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Fedora 17 - Beta release
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- Category: Linux
- Published on Thursday, 26 April 2012 13:57
- Written by Me
- Hits: 12
As an avid Fedora follower I have installed Fedora 17 Beta on my laptop. It is very stable. I do have a few issues with it but it is Beta software. All in all I think that this may be the best ever Beta release that the Fedora community have released. Beefy Miracle, as it has been named, is a step up from Fedora 16, which was not (IMHO) a great release. It was adequate but a few annoying bugs stopped it being great. In Beefy Miracle the Fedora developers have (IMHO) raised the bar.
What does it do? Nothing great. It just does what an operating system should do, and does it well. The Gnome 3 interface is maturing, and I guess I am getting familiar with its quirks (at times I now go to Alt-` to skip to another window in an application without thinking). I have never been antiGnome 3 but I was aware of the inadequacies. In Fedora 17 these are reduced to a much greater extent.
The biggest step forward in Beefy for me is the Dynamic Firewall. If you want to alter a firewall on the fly it does not always do what you expect, or it is different after the next boot. Not any longer I am led to believe. However this is the source of the first bug I hit on. I cannot alter it outside of the command line. This has been recognised as a stopper and the release version of the dynamic firewall GUI should be working. I am happy on my laptop because the default firewall is perfect for me.
Any application improvements? LibreOffice 3.5 appears much better than 3.4. the start-up is now much quicker on my machine. It no longer runs like treacle. It looks the similar but the whole Fedora 17 experience appears a little less coarse. LibreOffice appears to have got help from the underlying OS. It also has a few enhancing features itself, it advertises better font displays. I can say documents look a lot better in Writer and Calc. Macro translation from MS-Excel is also better, only to the extent that my macros almost run now but things are getting better.
Without going through all the new features I am well pleased. It is certainly better than I expected and I want to use it everywhere. Am I rushing to put it on my other systems? No. Just one thing stops me! The firewall. Once that is fixed I will be moving everything to Fedora 17. The bug is currently marked as a stopper but it is closed erroneously. I am following the bug and I am expecting a fix very soon. I will let you know.
LibreOffice as an alternative to you know what
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- Category: LibreOffice
- Published on Tuesday, 03 April 2012 12:02
- Written by Me
- Hits: 27
Many people are using LibreOffice or OpenOffice as an alternative to commercial office packages like Microsoft Office. Most people use it because they do not want to pay the price of the commercial products. That is fine but there are other reasons. I don't use it to save money. I have a Microsoft Office license and have access to all of Microsoft's latest output. I choose LibreOffice for most of my work.
Do I prefer LibreOffice? No. In fact I think that Office is one of the best Microsoft products available! OK, I dislike the 'ribbon' interface, which is why I try to stick with Office 2003. I can live with it and it does grow on you but where is that feature you are looking for? With Office 2007 the help system also took (IMHO) a turn for the worse, it is still better than the help available with LibreOffice or OpenOffice. With Microsoft Office I can do most of what I want for my business. But I can with LibreOffice. Overall I would give Microsoft Office the edge but both are good tools.
What about Macro's? You may have heard that LibreOffice and OpenOffice cannot run VBA from Microsoft Office. That is not quite true in the latest incarnations. Most simple Macros will run. You can of course write macro's in LibreOffice Basic, there is even an experimental macro recorder. The main problem is that the documentation and help available is limited when compared with Microsoft's product. Again Microsoft wins but it is very close.
Do I use LibreOffice because it is Free? I do, but that only sways me towards LibreOffice. When I say Free I mean as in speech, not as in beer. The cost is irrelevant to me, my business needs a copy of Microsoft Office just in case. So, I pay for the license but I still use LibreOffice, but I don't view Microsoft or other commercial suppliers as evil. I am happy to use their software when it suits. I just prefer a little freedom. I use LibreOffice in preference to OpenOffice at present. Do I think it meets my requirements for Free software better? No. After all LibreOffice is developed from OpenOffice, it has to be just as Free. In fact OpenOffice must win here because of restrictions in the LibreOffice license! You can copy code from OpenOffice to LibreOffice but not vice versa. OpenOffice wins here!
Why do I use LibreOffice? Because I prefer Linux as my OS. I have to fire-up Windows to use Microsoft Office. That in truth is the main reason I use LibreOffice. I go with LibreOffice because it meets my needs and my preferred Linux distribution (Fedora) supplies it as standard. I am no great advocate.
Why am I writing this? Because I intend to post some things about macros on LibreOffice (most tips and tricks should work with OpenOffice). When you want to convert to using LibreOffice one big stumbling block is macros. They differ from the Microsoft equivalent. There are sources of help but they took me a long time to navigate my way about. My intention is to post some 'equivalent to Microsoft VBA' macros for LibreOffice and help in finding information.
If you want to start then go to the LibreOffice documentation web page. There is information about macros there, it is a starting point in the journey no more.
The first live attempt to use Joomla
- Details
- Category: Work
- Published on Saturday, 31 March 2012 15:51
- Written by Me
- Hits: 34
This is the first live attempt to use Joomla on my live site. There are still many edits to perform but it is here for what it is worth. I have used a free template JaxStorm, designed by Hurricane Media and provided under a GPL license. The chaps at Hurricane Media are very good. They allow use of the template without any prerequisites, just add it to your site and use it as you want. They get my thanks and if you want to see what they provide go to their web site.
