[ale] MS Office new version

[tom]

On Sat, 19 Apr 2008, Byron Jeff wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 04:30:42PM -0400, Paul Cartwright wrote:
>> this looks like the ultimate reason to switch to OpenOffice ( and maybe even
>> Linux!)
>>
>> News.com is reporting that Microsoft has confirmed a subscription service is
>> in the works for the next consumer version of their Office Suite. "Code-named
>> Albany, the product has a single installer that puts Office Home and Student,
>> OneCare, as well as a host of Windows Live services, onto a user's PC. As
>> long as users keep paying for the subscription, they are entitled to the
>> latest versions of the products. Once they stop paying, they lose the right
>> to use any version."
>
>> Read more of this story at Slashdot.
>
> Well now it seems that Microsoft is trying to make what's an inevitable
> move. Each time they've moved forward with this type of idea, they backed
> off once they saw the awful consumer reaction. It'll be interesting.

Seems like people were looking for this model to take off since the 
middle/late 1980s. From one standpoint (the seller/programmer/support 
staff) it makes some sense as modertly predictable income. IMHO, from the 
consumers standpoint it sucks. Having somebody else with their fist around 
the "family jewels" ( ok, actually the data that I need going forward) 
just plain is nervous making.

>
> It brings up a question though. Is there a "OpenOffice.org for Microsoft
> Office Dummies" type tutorial out there? I'm not an office software geek.
> So when asked "How do you do X?" where X is anything from bulleting to
> doing curved fonts with gradient colors, I'm at a loss. A tutorial that
> shows how to do activities that are common for M$ Office users in
> OpenOffice would be real helpful.
>
I'd like an OOo tutorial that starts with planning a document followed by 
actually implementing the styles needed to get the thing working. I can 
_find_ the pieces to "do X", but my usage is almost always fragile because 
I really don't comprehend the flow and logic of the style sheets. YMMV, 
and hopefully does.