h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You don't have my boss, who will not accept a document unless it's been written in the Macintosh version of word. If there's even the slightest problem it has to be rewritten
PC word is bad enough in translation terms, Mac word is hopeless at it.

I've had to basically change to be a Mac user because of this. Even a windows based PC at home eventually became a white elephant to me.

Compatibility comes in several shades of grey.

I wonder if there are any does and dont's of compatibility? 'Don't used bullets in Open Office because they'll get buggered up in Office' kind of thing. Then you could write some sort of mutually compatible template.

Well you can maybe try that with a senior research professor. Good luck.

It's more serious than that anyway, there is certain speciality scientific software we use that you just can't get on other operating systems and they will not work well on an emulator generally as the emulator people try to get systems to work well with popular software, not obscuresciencesoftware.1

To be honest I actually agree with him anyway. It's a complete waste of everyone's time trying to fiddle about finding some sort of compatibility when we should be getting on with our actual jobs.
Surely most companies insist everyone works on the same system for work purposes...?

Oh, indeed. And they even let you take home computers to facillitate using the OS/software of their choice.

That said...I've also had occasion to help my company out by doing stuff at home, in Ubuntu, that they haven't given me the software for at work.

You know I personally have come to hate Apple more than I hate Manchester United.

I really loath the company and their products.

FB

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/28/charlie-brooker-pfroblem-with-macs

Again, it's not me, it's my boss. If you can persuade *him* they're evil then fine. Good luck.


(incidentally, they're just computers. Hate something worth hating, better for your soul )

Well I hate Steve Jobs pretty passionately! Mostly I hate the cult of apple, and smug eejit Apple owners.

FB

To clarify not everyone who owns apple, but everyone who talks about their apple products in quasi religious terms.

So only in truth 99.998% of apple owners

FB

Well I hope I am exclude from that - personally I don't give a fig if my computer is an apple, pear, amiga, PC, Sinclair, Amstrad, linux, sun, whatever. They're mostly an internet portal and glorified typewriter and all I've come across seem to do what I need so I don't really care. It's other people who seem to get all het up about it.

I have notice that the level of hatred of computer companies seems to be directly proportional to their commercial success though. Pre-ipod and i-phone, when they were barely surviving, everyone seemed to love Apple. Now they are successful they are almost as reviled as Microsoft

I gotta admit though - most apple owners were doing impressions of automated apple advertising (i.e your quasi religious stuff) back then too. I do hate that - there is a section who seem to just believe everything Apple tell them

(Seen the Charlie Brooker thing before - I do like him, very good. He does hate *everything* though so he's not much use in getting positive feedback on something )

I like and use OpenOffice, but I always use its excellent "Export as PDF" function before I share documents with anyone.

TRiG.

Kind of prevents anyone else working on it after that though really doesn't it.

Well, it depends on your circumstances and why you're sharing documents in the first place. It works for me.

TRiG.

I do a lot of that sort of thing TRiG. I put my beekeeping newsletters together in Word and send them out for BKA member distribution in PDF form. Don't want folks rewriting them so that could come in handy.

I've been hunting around Ubuntu for the things I can find in Windows control panel. Might be a steep and slippery learning curve.

I think I'm a convert. I switched back into Windows (just for something specific), and I'm finding the relative slow speed and clunkiness quite annoying.

Also, the open source image program beginning with "G" which I use a fair bit (and which the filter won't let me say ) works infinitely better. There are versions of it available for Windows, but it's not a very happy marriage in some ways.

So I'm quite happy with it so far, although I'm sure it will take me a while to get out of my old working habits.

>>I've been hunting around Ubuntu for the things I can find in Windows control panel.

Might these help orientate you?

http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Linux_software_equivalent_to_Windows_software

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Applications

Good, innit?

>>Also, the open source image program beginning with "G"

And if you prefer Photoshop, you can get the same look and feel with GIMPshop.

I noticed that too KB. I downloaded G IMP to Windows when I got the newsletter editor job about a year and a half ago, but never used it because I didn't have the time to waste while it took for ever to load. When I installed Ubuntu yesterday (blinking heck! was it only yesterday?), I downloaded G IMP and Scribus (another one that went unused due to incredibly long loading time) and they both load in a fraction of the Windows time in Ubuntu. And I went into Windows to delete them from that part of the disc (having first tried to use them by reaching through from Ubuntu to Windows for them, which didn't work) and the time it took to boot up and let me do anything just astonished me more than ever after discovering how quickly things *can* work on that particular computer. So I'm converted too

Lovely links, Not the monkey! I may have found something there that I've been looking for for years. I downloaded the Windows version of GnuCash at work, where I've been using the same - and only accounts package I trust - for years... years I've lost count of now. It runs under DOS on an ancient machine (best and most reliable computer I've ever used) and I live in fear of the day it packs up. It's the end of our financial year (end of Feb) and this time every year I start looking around for an accounts package that'll run on a newer computer and that won't drive me mad with constant requests and demands from the supplier - or software bugs. I've actually installed and wasted (must be) hundreds of hours, trying them and finding them useless and/or unreliable. GnuCash might be the one, at last...

So thank you very very much for that!

The specific thing I was looking for, that Windows keeps in Control Panel, was the font manager. Do you happen to know how fonts can be installed in Ubuntu?



PS Look what I got:
"This message has been blocked as it contains a word which other users may find offensive. Please edit your message and post it again."

It was the G-word, if you're wondering what a G IMP is. Is that actually a rude word? Says in the dictionary that it's a person who limps

I'm sad to report that it's also a person, usually in a rubber mask, chained and kept as a (voluntary) slave, for sexual purposes. (Have you not seen 'Pulp Piction'? You should! It's very good.) Originally a carnival freak show performer.

'You've a lot to learn about life, Mildred, and I hope you never learn it.' (from 'Harvey&#39


Back to fonts:
https://help.ubuntu.com/6.10/ubuntu/desktopguide/C/fonts.html

Basically, adding new ones entails adding font packages or individual fonts, just as you would new software. msttcorefonts gives you a whole bunch of Microsoft fonts. You can add them via your Software Manager, or by typing commands in a terminal window.

Yes - you can also delve in and add fonts to the folder - but the above will be easier.

Thank you for that

I do remember Pulp Fiction, now you come to mention it... the immortal line "Zed's dead". He was the G... master, wasn't he? I'd forgotten about that. Good film. It's obviously time I watched it again

Funny thing: I liked Firefox so much when I was using it with Ubuntu yesterday, that I'm using it now on this computer running under XP - and the spell checker (which I thought was great) isn't working, even though the spell checking box is checked in options. And it's reeeeally slow with Windows, where it was nice and quick with Ubuntu.

Hmmm