Goodbye Microsoft Word + politics

[pippychick]

Mini rant ahead...

I like MS Word, I do. I've used it for years and years, and years. I know how to use it, and what all the buttons do. But now it's over.

I'm getting a new computer, but I won't be getting Word with it this time because as much as I like it and am used to it, it's not worth a recurring subscription that I'll already be paying over the odds for because I happen to live in the UK instead of the US.

Bollocks to you, Microsoft.

To be honest anyway, that last version I bought always took bloody ages to start.

Incidentally, I took to Google to find other people just as pissed off (like you do) and perhaps in my anger I'm not doing it right but I didn't come upon them right away. They must be out there. It's just a word processor ffs, not a mortgage.

There are, of course, certain conditions under which I'd go for a subscription. Say for instance, if it had a kind of new-fangled mind-reading hardware attachment that would sense my half-formed ideas and produce a nice tidy document using my words without me having to think them up. If it could peer into my dreams so that I'd have a nice account of them waiting for me when I woke up. If taking me "where you want today" meant getting hold of a car and driving me to my work/appointment/course. If it could do those things without passing my details onto the NSA (actually, I have no idea if MS does this, but nothing would surprise me, and while I don't really give a toss if "they" know what I had for breakfast on the tenth of May 1997 there some kind of yammering about principles and such).

I've put back the new pc to monday, so I'll be trying out openoffice and libre office over the weekend to see which one I like best.

In other news, I voted Green and have somehow ended up with a UKIP councillor in my ward, which means that I don't have a councillor, because I don't care what happens to me, I will not talk to fascists about anything. And there's one in the ward next door to the east. And the one next door to the north. Seriously, I live alongside a load of racist, bigoted bastards. I always suspected as much, but it's kind of disquieting to find out for real. We're honestly thinking about moving somewhere else.

Let's be clear, this is a political party who want a flat rate of tax for everyone, billionaire's included. The end of the NHS. Charges for GP appointments. Forced sterilisation of the mentally ill. Whose members hold views like the following:

* Being gay is "abnormal and undesirable" and not to be "celebrated"

* homosexuality is "not a lifestyle worthy of valid equal respect"

* women are to blame for rape as they lead men on

* seal clubbing is a good thing, because seals are "dumb"

* climate change is a myth

* women should not wear trousers

* women cannot be raped by their husbands

I could go on and on, but I'll let you imagine the kind of things they say about race (clue: it doesn't get any better).

Anyway, that's all I have at the moment.

[BronxWench]

Dear gods, love...

I vote Libre Office, by the way. Much more stable and better updates. It's able to read .doc and .docx, and can save in those formats as well as many more, and it's free. Completely and totally free. You can donate a small sum if you wish, to support their work, but they do not require that at all.

And we won't get me started on fascists or touchy-feeley liberal bastards who think being middle class is a crime.

[pippychick]

Thanks for the recommendation, BW... I'll go and try it out now

[LockedBox]

Oh you are not the only one, not by any means! I'm still using 2008 and I have absolutely no plans of ever upgrading. Adobe creative suit adopted the same payment model around the same time and I have no intention of using that either. In both cases, nothing is actually changed, all the tools do the same things, the buttons use the same symbols and they process the same file types. The only things that seem to change is the menu and shortkey structures, which gives me even more incentive not to upgrade so I don't have to relearn everything. It's ridiculous and I refuse to endorse such a thing. When I buy a product I expect to actually buy a product, not just borrow it for a while, that's what libraries are for damn it.

[DemonGoddess]

There is a REASON I refer to that company as MicroShit...

[bookworm51485]

First, I can not tell you how much I agree with you.

Second, I will admit to still having Word but I have a very good excuse. My alma mater offers it free. So... why the hell not. If I had to pay for it, especially as much as they're demanding these days? Not even a chance.

[BronxWench]

I have my old version of Word because it's bought and paid for, and has no fees attached. But I do love my LibreOffice, and it's my preferred office suite.

[bookworm51485]

Never heard of LibreOffice. Have to check that one out. Might need it whenever the school decides to stop offering Office to their alumni for free.

[DemonGoddess]

LibreOffice is a fork of OpenOffice, started when Oracle took over OO and stopped updating as regularly, and the tech support for OO tanked at the time as well. All the coders who write LO, USED to write OO code.

[BronxWench]

It's amazingly stable, versatile, and WORKS. Every time I open it. More than I can say for Word, which throws the odd and inexplicable tantrum.

[DemonGoddess]

Oh yeah, when updates are available? Doesn't make the program act spazzy either. Just lets you know there's an update.

[bookworm51485]

I'm mostly lucky with Word. It doesn't give me too much trouble most of the time. But then, I rarely use it these days (thank God for graduation). I actually use WordPad most often.

I'm actually having more issues with Windows itself than Word. Computer keeps blue screening at completely random points and I can't figure out why :'(

[DemonGoddess]

depends on which ver you're using as to why the bluescreen. First thing I'd check is the video driver.

[bookworm51485]

I'm still on Windows 7 (I plan to avoid Windows 8 for as long as humanly possible). I'm only moderately tech savvy, better than your average person but definitely not knowledgeable enough to be called a techie. I've had my virus scan check the computer and I've backed it all up, just in case, but wasn't really sure where to go from there. To check the driver, would I be uninstalling/reinstalling?

[BronxWench]

It depends on whether or not you have a graphics card installed. Nvidia does update periodically, and also makes beta releases of updates available. I haven't had an ATI board in ages, but I do know you can go to their website for driver updates. If it's onboard graphics, Update Drivers in Control Panel for Win7 will search for the latest drivers for you.

[DemonGoddess]

right click "computer" in your start menu. Select properties. Click on device drivers. Expand the video driver. Double click it, and then click update. If there is an available update, it'll find it.

[bookworm51485]

I will do that as soon as I get back on my computer. Thanks. Hopefully that will work, though I guess I won't know for a bit. It does it almost every week and a half, almost like clockwork. It's weird.

[DemonGoddess]

Windows itself may need updated as well. Do you have it set to autoupdate, or notify and allow you to choose?

[bookworm51485]

I have it set to notify but I'm usually pretty good about doing it. I think I last updated it some time in this past week.

[pippychick]

Windows 8 is a pile of cat sick. In fact, I don't think I even want to get used to this. So much so that I'm going to use my old machine to practice installing Linux so that I can stay away from Microsoft altogether, for the rest of my life.

And I still have to sort this new computer out. I was looking at bathroom cabinets earlier, so now I'm going to spend the next decade getting them advertised at me everywhere I go, just in case I haven't bought one yet, or want to furnish my whole house with them or something. *sighs*

[LockedBox]

Addblock is your friend. Use it well.

[BronxWench]

I had a chance to see Win8 on my Teengirl's laptop that we got her for college. Cat sick is being kind, really. It's abysmal. The updates are dreadfully slow, and if you make the mistake of downloading programs as apps, they don't close even when you think they do. You know how you need to swipe things closed on a tablet or smartphone. Yes, that.

I think it's well worth the extra fee (even though the idea rankles somewhat) to purchase Win7 for a new desktop. As far as tablets, mine runs Android. I like Android. I don't like Win8.

[DemonGoddess]

Definitely worth the money to "downgrade" to 7. It's definitely not a downgrade. 8 is the downgrade. As much as Microshit tries to say differently.

[pippychick]

Seeing how they thought it was a good idea to move the start menu, the x button and hide the control panel (which, when you finally find it, doesn't have a 'classic view' or Win7 option), I am surprised they didn't decide that a qwerty keyboard was too much, and randomly assign letters to different keys.

Yesterday, I managed to accidentally 'close' the desktop, and ended up stuck in an application that I couldn't escape.

Or maybe they just wanted to make it simple, because Ctrl Atl Del is now the answer to almost everything, just as long as you don't want to actually do anything.

Suddenly very easy to find a DOS Prompt though... it's like they're daring you to Format c:

Well, I had better get some sleep since I work early.

[DemonGoddess]

Well, hubby sez that if it's a mainstream type build (i.e. Dell, HP, etc) you should be able to get the "downgrade" for FREE