Tech Support HELL

As much as Im more than okay with antimonopolism, if your computer cant read an Office document you need to:

a. learn to use your computer (and get Office, OpenOffice etc etc)

or

b. buy a computer that was made after 2001.

Like it or not, the second most recent Office is a de facto standard.

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What about one for the people who respond to emails on mailing lists but for no reason they send it to the person who wrote the email instead of the list? I like to reply back to the list with their email fully quoted and above it text similar to:

I wish they'd fix that bug in the email software that removes the mailing list from the To: line of the email.

If I can identify their mail client from the headers, I usually name the mail client.

I stole the idea from here: http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/10/19/844008.aspx

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Up until very recently, OpenOffice.org did not open the Office 2007 format (.docx, etc.,). Because I run solely Linux, with the occasional very lightweight (read, no Office) XP VM for work, there is not much I can do in the way of avoiding this issue. Besides, I know a number of fellow students who cannot afford Office, and thus are stuck either pirating it (not something I recommend) or being forced to go to the labs every time they want to even view a document, much less edit it.

The other issue comes with Powerpoint attachments--OO.o almost renders PPTs correctly. However, note the emphasis. It is trivially simple to get a free PDF converter and render PPTs as PDF, bypassing any issues students (this is mainly directed towards professors who cancel classes, then send the intended Powerpoint out as notes) might have in reading them.

I suspect that the issue will lessen somewhat with M$' soon-to-be support for the Open Document Formats.

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"Memento Mori Ergo Carpe Diem"

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You know, I've seen snobbish emails, and I've seen very snobbish emails, but this takes the cake, eats it, and asks for more.

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This works to a point, though only on smaller lists where it does not tend to cause the list to spam itself with stupidity.

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"Memento Mori Ergo Carpe Diem"

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Office Home and Student costs eighty bucks for three seats.

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And does not run on Linux, nor does it fit into at least my budget. There is a reason I run a free OS, and not just because I like OSS...

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"Memento Mori Ergo Carpe Diem"

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Well it serves two purposes:

1) ridicule of the person who failed to reply to list
2) gets the contents of the message that should have gone to the list onto the list

I don't see why this doesn't work on larger lists.

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Just because you're too cheap to buy software compatible with what everyone else is using doesn't mean everyone should go out of their way to conform to your tastes. As it is, you're simply pushing one convicted monopolist over another - and the one you're backing is technically inferior to boot.

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Could you help me revise them to not sound snobbish? These emails are the result of collaborations with other people facing the same issues and are by no means intended to be snobbish in any way. Rather, with the exception of the few warning emails (which are used only after a long escalation, and then only with great reluctance), they are intended to politely ask the sender of the original email to change something they are doing, after presenting the case of the recipient clearly, under the assumption that most people are reasonable adults and understand that, if a simple action on their part can help another person deal with things easier, they will do it. Much like a person in a wheelchair may ask an able-bodied person to hold a door for them with no intention of seeming snobbish in the request, I send these emails to ask for a small aid from my fellow man, with 95-99% positive effect. I thank you humbly for any help you can give me to improve the writing in any or all of these emails to more politely and clearly transmit their intended messages.

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"Memento Mori Ergo Carpe Diem"

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I have seen it fail on larger lists mostly because it triggers other people to email, and causes a chain reaction.

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"Memento Mori Ergo Carpe Diem"

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You are not a disabled person in a wheelchair. You're a healthy person who sits in a wheelchair and bitches at everyone around him to prove some sort of point. Therefore, no pity. Use the standards that everyone else is using, as you're perfectly capable of it, or STFU. You can easily run the free PowerPoint Viewer under wine for example.

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To stem the conversation from taking a turn towards an OS flame war, which is distinctly not what I intended with this post, I put forth that the affordability of this software is not necessarily a given fact for everybody. I offer the proposition that, for a college student trying to figure out where next semester's book money (not even to mention tuition, room, and board) will come from, the minimum price of around $70 for then Student version of Vista and the $80 or so for the Student version of Office do not look like reasonable figures at all, especially since I can use my "inferior" product for free, for everything I need to do and most things that I want to do. I also have specifically tried not to push anything on anyone, but offer multiple equivalent solutions to an issue that will smooth communications in a mutually-beneficent way.

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"Memento Mori Ergo Carpe Diem"

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Oh you are definitely right about Powerpoint. That file format is pretty much the devil.

As for pirating Office... people buy Office? lol

Doesnt Microsoft have some sort of student program where you can get Office for about 20 bucks? I know they were bringing something like that in back in 2004 or so...

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Fair enough, but I try not to recommend it outright. ;-P

There is, sort of, but it still does not run on my OS of choice. And, money is money, and I do not have much of it.

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"Memento Mori Ergo Carpe Diem"

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Ah! Its 60 bucks.

http://www.microsoft.com/student/discounts/theultimatesteal-us/default.aspx

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College students generally get licenses via college for free or a nominal fee (like $5-10). Besides, viewers for all Office formats are available for free, and you can run them under wine.

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Ah, everyone? I work at an office where Windows is a very tiny minority. There are atleast 3, possibly 4, operating systems that outnumber Windows at my office.

My freshman year of college, 2002, Solaris was the dominant OS in the computer labs at my university. By 2006, when I graduated, it was more varied across departments. CS had moved to Linux, although they did give in and acquire one lab of Windows machines. This is compared to 6-8 (depending on how you count) labs of Linux boxes.

Windows may dominate the *home* computer market, but don't delude yourself into believing that it dominates the computer market.

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I think that is a little unfair. People can afford what they can afford. People who find pirating unethical are admirable! People have preferences and thats fine. However, trying to cause other people to go out of their way (ie, beyond their own preferences) to support a minority is perhaps a bit of a stretch.

Thats not to say that there arent good points raised. PDFs are preferable to Office formats (and not only because editing one is much more difficult). Plain text /is/ preferable as well. But it still feels snobby to ask someone to change their habits to support your minority preferences.

Id like to use a non-Christian complaining about Christmas carols and nativity scenes in shopping centres as an analogy, but that example seems extreme...

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Everyone in my office is on Windows, and we VM or ssh into everything else. Apparently it makes things easier on the IT staff that way?

*shrugs*

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simoncion.livejournal.com

Mad props. Thanks!

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Coming from SMB environment, I haven't seen Linux used outside of appliances, and Solaris outside of screenshots.

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