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[News] Microsoft Vanity and Weakness Leads to Linux Migrations

  • Subject: [News] Microsoft Vanity and Weakness Leads to Linux Migrations
  • From: Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:42:39 +0000
  • Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • Organization: Netscape / schestowitz.com
  • User-agent: KNode/0.10.4
And there are those who are already moving because Vista is a disaster...

Dual-boot Windows and Ubuntu Linux

,----[ Quote ]
| Running Linux from a CD in Windows doesn't get you much closer to computing 
| in a Windows-less world. To make Windows and Linux and either-or proposition, 
| you have to set your PC to dual-boot. With Canonical Ltd.'s Ubuntu 7.10, 
| a.k.a. Gutsy Gibbon, the repartitioning is done for you during installation.   
`----

http://www.cnet.com/8301-13880_1-9838725-68.html

Three steps to Open Source in the Church

,----[ Quote ]
| Check out this Microsoft KB article. It describes a (very complicated, very 
| technical) process for reconfiguring your computer after Office 2003 Service 
| Pack 3 quietly disables the ability to open certain older file formats. I'm 
| certain that my grandma can follow that to access the old recipes she typed 
| into her computer 10 years ago, aren't you?    
| 
| I've been warning people for a long time about the danger of relying upon 
| proprietary software to maintain access to archived data. If you don't 
| control the format or the software, there's no guarantee that you will be 
| able to access your data in the future. Case in point: I have a number of old 
| school files created using Lotus Word Pro 97. I still own a copy of the 
| software, but the only Windows operating system I have is XP, and LWP97 won't 
| install on Windows XP. So I have files, software to read the files, and yet I 
| can't get access to my own data. Presumably I could pay someone to make 
| conversion software, but why should I pay a second time to access my data?        
`----

http://www.tedcarnahan.com/2008/01/02/three-steps-to-open-source-in-the-church/

PCLinuxOS Day 2 - Bringing the system up to date

,----[ Quote ]
| Any linux distribution is part of a continuous proces of development, updates 
| and upgrades. When you install a freshly downloaded distribution you can 
| expect at least a few updates waiting for you. For that reason I decided to 
| run a full update before taking a closer look at the system as a whole.   
`----

http://opensourcelearning.info/blog/?p=736


Yesterday:

Office 2003 Service Pack Disables Older File Formats

,----[ Quote ]
| In Service Pack 3 for Office 2003, Microsoft disabled support for many older 
| file formats. If you have old Word, Excel, 1-2-3, Quattro, or Corel Draw 
| documents, watch out!   
`----

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/01/137257&from=rss


Legacy format FUD

,----[ Quote ]
| From CyberTech Rambler (and Slashdot) comes the news that the Office 2003 
| Service Pack #3 disables (blocks) access to a number of legacy document 
| formats. Details are in this MS support article. Formats so blocked include 
| legacy Lotus 1-2-3 and Corel Quattro Pro formats. Why? According to the 
| Microsoft support article, "By default, these file formats are blocked 
| because they are less secure. They may pose a risk to you.".     
| 
| [...]
| 
| Now it may be entirely possible that these old import filters in Excel are 
| poorly written and poorly maintained and that Microsoft may be trying to 
| reduce the overall security exposure of MS Office by ditching old code that 
| is not strategic for them. But call it that. The MS Office code has the 
| problem. Don't malign the formats. Don't make up some untenable story that 
| DIF format is "less secure" and "may pose a risk for you".     
`----

http://www.robweir.com/blog/2008/01/legacy-format-fud.html

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