Life Skills - Things That Last - LibreOffice

PreAmble

 I recently saw a couple of youtube videos that changed the way I look at things .. hopefully this will be the first of a few posts that explain some things and maybe one or two people will benefit.

Intro

When I was in my early teens, my Mother taught me to touch type (she was a secretarial teacher). She also tried to teach me shorthand which I never really cottoned on to, though I wish I had.

Never in my wildest imaginings did I realise how valuable the skill of using a keyboard was going to be. Fast forward to today and I still remember that lesson. Learn something worthwhile and you have it for life.

Things Change

So how does that relate to things today? Well for one thing document formats change so frequently that if you author something in for example MSWorks .. well in a few years it is not able to be read. This is a real worry these days. If you have an MSWord document from a while ago (yes you probably have to be old to appreciate this) .. well MSWord cannot read it.

I have many documents in MSWorks .. the only way I can read them is with LibreOffice.

It is called Vendor Lock In ... or alternatively obsolesence.

Another problem (apologies for using MSWord as the whipping boy) is that these proprietary products change - MSWord is certainly guilty of that - you get a new version and then you have to learn all over again.

So.

Are there any quality, free authoring products that you can rely on forever?

Yes. Lots.

LibreOffice

First out of the gate for the curious is "LibreOffice". LibreOffice is actively developed, is free and available for all platforms you are ever likely to use. It reads and writes more document formats than MSOffice and will be there forever, still able to write those document formats.

Why would you NOT use LibreOffice as your suite?

Here is the Wikipedia entry for it ....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice

Things That are Worthwhile

Here is a list I'll be talking about in future posts.

Applications:
Emacs (orgmode, the killer app)
Vim (vimwiki - a second brain)
Obsidian (another second brain)

Markup Formats
Groff
LaTeX
Markdown
AsciiDoc

Web Apps
Trello
Simplenote

Video conference
Jitsi

 A Long Time

Yes, it has been ... I lost interest in my blog for a long time however I'll have another go at it.

This blog is about Debian Linux, FreeBSD, Aviation and anything else I take a shine to.  Oh, did I mention Emacs, Groff and LaTeX?  Of course there is "Plain Text Accounting" ... oh I could go on.

If you have an unused laptop or computer lying around, how about you go to "Linux Mint" and download the "Linux Mint Debian Edition" (LMDE5) installation iso.  It will give you a gentle introduction to Linux, keep you safe and let you see what you can do for free on your machine.

I have been using Debian for perhaps 20 years .. have not paid for software for as long as I can remember (I'm old so that may not be as long as you might think).

Today's hook.

"Emacs for OSX"

I've recently realised that if you have that on your Mac, all the Mac key combinations work, which makes Emacs that much more freindly out of the box.  But beware ... Emacs is like going down Alice's rabbit hole .. there is so much to find out.

Geoff.

Windows 11 ... Really?

 yes .. I know ... too long .. however ..

Seriously?

You are going to buy a new laptop / computer so you can get Windows 11 and entrench your "vendor lock-in" ?

How about this. Put that cash back in your pocket and look at the hardware you already have. First, you can max out the memory in it for not much money AND you can replace that mechanical Hard drive for a SSD (Solid State Drive) .. I assume your machine is 64 bit when I say that (don't worry .. if it is not, all is not lost).

Now you are cooking.

Next - install the software they use on the International Space Station - Debian Linux.

I warn you though .. the problem is choice - you can do anything you like with this - it is just that the baubles are confusing.

Think about it - I'll be back.

Two Years !!

v 0.2

I was involved with explaining to some people how they could use a Google Account for more things than email and for some reason came back to my somewhat neglected blog.  Ok .. not as great presentation as I could do but I'd rather do content - I'll get to the pretty bit later.

So, what have I been doing?

My last A380 flight - DFW-SYD.  My longest sector at 17 hrs and 7 minutes.  Quite interesting as we flew along the Mexican Border to San Diego and then on the standard Pacific routings.  The border was quite apparent - vibrant Mexican towns cut off by the US border.

May 2016 - Off to South Africa to get a rating on a ROVOS Convair 440.  Utterly great time with utterly great people.  Except it involved doing some South African Licence stuff - I mean ... I've never even SAT in a Cessna 172.  It all went well until we discovered there was "No Soup (Fuel) for YOU at Seychelles".

As I alluded ... the ROVOS people and everyone else we met at Wonderboom were just wonderful.  If you ever do a ROVOS train journey in Southern Africa you can be assured that the employees you meet are really really motivated to give you the best time ever.

Back to Sydney and sort it all out.  August and it had been sorted.  Back to Wonderboom.  A number of things .. but one day where we had two original Convair 440 aircraft next to each other that flew.  Probably never to be seen again.

The next two weeks were a "fun" time flying across the Indian Ocean to Australia and the new home for this Immaculate aeroplane in Wollongong, New South Wales.

This brings us up to a year ago.

I guess that is another story ... but a good one.

Enjoy