Computer tips

[Chet]

Nothing else comes down with Libre Office or any other Open Source project. These people are volunteers from all over the world and they have nothing to sell, nor are they involved in any kind of trickery. It really is as simple and straightforward as that.

Edit: This "casual user" thing is starting to sound sillier all the time. What does going outside when the weather is nice have to do with it? In my career as a software engineer, I worked with people who had all manner of outdoor hobbies - one guy spent his vacations deep sea diving at spots around the world. Others owned cabins on lakes and spent weekends and summer vacations there. I could go on, but my point is that you lost me with that one. If you think that for a person to be something other than whatever "casual user" is, s/he must spend his or her entire time inside huddled in front of a computer, think again.

Tony

Maybe not the entire time but a lot more time. I suppose you could define casual user as a non-geek who is not into 'puters as much as someone who made a living at it.

 

[tbeltrans]

Maybe not the entire time but a lot more time. I suppose you could define casual user as a non-geek who is not into 'puters as much as someone who made a living at it.

Yes, that makes sense to me. I just wanted to be clear that technical people who work with computers such as engineers and programmers have normal lives and outside interests like everybody else. Any profession will demand more time than somebody who punches a clock at the end of an 8 hour day, though I can remember quite a bit of overtime when I worked as a machinist in the AFL-CIO back in the 70s before I got the job as a full time musician.

Tony

 

[Irwin]

So, in the end, what it comes down to is what an individual is most comfortable with. Personally, I am most comfortable with Libre Office, and have been using it for some time now as I have stated in previous posts. For others, the risks involved in keeping their data on a cloud and using cloud applications, might be outweighed by the convenience of not having to maintain their own backups and application. For still others, having a subscription to Microsoft Office might be a better fit.

Tony

I just found this out, but with LibreOffice, you can save directly to Google Drive by setting up file services, so you can save your files directly to the cloud. You need an Authentication code, and it's not readily apparent how to obtain that, but that's typical of Google; their documentation sucks. But whatdyawant for nothin'? Plus, they give you a full gig of storage for free.

I'm not currently doing any office stuff and don't feel like researching it, but if somebody else figures it out, please post your solution.

 

[tbeltrans]

I just found this out, but with LibreOffice, you can save directly to Google Drive by setting up file services, so you can save your files directly to the cloud. You need an Authentication code, and it's not readily apparent how to obtain that, but that's typical of Google; their documentation sucks. But whatdyawant for nothin'? Plus, they give you a full gig of storage for free.

I'm not currently doing any office stuff and don't feel like researching it, but if somebody else figures it out, please post your solution.

Thanks for the info, Irwin. I will continue to do things as I have, since I am comfortable managing my own data. However, this might well be useful to others here.

By the way, aside from your post...

Somebody in this thread mentioned trust regarding downloading an Oracle application. I have been using Oracle's Virtual Box VM for some time now without issue. It is a virtual machine that allows me to run another OS environment within Windows. I run Ubuntu Linux in it. If security is an issue, I run a modified version of the Tails secure distribution booted from a USB flash drive and hosted entirely on that drive. Its communication with the outside world is completely through the Tor protocol, the same protocol that the Tor network (what some call the Dark Net) uses.

Tony