.  I've used it for six years, about the same amount of time I've used Word and Framemaker. I've trained people on it for the last three years and have written about it for five years.

So I know about the limitations, the cool stuff, the weird stuff, and the normal stuff.

And I think it's a far better choice then Microsoft Word.

(It's not always a better choice than Framemaker, but it was never meant to be. It's far more similar to Word. See my blog on whether OpenOffice.org is a good tool for techwriters and other book publishing professionals.)

I want anyone who's frustrated with Microsoft Office, who doesn't have the money for Microsoft Office, or who just wants the features of OpenOffice.org, to understand everything the program has to offer. With Sun in charge of marketing the program, the great aspects of the program are far less well known than they should be, and so many people are out there cursing the random bulleting in Word when they could be writing documents with a program that does exactly what they ask it to. (Always refreshing.)

So here are ten reasons for anyone out there to use OpenOffice.org. They're not presented in any particular order.

Price, Price, Price

You can read all the reports from Microsoft that you want but that doesn't change the fact that OpenOffice.org is absolutely free. All updates are free. Always will be. If you personally on your own computer decide to download OpenOffice.org for free instead of buying each new version of Microsoft Office, you're spending absolutely no money. If your department switches to OpenOffice.org at work, you're spending absolutely no money.

Add Linux to the mix and you're spending maybe $100, depending on your distro.

Microsoft Office costs more. Windows costs more.

If you purchase books and training, you're spending a flat one-time amount, and it's not going to be $500 a person unless you're buying some serious one-on-one tutoring. I trained 300 people for a client in Houston over three weeks, with each person attending two day-long classes, for a total cost to my client of $15,000. That's $50 a person. That's a good price.

Document conversion can take time and money too, but that's a one-time fee, too. And with the enhancements in OpenOffice.org to the compatibility with Microsoft Office ( http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/2.0/index.html), converting your Microsoft Office documents to OpenOffice.org is even easier.

And frankly, there's a bunch of learning that users need to do with each new version of Microsoft Office. That takes training money, or else users never get the training and might not learn the new version very well.

There Are More Important Things to Spend Money on the Office Suite Software

Think about the most important things in life.

Health. Love. Family. A roof over your head. Education. World peace.

The right or privileg of using office suite software you're familiar with, or even just having everyone using the same software, is not on the list. I challenge anyone out there to rank using Microsoft Office as one of the most important things in life.

Which leads one naturally to think about schools. Police stations. Libraries. City government. State government. Federal government. What do they spend money on? Some fairly important stuff. Much of the stuff from our earlier list. They pay teachers' salaries, police salaries, allocate money for healthcare, and a zillion other things. And of course, most of them use Microsoft Office. Not for free. Take all the money they spend on Microsoft Office, replace it with OpenOffice.org, and that frees up a lot of money for important things. I'm not sure how much but I don't think I'm out of line in saying hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

Runs on Windows, Linux, Solaris, Mac, OS/2 and Other Operating Systems

You're not stuck with Windows when you use OpenOffice.org. If you're happy with Windows, then you can stay with Windows. If you're all about Linux, or Mac, or OS/2, or Solaris, then OpenOffice.org works the same way on those operating systems, too. Which makes sense, since your operating system shouldn't have so much control over what software you use.

Learning a New Program Isn't as Difficult as You Might Think

Think about writing a text document.

What do you do?

You type. You make things bold. You print.

There are only so many things you can do in a text document, and there aren't that many different ways to do them. The same applies to numbers in spreadsheets. You add, you subtract, you calculate the internal rate of return.

The point is, the differences between office suites aren't all that huge. Take a look at the main text toolbar for Microsoft Word and OpenOffice.org.

Something else I've observed in training is that a lot of people never received training on Microsoft Office in the first place. They aren't working as efficiently or powerfully as they could with the office suite they currently use. So when you switch people to a new office suite like OpenOffice.org and give them a day or two of training, they're going to be working more efficiently with the new office suite than the old one.

OpenOffice.org Is Free, Runs on All Operating Systems, So Everyone Can Use It. No More Digital Divide

With many functions of jobhunting, schools, government, and other essential functions done using the computer, it's very important that everyone be able to complete these functions. When a government agency sends out information or requires submission of information using a Word document, that's unfair and an undue burden on someone who just needs a job or needs to pay taxes. Imagine that FEMA required that all applications for assistance had to be done in Word.

Anything that we are required to do or need to do must be doable without paying $500 for the tool. Especially when something as useful and powerful as OpenOffice.org is freely available now.

OpenOffice.org means equal opportunity. You can read Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files, and create them, as well.

Small File Sizes

This seems kind of trivial, after talking about universal access to required functions. But it's something to think about. OpenOffice.org file sizes are roughly 1/10th the size of their Microsoft Office counterparts. This isn't so much an issue for your own personal computer, but think about network servers, and about email files around. Having smaller file sizes is a tremendous advantage.

Great Drawing Tools

Anyone using Illustrator, or perhaps Photoshop should take a look at OpenOffice.org Draw (File > New > Draw), especially the new 2.0 version. The prefab shapes are amazing, there are precise controls for curve points, you can export to EPS, JPG and more, you can convert any item to a curve, polygon, bitmap, or 3D, there's curved text formatting like in Photoshop...the list goes on and on. I can spend an entire weekend just fiddling happily with Draw.

Take a look at this OpenOffice.org 1.x file; it's all done from scratch within the program. Here's a thumbnail of what's in it.(And by the way, speaking of small file sizes in the previous item, the file size is 14k.)

Download bowloffruit.sxd

Solid Styles for Formatting Text and Page Layout

Styles are how you make your document do what you want it to. Styles are things like the paragraph style Heading1 which is 18 points big, Helvetica, with 12 points of space below it. Or the bulleted list style DiamondBullet that has a black diamond for the bullet character, and has three tenths of an inch from the bullet to the text. Or a page style with a footer centered at the bottom of the document half an inch from the edge, a header at the right side of the top of the document, and a left margin of an inch and a half.

Create or modify the styles you need, apply them to the text as you need, and life will be good.

OpenOffice.org doesn't randomly create new bullet or other styles and apply them to your text, it doesn't take every style you've ever created and infiltrate them into your other documents, and it doesn't get all twitchy with the formatting the way Microsoft Word does. Microsoft Word drives me up the wall. I think it's a sign of the apocalypse that something this uncontrollable is used so widely.

If you've always used Microsoft Word, take a look at OpenOffice.org. Use the styles. (Format > Styles and Formatting.) See how free of cursing and hair-pulling-out life can be.

In OpenOffice.org 2.0, a Nice Presentation Tool

The 1.x version, I must admit, was serviceable but not sexy. The 2.0 version looks a lot like Microsoft Powerpoint, has a zillion effects, and makes everything a lot easier. Check it out if you've used 1.x and been disappointed.

OpenOffice.org Doesn't Randomly Decide to Do Stuff to Your Document

You can see my blog on how to easily configure OpenOffice.org to do what you want it to do, not the default stuff by default.You control it through Tools > Autocorrect.

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The Microsoft Office 2007 Upgrade Is Going to Have a Big Learning Curve--and a Big Price. Now's the Time to Consider OpenOffice.org Instead.

(Originally published February 2006)

Office 2007 Is Just Another Upgrade...Right?
In a word. No.

This is going to be huge. Painful. Expensive. And that's before you get to the retraining costs.

Here's why.

Microsoft Office 2007 Is a Radical Redesign of the User Interface, and Will Require Plenty of Retraining

Here's the current Microsoft Word toolbar.

Courtesy of LInux Watch  and linked articles, here's a screen shot of MS Word 2003. Click to see a larger version.

MS Office 12 looks entirely different, and changes constantly as you move in the document. Click this image to see a larger version.

And again courtesy of Linux Watch, here's a screen shot of MS Office 2007. Click to see a larger version.

You can't just install this on all 500 computers at your organization and tell people there's a new version.

The Buzz on Microsoft Office 2007 Is the Retraining

Experts around the planet are leary of the radically changed new interface.

Here's an excerpt from an article on eWeek.

Heading the list of challenges facing Microsoft is the fact that Office 2007 has a new user interface, which could require extensive staff retraining at a significant cost, as well as a new file format, which has the potential to create compatibility issues, analysts such as Joe Wilcox of Jupiter Research, told eWEEK.

"When you introduce something new, it disrupts, and this increases things like help desk costs and employee downtime," Wilcox said. "So, to get to the benefits that come with this, they have to get past whatever retraining will be needed around the new user interface and any hardships around the new file format, which are always disruptive. These are two big hurdles Microsoft has to get around."

Enterprise customers such as Robert Rosen, CIO for the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases and an eWEEK Corporate Partner, agree. The new user interface and file formats pose "major concerns and will slow up adoption significantly," Rosen said. "Since we don't know enough about the benefits of Office 2007, we have not yet developed any plans to move forward."

And another quote:

Jupiter Research's Wilcox told eWEEK that if there were ever an opportunity for StarOffice and OpenOffice.org, "this might be it, going head-to-head against Office 2007, because we have a new file format and a new user interface, which means a lot of extra cost," and which could torpedo many enterprises from upgrading.

In addition, a lot of Software Assurance contracts are expiring between now and the end of July, and Microsoft will be aggressively beating the sales drum. Those businesses might well be looking at their alternatives and options before signing a new contract, he said.

Here's Paul Thurott:

For the first time ever, Microsoft has dramatically changed the Office interface, replacing the standard menu-and-toolbar interface we've known since the earliest Windows applications with a new UI paradigm based on context-sensitive ribbons and tabs."

Here are quotes from Paul's article on the new office software, from Jacobe Jaffe, Group Product Manager on the Office team.

As a personal anecdote, I have a variety of PCs, and on one of those machines for a variety of reasons, I still have Office 2003 installed. I use Office 12 essentially full time, and for me to go back into 2003 is not so good. It's pretty painful, actually."

And Paul's follow-up comment--keeping in mind that he's an expert user.

But because this requires a different skill set to accomplish, I had to relearn how to do this. Long story short, most things are easier, but some power user features will require some more work....I'm nitpicking here, of course. The truth is, the Office 12 interface is so much dramatically better than previous versions, it's hard to find fault with it. On the other hand, I am a power user who uses Office all day long, and I slightly resent having to relearn certain skills. I'll get over it.

Mark Shuttleworth (founder of the Ubuntu project, second space tourist and freedom toaster guy), makes this point, posted by Justin here.

This might not be a direct quote but it's Justin's restatement of Mark's point.

"Office 12 has had substantial UI changes, since Microsoft is trying to distance themselves from the Open Office project. End result, users will require re-training. So which is easier? Re-train users in new Office 12? Or simply, start using Open Office which quite frankly looks just like MS Office today."

Here's another blog along the same lines, Ted's Radio Blog, with a similar conclusion at the end.

"Seven different versions. Dozens of applications, with various features disabled. Nightmarish new licenses. New servers. What a mess! All this to print documents, calculate spreadsheets and do other routine office work? I think Microsoft is overreaching here. They may sell to their captive audience, but new computer users whose machines come with Corel Office or OpenOffice are going to be hard-pressed to find a reason to switch. If you haven't tried OpenOffice.org, there's no better time than the present!"

Think about all those users out there.  Switching, if they all do, is not going to be easy. Take a look at just one part of it. Think about how the people who call you, the IT support folks, are going to react. Think about Laura in accounting or Bob down in contracts.

It All Comes Back to Economics 101

You're happy now with Microsoft Office.

But things change, and the cost can grow to outweigh the benefit.

What if this:


changed to this?

Think About the Cost and Benefit of the Upgrade to Microsoft 2007. Really Think About It.
If you feel that the new UI in this version could change your world and your users' worlds,  there might be a wonderful promised land of fabulous easy of use waiting on the other side of the River of Retraining. There might be. But ya gotta cross the River of Retraining first, and some of your users are going to rock the boat.

I'm not saying you shouldn't use Microsoft Office just because they're changing the interface. I'm saying, you're going to have to retrain people. As long as you have to retrain people, why not consider all your options?

Switching from your current Microsoft software to Office 2007 will require:

• A lot of money for the software
• Training and documentation
• Time and effort to install and convert documents

Switching from your current Microsoft software to OpenOffice.org will require:

• A lot of money for the software
• Training and documentation
• Time and effort to install and convert documents

 

<>

The Microsoft Office 2007 Upgrade is more expensive in money, time, and effort than switching to OpenOffice.org.

This Too: OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office Currently Look More Similar Than Office 2003 and Office 2007
Training your users to go from Office 2003, or before, to OpenOffice.org, might be easier than teaching them the whole new Office 2007 system.

Here's the current Microsoft Word toolbar, and the toolbar for OpenOffice.org Writer. Right now, they're really similar.  Click each to see a bigger image. See how long it takes to tell which is which.

And here's an OpenOffice.org screen shot. Not that different.

Retraining Aside: Do You Need the 2007 Features?

As a commenter on this blog, George Wenger, states, "The vast majority of users in a so-called "average" business setting already have no use for 90% of the existing features of Word, let alone a whole set of new features."

Your job is to make everyone else's job easier. When you walk by the software users in the hall, you want them to say, "Hey, Jim! I can do that mail merge now!" and maybe offer a high five. 

Does Marsha in Accounting or Bob in Contracts need ribbon toolbars and a new UI paradigm?

How many of the new features does your organization actually need? Have the support staff been begging you for this one?

"We're also enabling a new mobile scenario with OneNote Mobile," Jaffe told me. "So literally you'll be able to have a OneNote notebook available to you on a mobile device, like a Windows Powered Smartphone. You can take notes on your Smartphone, or read your [PC-based notes on the Smartphone. The pages in that Smartphone notebook align to the information you have in your PC version of OneNote. They sync up through ActiveSync."

And think about these questions:
- How many complaints will you get about how everything's different?
- What will the overall attitude be like when users come in Monday morning and their desktops are different?
- How much will you spend on training and documentation to get people up and running on Office 2007.

Here's a blog on this topic: Dave Rosenberg states that Vista gives you an opportunity to really compare the actual cost and the actual benefits, and he quotes Jon Oltsik from Enterprise Strategy Group.

"

Later this year, Microsoft will throw a $500 million PR and advertising party aimed at convincing users to upgrade their PCs to Vista. This provides a perfect opportunity for the Linux crowd to persuade CIOs to evaluate Linux and compare pricing. In this way, Microsoft will likely open the door to some unintended Linux desktop momentum.

I have every expectation that Vista will be a much better OS than XP, but do users really need it? Perhaps. Then again, many CIOs may conclude that the more prudent choice would be a Linux desktop and Open Office migration offering good enough functionality, at 10 percent of Microsoft's price."

Switching to OpenOffice.org Means You Can Have Your IT Cake and Eat at Least Part of It, Too
With OpenOffice.org, you can be the kick-butt IT guy who gives your users software that might even be easier to learn than Office 2007, and saves the company money. The VP's assistant Chris loves you, and the VP loves you. Doesn't get much better than that.

If after careful evaluation of 2007, the alternatives (OpenOffice.org among others), and what is involved in upgrading, you still think MS Office 2007 is the best solution for your users' needs, go ahead and upgrade. (Keep in mind that users do not need to be "cool."  ;>  They do need health insurance.)

But it might not be, and it's important to think about your choices. If your job is to deliver the best product for the best value and have your users be able to do their jobs well, please think about the choices.

References for switching to OpenOffice.org: See this post on the process of migrating a group of users who might be resisting the process, and this post on top ten reasons to switch to OpenOffice.org (besides the one covered in this post).

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Go Ben! Energetic coverage of the goal to advertise OpenOffice.org

Ben Horst continues to hit the virtual bricks and get coverage of his effort to make sure everyone knows about OpenOffice.org. Every time I look around, someone's asking me "did you know about this?" Including people not in the OpenOffice world.

Here's the gist.

A group of grassroots activists in the OpenOffice.org community have just announced they are going to undertake a similar media campaign to Spread Firefox, starting with a free (as in beer) New York City daily newspaper called "The Metro," published by Metro International. Most penguinistas know what a huge success the grassroots Spread Firefox ad campaign was. Through ads in the New York Times and the Frankfurt General Newspaper, and the hilarious Firefox videos on the FunnyFox website (video link here), Firefox has probably gained greater popular name brand recognition in the general public than any other free open source software (FOSS) project. 

Read more.  Or click here to contribute.

It's not just sending out emails to everyone he knows, though--other efforts have failed. As the Factory City blog notes, "It’s interesting to see this effort emerge organically — especially after the initial thrust to create a SpreadOpenOffice project fashioned after Spread Firefox died on the vine owing to internal struggles over branding control. A similar project SpreadKDE made it out of the gate, but it’s unclear whether it ever took off."

Ben's currently about 75% of the way to his goal.

I'm amazed at how well Ben's spreading the news. We met at Comdex 2003  and I was impressed then with his technical knowledge, his ability to learn the Las Vegas bus system. I was impressed at how such a clean-cut, nice guy could look so  scary in an Army Surplus outfit, which was extremely effective in keeping people from bugging us on our way through some of the more alarming Las Vegas neighborhoods. ;>  But I didn't know he could get people's attention like this.

Ben, I'm tellin' ya, when you get done with this ad, do the same thing in Chicago. That's all it'll take to get Oprah to do that show I'm always fantasizing about where she gives away a free  Linux laptop to everyone in the audience.

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My Ubuntu Installs Were Incredibly Easy! (Repost)

(Originally posted March 2006)

If you've been thinking of putting Linux on one of your old machines, but you've heard that Linux installs are horrifyingly painful, PLEASE read this. That's what I used to think, too.

Not any more.

You will be shocked, delighted, and go "whoohoohoo!" all the way home.

Here's Ubuntu, running on my ooooold laptop, just as slick and easy as can be.

Ubuntu is incredibly simple to install and and use. You can install Ubuntu on an old machine (or whatever machine). Aside from the fact that nothing works 100% of the time, and wireless can be very wacky on any machine or operating system, I tell ya, installing Ubuntu will Just Work.

I repeat.

A Linux distro, Ubuntu, is incredibly slick to INSTALL and to use. You can be up and running on Linux today with no more effort than you'd expend making tea.

Now, I'm sure that many other distros are great and easy too. I understand from my techy friend and author of the first Java Certification Exams Simon Roberts who supervised but didn't actually do the install or tell me anything I didn't know, SuSE rocks and is gorgeous to boot. I understand that many of my fears about Linux installation actually are based on unusual situations like setting up wireless and really old or really new hardware. And are also just based on what I heard a long time ago that is not true anymore.

So anyway, it's probably not just Ubuntu that's easy and slick as a whistle. But I'm still very excited about this install.

I am doing everything for this post on my newly Linuxed laptop, too, btw.

Here's the story.

Me and My Linux Background: I'm So Not a Linux Head

I knew I would have to admit this sooner or later: I'm not really that knowledgeable about Linux. Not in a deep down kind of way. I have never and will never build my own distro and don't keep track of what GUI is my fave.

I'm not afraid of it or of using other operating systems--I used Solaris at Sun for three years, Mac at Great Plains Software, mostly Windows since then.

But you know, you hear these stories about installing Linux and it sounds like a quick hike up K2 would be easier. Packages. Drivers. Distros. Editing your BIOS. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH.

I installed, with the considerable help of my friend Simon, a Linux distro a few years ago. Red Hat 8 or something like that. Not horrible but not easy.

Time to try it again, though. I considered the Linspire distro but there seems to be some cost associated with it (forget that! ;>  ) and there seemed to be a lot of buzz around Ubuntu. Plus you've GOT to love a distro with this name.

What I Installed On and the Internet Setup
I bought this laptop, a Dell Latitude CPX, used for $400 from Half.com at least three years ago. I tried to check what its specs are and couldn't see it offhand, but you can figure it out generally. A roughly seven-year-old laptop. Defiitely not less.

I also installed Ubuntu on my four or five year old HP Pavilion 6835, 800 mhz machine with 300 MB memory or so.

I connected using a standard Ethernet card to my in-house standard Ethernet network. No wireless. (Wireless is a pain in the patookus on any system--at least in my experience.) The Ethernet card just went in the little slot on the left side of my laptop, and the dangly thing connected to the normal plug of the Ethernet connection. My desktop already had an Ethernet card installed.

How I Got the Install CDs

Like a breeze. very easy. I downloaded the CD from Ubuntulinux.org. But you can just order CDs too, off the web site. Totally for free, no shipping costs or anything. (Just one note--I ordered mine at least a couple weeks ago and haven't received them yet. Probably more like three weeks ago.)

How the Install Went

Like a breeze. I didn't partition the drives or do anything fancy.  I just said yes, take over the computer, leave no data behind, etc.

I had the computers hooked up to the Internet. The install went out to the Ubuntu site and got extra files it needed, with no fuss or muss dealing with the connections.

I did nothing complicated. I entered what my name and password should be. That's about as complicated as it got.

Performance

Doesn't zip really fast on my laptop, and I haven't used the desktop a lot yet since I'm dithering about my monitor options. But it's definitely good enough. It's a 7+ year old machine.

What It's Like to Use
Very similar to Windows and Solaris. I just played around with the various selections and it looked pretty easy. OpenOffice.org is there, under Applications > Office, just like you'd expect. I got on the Internet by choosing Applications > Internet. I found my files by choosing Places > Home Folder. It's all pretty logical. Most windowing applications aren't that complicated, and I find Solaris, Linux, and Windows all far more similar to each other than Macintosh.

What Else Works Besides Internet
The laptop doesn't have a CD burner, just a CD R drive, so I hooked up my USB Iomega CDRW external drive to it. I inserted a blank CD. And it just worked--a message popped up asking what I wanted to do. It was just like burning a CD on XP. I might have squealed with delight.

Printing worked fine, too. I hooked up the printer directly the USB port of my laptop. I chose System > Administration > Printing, double-clicked the new printer, answered the simple questions, and selected the printer I use. Didn't have to go hunt down drivers or anything.

And yes, the printing actually works. Just got a nice printout of this page on the printer. ;>

I haven't  set up Thunderbird or anything for email since I'm not using this machine for that. I'm pretty pumped about the printing and the other hardware and networking stuff.

Installing Linux Just Worked.
The install was a breeze. Internet and hardware just worked. The layout is logical. The software is free.

Come on in, the Linux is fine!

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Microsoft Owns Your Tube Top (Repost)

(Originally posted March 2006)

Remember that commercial for Compass bank, that shows the woman at an ATM in her closet? The ATM told her, "I'm sorry, there will be $2 fee to access your tube top."

(Honest, there is a commercial like that. I'm not just using blatant sexy illustrations for shock value to draw attention to the benefits of ODF.)

That's what the Open Document Format, or ODF, is all about. Lots of people and organizations want all documents to be in .odf rather than .doc or .xls format.

Most software you use creates documents  in a propriety format. That means that the way the software creates the files is exclusive to the people who wrote that software. You can't use another program to open your own files, or at least your choices are very narrow.  That means you need to buy software to continue to open files with those formats--if you want to be able to continue to access your own documents.  Your thoughts, your meeting minutes, your personal budget spreadsheets, etc.--all need to be rented from the people who wrote the software.

Doesn't it seem kind of odd to have to keep paying for the right to get at documents you created?. It's like paying to rent a house you own. It's like having to pay a fee to get into your own closet for your own tube top.

OpenOffice.org, Sun, and other folks think everyone, including Microsoft, should write programs that output documents in  Open Document Format. The instructions for creating programs that make ODF documents are available for anybody to use. That way, when all programs create documents in the same format, then you don't have to pay to open your documents. You can pick the application you want to use, there will be zillions of them, and some of them are free. You aren't dependent on one software program to get at your documents. OpenOffice.org uses ODF format.

Here's an article on what's going on with a group that was formed to promote ODF, and Microsoft.
http://www.hunterstrat.com/news/2006/03/07/eu-watchdogs-have-their-eye-on-microsoft-office/

Here's the web site of the fine folks of the Open Document Format.
http://www.odfalliance.org/

And here's the web site of Scott Johnson who just sums things up quite nicely regarding open source, and open document format. See the item at the end of his list.
http://fuzzyblog.com/archives/2006/03/08/the-trip-home-open-source-in-minnesota/

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Everybody Loves OpenOffice.org (Especially When They Think It's Microsoft Office)

 

This is another story about change, and tangentially a story about Stevie Nicks.

I’ve already mentioned Louis, who when switching to OpenOffice.org from Microsoft Office, simply told his users that there would be a big upgrade. No mention of a different office suite program. ;> I love that story.

Here’s another story from the other side of the country. The school district’s latest levy had failed, so they had to cut a couple hundred thousand dollars from the budget. Naturally, there was a big meeting to talk about how to do this.

The school district IT director, Randy, was taking notes during the meeting, and his notes were being projected for everyone to see.

Randy said, “So, one way we could save a huge amount of money would be to cut Microsoft Office and switch to OpenOffice.org.”

Murmurmurmur…general objections…too hard…too different….it would never work.

"Well,” Randy says, “Here’s a question. What program am I using to take notes?”

There was a rousing chorus of “Microsoft Word, of course.”

"Nope,” replied Randy, with what I can only assume was just a hint of a satisfied smirk. (I would have smirked. Randy might be a better person than me.) “It’s OpenOffice.org Writer.”

Wow! No way! But it’s so much like Word!

Randy continued. “And you know what? For the last two years, you’ve been receiving Word, Excel, and Powerpoint documents from me that I created in OpenOffice.org and saved in Microsoft Office format."

More murmuring, surprise, delight, etc.

And so they voted overwhelmingly to switch to OpenOffice.org and save a pantsload of money.

This is, by the way, took place recently in the  Seattle area, in Microsoft’s back yard.

It's yet another story showing that Change itself, uppercase, is often what we primarily fear; not the actual new thing that’s going to happen.  As the song goes, I've been afraid of changin' cuz I built my life (and my complex mail merges and spreadsheets) around you.

For those of you out there fighting the good fight and evangelizing OpenOffice.org, I think this story has some great lessons. Don’t try to convince people ahead of time. Just start using it within your IT department, or personally, and expose people to it without telling them what it is. Install it on people’s computers and let them play with it. Let the potential users enjoy sitting in the nice open source hot tub. Let them learn to like it without knowing much about it.  Let them come to the conclusion that....hey...you know, this isn't all that different, and we sure could save a lot of money switching to it...hmmm....

Try leading with the product, not with the idea of the product, or with Change.

Click here for additional tips on migrating users to OpenOffice.org, and click here for thoughts on how to make it easier for people to want to switch.

For those who are encountering resistance transitioning--I know that OpenOffice.org isn’t the same as Microsoft Office. It’s different. The Venn overlap is maybe 70%. But when you have to cut a couple hundred thousand from your budget, do you do it by cutting Microsoft Office, or by cutting salaries and books and benefits and other things that really matter? )

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Is OpenOffice the Right Tool for Techwriters and Book Production? (Repost)

   

Originally published in fall 2005.

Note: See also this article by Bruce Byfield.
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/magazine/technical/replaceframewithwriter.html

OpenOffice.org as a Techwriter's Tool for Making Books
Let's get this out of the way up front. I use Framemaker for all my OpenOffice.org workbooks and books. It's just a better tool for books than both OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Word. Framemaker has conditional text, extraordinary cross-referencing and numbering tools, solid, reliable layout features, conditional text (which I use extensively), and much more.

So if you're using Framemaker now, you like it and understand it, you use a lot of cross-references, and you do books of even moderate complexity, I say to you, don't be an open source hero. Stick with Framemaker.

If you're not sure whether you need Framemaker, read on and see what you think.

If you're on Microsoft Word, the page flow, random application of styles you never created, and cross-reference truncation has got to be driving you crazy, so I invite you to read on, as well.

(If you're interested in a full workbook about these topics, see the Professional Techwriter workbook here. )

OpenOffice.org Professional Book Production Strengths

Styles rock. They have immense power for just all the things you'd expect from styles, as well as the sequence in which page styles (master pages in Frame) are used.

Styles in general. Styles are really well implemented in OpenOffice.org. You choose Format > Styles and Formatting, you pick what kind of style to create, and you go nuts. Use styles in a standard, consistent manner and you won't go wrong.

Page styles: To specify the layout such as type of headers and footers, margins, backgrounds, etc., you use page styles. You create them the same way you'd create a paragraph or character style. Page styles are pretty solid. You apply them by double-clicking the page style in the stylist, then switching from one page style to another with a manual break or one of two automatic approaches. You can also restart page numbering with all three ways.

Switching page styles: As mentioned, you can switch from one page style to another by inserting a manual break, or automatically. One way is to set up a paragraph style like Heading1 to always start at the top of a new page, with a particular page style. (Framemaker doesn't have this.)  For instance, if you always start a new section with the paragraph style Heading1 and use the page style FirstPage, then you can make that happen automatically and never think about applying page styles.

You can also set up a page style to be applied once, then automatically switch to another page style. Just as you might set up Heading1 to automatically switch to BodyText as the next paragraph style, you can set up FirstPage to automatically switch to LeftRight as the next page style.

Automatic PDF: If your department is on a budget, don't worry about purchasing high-priced copies of Adobe Distiller. You can make PDFs of your documents automatically. Just choose File > Export as PDF, name the file, and set your options.

Master documents: Master documents are the equivalent of master files and book files. They work. They're not slick and powerful, but they work. They also don't crash and corrupt the subdocuments. They're just a bit tricky; you have to do them the right way. You have to insert a Text Item component between each subdocument in order to be able to apply formatting to the subdocuments, but it's not hard to do. To create a master document, just choose File > New > Master Document and use the tools in the window to add files, TOCs, text items, etc.

Automatic captions: You can set up OpenOffice.org to automatically insert captions for all your graphics, tables, etc. They're numbered separately and you can have whatever word you want in front of the caption: Table, Object, Item, Illustration, etc. Choose Tools > Options > Writer > AutoCaption.

Tables of contents: Tables of contents are in generally pretty good. They're linked to the headings you set up in outline numbering (see Weaknesses) and tabs are included by default. I would say they're just as powerful as Frame but easier to set up. You have a lot of formatting power through styles.

Better drawing tools: It's not hard to beat the drawing tools in Framemaker, but OpenOffice.org does it by a mile. Use a frame (Insert > Frame) to group the items, or else just choose File > New > Drawing and make a separate diagram. Then copy and paste into a frame in Writer or export the drawing to a JPG or other format. If you do flow charts or diagrams, the connector line tools alone might be worth using Writer as your book production tool. (Or alternately use Draw to create diagrams that you export to GIF and import into Framemaker.)

OpenOffice.org Professional Book Production Weaknesses

Cross references: Generally, they're solid if not all that slick to implement. However, two issues. One, there's no way, as in Framemaker, to search for broken cross-references, though the cross reference does show up as an empty gray box. Sometimes it's not even an empty gray box, it looks fine. So that's a big issue.

Also, if you want to do cross-references between subdocuments in a master document, you can't select them from a list—you have to keep track of what they are and type the name of the reference in manually. AND the cross-reference doesn't show up correctly in the individual document, it's just a blank gray box. You can see it correctly only from the master document, which is read-only. Grr.

Outline numbering: Outline numbering is actually kind of a powerful tool, and not that tough to implement. Outline numbering is how you tell the program that ChapterTitle is your top-level paragraph heading style, Heading1 is the next level down, and so on. From that you get running headers and footers, automatic chapter numbering, etc. You can also have only one paragraph style at each level, so there goes the idea of having two paragraph styles, Heading1NewPage and Heading1.

Indexes: Indexes work, but they're a little weird and it takes a while to get used to how they work.

Chapter-page numbering: You can set up chapter-page numbering, such as 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 2-1, and so on. You can apply chapter-page numbering to captions. You can have the chapter number in headers and footers. (Once you've set up outline numbering.) However, you can't have it show up correctly in the table of contents for the second level heading on down. Thus, you can either forego tables of contents, forego detailed tables of contents, or forego chapter-page numbering.

Running headers and footers: Running headers are easy, once you've set up outline numbering. Just go to the header or footer and choose Insert > Fields > Other, select the Document tab, select Type column, select the Chapter item, and choose what kind of information you want to insert. “Chapter” just means section, and you can specify what level section with the Layer field in the lower right corner.

There's just one problem. The running header or footer reflects the most recent heading. If you're writing about French Bread on page 1, and have a section title about Rye Bread halfway down the page on page 2, then the running header at the top of page 2 will be French Bread. It doesn't see anything on the current page, only what has already appeared in the document. If you had a running footer on page 2, it would show Rye Bread because by then Rye Bread would have appeared in the document.

This is an issue only with heading level 2 on down, since usually your top level heading will start at the top of a new page or document so quick switches aren't an issue. Therefore you can use only running headers for your top-level heading; you can use them for any levels but only in the footer, or you can use a separate page style for every chapter and type in all your headers and footers manually. The first and second are the best options.

Variables: Let's say you're putting together a huge document for a proposal, and the value like Contractor and Price and ContractorIDNumber appear several places throughout the book. Or you're doing a book for three different products and you want to be able to easily change the product name from BadgersRUs to MarmotMania. In Framemaker and in OpenOffice.org you can create variables to handle this. However, you can't share them across documents in OpenOffice.org, even if they're part of the same master document. You can't import them from one doc to another or from one doc to all other docs in a master document. You can do that in Framemaker.

In Conclusion...

Use styles. Use page styles. Take advantage of automatic page style application/switching. Set up outline numbering. Be flexible with your formatting requirements (notably with running headers and footers, and chapter-page numbering). Be very structured with the titles of your cross-references. Don't expect Framemaker. Do some test documents.

If all that sounds good, then OpenOffice.org could be a good tool for you and your group.

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Spending Your Money on Something Important (Repost)

Office suite software isn't really all that important.

What's important is pretty much anything else. What your organization is doing: research, services, saving lives, preserving order, education. Preserving the rain forest. Rebuilding New Orleans. Job retraining. Heck, you could argue that a good pumpkin pie is essentially more important than software.

OK, the office suite software helps you do all those things I listed and a million more. But I want to point out that our goal in our eight hours a day is not to use software. It's everything else.

All right. So now think about this.

OpenOffice.org is free.

Other office suites are not.

You switch to OpenOffice.org, and you or your organization is suddenly not spending $500, or $50,000, or $5 million on your office suite licenses.

Add up all the other people or organizations who are no longer spending that money on an office suite, and suddenly we're into some serious cash.

Think about how much your city police force spends on office suite software, and about how that money could probably do some good if it were spent on, say, salaries for additional police.

Think about what that research facility down the road spends on software. Compared to the money they spend for their equipment, maybe not much, but it's money probably better spent on upping the salaries for a few poor post-docs than on office suite software.

Think about how much money the federal government spends on office suite software. Now fantasize about how you would redirect that money if you were in charge.

(Almost makes $4,000 toilet seats pale in comparison, doesn't it? OK, toilet seats are already white, but you know what I mean.)

Amazon saved $17 million when they switched to Linux. Same principle--pay less for something that's not part of your core business.

Think about how much your state spends on office suite software for schools, and how many more teachers and books that money could buy.

A lot.

Education is one of the most important places to think about OpenOffice.org. Education is, to put it mildly, important. Plus, third graders aren't likely to complain that they're used to how Word does styles and they don't want to switch. They're open to anything new. And education isn't exactly overfunded. I live in Colorado which is either 49th or 47th in the nation in funding for education.

For educators, here's an interesting article on trends this year, including OpenOffice.org. 

For anyone thinking about upgrading to Vista, here's an important blog. Dave Rosenberg states that Vista gives you an opportunity to really compare the actual cost and the actual benefits, and he quotes Jon Oltsik from Enterprise Strategy Group."

So just think about the value. Think about how much money you're spending on your office suite, and what you could do with that money that would be more important.

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TechTarget Article: Google Spreadsheets Review

I've written an article for TechTarget on the new Google spreadsheets. Here's part of it.

"My first reaction was, "Oh, cute," and "Looks like a good design." It seems like the GUI designers stood up inside the box and looked at what was outside. The design is not revolutionary, but it avoids, at the least, a retread of the client-based spreadsheet GUI. The designers used different types of widgets to provide the navigation and options. There are three tabs for different types of functions: drop down buttons for key features like Saving, buttons for standard toolbar features (Cut, Copy and Paste) and a few plain old links for common features like New and Open."

Essentially, I think it's great for some, and others will never take a second look. Click here to read the whole review.

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Be Part of Something Big: The NYC OpenOffice.org "The Metro" Ad Project

My friends Ben Horst and Christian Einfeldt are working on an OpenOffice.org media project.

A group of grassroots activists in the OpenOffice.org community have just announced they are going to undertake a similar media campaign to Spread Firefox, starting with a free (as in beer) New York City daily newspaper called "The Metro," published by Metro International. Most penguinistas know what a huge success the grassroots Spread Firefox ad campaign was. Through ads in the New York Times and the Frankfurt General Newspaper, and the hilarious Firefox videos on the FunnyFox website (video link here), Firefox has probably gained greater popular name brand recognition in the general public than any other free open source software (FOSS) project.

Read more.  Or click here to contribute.

Here's the Digg reference.

Ben and Christian are doing great stuff to promote OpenOffice. Next stop, Oprah? (I see a show with a digital divide theme where she gives away a thousand totally open source laptops to screaming audience members.)

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Sun's OpenOffice Tshirts

Remember the cool Sun tshirts from the contest they had?

 

I don't know when it happened, but the promised tshirts are out now at Cafepress. The store name is sunopensource. Not quite as cool looking since the colors aren't there but still pretty good.

And just because I can, here's the link to my tshirts. ;>  Among others: "OpenOffice.org: Great office software. No Bills to pay."

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Great Review of StarOffice (Which of Course Is Essentially Just Like OpenOffice)

Here's the Software Editorial review, and here's the intro.

STAR OFFICE 8 as a office software package is one of the finest alternatives to Microsoft Office, not that Microsofts version is bad in any way, its just that it costs a great deal more and in some cases does not deliver the same features as this particular product.

But you may be wondering why would I pay for STAR OFFICE 8 when clearly OPEN OFFICE 2.0 is a freeware which means it does not cost a thing ? this is a question that we will answer in this article.

Additionally what other features does STAR OFFICE 8 have that are of interest compared to other products ?

Before we answer these questions it is worth noting that with over 50 million downloads including OPEN OFFICE, you should know that it is a highly rated package, that has brought much satisfaction amongst the populace, and therefore I myself have adopted STAR OFFICE to write this review.

Pledge to Buy Your Very Own $100 Laptop From MIT! Pictures Too!

It's so cute! And it's closer to being available!

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/24/1210225

Here's the photo album.

You can pledge to buy one for $300. That means you get one, and two needy children each get one, too.  I've just pledged. Here's the text.

"I will purchase the $100 laptop at $300 but only if 100,000 other will too."

— Mike Liveright, digital charity supporter

Deadline to sign up by: 31^st October 2006
552 people have signed up, 99448 more needed

Microsoft Vista: Not 'People Ready' (and the date slips again)

Microsoft Vista slips again! Now it's going to be ready (in theory) in early 2007. Hmm.

Is it worth the wait?

(Is it worth the money?  ;> )

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2006/03/22/vista-microsoft-ballmer_cz_dl_0322microsoft.html

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My Open Source Marketing Fantasy: What I Would Do With a Venture Capitalist, a Team of Programmers and Designers, and Oprah's Personal Assistant, to Do My Bidding

These are just some random ideas for when I finally find the Unlimited Money, Time, and Influence Dimension.

Here's what I've been thinking about lately.

We're at one of those points in “Crossing the Chasm” where there's going to be a big change soon and the General Populace is going to start using Linux in the next couple years. I hope. There's no technical reason for it not to happen. The distros are cute. The installs are in many cases very easy.

But, of course, that's not the whole story.

When I tell my friend Betsy or my parents or other folks not in the technical field that Linux, or OpenOffice.org, or another open source program would be great, they get a little glassy-eyed and start to shake if I talk about non-Microsoft products for too long.  It's just not something they believe in. They know intellectually that I make my living in open source and understand that free is cheaper than not free. But don't really believe it. They just don't feel that open source products are an option.

Reasoning is all very well, but as someone very wise once said, "You can't reason someone out of a position they haven't been reasoned into." Which is a very reasonable statement (pun intended). I've certainly got my emotional topics that reason won't trump, period. We can talk all day long about how open source is great and so much cheaper, but that doesn't get to people's amygdala. It doesn't make them feel like they want it or can use it. It doesn't make them accept that yes, cheaper can be better.

Plus, there's no "get an easy cool Linux laptop with support and warantees now!" web site for them to go to.

So I fantasize about how to make people fall in love with open source.

Or, if not fall in love, then help people feel good about it, feel comfortable, and feel excited about it.

And I think about the ultimate pre-installed open source computer web site.

In my fantasy, with the aforementioned money and people, I would do a couple things.

I would create The Warm, Fuzzy, Fun, Exciting, and Absolutely Cool Linux/Open Source Site, For Everyone But Especially Small Businesses and Regular End Users Who Are Not Using Linux Yet.

And I would Shamelessly Pursue Celebrity Endorsements and Product Placement.

About the Site
I would create a different Linux site for people who don't know or care about open source but care about everything you can do with a normal computer save money, do email, edit photos, build web pages, rip CDs, and so on.

In my fantasy, the site would be off the charts on fun, easy, and incredibly cool.  The site should make people feel like walking around in Target makes me feel (I have a serious Target addiction). Or Ikea. Just fun and more-or-less mainstream and cute.

The site and associated products and ads would make it blindingly obvious millions of people are using open source software and having a good time doing so.

Here are a few specific things in my fantasy Linux web site.

• Hire a few designers away from Apple (or Target) to design the most amazing web site and packaging ever.  ((Mark Shuttleworth's freedom toasters are wonderful. Great design.)
• Hire some writers to do humorous text on the web site and in the documentation. I get a kick out of some of the content on the Mini web site.
• Put games on the web site to draw people in.
• I'd pack every bit of extra stuff, plugins, etc., into the distros that I could. Make it the default so that nobody has to fiddle with adding what they need, and can instead just enjoy using their computer for what they use it for.
• Sell all the PDA and music-playing devices I can—and borrow from Apple's playbook by providing free engraving.
• Create community with contests and prizes, featured Linux stories, and all sorts of things to make people feel as proud of their Linux computer as they feel of their Ipod.
• I would of course hire Kathy Sierra to make all this happen and create passionate Linux users.

Celebrity Endorsements, Product Placements, and All That Stuff
What made people stop smoking so quickly in the 90s after yeaaaars of smoking? Peer pressure. Who can get people to buy millions of copies of an item with a wave of her hand? Oprah!

• I would get on Oprah. I don't know how—Mark Shuttleworth is pretty hunky, so we could maybe work the beefcake angle. Maybe we could get Jonathan Schwartz to write a fake autobiography.  Or we just make the pitch along the whole digital divide, make a better society, line. At any rate, we get on Oprah, and at the end of the show Oprah gives away free Linux laptops and everybody dances.
• Microsoft Is for Fuddy-Duddies. Ads and placements and stories in Seventeen, ads on MySpace.com, Linux books on the tables in Urban Outfitters. (It's a stretch, that last one.) Teens and college students, in theory, don't have a lot of money, and in theory want to rebel against established norms. And, of course, are generally more comfortable with computers.

• Product placement in TV shows and movies (maybe ET used VOIP on Linux to phone home?), anything. Mac has a huge product placement thing goin' on; I'd figure out what they do and do it (with all the money from the venture capitalists, yes ;> ).

Now, I'm not actually going to do this. Not this year, anyway. Got to finish a book, got to go do some training, and there aren't that many programmers or designers around who will do my bidding. If you decide to do this, though, please remember me, bring me on as your official trainer. Oh, and I want to be on Oprah. ;>

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Tags

StarOffice open source Mark Shuttleworth Jonathan Schwartz Mark Shuttleworth openoffice openoffice cost

Gates Mocks MIT's $100 Laptop

For a guy who gives so much to other countries to help disease, you 'd think he'd be more into the idea of helping other countries progress in social, technical, and educational arenas, eh?

'The last thing you want to do for a shared use computer is have it be something without a disk ... and with a tiny little screen,' Gates said at the Microsoft Government Leaders Forum in suburban Washington.

This is in line with his famous "Nobody needs more than 64k of memory" comment. It wasn't so long ago (what, 20-30 years?) that we were all using computers with a tiny little screen and no disk. And we thought they were wonderful.

Read more.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/06/03/16/1341208.shtml

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060316/tc_nm/microsoft_gates_dc

http://news.com.com/2061-11199_3-6050497.html

Public Libraries, Open Source, and World Domination

 

NPR's Talk of the Nation had a discussion recently about the future of libraries. The question was: What is the library of the future like? Libraries have had their funding cut right and left, and  the library in Salinas, California, where John Steinbeck lived, was nearly closed.

So needless to say, it's a good idea to think about how libraries can adapt and grow and become the kind of thing you'd never cut the budget for.

I love libraries. I grew up hanging around in libraries for several reasons. I was a standard quiet bookworm. My dad was a librarian for NOAH for 20 years or so, in Auke Bay for the fisheries laboratory where there was a huge tank of wonderfully gruesome things (can't call'em fish). And we always lived out of town so when my parents and I “went into town,” they would drop me at the library while they did errands. I think I can still smell the slightly musty, friendly smell of the Juneau public library, and the Flathead County public library in Kalispell  has the most wonderful collection of old Life magazines. Read old magazines and you'll get a whole new look at history.

The Talk of the Nation program really got me thinking a lot about libraries. There are so many ways they can, and already are, such a great part of society. Many function as community centers, education centers, and of course places to go and use the computer when you don't have one at home. Up the ante and combine them with rec centers, for instance--kids enjoy story hour while parents work out, or vice versa. Explore the scanning technologies to put old books online that of course is being discussed with much controversy currently. Set up enormous web servers to provide online access to wonderful old books. (The aforementioned Life magazines come to mind.) Or enable paperless self-publishing for authors who have their novel and want others to read it; give them (open source) software to create a PDF of the book, and put it in the virtual library.

My particular thoughts on public libraries, though, are in regard to embracing open source. As mentioned, libraries aren't just books but a place to go and use the computer. (Using the computer at the Kalispell library is what got my dad hooked on email and made him decide to buy his first computer, at age 80.) Libraries already are associated with free computer use. So let's take that and go nuts with it.

I am of course not a library expert, I know pretty much squat about how they're run, but I think they're great and can continue to be a huge asset to the world. Some of these ideas are probably impractical, or perhaps already widely implemented, or C) other. And they're actually just as much about how open source could leverage the power of libraries as vice versa.  These are just thoughts I'm throwing out that, in my enthusiastic ignorance, I think could possibly be beneficial to libraries, open source companies, and society in general.

The Goal: More People, More Demand for Services, and Maybe a Little Revenue
The more people use something, the less likely it is to get its budget cut. In theory, at least. The more benefit it provides to the most people, the more secure it is. So that's a goal, get the libraries as crowded every day as Walmart the day after Thanksgiving.

The other idea, which might be an issue based on how libraries are run, is to get a little revenue stream goin'. Plus a little corporate sponsorship. Library experts, if this is crazy talk just let me know.

A First Step: Libraries Web Sites Can Simply Provide Links to Open Source Software.

A really easy step to promote open source software, and drive people to the library web site, would be to just add a page to the library web site that points to all the open source download sites. No need to even offer support—just add a page discussing open source software, how great it is, and pointing to where anyone can download it.

Libraries Can Be the Brick-and-Mortar “Storefront” for Open Source Software.

One of the problems open source faces is that, much of the time, you can't just go to Amazon or CompUSA and pick up a nice shrinkwrapped box. Or even a single CD; forget the shrinkwrap. Libraries can be the brick-and-mortar “store” for open source software.

Why don't open source programs have stores? Well, there's the cost. But if you could find a building that would set up a nice display of your CDs...well, that would work pretty well.

Talk to libraries. Designate a section of the library where you can just walk in and get Ubuntu, RedHat, SuSE, OpenOffice.org, Gimp, and the zillion other programs available. Give them the shelving, if you want. Send the CDs already burned, or send them a couple computers and let users burn the CDs themselves.

Put a banner or sign outside the library to bring people in, of course. Send emails to the local Linux User Groups and have them spread the word.

Mark Shuttleworth has a great idea with his Freedom Toasters, kiosks where you bring your own blank burnable CD and get the open source software of your choice. Take that a step further to institutions that already exist, libraries.

Get Sponsorship From Open Source Companies to Provide Designated Technologists and Software

Coke sponsors public schools and they get exclusive rights to provide their product with lunches and in vending machines.

Who's sponsoring public libraries?

Maybe this is a slippery slope or double-edged sword that's dangerous but I'm ignorant enough to suggest it and think it has potential. ;>

It probably wouldn't be that difficult to get Red Hat, Novell, Sun, and other companies to sponsor library-based open source software availability. How much would it cost each company to even hire a dedicated open source librarian/technologist? According to the postings I see, about $30,000 a year in many places. $50,000 a year would be a very decent salary for someone who knows her way around a computer, in many locations. Another $10k maybe for some extra computers and a LOT of ready-made CDs with their software already burned.

Corporate sponsors could provide their own open source software directly to a large audience for not much money per library. There'd also be great PR for these companies. It doesn't get much better than "Official Supporter of America's Public Libraries and Education for Every Person".

And of course, it's gotta be tax deductible.

I realize that Coke having free rein with its products in grade schools is a double-edge sword, but nobody's going to get diabetes or rotten teeth from open source.

Library-Centered Geek Squad for Help With Installation, Troubleshooting, Etc.
One of the issues with Linux is the perception that if you run into problems, you're on your own. Which is funny since there are zillions of Linux enthusiasts out there, happy to help. But what if, through corporate sponsorship or other means such as organizing the LUGs, everyone could just go to the library to get help with Linux or other open source products? The sponsors could even say that they would provide help simply on a first come first served basis to anyone with their particular software. Just load up the computer and bring it in.

This again relates to potential issues with charging people, but it might be workable to charge a modest rate for this help, too--maybe some basic help is free and extra-technical help you get charged for.

Charge for Shrinkwrapped Software?

Libraries might give away basic CDs of open source software, and charge $30 or whatever the sponsor suggests plus your library's margin, for a shrinkwrapped box with documentation.

Create an Internet Cafe On Site

People go to Internet cafes and pay for overpriced coffee to use computers and the Internet. It's a huge business. Slumping in a purple velvet overstuffed chair is a nice way to spend the day, whether you're doing email, shopping online, playing poker, etc. People will come to the library if they can get that a Starbucks or cool local coffee shop fee. Then of course, set up the computers, loaded with open source software, for public use as well. 

If you want to provide coffee (with due warnings about NOT spilling on keyboards ;> ) and pastries that might be a decent revenue stream. Again, I'm not at all familiar with the rules if any for what libraries can charge for on premises but the premise is that you don't have to pay for anything, just extra stuff if you want to.

Teach Open Source Classes in Libraries

This idea of teaching classes in libraries is nothing new, of course, But it would be a big benefit to open source.

A huge barrier to adoption of open source is that people don't know about it. Or if they do know about it, they think it's difficult. Or else it's just unfamiliarity.

When anyone can go to the library and learn to use the software, and take away a free CD of the software, the barrier is immediately lower.

Getting the Computers for General Use and for Classes

How do you get all the computers you need for all these classes?

The library corporate sponsors can provide some of the computers to have enough for all students, and the corporate-paid technology librarian, and other librarians, can teach the classes.

You don't generally need as fast a computer to run Linux, so head to your local computer rebuilding area, or to your local Linux Users' Group, and collect old desktops and laptops. Stick Linux on'em (consult your Linux User Group for the fastest, lightest-weight install), and you've got lots of cheap computers.

Team up with schools and teach in the evenings, perhaps? Schools are closed in the evenings, and most of them have computers.

See also this article on cheap new computers.

Cross the Digital Divide

With sponsorship from open source companies, free software, and someone to do the teaching, we can try to approach the ideal of equal computer education, which can lead to equal education, period. If anyone in this country can get to a library, get to a computer, and learn to use the software, all for free: that's the gateway to an enormous set of opportunities.

Say...What About Schools and Open Source?????

Well, of course, open source organizations should actively try to sponsor schools, as well. ;>  But I'm talkin' about libraries in this post.

That's What I Think

As I mentioned, I am NOT a librarian, and my dad was a librarian for NOAH, not public libraries. But I love libraries, I love open source, I want to see both succeed, and I think each has benefits for the other.

If you want to read about people who actually know libraries ;>  here are some blogs.

Science Library Pad

Library Clips

Library Stuff

Lorcan Dempsey

Stephen's Lighthouse

Tame the Web

Librarian in Black

Librarian.net

And of course
http://www.ala.org/

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Tags

OpenOffice.org    open office    OpenOffice.org training    open office training   open source   open source training   Office 12  Linux   Ubuntu   education    Microsoft Office  digital divide  open source    libraries   

Microsoft Owns Your Tube Top

Remember that commercial for Compass bank, that shows the woman at an ATM in her closet? The ATM told her, "I'm sorry, there will be $2 fee to access your tube top."

(Honest, there is a commercial like that. I'm not just using blatant sexy illustrations for shock value to draw attention to the benefits of ODF.)

That's what the Open Document Format, or ODF, is all about. Lots of people and organizations want all documents to be in .odf rather than .doc or .xls format.

Most software you use creates documents  in a propriety format. That means that the way the software creates the files is exclusive to the people who wrote that software. You can't use another program to open your own files, or at least your choices are very narrow.  That means you need to buy software to continue to open files with those formats--if you want to be able to continue to access your own documents.  Your thoughts, your meeting minutes, your personal budget spreadsheets, etc.--all need to be rented from the people who wrote the software.

Doesn't it seem kind of odd to have to keep paying for the right to get at documents you created?. It's like paying to rent a house you own. It's like having to pay a fee to get into your own closet for your own tube top.

OpenOffice.org, Sun, and other folks think everyone, including Microsoft, should write programs that output documents in  Open Document Format. The instructions for creating programs that make ODF documents are available for anybody to use. That way, when all programs create documents in the same format, then you don't have to pay to open your documents. You can pick the application you want to use, there will be zillions of them, and some of them are free. You aren't dependent on one software program to get at your documents. OpenOffice.org uses ODF format.

Here's an article on what's going on with a group that was formed to promote ODF, and Microsoft.
http://www.hunterstrat.com/news/2006/03/07/eu-watchdogs-have-their-eye-on-microsoft-office/

Here's the web site of the fine folks of the Open Document Format.
http://www.odfalliance.org/

And here's the web site of Scott Johnson who just sums things up quite nicely regarding open source, and open document format. See the item at the end of his list.
http://fuzzyblog.com/archives/2006/03/08/the-trip-home-open-source-in-minnesota/

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OpenOffice.org 2.0.2 is Available

Here's the info.
http://www.filehippo.com/download_openoffice/

At some point it will be available here too I imagine. ;>
http://www.openoffice.org/

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Tags: openoffice    openoffice.org    openoffice training    Microsoft    Linux    Office 2007    openoffice.org 2.0.2    free software 

Win $750! Write Developer Documentation for OpenOffice.org!

Now, generally you can win $750 just by not upgrading two of your Microsoft Office licenses. ;>

If you want glory and recognition as well, see Roumen's blog  here. There's a developer writing contest! (The developer page is here.)

Make Your Organization's Productivity Go to 11 With Onsite Training

Imagine you're Jane in Contracts.

You hear about the new software that's coming. And there it is, on your computer.

You freak out, of course, because you've been working in Microsoft Office for ten years, you know just how things work, there are tweaks you've made you're very proud of, and all this work and knowledge is going to go down the frickin' drain. Because of those geeks in IT! AAAARGH!!! You'd like to take your computer and stuff it down the throat of the person who made the decision in the first place.

Now you, as the IT director, know  that Jane can probably figure out a lot of it  on her own. Given the right attitude, at least; the confidence that she can figure it out. But she's pissed. And she has huge deadlines looming and she's going to just keep working in Microsoft Office. In spite of all the lovely memos you send out about OpenOffice.org being the preferred software. Or she might just not do the work because she doesn't think she can. Or get halfway through her work but she has a question, she can't find the solution, you haven't given her a book, she's not used to online help, she's not the type who habitually googles online forums, she doesn't know that right-clicking or checking all the menus will turn up something useful, and she's frustrated and wants to go home and do the eight hours of work she has to do there.

And you're frustrated because you think it's easy, workable software and you don't know why everyone keeps calling you with questions.

They're not all calling you because they can't figure it out. They're calling to say “You plunked this on my desk, you didn't give me any help, you didn't ask my opinion or acknowledge that this will take some work, and I am going to make you PAY.”

Some of them, anyway. Enough to make a lot of people pissed and frustrated.

This is how it works when you bring in the software first without any documentation or training.

Now, there are others who might not be making noise and might not mind the change that much, but who really cannot figure out the mail merge and would like to be shown how. Or they have specific questions like how to create postcards in Draw, now that they don't have Publisher anymore.

And--well, frankly, it's fair when you bring in something new to tell people how to use it.  You wouldn't buy your parents a new computer and drop it off without at least making sure they knew how to do the basics.

So what do you do about that? About the change aspect, the frustration that can come up, and just about how to show people the new ways to do their jobs.

Now, keep in mind that this isn't only about the software. It's also about change.

Not surprisingly, I think it's really important that new users have training. Before they have to start using it for their jobs, ideally, but anytime is better than nothing. Training  teaches people how to use the software. And it helps deal with the change.

I of course think training is important because that's my business. ;>  But I've also been there and seen how confused and frustrated people are, for the reasons outlined earlier. They come in to my class at 9 AM, and they're skeptical and annoyed. At 4 PM, they think they rock. They've had a chance to see how much they know and how many functions are easy to figure out. They've had a chance to ask those three questions about the stuff that they can't figure out. And they've seen that the IT group, or whoever's in charge, is committed enough, and cares enough, to provide training.

Happy users are more productive. Happy users say hi to you in the hall rather than growling. Happy users mean you as IT director are happy. And it doesn't cost that much to get all that.

Training makes a huge difference in those six hours plus lunch.

Users are so much happier about the switch, in general, at the end of a day of training. After four years, I've seen a lot of attitude changes, and it's clear the students are going to go back their desks and just tear through the projects that were taking them ages before. They even ask for CDs of the software, and of the workbook lab files, to take home! Honest. It happens. The change in confidence and attitude is great—it's why I do training.

Training doesn't cost much compared to how much you save.

In comparison to how much you save with OpenOffice.org (and with Linux if you switch to that too), the time and money to give all your users a day of training, at your site, is minimal. These costs cover everything, including travel and workbooks.

• I trained a small fire and rescue organization in Wyoming for $3,000 total, including two 250-page workbooks for each user. They saved at least $25,000 switching to OpenOffice.org.
• I trained the 300 users in a nearby Colorado city government for about $13,000. They saved about $250,000 switching to OpenOffice.org and Linux. (They're just around the corner from me, so there were no travel expenses.)
• I trained 200 users over three weeks, half getting two days of training each, for about $15,000. Each user got at least one 250-page workbook; some got two. It's a private company that contracts to NASA so they didn't tell me how much they saved ;>  but I imagine it was a pretty good chunk.

See more about my training rates here and what they cover.

An aside: Most people haven't had training on Microsoft Office, either. It's interesting how many people don't know many standard Microsoft Office features, or that Ctrl C is copy.  Imagine how productive your users could be given the time to get training on all their current software, whatever it is.

Site Licenses and Educational Discounts

Yes, you say, but there are 30,000 potential users in my school district. That gets into money. I can't possibly afford trainng.

Well, that depends. You're definitely a candidate for a site license, so that you have the right to print all the copies you want of all my workbooks, onsite. I discount site licenses heavily, and particularly heavily for educational institutions. If you're thinking of switching to OpenOffice.org for your school district, don't assume you can't afford materials for everyone. I also charge less for training groups with site licenses.

Yes, OpenOffice.org is free. That doesn't mean the transition is free—users need a little help getting going, and they need to know their effort is appreciated. Change, period, whether to a new location, new software, or new processes, takes effort. But the cost of getting users  going on OpenOffice.org or StarOffice, and happy about it, isn't that high.

So think about it. Shoot me an email at [email protected], just to get some more info or ask about the site license. I'm happy to answer any questions about how to help your organization become a lean, mean (but happy), OpenOffice.org-using machine.

 

Here are some references:

• Transitioning users
• Workbooks
• Training

 

 

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Tags

OpenOffice.org    open office    OpenOffice.org training    open office training   open source   open source training   budget  Linux   educational discount   education   site license  migrating to openoffice.org  switching to staroffice    switching to openoffice    change management   

Open Source and Education

Interesting article on attitudes in education and what's happening with open source.

http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/03/01/open

I Want To Know What You Think I Should Put In My OpenOffice 2.0 Book

Will you be on my OpenOffice.org 2.0 Book Team?

Some of you have seen this page on Amazon for the past, oh, decade. ;> 

Due to weirdness with Amazon, I have not been able to get it off their site.

But! Now I am actually writing it! I've got content, it's goin' fast, it's going to be out by spring.

It's not going to be another 4-pound behemoth—I do like covering everything but there's also an important place for an 80/20, just-the-most-used-features, approach. The OpenOffice.org 2.0 book on Amazon will be around 500 pages and will not include things like master documents, macros, or basically the advanced features that are cool but less frequently used.

I might do an advanced “Part 2” kind of book, like the Core Java folks did with their books. But right now, we're looking at a good solid for-everyone sort of book with emphasis on the basics.

Not to say that it will be nothing but “To make text bold, click the B icon. See illustration at right.” This book will tell you how to do cool stuff, powerful stuff, stuff that will make your job easier and make you, with luck, pump your first in the air and say “I rule!!!”

That's where you come in.
I've got the main content, all the procedures and lessons that need to be in the book. But I've got a section for each chapter or chunk of chapters tentatively titled OpenOffice.org Power Tools.  So for each main topic area I'll include cool powerful, not-overwhelmingly-complicated, widely applicable, power tips.

Things like:

• PDF, of course, including File > Send > Document as PDFAttachment
• Making a template and assigning it to be the one you get when you choose File > New

I want to know what you think would be good additions to those sections. I want the book to really be something people will find valuable and a great resource for all those specific but really essential things that can muck up your day if you can't do them or they're a pain.

So tell me. What has saved your butt with OpenOffice.org? What did you think it couldn't do, that you really needed, and found out it could? (Or maybe you don't know how to do it, but really wish it could?)

Please leave a comment with suggestions. (The comments won't appear immediately; I monitor comments and trackbacks, due to a recent spell of interesting links from the folks peddling films of women with their ponies.) I'll repost this blog periodically to keep getting suggestions.

I'll of course credit anyone with a suggestion I use in the book. (By submitting a comment, you're saying that's OK. blah blah legal blah blah.)

I'll be posting parts of the book, as well, to get feedback. I want it to be clear, readable, fun if at all possible, and of course, really, really helpful.

Thanks!

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Tags

OpenOffice.org    open office    OpenOffice.org training    open office training   openoffice books   open source books   Office 2007  resource kit   openoffice 2 book   education   OpenOffice.org Resource Kit  workbook  tips    book   

Funny Story About "Open Source Piracy"

I love this.

"UK anti-piracy officer assures Firefox she'll catch the pirates who copy it."

I'm very happy that she's doing her job so well....

Migrating Users to OpenOffice.org or StarOffice: Updated

I've updated my steps for migrating a group to OpenOffice.org, with emphasis on the human factors. There are some fun new ideas as well as expanding on some of the old ones. If this is something you're considering, take a look.

"Freedom Toasters": Walk-Up Kiosks Dispensing Open Source Software. BYO Blank CD: Updated April 15th 2006

Update April 15th: Read an interview with the project founder Jason Hudson by Marshall Kirkpatrick. Jason Hudson is the Technical Product Manager for the Shuttleworth Foundation and founder of the Freedom Toaster project.

Also note a reference in the interview to the Go-Open Source Portal.  It has many resources, plus an actual phone line for support and comments.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is sooooooo cool!  Move over, $100 laptop!  And how did I miss this? Blogs started last year. According to the founder, "The Freedom Toaster is a free vending machine/kiosk that dispenses open source software burned to CD or DVD in locations throughout South Africa."

Information is posted at these locations among others:

http://www.gokis.net/self-service/archives/001203.html
http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/180
http://www.start.com.my/blog/freedom-toaster/

The main site is:
http://www.freedomtoaster.org/

Here's what it says:

"The Freedom Toaster project was started in 2004 by the Shuttleworth Foundation as a way to overcome these problems.

Freedom Toasters are conveniently located, self-contained, computer-based, 'Bring 'n Burn' facilities. Like vending machines, preloaded to dispense confectionery, Freedom Toasters are preloaded to dispense free digital products (e.g. Linux Operating Systems and the OpenOffice.org office suite Toaster Software)."

Here's where they are currently located.

• Bloemfontein
• Durban
• Cape Town
• Diepkloof
• East London
• Grahamstown
• Johannesburg
• Knysna
• Namibia
• Pietermaritzburg
• Port Elizabeth
• Port Shepstone
• Potchefstroom
• Pretoria
• Stellenbosch

For instance, the East London one is at:

Walter Sisulu University
Walter Sisulu University (Chiselhusrt Campus)
19 Manchester Road
Chiselhurst
East London
5214

Want one near you? Click here.

Now THIS is crossing the digital divide.

Read more.

 

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Tags

OpenOffice.org    open office    OpenOffice.org training    open office training   open source   open source training   Office 12  Linux    education   Microsoft Office  free software  digital divide    freedom toaster   

Fact-Filled Survey of Linux Administrators Shows (Guess What!) Linux Is Cheaper and Quicker to Maintain

The fine folks at Linux-Watch.com have posted an article on this survey. See also the E-Week article on the survey.

"After years of putting up with Microsoft's anti-Linux half-truths in its Get-the-FUD campaign, Linux supporters are finally striking back.

But if that's all this report was, I'd barely bother with it.

What's different about this report from Microsoft's endless series of anti-Linux reports is that it focuses on the hard evidence of uptime, management and software costs, and system administrator costs per server and user. ...

The survey of over 200 responses, from mostly SMBs (small-to-medium businesses) with from less than 20 servers to over a 1000 servers, found that 'Over half of the respondents can provision a new Linux server in less than 1 hour, and 20% can do so in less than 20 minutes. For sites with sophisticated tools, over 75% spent less than 1 hour to provision a new Linux system and one third could provision the OS in less then 20 minutes. None took longer than 5 hours.' "

Show it to your boss. Show it to your reports. Show it to your friends, take it to the LUG. (Not that it's news to anyone who uses Linux.) This is great.

• Get the survey.
  
• Read about people talking about the survey on Linux Watch and Eweek.

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Tags

OpenOffice.org open office OpenOffice.org training open office training open source open source training Office 12 Linux Windows microsoft Windows server servers administration costs

Louis Suarez-Potts Wants Sun to Let OpenOffice.org Go: Corrected

Here's a correction.
------
Here's the story, and a fun blog on the same topic.

Louis Suarez-Potts is essentially play Moses to Sun's Egyptian Pharoah and saying "Let my program go!" All right, maybe Louis isn't in flowing robes outside McNealy's office door, and I sure hope that there won't be a rain of frogs.

Here's the deal. After six years of having StarOffice and OpenOffice.org, the person on the street has never heard of the programs. Though the cool new tshirt campaign is certainly a step in the right direction.

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Tags: OpenOffice.org  openoffice  OpenOffice.org training  openoffice training  open source  open source training  StarOffice  Linux  IBM  education  Google  Sun 

Google and Dell Billion Dollar Deal

Is Google working with Dell to become the new king of the desktops?

Here's a blog on what CNBC is reporting.

Verrrrry interesting.

Google has a desktop, Goobuntu based on Ubuntu, and an office suite, OpenOffice.org. They have gmail. And now they might have hardware distribution. I smell world domination.

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Tags: OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org, Open Office, StarOffice, google, openoffice.org training, open office training, education, open source, Goobuntu

Goobuntu--Is Google Doing Its Own Linux (Including OpenOffice.org)?

It's the hottest new open source news--today, anyway. ;>   Click here to read one of many posts.

OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org, Open Office, StarOffice,   education, open source, Linux

What I'm Learning This Week in OpenOffice Training in Largo, Florida

I always learn something when I teach a StarOffice or OpenOffice class. In Green River, Wyoming two weeks ago, I learned how to redock the slide pane in Impress/Draw (for some versions of the software). Click here to see the post.

I also learned that cleaning the dash on a Subaru can knock your hazards on, and they don't flash so it looks like they're your regular lights. I also learned that Green River Imports is a very fine car-fixing establishment that doesn't laugh at you when you bring in your car for something like that.

This week I'm in Largo, Florida at the City of Largo. The weather is gorgeous. I'll post pictures when I get back. I'm teaching an all-Linux set of classes this week--notable, the City of Largo completely skipped Microsoft Office. Never had it or Windows running for the city. Fabulous.

A few of the things I learned from student questions, or things that students discovered and told me about,  include:

- You can just click somewhere in a table, then choose Table > AutoFormat, to apply an autoformat--you don't need to select the whole table.

- When you're putting spacing between columns under Format > Page, Columns, or for a section too, it won't accept a space between the columns if you type the measurement. You have to use the arrows to put in the spacing.

- I should have seen this earlier but in mail merge documents, you need to specify the printer before you print. In labels or envelopes just click the Options tab and specify the printer. Or in any created document, choose File > Print Properties and select the printer. Then choose File> Print, click Yes to print a form letter, be sure the Printer radio button is selected, and click OK. Used to be, you got a chance after that window to specify the printer. Not anymore.

- The mail merge wizard in 2.0.1 now does let you do manual editing when you set up the contents and layout of the address block, so it's now less annoying.

 

- To sort a data source for mail merges, so that for instance everything prints in order by zip code, here's what you do. Choose File > Open to open the data source, the .odb file. Double-click the table you're basing the mail merge on. In the editing window, click the column you want to sort by, and click one of the sort icons, Sort Ascending or Sort Descending. Then do your mail merge. If you need to then change the sort for another mail merge, just repeat these steps.

- I've been reminded that it's not a bad idea to just export your Impress slides to PDF and run your presentation in Adobe Acrobat. (In OOo, File > Export as PDF.) For anyone looking for an OpenOffice.org Impress viewer application, PDF might be all you need. Granted, it won't run your cool effects but unless you're presenting on something where you need to demonstrate motion, you don't technically need custom animation or slide transitions.

You can of course also export to HTML and to Flash; I haven't played enough with Flash to know how the transitions come over, if at all.

- Hyperlinks transfer over to PDF!!! This did not happen in 1.x. However, in 2.0 OpenOffice.org, any hyperlink in a document such as a hyperlinked table of contents or any link period, transfers to the PDF when you choose File > Export as PDF. This is GREAT.  To create a plain old hyperlink, select some text to link and click the Hyperlink icon on the top toolbar.

- In labels, to go from one frame to another on the keyboard (or to go from one label to another, period), press Esc  Tab  Enter. Intuitive, huh? You can also choose Tools > Customize, click Keyboard, and set up a control key for it.

- Cuban food is yummy. I had a pork with black beans and rice thing the other day for lunch. However, when you carry the bag of Cuban food the wrong way, the black beans leak out of the container, out of the paper bag, and splash all over your light beige suit, when you don't have time to drive back to the hotel to change.  However,  my polyester suit from the fine folks at Target was easy to dab down and get clean with just soap and water. So that was a relief. (I mostly love Target, but will take this opportunity to plead with them to carry tall sizes in pants and jeans.)

 

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Tags: OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org, Open Office, StarOffice, StarOffice training, openoffice.org training, openoffice training, education, open source, city government, Largo

OpenOffice.org runs on Intel Macs

You've seen the commercials--Intel chips now get to have some fun in Macintosh computers! And for anyone interested in OpenOffice.org, there's more fun, since OpenOffice.org runs on the new chips in Macs. Read more from Simon Phipps here.

So why is OOo ready and Microsoft Office not? Might be the speedy open source development cycle? Or....I'm really not sure why. Thoughts?

At any rate, Mac users, be happy--if you're going to have one of the Intel chip computers, OpenOffice is ready and waiting for you.

OpenOffice.org 2.0 Is Open Source Product of the Year

Check it out! OpenOffice and Firefox are the open source products of the year.

http://www.developer.com/open/article.php/3578451

I got the tip from Linux Desktop News.

Spending Your Money on Something Important

Office suite software isn't really all that important.

What's important is pretty much anything else. What your organization is doing: research, services, saving lives, preserving order, education. Preserving the rain forest. Rebuilding New Orleans. Job retraining. Heck, you could argue that a good pumpkin pie is essentially more important than software.

OK, the office suite software helps you do all those things I listed and a million more. But I want to point out that our goal in our eight hours a day is not to use software. It's everything else.

All right. So now think about this.

OpenOffice.org is free.

Other office suites are not.

You switch to OpenOffice.org, and you or your organization is suddenly not spending $500, or $50,000, or $5 million on your office suite licenses.

Add up all the other people or organizations who are no longer spending that money on an office suite, and suddenly we're into some serious cash.

Think about how much your city police force spends on office suite software, and about how that money could probably do some good if it were spent on, say, salaries for additional police.

Think about what that research facility down the road spends on software. Compared to the money they spend for their equipment, maybe not much, but it's money probably better spent on upping the salaries for a few poor post-docs than on office suite software.

Think about how much money the federal government spends on office suite software. Now fantasize about how you would redirect that money if you were in charge.

(Almost makes $4,000 toilet seats pale in comparison, doesn't it? OK, toilet seats are already white, but you know what I mean.)

Amazon saved $17 million when they switched to Linux. Same principle--pay less for something that's not part of your core business.

Think about how much your state spends on office suite software for schools, and how many more teachers and books that money could buy.

A lot.

Education is one of the most important places to think about OpenOffice.org. Education is, to put it mildly, important. Plus, third graders aren't likely to complain that they're used to how Word does styles and they don't want to switch. They're open to anything new. And education isn't exactly overfunded. I live in Colorado which is either 49th or 47th in the nation in funding for education.

For educators, here's an interesting article on trends this year, including OpenOffice.org. 

For anyone thinking about upgrading to Vista, here's an important blog. Dave Rosenberg states that Vista gives you an opportunity to really compare the actual cost and the actual benefits, and he quotes Jon Oltsik from Enterprise Strategy Group.

So just think about the value. Think about how much money you're spending on your office suite, and what you could do with that money that would be more important.

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On Vacation

Hi all,

I've got a few things going on in the next few weeks that require my attention, so I won't be posting as often or at all until those are taken care of. I'm hoping to have some time to post short items, if I come across interesting items when training next week, but wanted to give everyone a heads up.

The oooforums.org and openoffice.org mailing lists are both excellent sources of information if you're looking for specific solutions.

See also the sites of the fine folks listed on the side of this blog's main page.

OpenOffice Training

I worked at Sun Educational Services for a few years, and one ongoing debate was what the training books should be like. Should they offer extensive information, or a set of exercises and a skeleton for the instructor to work with? And furthermore, what type of business were we in? Education (say it to yourself with a pompous tenured sort of voice) or Training (use kind of a sarcastic tinny voice).

There was endless debate about what the difference was and which was more effective for learning software until someone, I forget who, made it all very clear. Probably a project manager who had spent a few painful years unemployed after obtaining a very lovely liberal arts education.

He or she said "Think about your sex education class."

Everyone did. It had been a long meeting and we were happy for any distraction.

We discussed what it had been like. Confusing, obscure diagrams, no one really getting to the point, and wandering out of the classroom with very little idea of what sex was, per se, much less how to do it with any degree of success.

"All right," said the savvy project manager. "Now think about this phrase. Sex training."

And everybody did. And started laughing. Because that made everything a lot different. Training is typically very very distinctly different than Education. At least in many people's experiences and in the word associations we have with it.

That might be an unusual way to start talking about OpenOffice.org training, but I love that story and I think it makes it clear how important it is to have hands-on time in a lab with an expert. Training. If it's important that people do something right, then training is important. You can throw books on desks, and that does work for some people, and of course it's a handy reference. But I believe that memories of doing things are a whole lot stronger than memories of reading things. (How many of you tell long, amusing, detailed stories about when you read something?)

It's partly about attention, the difference between education/information and training. Send out a memo about how to do a better mail merge and it gets lost in the inbox. Nobody forgets entirely about a day or a week spent doing a better mail merge.

Another aspect of training, specifically for open source products like open office, is that it shows commitment. Open office training is important for giving new users not only the skills they need but to instill confidence that the organization is committed to the switch, and that the software will work. You know it'll work, but the people being transferred, who were comfortable with their old tools, don't. Open Office training makes the transition go better.

One aspect of training versus reading a book is that training has to be limited in time. Generally, people spend a day learning an office suite, maybe a couple more days learning advanced features. So the classes have to focus on the most important features, the 80/20. The 20% of features that people spend 80% of their time using. So training, at least good training, is going to be more focused.

Here's another  thing. Most people never had much education or training on the office suite they use now. Much knowledge is handed down from one user to another, from Becky to Dolores to Sam, and can get changed a lot in the process. And if Becky never had an opportunity to sit down and learn the software, hands on, she might not have been able to pass on effective, productive information.

Another thing. The difference between struggling to do something the hard way, and doing something quickly and easily the smart, quick way, is big. The difference in productivity for one task might be a minute or a week. Multiply that over years and over all the people using the software, and you're looking at serious time, effort, and resources. Lots of money.

And another. People feel good when they do a good job. When they can take a tool and use it to do what they need to. Frustration makes people feel bad. As the counselor on South Park might say, “Frustration is baaaad.” Give users the gift of expertise. One of the things I love about doing training is seeing the light go on. The previously discouraged student in the third row starts saying things like "Oh my god--I could use this for our monthly Qentori documents and just do it all automatically!" I have even had students (Canadian students!) say "I'm so excited my head's going to blow off!" Just the other day, a student in my Writer class actually did a chair dance, with lots of arm-waving, when she got the send-document-as-PDF-attachment feature to work and realized how much time and effort it was going to save her. Sitting and working in class, asking questions, going through the exercises and seeing how to do things quickly and efficiently, means your users are going to be able to get that power, and the confidence that comes with it.

When users understand and control their tools, and feel like they are powerful, knowledgeable users, they like their jobs better. They do their jobs better. I might even go so far as to assert that people are more likely to make another pot of coffee when they take the last cup, they're so happy. Feeling like you're in control of your tools, and not the other way around, is a Good Thing.

So that's my plug for training. Give your software users the gift of being able to stand up at their desks in the middle of the day, throw a fist in the air, and shout “I RULE!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Postscript: My friend Kathy Sierra (also at Sun during the anecdote related at the top of this post) writes a blog on passionate users. Her learning theory post is a great guide to how to create learning, not just talking about facts in the same room as students. I can't  always do all of the things she lists in training classes, but here's what I make a point of doing.

- Showing, not just blathering on about how to do something
- Engaging students emotionally as much as possible; I inject a bit of humor into the learning materials, and I have a whole song and dance about the Evil Plain Indent Icon and the Wonderful Indent Icons on the Bullets and Numbering toolbar
- Demonstrating potential mistakes when I show how the software works, as well as how to avoid or recover from mistakes
- Using stories; the training materials are based on the premise that that student is an intern at a fictional bookstore, and the motivation for the exercises is based on the demands of a crazy marketing person; an unreasonable boss; a new advertising campaign; etc.
- Fun ; for reviews, I sometimes have a Jeopardy-like game and divide the students into two teams, with chocolate for everyone at the end. Or I bring a nerf ball and have the students throw the ball around. When you catch the ball, you have to say something you learned that day, and how to do it.
- Helping students feel confident; when parts of the software are weird, badly implemented, or just complicated, I make sure they know that it is. It's a lot easier, and people feel much better learning, a complicated procedure when they know it's tough and that any progress is good.  I also try to show students how much they already know by showing the toolbar for Word and for Writer side by side, for instance. Students immediately see the similarities and I reinforce that they already know much of what they do in Word since the tools on the toolbar are so similar.

Since writing this post, I've checked on whether Sun offers Staroffice training and from what I can tell, they don't. They have little free things they'll give out but you can't go to Sun (at least according to their web site) for StarOffice training. I find this odd, but I find many things about Sun odd. At any rate, any training you find on OpenOffice.org training will work fine for StarOffice training, and vice versa.

See also part 1 and part 2 of an article about creating databases in the new database tool in OpenOffice.org 2.0, and the article on  views in OpenOffice.org 2.0.

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Tags: OpenOffice, open office, open office, open source, training, openoffice training, openoffice.org training, linux, education, instructional design, training, Kathy Sierra

Portable OpenOffice.org Has Been Released!

I'll bet Jack Kerouac never thought he'd be quoted in support of portable open source software. But come to think of it, it's kind of about Freedom and Finding Your Own Way, so he might approve.

Here's the deal. While we're waiting for Google and Sun to make OpenOffice.org available on the web, we can use it as a portable app.

What's a portable app?

Cribbing from the portableapps.com site, a portable app is a computer program that you can carry around with you on a portable device and use on any Windows computer. When your USB thumbdrive, portable hard drive, iPod or other portable device is plugged in, you have access to your software and personal data just as you would on your own PC. And when you unplug, none of your personal data is left behind.

Does anyone out there travel? Does anyone out there like the idea of no personal data left behind?

This is cool, folks. Click here for more on portable apps. Go from computer to computer without installing. Use OpenOffice.org on your computer at work without pissing off the Microsoft-Happy IT people. Show people OpenOffice.org and how cool it is without downloading and installing it. Open .doc and other Microsoft files on someone's computer without installing OOo. Travel around the world training people on OpenOffice.org without having to bring your laptop! : ) 

Now it's time to get the software. Click here to learn more about the software and to download.

George Ou's Performance Benchmarks and Some Missing Test Parameters

George Ou ran some benchmarks and it seems OpenOffice.org is a little out of shape compared to the seemingly speedy Excel.

I'm not a programmer and have not done a lot of benchmark tests so am accepting the info in George Ou's article for the sake of this post.

That said, part of the memory issue is possibly that OpenOffice.org is one program with the capacity to create and run all the different document types--Writer, Calc spreadsheets, Impress presentations, Draw diagrams and drawings, etc. I love being able to choose File > New > Text Document, then File > New > Spreadsheet, then open a presentation, without having to start up a new program every time.

For an apples-to-apples comparison, it might be a good idea to start up Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Visio, and then compare memory usage to OpenOffice.org.

I'd like to see benchmarks on that.

I'd also like to see benchmarks on Powerpoint, Word, and Visio. 

Anyway, all other topics aside, buying more memory is still way cheaper than buying Microsoft Office. ;>   (And using OpenOffice.org Writer is still cheaper than the baldness treatment drugs required if I used Word....you know, which makes me curse and pull out my hair....)

$100 laptops

Note, January 31 2006: See this update on the process re Microsoft's attempt to get in on it.

This is absolutely fantastic.

I don't usually do "this is cool! go here!" posts but this is  really important.

Here's a blog on it, a news article,  and the MIT web site.

Here's someone who's actually used one  and his review, Andy Carvin.

This is what the story is about.  Everyone talks about the digital divide but nobody does anything about it, to paraphrase Twain. Well, MIT and others are doing something about it.  MIT has unveiled its $100 hand-cranked  laptop computer to the United Nations technology summit in Tunisia. It's hoping to make a bunch more, for the poorest people in the world.

It's running Linux, of course, and I can only assume OpenOffice.org and something like Firefox are also loaded.

The machines are bright green, which is fun, and have wireless.  Plus there's some kind of mesh network for peer to peer, and they crank so you can somehow generate electricity. Kind of like the mythical tv-electricity-generating exercise bike that I think somebody should invent.

Kofi Annan is all about it. When Kofi weighs in, that's important.  "It is an impressive technical achievement, able to do almost everything that larger, more expensive computers can do. It holds the promise of major advances in economic and social development. But perhaps most important is the true meaning of 'one laptop per child'. This is not just a matter of giving a laptop to each child, as if bestowing on them some magical charm. The magic lies within - within each child, within each scientist-, scholar-, or just plain citizen-in-the-making. This initiative is meant to bring it forth into the light of day".

The goal is to provide the machines free of charge to children in poor countries who cannot afford computers of their own.

Governments or anyone who wants to donate will  pay for them; children will own them.

Here's a question--will Bill Gates get involved in this, since he's allll about charitable donations in third world countries? I'm thinking, look for some sort of response out of the northwest.

Brazil, Thailand, Egypt and Nigeria are on the list to receive the first chunk of laptops.

The computers operate at 500 MHz, but since it's running Linux that's not the problem it would be with Windows.

The screen is from a  portable DVD player and you can use B/W or color.

It's slated to be ready in a year or a bit more, when people have ordered and paid for 5-10 million computers.

This is going to have a huge effect on society, possibly politics, very likely women's rights--it's going to be huge.

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OpenOffice.org 2.0 Has Been Released!

OpenOffice.org 2.0 is here!

Give me your tired, your poor, your frustrated masses yearning to compute free. I link my blog to the OpenOffice.org 2.0 download URL.

OpenOffice.org 2.0 is finally here and downloadable, as officially announced on Thursday October 20th by Louis Suarez-Potts.

OpenOffice.org 2.0 is the productivity suite that individuals, governments, and corporations around the world have been expecting for the last two years. Easy to use and fluidly interoperable with every major office suite, OpenOffice.org 2.0 realises the potential of open source.

With new features, advanced XML capabilities and native support for the OASIS Standard OpenDocument format, OpenOffice.org 2.0 gives users around the globe the tools to be engaged and productive members of their society

So all you people now, smile on your processor, everybody get together, try the new OpenOffice.org right now.

For info on the new features, try these links.

• My blog on the 2.0 features I think are the most notable or interesting
• My article on the Impress 2.0 features
• The OpenOffice.org spec

Transitioning a Team of People to OpenOffice.org: Updated 2006

   

Note: See also more specifics on training in my blog. See also this article and this article on the legal aspects of open source licenses. See also this article by Bruce Byfield, but for group migration, please ignore the item on not expecting to need training. ;>

Also see this article for schools by Miguel Guhlin.

One person learning a new program is a simple process. Decide, learn, do. But switching over ten, a thousand, or ten thousand users can be a little more involved. You get a few more things involved:

• One person decides to switch. With 100 users, it's certain that at least one of them didn't want to switch.
• One person can affect the attitude of many others, positively or negatively. If Chris starts working on the new program, learns to use it, and others see that, then they believe they can use it, too. If Chris doesn't try, doesn't learn, and others see her failing, they think they'll fail too.
• And this is before anyone even starts complaining about, or praising, the product. How users talk about the product, especially the dominant people in your organization, really affects it. How the head of marketing talks about it, how the manager of the desktop publishers for your internal publications group talks about it, how Marge in accounting who's been there 20 years talks about it--all that matters enormously.
• Anytime you do something involving a lot of people, whether it's new software or soap or sandwiches, unexpected problems arise. You really can't over-plan a project involving a lot of people.

 

To make the switch as calm, cool, and collected as possible, you need to plan. Plan not just the physical implementation, the installation, but plan the social and mental implementation with the people who will use it. To make a somewhat odd analogy, the issue with the space shuttle problems was not really the foam or the O rings. It was the communication between the engineers and the people who made the decision, and it was the culture that made it OK not to report problems. The physical issues with switching to the software can be handled. The most important thing you can do is make sure the human part of the transition is done well.

Here are a few thoughts based on my experience with the product, and what I’ve gathered doing training for other companies over the last four years.

1. Talk to Other People Who've Done It. Take an OpenOffice.org-Using IT Director to Lunch.
Find others who are or have been in your position, and just find out what their experiences were like. You can learn so much from just talking to other people who’ve adopted the program. Get on the [email protected] mailing list (www.openoffice.org) and find other people in your position who are using OpenOffice.org. Google around the Web; maybe you actually know someone at Ernie Ball Music, for instance (http://news.com.com/2008-1082-5065859.html) and can just go over there at lunch and find out how their transition went. Start or join a Yahoo discussion group just for people who are considering or in transition.

Get as much technical and cultural information from them as possible. Others' experience is really valuable.

2. Make Sure It's Got the Features Your Users Absolutely Need, and See What Additional Features It Provides.
Research how OpenOffice.org works and what it can do. This task can be done by you, by your motivated IT person, or anyone else you assign to or hire for the task. But the thing is, you’ve got some core features that your users absolutely must have, some tasks they complete that they must do but might not have to do the way they’re doing.

The drawing program might allow you to ditch your licenses for Visio or Corel or Canvas or Illustrator. The data source connection features are extremely powerful. Keep an eye out not just on what you already use that you have to have, but on what you can’t do now that you could do with OpenOffice.org.

A note on Excel macros--some people use them to do things that can be done perfectly well with Calc functions. So if you hear that the macros won't convert, ask what the macros are actually accomplishing.

If you don't find a feature at first, check around. Perhaps more than other programs, OpenOffice.org has a high ratio of “stuff it can do” to “stuff you can see that it can do.” For some features, it’s easy when you know how—you just have to know how. So get googling, get a book, get a free doc download from www.openoffice.org, get a little training, go to a seminar, ask the [email protected] mailing list, etc.

Don't be afraid to mix and match. If you Sam and Francine must have some Excel macros for certain spreadsheets, then keep a few licenses. You're looking for the best solution, not necessarily purely all open source all the time.

Find the people at your organization who just love to fiddle with software all day. and ask them (with their managers' permission) to spend some time just dinkin' around. They'll find stuff that everyone else misses, and they'll help start culture that it's cool new software.

There will be at least one very specific thing that users do that you won't expect, that can't obviously be done with OpenOffice.org. (Of course, you can't convert to PDF in Microsoft Office; it's true of any software.) Really pay attention to what the tasks is actually trying to accomplish, rather than focusing on the task itself. There might be a workaround, another feature that does a similar thing, or simply an organizational, non-software solution.

For instance, if Jim really needs to have the flotsam feature, it might be because Dave always asked for documents to be delivered in flotsam format. Dave doesn't actually need it, it's just that that's what he's used to; plus Dave is leaving the organization in a month. Jetsam format might do just as well.

Consider interoperability.  Take a few documents back and forth between OOo and Word, or your office suite. See how it works. Consider, and research, how many documents users receive from Microsoft Office users and need to edit, and how many users need to send to Microsoft Office users, and whether those documents need to be edited. If most or all the documents you need to send out can be sent in PDF rather than Word, you're golden. Or if the documents go between formats nicely, you're also a nice warm yellow.

3. Find Other Sources for the Cute Stuff Word and Publisher Provide
One of the things many users really like doesn't have anything to do with the actual software. They like the goodies. Word’s vast collection of clipart is nice but isn't really all that necessary. You can get similar goodies elsewhere.  The Big Box of Art has a million images and is $60 or so, and then there's the open source clip art library.

For cool templates, remind users that all their current templates can be opened successfully in OpenOffice.org. So all the pretty stuff still works. There are also many OpenOffice.org templates out there. Just google away--here are some on the OpenOffice.org site.

Publisher does not provide any decent export so all the Publisher files will be left behind. But Writer and Draw are decent alternatives, with use of the aforementioned clip art.

4. Time to Get Your Hands Dirty and Convert Some Test Documents
Experiment with the program. Now it’s time to take OpenOffice.org out for a real spin and see what she does on your organization’s documents. Some transitions, especially now with the enhanced compatibility and filters in OpenOffice.org 2.0, go really well. Some have some interesting tweaks to make that, once made, work fine. It all depends on what your docs are like.

Here are some tips on converting documents.
- Hang out in Tools > Options. There are a lot of windows here that can help. Default tab settings are a big factor. Open a text document and choose Tools > Options > Writer > General lets you fiddle with those.  Tools > Options > Writer  > Compatibility is another great window; fiddle with these. Try marking the Printer Metrics option first.   Click the image to see if larger if you like.

Then open a Calc spreadsheet, choose Tools > Options > Calc >  General, and try those settings. Click the image to see if larger if you like.

- Use the Conversion Wizard. You can convert mass numbers of Word files to OpenOffice.org. Choose File > Wizards > Document Converter.

Consider contracting out some of the conversion. If your users don't have to convert it all themselves, they'll be a lot happier.

Don't expect perfect conversion. Even conversion between versions of Word isn't perfect.

Consider which documents you actually need to convert.  If you have a document you provide that doesn't actually need to be changed, just make a PDF of it and leave it as is. (You might need to use another product to make the PDF if it doesn't open nicely in OpenOffice.org.) Or print it or scan it, and leave it as is. 

5. Get the Influential People On Your Side

This is what I was talking about earlier. Once you've got the program kind of figured out, invite the managers and a smattering of "regular users," including the people who other users listen to, to a lunch and learn.

Tell them the advantages, show them the software, show the cool features, let them fiddle with it, and show off the new features that you don't have with your current software. PDF comes to mind, the drawing program (File > New > Draw) comes to mind. Make some labels and mark the Synchronize checkbox on the last tab of the labels window, then show how you can make a change to one labell and click Synchronize to apply that change to all the others.

Ask for their input. Ask about how they will do their jobs day to day with the new software. Make sure you have a good ratio of people who like it, to people who might complain. Tell all the people who are invited that they're an important part of the adoption process (they are), and that you need their input to ensure that OpenOffice.org can help them do their jobs.

Before the lunch and learn, make sure you have buy-in from whoever's at the top of your organization. Make sure that he or she communicates to his reports that they need to show support for the product, or they'll have departments full of dissatisfied users who don't feel like they can do their jobs with the new software. (Nobody wants that in their department.) Have those managers  then show up at the lunch and learn. Not to say "you're using it, get over it," but to show enthusiasm. Have them get a little giggly over the drawing tool (you can do cool 3D stuff) or be overly impressed by the mail merge tool. Not to put on an over-acting show; just to make sure that they demonstrate, as well as state, support and enthusiasm.

Depending on how these go, you might want to have a few.

Another idea to get influential people on board is to give them some say in how the money saved will be spent. If anti-change Sam from Accounting can tell people that he's the one responsible for switching money from the software budget to the health care plan, he might be more enthusiastic.

When you send out reports on the lunch and learn, be sure to mention that Sam, Brenda, and Lucy all had excellent suggestions, and worked hard to provide much-needed input to the IT team.

Consider schwag.  Everyone on the OpenOffice.org Transition Advisory Team (your lunch and learns) gets a mug, a tshirt, something. Make'em on Cafepress.com. Order 15 to get a bulk discount. The schwag could be plain, just the OpenOffice.org logo, or be self-mocking, "I Gave the IT Team a Piece of My Mind" or a pun, "Open to Discussion: OpenOffice.org 2006 Transition Advisory Team."

6. Execute a Transition Plan.
As many people say, just do it. Introduce the adoption schedule and let people know that while you’ll be giving them time, training and manuals and rewards. You absolutely must make sure everyone knows they're not going to be thrown into the new software without help. Make sure they know that there will be help, there will be time, there will be training and documentation.

This is also the time to start transitioning your legacy documents to OpenOffice.org, or planning how it will occur.

The other part of this step is the tough love--make sure that people know it *is* going to happen and no amount of objections will stop it. (You've already done a lot of research and gotten a lot of feedback, so you know at this stage that switching is the right decision.) Make sure people know that Microsoft Office or their other office suite will fall off the face of the earth in three months. (Or whatever your transition timeline is.) The exception to this is if you're keeping the old software around to edit legacy documents. In this case, though, you might want to have that software on selected computers, or do something else to make sure that as of the launch date, everyone is using OpenOffice.org on new documents.

7. Offset Fear and Confusion With Information and Support.

Demonstrate how it works to the people who will be using it. People are usually going to be apprehensive about the idea of change, but you can reduce that considerably just by doing a few seminars, demos, lunch and learns, and other short and reassuring demonstrations of what it’s going to be like. Make sure everyone in the organization comes to at least one session. Show the object bars at the top of each application, for instance. The Word and Writer, and Excel and Calc object bars, look very similar. Then slowly show how a few of the core procedures will be performed. Simply knowing what the change is going to be like, ahead of time, alleviates some fear and change resistance. I’ve seen this repeatedly when I do training.

Give short quick-reference handouts at the end of each presentation, so that everyone has at least a little documentation, before they even touch the software.

Again, consider schwag. Give a magnet, button, sticker, etc. to everyone who asks a question during the presentation. Cafepress.com is a goodplace to do this. The person who asks the most questions (constructive ones) might get a USB drive or a small MP3 player or another prize.

8. Show Appreciation.

People will be happier doing just about anything if you recognize the effort they're putting into it publicly.  In all communications, in training, in demos, etc., be sure to recognize that they will be the ones learning the new product, that this is a significant task, and that you appreciate it.

Another thing you can do is just plain provide rewards. Suggestions include prizes for:

• The department that completely switches to OpenOffice.org first
• The person who logs the most “Cool OpenOffice.org Tips” on the company intranet
• The person who does the most document conversion.

Motivational rewards can be anything--a department pizza party or trip to the waterslides, an extra day off on a three-day weekend, a weekend trip for two to the nearby national park. Whatever works, based on your people and the money you’re saving.

9. Teach Users How to Use the Product.

It's important to have OpenOffice training. The training can take many forms. It can be one book and your in-house open source enthusiast (who will be patient with users who have less experience than he or she does). You can send everyone in the organization to OpenOffice.org training or have someone come onsite to train. You can hire someone to teach your internal trainers. You can obtain OpenOffice.org books, training materials, or both. Make sure that everyone at least has a reference book for the department to use.

Make sure everyone has used the product before they have to start using it. You wouldn't give someone a car who didn't know how to drive. Give'em a chance to learn before they have to do their job.

Make sure that everyone has a CD to use it at home. When I do training, at least half the people in each class want a CD to use at home.

10. Consider an Ongoing Joke or a Big Payoff.
When I was at Great Plains Software, our main architect Dave Gaboury wore a Great Plains Dynamics tshirt every day for a year and a half until our Dynamics product shipped. (He had seven.) Maybe for your Openoffice.org project, the IT head wears the same OpenOffice.org project tshirt until everyone is up and running on the software, or maybe he or she dies their hair green, or tries out for American Idol, if all the departments are up and running successfully by the official transition date.

11. Make the Official Switch.
As promised, make it happen. Take the other office suite off all desktops (unless you still need it some places as noted above). People will use what's familiar, if they can. It's like when I went to France in college--I hung out with my friend Stephanie who spoke French much better than I did. When she left Rennes for Paris for her internship--well, gosh, my French got a lot better when I had to speak it and understand it. Go figure. ;>

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Some of My Favorite Cool OpenOffice.org Features

   

Everyone's got their favorite features that make life easier, more fun, or both. Here are a few of my favorites.

Making PDFs Straight From OpenOffice.org

One of the greatest, most convenient features is the ability to make Adobe Acrobat PDFs from any OpenOffice.org document. Why is this cool? Because anyone can read a PDF document no matter what software they have (since everyone has the little program for reading PDFs). It’s the perfect way to send a document to someone else, if they don’t need to change your document.

Just click on the handy PDF icon on the top of your work area, give it a name and specify a location for the PDF file, and click Save. Then email that mydocument.pdf or quarterlyreport.pdf document.

If you want more control over the PDF, choose File > Export as PDF, name the file, then set options in the next window.

Send Document as Email

To make it even quicker, choose File > Send > Document as PDF Attachment. That starts your mail program, creates a new mail document, AND attaches a PDF of your current document to that email. It really doesn’t get much slicker.

Or if you don't need a PDF, just choose File > Send > Document as Email.

Paste Icon for Inter-Text-Document Pasting

When you're pasting from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.org, or from OpenOffice.org 2.0 to OpenOffice.org 1.x, you're not going to get text. You're going to get a frame of text or an icon object.

What I've done to get around this is to use Notepad as an intermediary. But it's a whole lot easier to use OpenOffice.org's multiple paste format features. Either choose Edit > Paste Special and choose unformatted or formatted text, or just click on the paste icon and choose your option. Formatted Text (RTF) usually works just fine.

Make the Icons a Decent Size

Choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org (or StarOffice) > View and make sure the icons are large enough. I like to see my icons, not squint at them.

The List Object Bar and the List Formatting Window

I used to curse the indenting and levels of OpenOffice.org lists until I started using the specialized object bar. Choose View > Toolbars > Bullets and Numbering, or just make a list and the floating one pops up.

Also, when you're developing complex list formatting, always use the numbering/bullets formatting window (Format > Bullets and Numbering) and use only the last two tabs, Options and Positioning. These are the only tabs that let you specify specific formatting that's different for each level.

Make Shortcuts

This was in my configuration blog too but I really like it. The same tab where you turned off word completion (Tools > AutoCorrect, Replace) has a really great feature for creating shortcuts. Let’s say you type the word supercalfragilisticexpealidocious a zillion times a day, or your name and title, or anything kinda long. You can set up a shortcut for it.

Just choose Tools > AutoCorrect and click on the Replace tab. In the left-hand field type your shortcut like sig and in the right-hand field, type the word you’re tired of typing all the time. Click New, then click OK. In your document, type the shortcut, followed by a space, and your word will appear.

Making My Own Color and Other Fills

I might be pickier than most about the color I want for drawings, but for one thing, I don't like the greens that come with OpenOffice.org. Too dark or too limey. So I make my own.

Choose File > New > Drawing, then choose Format > Area and click the Color tab. Or just choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org (or StarOffice) > Colors.

Click Edit and fiddle til you have the color you want.

Click OK, then type a new name in the main color field and click Add. The new color now shows up in all color lists including the font color lists.

Following the navigation for doing this in Draw, you can make your own gradients, hatches, and bitmaps in the same window.

3D Shapes

In Draw and in Writer, you can use the 3D shapes to, well, draw 3D shapes. Even better, you can make them intersect. Draw two shapes, select one, cut it, select the other one, press F3, and paste. Then move them together.

 

To change their orientation, click on each shape once to get green handles, then again to get red handles, and swivel them around.

I'm not sure how useful this is to everyone but it sure is cool.

You can also convert any item to 3D, in Draw. Choose File > New > Drawing and create any shape, even text. Then right-click on the shape and choose Convert > To 3D. Shazam.

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Browsing Through the New OpenOffice.org 2.0 Features

Note: See this related article by Craig Adams.

There are a zillion new 2.0 features. I'm going to go over my favorites, and/or the ones that I think are the most useful or notable. If you want to read the whole list, go to http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/2.0/index.html  Or, of course, download the release candidate at www.openoffice.org

Finding the Icons and the Toolbars You Need

There's a slick new way to get at all the different toolbars in OpenOffice.org. Anyone who's used OpenOffice.org 1.x knows about the big blue triangle, the small green triangle,and of course the black triangle. I spend a good 20-30 minutes teaching toolbars in class.

The new OpenOffice.org 2.0, however, has a simpler approach. You choose View > Toolbars and you can see any of the 20 or so toolbars available. They pop up freefloating; just drag them to the top or side of the work area and they'll dock there and stay there.

Format Painter

One of the things I get asked about all the time in class is the format painter feature from Microsoft Word. It's a paintbrush icon that lets you take the formatting attributes of any text and apply it to any other text. Framemaker has it too.

OpenOffice.org finally has it. Look for it on the top object bar. Select the text that has the formatting you want, click the paintbrush icon, then select the text that you want to apply that formatting to. If you want to apply that formatting to multiple pieces of text, double-click the paintbrush icon instead of just selecting it, then click it again when you're done.

 

Mail Merge Wizard

The OpenOffice.org 1.x way of mail merging works really well. It's just that it's not obvious how to start. Very unwizardy. Now, there's a wizard. Choose Tools > Mail Merge Wizard and follow the wizard through.

If you like something a little more do-it-yourselfish, the approach from 1.x still works if you choose File > New > Database. Use this window to set up the data source as you did before by choosing Tools > Data Sources.

No Excel Macro Conversion

OpenOffice.org 2.0 still doesn't convert Excel macros. Consider just keeping a few Excel licenses around, or reevaluate whether you actually need the macros. Calc can do a lot of calculations without macros.

However, Now 65,536 Rows Per Spreadsheet

I've never really had to get my hands dirty with spreadsheets, but I understand that if you do, you need a lot of rows. The limit used to be around 32,000; now it's 65,536. 'Nuff said.

Finally...Wrapping Uses the Word Wrap

It's a trivial thing, but it makes me happy. For years, if you wanted to wrap text in a Calc cell, you had to choose the Line Break option. (Format > Cells > Alignment.) Now, the option is Wrap text automatically. Finally.

Lots of Cool New Shapes and Advanced Text Art

Anyone who's heard me talk about OpenOffice.org knows I'm crazy about Draw and the components that go across to Writer: plain drawing shapes, connector lines, Fontwork (like WordArt), etc.

All the new shapes leave the old stuff in the dust. These are just a few of the sets of new shapes available.

And if you had problems with the old fontwork, this is so much easier. Just insert one of the samples in the Fontwork gallery, then retype the text that you want.

The New Impress Look and Feel

I think the old Impress was the OpenOffice.org application most different from its Microsoft parallel. I spent a lot of time teaching stuff that should have been easier. With the new 2.0 Impress the interface is easier to figure out period, and more familiar for Powerpoint users. And the areas for viewing different aspects of the presentation and for navigating through are a whole lot easier to find. Plus, especially if you're using StarOffice 8, there are a bunch of nice new templates.

For More Information

If you want to read the whole list, go to http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/2.0/index.html  Or, of course, download the release candidate at www.openoffice.org  Or purchase StarOffice 8 from www.sun.com/staroffice.

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What Are OpenOffice.org and StarOffice?

 

Lots of people use Microsoft Office as their office suite. Word, Excel, and Powerpoint are all part of most people’s vocabularies.

Why is that? Because there aren’t any other programs that do the same thing?

Nope.

That's why I'm writing this blog.

Free Microsoft Office Compatible Software That Runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux

OpenOffice.org is another office suite like Microsoft Office. It does the same kinds of things. There’s OpenOffice.org Writer, which is like Word text documents; OpenOffice.org Calc, which is like Excel spreadsheets; and OpenOffice.org Impress, which is like Powerpoint presentations.

And OpenOffice.org is free. Microsoft Office is not, very very not.

(Why haven't you heard of it? The people who started OpenOffice.org are terrible at marketing. Microsoft is really good. That's pretty much it.)

Get the Software Today

You can download and install OpenOffice.org right now. Whether you use Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Solaris, even OS/2, there's a version for you. Or if you want to get a CD, go to www.cafepress.com/getopenoffice

StarOffice is Sun's version of OpenOffice.org. The software is pretty much the same but costs $40 to $80 since they offer some extra templates, filter, and support. Get it from www.sun.com/staroffice

OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office

OpenOffice.org can open and create Microsoft Office files. Microsoft Office can’t do anything with OpenOffice.org files. OpenOffice.org opens all the Microsoft Office formats—Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. And you can save any file in any of those formats, too. You can create a new Microsoft text document, spreadsheet, or presentation without ever using Microsoft. So you can do a lot more if you’re using OpenOffice.org than Microsoft Office.

The Programs in OpenOffice.org

With OpenOffice.org you can create text documents and Web pages, spreadsheets, slide presentations, and drawings and images.

• Writer for text documents
• Calc for spreadsheets
• Impress for slide presentations, and the drawing elements of Draw so you can easily make professional looking drawings.

You also get a bunch of features that make life easier, built into some or all of those applications. Here are some of them.

• AutoPilots to guide you through creating new documents and doing easy mail merges
• Easy-to-do charts
• Easy conversion to and from Microsoft Office and other types of files
• Animation so you can make objects or slides appear the way you want in presentations

Who’s Using OpenOffice.org?

Whether it’s the city of Munich in Germany or Ernie Ball music in the US, you’ll find millions of people using OpenOffice.org. A company that contracts directly to NASA uses Staroffice. Several cities in Florida, included St. Petersburg and Largo, use OpenOffice.org. The city of Northglenn, Colorado uses OpenOffice.org. Legal Aid, Manitoba uses OpenOffice.org.

They’re using it for the reasons we’ve mentioned, and because with all these users, all sorts of services have grown up around it to make using OpenOffice.org easy. Support, training, books, consulting, and more.

Frequently Asked Questions

It's actually free?

OpenOffice.org is free. No qualifications, no additions. It's open source software. And it's a good product. It's part of a growing movement all over the world to make software open to everyone, not just controlled by a few companies, and priced anyway they please.

It actually lets me open and create Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files?

Yep. The conversion is really pretty good, and conversion enhancements have been added in 1.1. Sometimes the layout will switch a little in a Writer document, sometimes you'll need to change print settings, sometimes you'll need to apply different bullets. Overall interoperability is really good.

Is it hard to learn?

OpenOffice.org is quite similar to other office suites, including Microsoft Office. Calc and Excel are particularly similar since with spreadsheets, you're dealing with a lot of math, which doesn't change depending on your software.

Excel:

OpenOffice.org Calc:

Who else is using it?

10 million users worldwide, and growing And those are just the ones who have told OpenOffice.org that they're using it. Read at http://news.com.com/2008-1082-5065859.html how a company ditched Microsoft for OpenOffice.org, and is loving every minute of it.

Can I use it for my business?

Absolutely. It'll save you a lot of money in Microsoft Office licenses, today and every day going forward. Get your employees a little training ahead of time, throw them a party with some of the money you'll be saving, and you'll be good to go. You can still interact with businesses that use MS Office since you can save in MS Office format using OpenOffice.org.

Why haven't I heard of it?

If you're interested, but you're kind of worried because you've never heard of OpenOffice.org before, don't worry. It's been around for years; a German company called StarDivision has been selling it for years, for several hundred dollars. Then Sun Microsystems bought it and set it free for anyone to use. And frankly, Sun has always been really good at making good products, but less good at telling people about them. If Bill Gates blows his nose, he does a product launch; but you hear little or nothing about OpenOffice.org or StarOffice. 

However, with the announcement from Google and Sun about how they're teaming up on OpenOffice.org, things are going to change.

I know it runs on Linux and Solaris, but does it run on Windows? Or Mac?

OpenOffice.org runs virtually identically on Windows and UNIX, and a Mac version is in beta/prerelease.

How do I learn to use it?

The core features of Writer, Calc, and Impress are very similar to Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. You'll be able to get started with the basics pretty easily. For the rest, you can get training,books, and workbooks from www.getOpenOffice.org.

Is it the same as StarOffice?

OpenOffice.org is virtually the same as StarOffice, which sold and supported by Sun Microsystems, but without the templates, Adabas database, some filters, and a few other features. We personally don't think most people need StarOffice; try OpenOffice.org and see how it works for you. If you want Sun behind you giving support and other consulting, then go ahead and use StarOffice or the Java Desktop.

It's free, but is it good?

It's a fullfledged office suite, as big as MS Office. It's got a great set of features—everything you need to do word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation slides. Plus extra programs for drawing that you don't get with Microsoft Office: OpenOffice.org Draw is like Canvas, with a bit of Visio thrown in.

Does it connect to databases?

Absolutely. If you've got Access databases sitting around, you can connect to them using OpenOffice.org's data source setup tools. Then you can suck that data into OpenOffice.org documents to do mail merges, pivot tables, and more. You can connect to just about any database under the sun; you can even use a plain text file or spreadsheet as a data source.

How does anyone make any money if it's free?

OpenOffice.org is open source software. Open Source is a very cool approach to open source which means that developers sometimes get paid in money, and sometimes get paid in recognition, job satisfaction, or the other intangibles that make a difference. (How many people do you know who earn good salaries and hate their jobs?) To learn more about Open Source, you can read the well respected works on this topic by Eric Raymond (see http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596001088) and Richard Stallman (see http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596002874).

Another factor is that Sun bought StarOffice outright. Back during the bubble when everyone had huge amounts of money.

And the other main factor is that people still make money from services. Giving away the product and making money from services is just an extreme extension of the common practice of selling a product cheaply, and then making money on support and other services.

Why should I go with open source?

In a post-Enron, post-Worldcom world, Open Source is looking better and better. Big corporations have a lot of money, but what else do they have that makes great software you can trust? It varies. Being backed by a big corporation doesn't necessarily get you anything.

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Welcome to the OpenOffice.org Blog: Why This 2,456,912,987th Blog Might Be Interesting to You

 

I've got a fever, and the only prescription is to tell people about OpenOffice.org and StarOffice.

Here's the story.

In 1999, I was working at Sun when they bought StarOffice. A couple years later when I left, no one outside Sun had heard of StarOffice. I had finished a book on StarOffice but couldn't really recommend it as a great replacement for Microsoft Office for everyone.

A year later at BEA, a few people had heard of StarOffice, and OpenOffice.org was just beginning. And with OpenOffice.org and subsequent dot releases, the program got better. I got to the point of being able to recommend OpenOffice.org to most people.

And now I can recommend OpenOffice.org without qualification, 99% of the time, as an excellent replacement for Microsoft Office, WordPerfect or, god help you, Wordstar. I really wish I could also say that now everyone I talk to has heard about OpenOffice.org and StarOffice and at least knows to consider it as a replacement.

Not so much.

Here's this great product, absolutely free, that hardly anyone has heard of. This is frustrating to me, not just because professionally I need to work hard to just inform potential clients that there is a great product out there for them. It's frustrating because I've got a jones to get good free software out to everyone, to show people how powerful it is, and there's very little information flowing about it.

Sun is spectacularly bad at marketing so it's really no surprise, in the end. Disappointing, but not a surprise. The OpenOffice.org community is doing its best but as a group of volunteers, against the mighty PR machine of Microsoft Office, it's also not surprising that more people know Kato Kalin's middle name than about either StarOffice or OpenOffice.org.

But then a few things happened.

Along came Google. A somewhat successful company, shall we say. They announced a partnership with Sun to do various things with Java and OpenOffice.org. The details are still fuzzy on OpenOffice.org, but if Google has anything to do with getting OpenOffice.org out to the masses, I believe it's going to change everything about how we create documents.

My friend Kathy Sierra's blog has been going gangbusters, and she swore to me that blogs are the way to go to make a point and broadcast a message.

And my editor gave me a few extra months to get out the OpenOffice.org 2.0 book since things are up in the air a bit, with the release date and the arrangement with Google. (Thanks, Greg.)

So I'm feeling hopeful again and rip-roaring ready to show you how OpenOffice.org and StarOffice are really good. Not perfect, not substitutes for all DTP applications, but such a great alternative to Microsoft Office and other suites.

And free, of course.

Enough Already. What Is This Blog Going to Have in It?

I'm going to run the gamut—simple procedures for people new to the program, tips and tricks, advanced procedures from my workbooks, plus more process-oriented thoughts on document organization, design, best ways to use the features, converting documents. My main goal is my mantra—OpenOffice.org is cool, here's how to use it to make your life easier. Without too much hitting you over the head, and always being realistic.

So welcome to my blog. I hope you find it useful.

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