On 20/12/2024 9:03 am, CrudeSausage wrote:
<https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-365-users-
hit-by-random-product-deactivation-errors/>
Microsoft is investigating a known issue triggering "Product
Deactivated" errors for customers using Microsoft 365 Office apps.
It's not about "owning the software", but whether it requires a real-
time online account to work. The usual words are "standalone" and
"offline". :)
On 21/12/2024 8:26 pm, CrudeSausage wrote:
Le 2024-12-21 03:52, Mr. Man-wai Chang a crit:
On 20/12/2024 9:03 am, CrudeSausage wrote:
It's not about "owning the software", but whether it requires a real-
time online account to work. The usual words are "standalone" and
"offline". :)
The moment you require an online account to verify if you are the person who bought the software, you don't own it.
If you really paid for it, the online check should still tell you that
you own it, or at least, you have a "digital entitlement". :)
Office 365 is not the same as the older standalone Office 2021. Well...
I am still using 2007 and 2010.
On 24/12/2024 7:24 am, Ant wrote:
I am using updated 2007 SR3 and LibreOffice, but I rarely use Office anymore like my younger days since Office 95.
As a programmer, I also seldom use Office, except for writing
application letters and resume.
As a programmer, I also seldom use Office, except for writing
application letters and resume.
Microsoft
On 26/12/2024 4:39 am, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
As a programmer, I like to use powerful and versatile tools. That includes >> the ability to automate workflow.
Tools exist for this purpose, like odfpy for ISO 26300 files, which are
the native format of LibreOffice. And LibreOffice itself can run Python
code.
My programming tasks has never ever needed to automate Office using VBA.
On Fri, 27 Dec 2024 22:23:49 +0800, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
On 26/12/2024 4:39 am, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
As a programmer, I like to use powerful and versatile tools. That
includes the ability to automate workflow.
Tools exist for this purpose, like odfpy for ISO 26300 files, which
are the native format of LibreOffice. And LibreOffice itself can run
Python code.
My programming tasks has never ever needed to automate Office using
VBA.
So your needs are fairly simple. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.
On Sat, 28 Dec 2024 07:04:57 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Fri, 27 Dec 2024 22:23:49 +0800, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
On 26/12/2024 4:39 am, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
As a programmer, I like to use powerful and versatile tools. That
includes the ability to automate workflow.
Tools exist for this purpose, like odfpy for ISO 26300 files, which
are the native format of LibreOffice. And LibreOffice itself can run
Python code.
My programming tasks has never ever needed to automate Office using
VBA.
So your needs are fairly simple. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.
You do realize there is a whole world outside of Office?
Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
On 2024-12-28 14:34, rbowman wrote:
You do realize there is a whole world outside of Office?
Yeah, it sometimes pains me that it is brought up as often as it is as
some sort of must-have piece of software. It suggests that people don't
do much other than open up Word and Excel.
Yes, they get these people to buy a laptop every three years, to keep
up with M$'s grotesque OS's bloat, so that they can have their pretty
Office apps. It's unbelievable. The value I'm getting from my
computer is beyond what they could know.
Yeah, it sometimes pains me that it is brought up as often as it is as
some sort of must-have piece of software. It suggests that people don't
do much other than open up Word and Excel.
I was telling my wife the exact same thing. We're not doing much more
than we were in 2008, yet a 2008 machine would be incapable of handling today's software (unless it's running Linux). At some point, people need
to wake up and realize that the exponential increase in speed isn't
offering any real benefit to users who are doing anything other than
video editing or gaming.
On Sat, 28 Dec 2024 15:07:39 -0500, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
Yeah, it sometimes pains me that it is brought up as often as it is as
some sort of must-have piece of software. It suggests that people don't
do much other than open up Word and Excel.
I'm the minority report. I have never used Office. I have no need for it
in my personal life and the company never installed it on the programming machines. If we get RFPs or other documents in docx or xlsx we use LibreOffice. For me, that's a read-only thing since my attempts to edit anything were disasters.
The first speadsheet I encountered was SuperCalc that was bundled on the Osborne 1 CP/M machine in '81. I never figured out how to use it or what
it was good for. 40 years later I've never created any document with Excel
or any other spreadsheet. The closest I've come is I'm told the Power BI queries are based on Excel's. Even then I was mining a SQL Server
database, not anything created in Excel.
Office sofware in general is a whole other world for me. People are
welcome to it but saying you must only do simple programming because you can't write a VBA script for Office is beyond sheer ignorance.
On Sat, 28 Dec 2024 15:07:39 -0500, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
Yeah, it sometimes pains me that it is brought up as often as it is as
some sort of must-have piece of software. It suggests that people don't
do much other than open up Word and Excel.
I'm the minority report. I have never used Office. I have no need for it
in my personal life and the company never installed it on the programming machines. If we get RFPs or other documents in docx or xlsx we use LibreOffice. For me, that's a read-only thing since my attempts to edit anything were disasters.
The first speadsheet I encountered was SuperCalc that was bundled on the Osborne 1 CP/M machine in '81. I never figured out how to use it or what
it was good for. 40 years later I've never created any document with Excel
or any other spreadsheet. The closest I've come is I'm told the Power BI queries are based on Excel's. Even then I was mining a SQL Server
database, not anything created in Excel.
Office sofware in general is a whole other world for me. People are
welcome to it but saying you must only do simple programming because you can't write a VBA script for Office is beyond sheer ignorance.
The only thing I've ever used Office for is essays and the occasional presentation. I've said it before: even AbiWord is more than enough for
me. If I recall correctly, AbiWord had every feature I needed to write university essays and I actually became quite loyal to the program
because it bailed me out when I had no other program to write with. It's pretty useless for the advanced Office files we all receive from others,
but it's spectacular with any new document you might want to produce.
The bonus is that it's fast as heck in 2024. Hell, it was fast and light
as heck even in 2002 or whatever year it was.
What do you use to edit/create documents and spreadsheets with others?
I'm surprised you don't do any documents. I have been using word
processors since I was in elementary with Apple 2's AppleWorks.
ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:
I have been using word processors since I was in elementary with Apple
2's AppleWorks.
I used it to write my second-semester college-English research paper,
in 1996, because the Winblows computer was shared among the family, and
I could set up the Apple //e in my room.
On Sat, 28 Dec 2024 21:26:49 -0500, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
The only thing I've ever used Office for is essays and the occasional
presentation. I've said it before: even AbiWord is more than enough for
me. If I recall correctly, AbiWord had every feature I needed to write
university essays and I actually became quite loyal to the program
because it bailed me out when I had no other program to write with. It's
pretty useless for the advanced Office files we all receive from others,
but it's spectacular with any new document you might want to produce.
The bonus is that it's fast as heck in 2024. Hell, it was fast and light
as heck even in 2002 or whatever year it was.
Essays in my school days generally involve a pen and 'blue book' for exams
or a cheap manual typewriter in some cases. The first word processor I was exposed to was WordStar that was bundled on a CP/M system, over ten years later. It was serviceable as a programming editor. Vim was in the future
and vi, prior to improvement, was primitive.
In later years any documentation I did was with Vim. The process was we
would try to dig up a past document that was sort of like the new
interface. I'd make notes on it, the tech writer would make it pretty, I would review it, rinse and repeat. Over time I became convinced the
clients seldom read the final product anyway.
I was actually surprised to hear that because
I recalled that printers in the 1980s other than PC ones were usually
tiny daisy wheel ones.
Andrzej Matuch wrote:
[snip]
I was actually surprised to hear that because I recalled that printers
in the 1980s other than PC ones were usually tiny daisy wheel ones.
I had a daisy wheel printer. Massive thing, beautifully made, with a
chrome steel frame; used tractor feed paper, and produced very nice
printed output. But is was as noisy as a machine gun! So I installed
it in the front porch - which we never used anyway - and drilled a hole through the wall for power and the RS232 data cable.
I gave it away when I wanted something which would cope with simple
graphics so got a dot-matrix printer - which was a bit quieter.
Graham J wrote:
I had a daisy wheel printer. Massive thing, beautifully made, with a
chrome steel frame; used tractor feed paper, and produced very nice
printed output. But is was as noisy as a machine gun! So I installed
it in the front porch - which we never used anyway - and drilled a hole
through the wall for power and the RS232 data cable.
I gave it away when I wanted something which would cope with simple
graphics so got a dot-matrix printer - which was a bit quieter.
The first printer I owned was a 24-pin printer I got with my IBM PS/1.
It was probably a lot quieter than what you used but still too
annoyingly loud for my taste.
Andrzej Matuch wrote:
Graham J wrote:
I had a daisy wheel printer. Massive thing, beautifully made, with a
chrome steel frame; used tractor feed paper, and produced very nice
printed output. But is was as noisy as a machine gun! So I installed >>> it in the front porch - which we never used anyway - and drilled a hole
through the wall for power and the RS232 data cable.
That's awesome. 8)
I gave it away when I wanted something which would cope with simple
graphics so got a dot-matrix printer - which was a bit quieter.
The first printer I owned was a 24-pin printer I got with my IBM PS/1.
It was probably a lot quieter than what you used but still too
annoyingly loud for my taste.
Mine was an Epson JX-80. It had only 9 pins, but it had a near-letter-quality mode and also color!
On 2024-12-28 14:34, rbowman wrote:
On Sat, 28 Dec 2024 07:04:57 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Fri, 27 Dec 2024 22:23:49 +0800, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
On 26/12/2024 4:39 am, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
As a programmer, I like to use powerful and versatile tools. That
includes the ability to automate workflow.
Tools exist for this purpose, like odfpy for ISO 26300 files, which
are the native format of LibreOffice. And LibreOffice itself can run >>>>> Python code.
My programming tasks has never ever needed to automate Office using
VBA.
So your needs are fairly simple. Thats nothing to be ashamed of.
You do realize there is a whole world outside of Office?
Yeah, it sometimes pains me that it is brought up as often as it is as
some sort of must-have piece of software. It suggests that people don't
do much other than open up Word and Excel.
In alt.comp.os.windows-11 rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:[...]
On Sat, 28 Dec 2024 15:07:39 -0500, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
Yeah, it sometimes pains me that it is brought up as often as it is as some sort of must-have piece of software. It suggests that people don't do much other than open up Word and Excel.
I'm the minority report. I have never used Office. I have no need for it
in my personal life and the company never installed it on the programming machines. If we get RFPs or other documents in docx or xlsx we use LibreOffice. For me, that's a read-only thing since my attempts to edit anything were disasters.
What do you use to edit/create documents and spreadsheets with others?
I'm surprised you don't do any documents. I have been using word
processors since I was in elementary with Apple 2's AppleWorks.
Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
people ... buy a laptop every three years, to keep
up with M$'s grotesque OS's bloat, so that they can have their pretty
Office apps. It's unbelievable. The value I'm getting from my
computer is beyond what they could know.
I was telling my wife the exact same thing. We're not doing much more
than we were in 2008, yet a 2008 machine would be incapable of handling
today's software (unless it's running Linux). At some point, people need
to wake up and realize that the exponential increase in speed isn't
offering any real benefit to users who are doing anything other than
video editing or gaming.
It's just a scheme to keep people upgrading hardware.
On Sat, 28 Dec 2024 21:26:49 -0500, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
The only thing I've ever used Office for is essays and the occasional
presentation. I've said it before: even AbiWord is more than enough for
me. If I recall correctly, AbiWord had every feature I needed to write
university essays and I actually became quite loyal to the program
because it bailed me out when I had no other program to write with. It's
pretty useless for the advanced Office files we all receive from others,
but it's spectacular with any new document you might want to produce.
The bonus is that it's fast as heck in 2024. Hell, it was fast and light
as heck even in 2002 or whatever year it was.
Essays in my school days generally involve a pen and 'blue book' for exams
or a cheap manual typewriter in some cases.
The first word processor I was
exposed to was WordStar that was bundled on a CP/M system, over ten years later. It was serviceable as a programming editor. Vim was in the future
and vi, prior to improvement, was primitive.
In later years any documentation I did was with Vim. The process was we
would try to dig up a past document that was sort of like the new
interface. I'd make notes on it, the tech writer would make it pretty, I would review it, rinse and repeat. Over time I became convinced the
clients seldom read the final product anyway.
The first printer I owned was a 24-pin printer I got with my IBM PS/1.
It was probably a lot quieter than what you used but still too
annoyingly loud for my taste. I quite enjoyed how quiet inkjet was (even though I hated how frequently you had to get more ink) and then the
laser printer.
There is a similar effect with microcontrollers. A 8048 was extremely
limited and you usually wound up using assembler. The Atmel chip in the classic Arduinos is luxurious and you can work in C/C++. However there
still are memory limits.
Is that progress? Beat's me. I was at a museum that had a display of the development of household labor saving devices. It noted that when
housewives received all these new time savers they tended to find new
things to spend the saved time on.
Filling your house with Victorian
kitsch didn't advance civilization.
My first printer was an Epsom MX-80 (8-pin).
At the time, I was in
college and had an assignment to print a graph. The prior assignment was
on A/D converters and led to a collection of 256 8-bit numbers. This assignment was to generate a graph from them. The school printer had
only 7 pins, and was much harder to use than mine. Although I was
allowed to do the assignment at home, I ended up learning both systems because I was helping a bunch of other students.
-hh <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> wrote:
On 12/28/24 5:17 PM, Joel wrote:
Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
people ... buy a laptop every three years, to keep
up with M$'s grotesque OS's bloat, so that they can have their pretty >>>>> Office apps. It's unbelievable. The value I'm getting from my
computer is beyond what they could know.
I was telling my wife the exact same thing. We're not doing much more
than we were in 2008, yet a 2008 machine would be incapable of handling >>>> today's software (unless it's running Linux). At some point, people need >>>> to wake up and realize that the exponential increase in speed isn't
offering any real benefit to users who are doing anything other than
video editing or gaming.
It's just a scheme to keep people upgrading hardware.
Only if you allow it to be.
Hence why I'm running and advocating Linux.
Case in point, I've recently replaced a 2017 laptop, which in its seven
years of use only had $135 in MS software purchases: that's <$2/month.
Its replacement's initial software was $100 (MS Office 2024), which
should be good for four years and be similarly cost just ~$2/month.
If I optionally choose to add photo editing, a new license for Adobe
Photoshop Elements is currently $70 for 3 years, which is ~$2/month.
Sure, but that doesn't address increasing demands on hardware.
I remember being in high school and talking about the latest 486 and dual-speed CD-ROM when my English teacher came up to me and asked me
what was so exciting about that. He told me he was using some ancient technology (I don't remember which) and mentioned that the exam we just
did was prepared on that. I was actually surprised to hear that because
I recalled that printers in the 1980s other than PC ones were usually
tiny daisy wheel ones.
On Sun, 29 Dec 2024 01:43:11 +0000, Ant wrote:
What do you use to edit/create documents and spreadsheets with others?
I don't. Anything I create is done with Vim. For external use we have tech writers that make it pretty. My attempts to edit RFPs with LibreOffice
don't work well, so I either use Vim and reference the sections or print relevant pages and use a pen.
And of course I still get the occasional .doc[x] attachment from
someone who only *needs* a note-taking program, but only *has* (or knows
how to use) Word. Luckily my current Windows 11 seems to grok such
files, at least I didn't have to install LibreOffice since I got it,
over two years ago. Knock on wood.
On 29 Dec 2024 00:53:43 GMT, rbowman wrote:
[snip]
Is that progress? Beat's me. I was at a museum that had a display of
the development of household labor saving devices. It noted that when
housewives received all these new time savers they tended to find new
things to spend the saved time on.
Including ridiculous standards for "clean".
I programmed an Arduino to control my Christmas lights. I enjoyed
fitting the Morse code translation table into as little memory as
possible (only 96 bytes).
Amazing that none of you has mentioned latex.
On 2024-12-29 07:58, rbowman wrote:
On Sun, 29 Dec 2024 01:43:11 +0000, Ant wrote:
What do you use to edit/create documents and spreadsheets with others?
I don't. Anything I create is done with Vim. For external use we have
tech writers that make it pretty. My attempts to edit RFPs with
LibreOffice don't work well, so I either use Vim and reference the
sections or print relevant pages and use a pen.
Amazing that none of you has mentioned latex. You can edit documents
with vi.
On Sun, 29 Dec 2024 07:17:32 -0500, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
I remember being in high school and talking about the latest 486 and
dual-speed CD-ROM when my English teacher came up to me and asked me
what was so exciting about that. He told me he was using some ancient
technology (I don't remember which) and mentioned that the exam we just
did was prepared on that. I was actually surprised to hear that because
I recalled that printers in the 1980s other than PC ones were usually
tiny daisy wheel ones.
My hatred for printers goes way back. The products were laboratory pH
meters and auto-titrators but they could print out the results. Every
printer was different, dot matrix, daisy wheels, thermal, and so forth. We would send a gopher to ComputerLand to buy a printer, determine what it needed to print, and then send the gopher back to exchange it for another model. We legitimately bought enough from ComputerLand that they put up
with the ruse. The worst were the little thermals but they were popular in labs.
I was amazed when I plugged the USB Samsung into the Ubuntu box and it
just worked. That definitely has not been my experience with printers.
-hh <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> wrote:
I've recently replaced a 2017 laptop, which in its seven
years of use only had $135 in MS software purchases: that's <$2/month. >>>> Its replacement's initial software was $100 (MS Office 2024), which
should be good for four years and be similarly cost just ~$2/month.
If I optionally choose to add photo editing, a new license for Adobe
Photoshop Elements is currently $70 for 3 years, which is ~$2/month.
Sure, but that doesn't address increasing demands on hardware.
Oh, so *one* software upgrade over 7 years is suddenly now going to be
some undue 'hardware demand'? Not even for MS-Office it isn't.
I had the ideal computer, to upgrade to Windows 11, in 2021. Freshly
built with Win10, SSD storage, blah blah, but 23H2 was already feeling overweight. Hence running Linux till this thing dies.
On 29 Dec 2024 19:44:19 GMT, Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 29 Dec 2024 00:53:43 GMT, rbowman wrote:
[snip]
Is that progress? Beat's me. I was at a museum that had a display of
the development of household labor saving devices. It noted that when
housewives received all these new time savers they tended to find new
things to spend the saved time on.
Including ridiculous standards for "clean".
The need to instantly refrigerate everything is the one that gets me. For
one reason or the other I've had periods without a refrigerator. A dozen
eggs sitting on the counter won't hatch or go bad for a week or two.
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
[...]
Amazing that none of you has mentioned latex.
This isn't that kind of group!
If I optionally choose to add photo editing, a new license for Adobe Photoshop Elements is currently $70 for 3 years, which is ~$2/month.
Amazing that none of you has mentioned latex.
On Sun, 29 Dec 2024 13:16:57 -0500, -hh wrote:
If I optionally choose to add photo editing, a new license for Adobe
Photoshop Elements is currently $70 for 3 years, which is ~$2/month.
And you have to keep paying for the rest of your life just to retain
control over your own work.
On 2024-12-29 07:58, rbowman wrote:
On Sun, 29 Dec 2024 01:43:11 +0000, Ant wrote:
What do you use to edit/create documents and spreadsheets with others?
I don't. Anything I create is done with Vim. For external use we have
tech
writers that make it pretty. My attempts to edit RFPs with LibreOffice
don't work well, so I either use Vim and reference the sections or print
relevant pages and use a pen.
Amazing that none of you has mentioned latex. You can edit documents
with vi.
Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
I had the ideal computer, to upgrade to Windows 11, in 2021. Freshly
built with Win10, SSD storage, blah blah, but 23H2 was already feeling
overweight. Hence running Linux till this thing dies.
Even with the traditionally-heavy KDE, my computer runs lighter than it
did with Windows 11 24H2. Not only does it boot faster and use less RAM
(3.4GB as we speak), there is much less storage activity and typing
feels a lot more responsive. The best part is that every one of the
things that tended not to work for me in the past works perfectly under
Fedora 41.
Yup, I'm using Cinnamon under Debian 12, it's bloated by Larry's
standards but nothing like M$.
On 29 Dec 2024 16:39:41 GMT, Frank Slootweg wrote:
And of course I still get the occasional .doc[x] attachment from
someone who only *needs* a note-taking program, but only *has* (or knows
how to use) Word. Luckily my current Windows 11 seems to grok such
files, at least I didn't have to install LibreOffice since I got it,
over two years ago. Knock on wood.
That's my annoyance with Excel. Any xls document I've ever gotten was a freeform notepad with handy rows. I can't recall ever getting a xls where there were any manipulations on the cells. When all you know how to use is
a hammer...
Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
I had the ideal computer, to upgrade to Windows 11, in 2021. Freshly >>>>> built with Win10, SSD storage, blah blah, but 23H2 was already feeling >>>>> overweight. Hence running Linux till this thing dies.
Even with the traditionally-heavy KDE, my computer runs lighter than it >>>> did with Windows 11 24H2. Not only does it boot faster and use less RAM >>>> (3.4GB as we speak), there is much less storage activity and typing
feels a lot more responsive. The best part is that every one of the
things that tended not to work for me in the past works perfectly under >>>> Fedora 41.
Yup, I'm using Cinnamon under Debian 12, it's bloated by Larry's
standards but nothing like M$.
Larry doesn't like bloat because he has to stare at his fat ass every day.
I just cannot understand his perspective in the slightest way - he's
using a Xeon chip with a hard drive, running a barebones setup of
Linux that has no modern Web browser, it's just as bizarre as could
be.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sun, 29 Dec 2024 13:16:57 -0500, -hh wrote:
If I optionally choose to add photo editing, a new license for Adobe
Photoshop Elements is currently $70 for 3 years, which is ~$2/month.
And you have to keep paying for the rest of your life just to retain
control over your own work.
I can live without Adobe, yeah. I gave Photoshop a chance. It's not terrible, but it's bloatware like Wintendo itself, Linux and GIMP are
not as rich with GUI-centric "features" perhaps, but they are what I
feel comfortable running on my precious hardware.
On 12/29/2024 5:02 PM, Joel wrote:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sun, 29 Dec 2024 13:16:57 -0500, -hh wrote:
If I optionally choose to add photo editing, a new license for Adobe
Photoshop Elements is currently $70 for 3 years, which is ~$2/month.
And you have to keep paying for the rest of your life just to retain
control over your own work.
I can live without Adobe, yeah. I gave Photoshop a chance. It's not
terrible, but it's bloatware like Wintendo itself, Linux and GIMP are
not as rich with GUI-centric "features" perhaps, but they are what I
feel comfortable running on my precious hardware.
"Precious hardware"
That's funny
"Precious hardware"
That's funny
It's funny to an extent,
On 12/29/24 3:17 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2024-12-29 07:58, rbowman wrote:
On Sun, 29 Dec 2024 01:43:11 +0000, Ant wrote:
What do you use to edit/create documents and spreadsheets with others?
I don't. Anything I create is done with Vim. For external use we have
tech
writers that make it pretty. My attempts to edit RFPs with LibreOffice
don't work well, so I either use Vim and reference the sections or print >>> relevant pages and use a pen.
Amazing that none of you has mentioned latex. You can edit documents
with vi.
Good point. I have friends who used to use latex quite a bit for large documents with interesting formatting needs.
There also was Encapsulated Postscript (EPS) too...I don't know much
more about it, other than MS dropped support of it after Word 5.
"Precious hardware"
That's funny
It's my baby, yes, I have an emotional attachment to my computer, I
assembled it. M$ crapware, other than such for Linux, can step off.
--
I Stand With Israel!
"That's funny."
On 12/29/2024 6:51 PM, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
"Precious hardware"
That's funny
It's funny to an extent,
---snip---
No. It's funny because it's fucking stupid.
My new puppy is precious. My computers are just fucking machines.
On 2024-12-29 22:05, rbowman wrote:
On 29 Dec 2024 19:44:19 GMT, Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 29 Dec 2024 00:53:43 GMT, rbowman wrote:
[snip]
Is that progress? Beat's me. I was at a museum that had a display of
the development of household labor saving devices. It noted that when
housewives received all these new time savers they tended to find new
things to spend the saved time on.
Including ridiculous standards for "clean".
The need to instantly refrigerate everything is the one that gets me.
For one reason or the other I've had periods without a refrigerator. A
dozen eggs sitting on the counter won't hatch or go bad for a week or
two.
If you wash the eggs you have to refrigerate them; otherwise, ambient temperature is just fine (for a shorter time than refrigerated, of
course).
I have a colleague who's done some amazing stuff in Excel using Visual
Basic Script (VBS); the PC I had at the time would fail just trying to
load the files; his beefy machine he had would take literally hours to
crunch through a set. A quick search shows that I still have an older
copy: it takes up 14.34GB on disk. Youch.
On 12/29/24 5:55 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Sun, 29 Dec 2024 13:16:57 -0500, -hh wrote:
If I optionally choose to add photo editing, a new license for Adobe
Photoshop Elements is currently $70 for 3 years, which is ~$2/month.
And you have to keep paying for the rest of your life just to retain
control over your own work.
That's only true if no non-Adobe apps can open Adobe's .psd file
format ...
I have a colleague who's done some amazing stuff in Excel using Visual
Basic Script (VBS); the PC I had at the time would fail just trying to
load the files; his beefy machine he had would take literally hours to
crunch through a set. A quick search shows that I still have an older
copy: it takes up 14.34GB on disk. Youch.
There also was Encapsulated Postscript (EPS) too...
PostScript was a big deal, back in the day when desktop/workstation
machines had more primitive graphics stacks. EPS was a way of embedding
such graphics in a form that they could be sent to a printer that
understood PostScript, from a machine which did not.
On Sun, 29 Dec 2024 19:08:00 -0500, -hh <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> wrote:
I have a colleague who's done some amazing stuff in Excel using Visual >>Basic Script (VBS); the PC I had at the time would fail just trying to
load the files; his beefy machine he had would take literally hours to >>crunch through a set. A quick search shows that I still have an older >>copy: it takes up 14.34GB on disk. Youch.
I assume you meant to say VBA, Visual Basic for Applications, which is
built into each of the major MS Office applications?
"I obviously have some emotional issues."
On 2024-12-29 21:41, Frank Slootweg wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
[...]
Amazing that none of you has mentioned latex.
This isn't that kind of group!
Latex is software :-P
sticks <wolverine01@charter.net> wrote:
"Precious hardware"
That's funny
It's my baby, yes, I have an emotional attachment to my computer, I
assembled it. M$ crapware, other than such for Linux, can step off.
Fine, you obviously have some emotional issues. I don't really give a
shit what you call or how you feel attached to your computer. Have at
it weirdo. I'm still laffing at you.
--
I Stand With Israel!
"That's funny."
Now that you Linux guys have completely taken a shit on the win11 group,
you're now stooping to commenting on sig files. I manage to only use 4
words to get my point across. You on the other hand have written a
short essay for yours. Kinda fits your character.
FWIW, I got no problem with the way the normal people talk about Linux
here. One of our favorites in this group regularly uses it for things
and shares his experiences. He even manages to point out the flaws and
problems with the various microsoft operating systems. Everybody
appreciates the education a handful of people in these groups give us.
What they don't do is rave on an on about how horrible microsoft is at
every chance they get and advocate Linux above all else in a fucking
windows newsgroup. We're here to learn about Windows 11 and if Linux
can be of use in sorting things out great. But you can take your Linux
pom poms and wear yourself out in your advocacy group. It's just
getting a little old around here IMO. Other than that....Fuck Off!
"You obviously have some emotional issues."
On Sun, 29 Dec 2024 18:46:59 -0500, -hh wrote:
On 12/29/24 5:55 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Sun, 29 Dec 2024 13:16:57 -0500, -hh wrote:
If I optionally choose to add photo editing, a new license for Adobe
Photoshop Elements is currently $70 for 3 years, which is ~$2/month.
And you have to keep paying for the rest of your life just to retain
control over your own work.
That's only true if no non-Adobe apps can open Adobe's .psd file
format ...
And assuming that Adobe doesn’t keep making tweaks to its proprietary format precisely to sabotage other apps’ ability to open the files correctly.
CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
Le 2024-12-21 à 03:52, Mr. Man-wai Chang a écrit :
On 20/12/2024 9:03 am, CrudeSausage wrote:
<https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-365-users-
hit-by-random-product-deactivation-errors/>
Microsoft is investigating a known issue triggering "Product
Deactivated" errors for customers using Microsoft 365 Office apps.
It's not about "owning the software", but whether it requires a real-
time online account to work. The usual words are "standalone" and
"offline". :)
The moment you require an online account to verify if you are the person
who bought the software, you don't own it.
You've never "owned" software, afaia. At best, you own a licence which
allows you to use the software within the terms of the licence. If you
break the terms then you can lose the right to use the software.
Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
On 2024-12-28 15:12, Joel wrote:
Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
On 2024-12-28 14:34, rbowman wrote:
You do realize there is a whole world outside of Office?
Yeah, it sometimes pains me that it is brought up as often as it is as >>>> some sort of must-have piece of software. It suggests that people don't >>>> do much other than open up Word and Excel.
Yes, they get these people to buy a laptop every three years, to keep
up with M$'s grotesque OS's bloat, so that they can have their pretty
Office apps. It's unbelievable. The value I'm getting from my
computer is beyond what they could know.
I was telling my wife the exact same thing. We're not doing much more
than we were in 2008, yet a 2008 machine would be incapable of handling
today's software (unless it's running Linux). At some point, people need
to wake up and realize that the exponential increase in speed isn't
offering any real benefit to users who are doing anything other than
video editing or gaming.
In a domestic setting, that's true. Much less so professionally. A 2008 machine wouldn't be able to run Teams, for example. Or manage the majority
of creative, technical or scientific tasks we take for granted nowadays.
On Sun, 29 Dec 2024 19:08:00 -0500, -hh wrote:
I have a colleague who's done some amazing stuff in Excel using Visual
Basic Script (VBS); the PC I had at the time would fail just trying to
load the files; his beefy machine he had would take literally hours to
crunch through a set. A quick search shows that I still have an older
copy: it takes up 14.34GB on disk. Youch.
How much data was involved, really? I suspect a more sensible app would
deal with the same data much more efficiently and easily.
On Sun, 29 Dec 2024 22:30:53 -0600, Char Jackson wrote:
On Sun, 29 Dec 2024 19:08:00 -0500, -hh <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com>
wrote:
I have a colleague who's done some amazing stuff in Excel using Visual
Basic Script (VBS); the PC I had at the time would fail just trying to
load the files; his beefy machine he had would take literally hours to
crunch through a set. A quick search shows that I still have an older
copy: it takes up 14.34GB on disk. Youch.
I assume you meant to say VBA, Visual Basic for Applications, which is
built into each of the major MS Office applications?
Possibly, but there was a VBScript.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VBScript
On 26/12/2024 4:39 am, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
As a programmer, I like to use powerful and versatile tools. That
includes
the ability to automate workflow.
Tools exist for this purpose, like odfpy for ISO 26300 files, which are
the native format of LibreOffice. And LibreOffice itself can run Python
code.
My programming tasks has never ever needed to automate Office using VBA.
The moment you require an online account to verify if you are the person
who bought the software, you don't own it.
Yeah, it sometimes pains me that it is brought up as often as it is as
some sort of must-have piece of software. It suggests that people don't
do much other than open up Word and Excel.
On 2024-12-29 21:49, Joel wrote:Microsoft won't ease up on the TPM requirement and manufacturers don't want to deploy an update for the machines they've sold.
sticks <wolverine01@charter.net> wrote:
"Precious hardware"
That's funny
It's my baby, yes, I have an emotional attachment to my computer, I
assembled it. M$ crapware, other than such for Linux, can step off.
Fine, you obviously have some emotional issues. I don't really give a
shit what you call or how you feel attached to your computer. Have at
it weirdo. I'm still laffing at you.
--
I Stand With Israel!
"That's funny."
Now that you Linux guys have completely taken a shit on the win11 group, >>> you're now stooping to commenting on sig files. I manage to only use 4 >>> words to get my point across. You on the other hand have written a
short essay for yours. Kinda fits your character.
FWIW, I got no problem with the way the normal people talk about Linux
here. One of our favorites in this group regularly uses it for things
and shares his experiences. He even manages to point out the flaws and >>> problems with the various microsoft operating systems. Everybody
appreciates the education a handful of people in these groups give us.
What they don't do is rave on an on about how horrible microsoft is at
every chance they get and advocate Linux above all else in a fucking
windows newsgroup. We're here to learn about Windows 11 and if Linux
can be of use in sorting things out great. But you can take your Linux >>> pom poms and wear yourself out in your advocacy group. It's just
getting a little old around here IMO. Other than that....Fuck Off!
"You obviously have some emotional issues."
Ignore him. Looking back, I had an emotional attachment to the Powerbook G4 I used in the early 2000s and still remember my MSI GT72 very fondly.
Meanwhile, he wants to learn about Windows 11. Good for him. The rest of us want to be educated on why a majority of AMD-powered computers in the wild will be forced to suffer fTPM stuttering even three years after the problem surfaced because
On 12/29/24 11:52 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
How much data was involved, really? I suspect a more sensible app would
deal with the same data much more efficiently and easily.
There was a pretty modest chunk of data ... maybe just 1000 unique data points?
What made it large & computationally intensive was that the dataset was routed iteratively through a ~dozen different "Monte Carlo" statistical exercises and filters to identify & glean signal from noise.
https://www.ghacks.net/2022/06/27/bypass-windows-11-microsoft-account-requirement-and-deny-privacy-questions-during-setup-with-rufus/
"Remove requirement for Secure Boot and TPM 2.0"
If you ever do need to automate office software or build custom
applications, you'll find that MS Office and VBA is extremely superior
to ALL other office software.
-hh <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> wrote:
I have a colleague who's done some amazing stuff in Excel using Visual
Basic Script (VBS); the PC I had at the time would fail just trying to
load the files; his beefy machine he had would take literally hours to
crunch through a set. A quick search shows that I still have an older
copy: it takes up 14.34GB on disk. Youch.
Sounds horribly inefficient and virtually impossible to debug. I'd bet a decent python script would do it in minutes, with a tiny footprint and
be reliable.
Markdown is also great for embedding interpretable code which can be evaluated when knitted or compiled. Perfect for writing data reports as
part of a workflow.
On 12/28/2024 3:07 PM, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
Yeah, it sometimes pains me that it is brought up as often as it is as
some sort of must-have piece of software. It suggests that people
don't do much other than open up Word and Excel.
Why are you whining about MS Office, when Larry Duh brought up
LibreOffice first (in this thread)?
Besides which, hundreds of millions of people live and die by MS Office
at work.
On Mon, 12/30/2024 8:31 AM, Andrzej Matuch wrote:Microsoft won't ease up on the TPM requirement and manufacturers don't want to deploy an update for the machines they've sold.
On 2024-12-29 21:49, Joel wrote:
sticks <wolverine01@charter.net> wrote:
Fine, you obviously have some emotional issues. I don't really give a >>>> shit what you call or how you feel attached to your computer. Have at >>>> it weirdo. I'm still laffing at you."Precious hardware"
That's funny
It's my baby, yes, I have an emotional attachment to my computer, I
assembled it. M$ crapware, other than such for Linux, can step off. >>>>
--
I Stand With Israel!
"That's funny."
Now that you Linux guys have completely taken a shit on the win11 group, >>>> you're now stooping to commenting on sig files. I manage to only use 4 >>>> words to get my point across. You on the other hand have written a
short essay for yours. Kinda fits your character.
FWIW, I got no problem with the way the normal people talk about Linux >>>> here. One of our favorites in this group regularly uses it for things >>>> and shares his experiences. He even manages to point out the flaws and >>>> problems with the various microsoft operating systems. Everybody
appreciates the education a handful of people in these groups give us. >>>>
What they don't do is rave on an on about how horrible microsoft is at >>>> every chance they get and advocate Linux above all else in a fucking
windows newsgroup. We're here to learn about Windows 11 and if Linux >>>> can be of use in sorting things out great. But you can take your Linux >>>> pom poms and wear yourself out in your advocacy group. It's just
getting a little old around here IMO. Other than that....Fuck Off!
"You obviously have some emotional issues."
Ignore him. Looking back, I had an emotional attachment to the Powerbook G4 I used in the early 2000s and still remember my MSI GT72 very fondly.
Meanwhile, he wants to learn about Windows 11. Good for him. The rest of us want to be educated on why a majority of AMD-powered computers in the wild will be forced to suffer fTPM stuttering even three years after the problem surfaced because
We wave "Hi" from the Windows group :-)
https://www.ghacks.net/2022/06/27/bypass-windows-11-microsoft-account-requirement-and-deny-privacy-questions-during-setup-with-rufus/
"Remove requirement for Secure Boot and TPM 2.0"
Happy motoring!
On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 19:12:32 -0500, Paul wrote:
https://www.ghacks.net/2022/06/27/bypass-windows-11-microsoft-account-requirement-and-deny-privacy-questions-during-setup-with-rufus/
"Remove requirement for Secure Boot and TPM 2.0"
This is why they say, Windows is a great OS -- if your time is worth
nothing.
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2024-12-29 21:41, Frank Slootweg wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
[...]
Amazing that none of you has mentioned latex.
This isn't that kind of group!
Latex is software :-P
Obviously, but as you used all lowercase, it screamed for a pun. And
of course, it's 'LaTeX'.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX>
On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 18:58:06 -0500, DFS wrote:
If you ever do need to automate office software or build custom
applications, you'll find that MS Office and VBA is extremely superior
to ALL other office software.
Unfortunately, no.
Even Microsoft realizes that VBA is crap, which is why
it is offering Python access to Excel users -- at a cost, of course.
On 12/21/2024 7:26 AM, CrudeSausage wrote:
The moment you require an online account to verify if you are the person
who bought the software, you don't own it.
You don't own GuhNoo-GPL software either. The only sofware you actually
own is stuff you write for yourself, or that you get copyright to.
You don't own public domain stuff, either.
On 12/30/2024 7:59 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 18:58:06 -0500, DFS wrote:
If you ever do need to automate office software or build custom
applications, you'll find that MS Office and VBA is extremely superior
to ALL other office software.
Unfortunately, no.
You have NO idea what you're talking about.
Even Microsoft realizes that VBA is crap, which is why
it is offering Python access to Excel users -- at a cost, of course.
Python can't come close to replacing VBA (and vice versa of course).
Le 31-12-2024, DFS <guhnoo-basher@linux.advocaca> a écrit :
On 12/21/2024 7:26 AM, CrudeSausage wrote:
The moment you require an online account to verify if you are the person >>> who bought the software, you don't own it.
You don't own GuhNoo-GPL software either. The only sofware you actually
own is stuff you write for yourself, or that you get copyright to.
You don't own public domain stuff, either.
It means nothing to own an immaterial stuff in a general sense. Nobody
owns any software, music or book. Some own the right on it, it's not the same. Or some own a digital copy of it. It's still not the same.
Now, you can own the exclusive privilege to manage what's on your own computer (in a large sense, a smartphone is a computer, too). With FOSS,
you can be the master. With Windows and Mac, you can hope they won't do anything bad, but you have no certainty. Microsoft already changed
Windows behaviour putting the config files on their cloud. You can tell
as long as you want, that without proof we can't accuse them of
anything. The fact remains that never doing anything bad in the past is
no certainty they won't change in the future.
Look at what Amazon did, when people believed they managed the kindle
and the books they bought. Before, there was no proof. After, there is
proof, but it's too late: <https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html>
You can say that they removed illegal stuff refunding the customers, but
the fact remains: people discovered Amazon, not they, manage the kindle
they had in their hands and can interfere.
On 2024-12-30 11:56, Frank Slootweg wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2024-12-29 21:41, Frank Slootweg wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
[...]
Amazing that none of you has mentioned latex.
This isn't that kind of group!
Latex is software :-P
Obviously, but as you used all lowercase, it screamed for a pun. And
of course, it's 'LaTeX'.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX>
Well, I do not talk LaTeX, so I do not know.
I do know, though, that I do have a command named "latex" in my computer.
cer@Telcontar:~> latex --version
pdfTeX 3.141592653-2.6-1.40.22 (TeX Live 2021/TeX Live for SUSE Linux) kpathsea version 6.3.3
Copyright 2021 Han The Thanh (pdfTeX) et al.
There is NO warranty. Redistribution of this software is
covered by the terms of both the pdfTeX copyright and
the Lesser GNU General Public License.
For more information about these matters, see the file
named COPYING and the pdfTeX source.
Primary author of pdfTeX: Han The Thanh (pdfTeX) et al.
Compiled with libpng 1.6.34; using libpng 1.6.34
Compiled with zlib 1.2.11; using zlib 1.2.13
Compiled with xpdf version 4.03
cer@Telcontar:~>
On 2024-12-30 19:53, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:Microsoft confirmed quite recently that despite news that they were easing the TPM requirement, they're not actually planning on doing so. <https://windowsforum.com/threads/windows-11-installation-no-easing-of-hardware-requirements-confirmed.347806/>
On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 19:12:32 -0500, Paul wrote:
https://www.ghacks.net/2022/06/27/bypass-windows-11-microsoft-account-requirement-and-deny-privacy-questions-during-setup-with-rufus/
"Remove requirement for Secure Boot and TPM 2.0"
This is why they say, Windows is a great OS -- if your time is worth
nothing.
And there is no reason to believe that circumventing both Secure Boot and TPM will lead to a Windows installation which will respect your decision not to use either feature. Any update you are forced to install might suddenly lock you out of the system.
The message here is clear: if you like AMD but don't want fTPM stuttering, your best choice is Linux.
Le 31-12-2024, DFS <guhnoo-basher@linux.advocaca> a écrit :
On 12/21/2024 7:26 AM, CrudeSausage wrote:
The moment you require an online account to verify if you are the person >>> who bought the software, you don't own it.
You don't own GuhNoo-GPL software either. The only sofware you actually
own is stuff you write for yourself, or that you get copyright to.
You don't own public domain stuff, either.
It means nothing to own an immaterial stuff in a general sense. Nobody
owns any software, music or book. Some own the right on it, it's not the same. Or some own a digital copy of it. It's still not the same.
Now, you can own the exclusive privilege to manage what's on your own computer (in a large sense, a smartphone is a computer, too). With FOSS,
you can be the master. With Windows and Mac, you can hope they won't do anything bad, but you have no certainty.
Microsoft already changed
Windows behaviour putting the config files on their cloud. You can tell
as long as you want, that without proof we can't accuse them of
anything. The fact remains that never doing anything bad in the past is
no certainty they won't change in the future.
Look at what Amazon did, when people believed they managed the kindle
and the books they bought. Before, there was no proof. After, there is
proof, but it's too late: <https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html>
You can say that they removed illegal stuff refunding the customers, but
the fact remains: people discovered Amazon, not they, manage the kindle
they had in their hands and can interfere.
On 2024-12-31 02:18, DFS wrote:
On 12/30/2024 7:59 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 18:58:06 -0500, DFS wrote:
If you ever do need to automate office software or build custom
applications, you'll find that MS Office and VBA is extremely superior >>>> to ALL other office software.
Unfortunately, no.
You have NO idea what you're talking about.
Even Microsoft realizes that VBA is crap, which is why
it is offering Python access to Excel users -- at a cost, of course.
Python can't come close to replacing VBA (and vice versa of course).
I remember Visual Basic as being the "superior" language which caused
all the computers in my CÉGEP's computer lab to get infected and result
in shockingly slow printing and caused students to miss their deadlines.
Andrzej Matuch wrote this post while blinking in Morse code:
On 2024-12-31 02:18, DFS wrote:
On 12/30/2024 7:59 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 18:58:06 -0500, DFS wrote:
If you ever do need to automate office software or build custom
applications, you'll find that MS Office and VBA is extremely superior >>>>> to ALL other office software.
Unfortunately, no.
You have NO idea what you're talking about.
> Even Microsoft realizes that VBA is crap, which is why
> it is offering Python access to Excel users -- at a cost, of course. >>>
Python can't come close to replacing VBA (and vice versa of course).
AI Overview:
While both Python and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) can be used for
automation, Python is generally considered a more versatile and
general-purpose language, making it better for complex tasks beyond just
Microsoft Office applications, whereas VBA is specifically designed to
automate tasks within Microsoft Office programs like Excel and Word, making
it ideal for simpler, application-specific automation within that
environment.
Examples: NumPy, SciPy, STUMPY, Pandas.
On the other hand:
https://github.com/sancarn/awesome-vba
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2024-12-30 11:56, Frank Slootweg wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2024-12-29 21:41, Frank Slootweg wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
[...]
Amazing that none of you has mentioned latex.
This isn't that kind of group!
Latex is software :-P
Obviously, but as you used all lowercase, it screamed for a pun. And
of course, it's 'LaTeX'.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX>
Well, I do not talk LaTeX, so I do not know.
I do know, though, that I do have a command named "latex" in my computer.
cer@Telcontar:~> latex --version
pdfTeX 3.141592653-2.6-1.40.22 (TeX Live 2021/TeX Live for SUSE Linux)
kpathsea version 6.3.3
Copyright 2021 Han The Thanh (pdfTeX) et al.
There is NO warranty. Redistribution of this software is
covered by the terms of both the pdfTeX copyright and
the Lesser GNU General Public License.
For more information about these matters, see the file
named COPYING and the pdfTeX source.
Primary author of pdfTeX: Han The Thanh (pdfTeX) et al.
Compiled with libpng 1.6.34; using libpng 1.6.34
Compiled with zlib 1.2.11; using zlib 1.2.13
Compiled with xpdf version 4.03
cer@Telcontar:~>
Yes, I know you use Linux, so I indeed assumed that lowercase 'latex'
is a command on Linux.
I've never used LaTeX either, but from the Wikipedia ppage, I
understand that LaTeX is the markup/formatting language and that <something>TeX<something> is the software/program which processes that language. That understanding id confirmed by the fact that your
'latex --version' output mentions '<something>TeX<something>', but not 'LaTeX'.
Bottom line: Two guys talking about something they don't know anything about! :-)
People even resorted to small claims courts, to get even with Microsoft.
LaTeX is a buncha wrapper macros to simplify TeX, I think.
On 12/30/2024 7:59 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 18:58:06 -0500, DFS wrote:
If you ever do need to automate office software or build custom
applications, you'll find that MS Office and VBA is extremely superior
to ALL other office software.
Unfortunately, no.
You have NO idea what you're talking about.
Even Microsoft realizes that VBA is crap, which is why
it is offering Python access to Excel users -- at a cost, of course.
Python can't come close to replacing VBA (and vice versa of course).
Thanks for that great link. I haven't written any meaningful VBA code
in years, but it helps make MS Office the only office software worth considering if you need custom applications.
LaTeX is a buncha wrapper macros to simplify TeX, I think.
On 12/30/2024 7:59 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 18:58:06 -0500, DFS wrote:
If you ever do need to automate office software or build custom
applications, you'll find that MS Office and VBA is extremely superior
to ALL other office software.
Unfortunately, no.
You have NO idea what you're talking about.
Even Microsoft realizes that VBA is crap, which is why it is offering Python access to Excel users -- at a cost, of course.
Python can't come close to replacing VBA (and vice versa of course).
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2024-12-30 11:56, Frank Slootweg wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2024-12-29 21:41, Frank Slootweg wrote:
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
[...]
Amazing that none of you has mentioned latex.
This isn't that kind of group!
Latex is software :-P
Obviously, but as you used all lowercase, it screamed for a pun. And >>> of course, it's 'LaTeX'.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX>
Well, I do not talk LaTeX, so I do not know.
I do know, though, that I do have a command named "latex" in my computer.
cer@Telcontar:~> latex --version
pdfTeX 3.141592653-2.6-1.40.22 (TeX Live 2021/TeX Live for SUSE Linux)
kpathsea version 6.3.3
Copyright 2021 Han The Thanh (pdfTeX) et al.
There is NO warranty. Redistribution of this software is
covered by the terms of both the pdfTeX copyright and
the Lesser GNU General Public License.
For more information about these matters, see the file
named COPYING and the pdfTeX source.
Primary author of pdfTeX: Han The Thanh (pdfTeX) et al.
Compiled with libpng 1.6.34; using libpng 1.6.34
Compiled with zlib 1.2.11; using zlib 1.2.13
Compiled with xpdf version 4.03
cer@Telcontar:~>
Yes, I know you use Linux, so I indeed assumed that lowercase 'latex'
is a command on Linux.
I've never used LaTeX either, but from the Wikipedia ppage, I
understand that LaTeX is the markup/formatting language and that <something>TeX<something> is the software/program which processes that language. That understanding id confirmed by the fact that your
'latex --version' output mentions '<something>TeX<something>', but not 'LaTeX'.
Bottom line: Two guys talking about something they don't know anything about! :-)
On 2024-12-30 03:24, Chris wrote:
CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
Le 2024-12-21 à 03:52, Mr. Man-wai Chang a écrit :
On 20/12/2024 9:03 am, CrudeSausage wrote:
<https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-365-users- >>>>> hit-by-random-product-deactivation-errors/>
Microsoft is investigating a known issue triggering "Product
Deactivated" errors for customers using Microsoft 365 Office apps.
It's not about "owning the software", but whether it requires a real-
time online account to work. The usual words are "standalone" and
"offline". :)
The moment you require an online account to verify if you are the person >>> who bought the software, you don't own it.
You've never "owned" software, afaia. At best, you own a licence which
allows you to use the software within the terms of the licence. If you
break the terms then you can lose the right to use the software.
It's pretty easy to own the software if you use open-source, to be
honest. You have access to the code and can do as you wish with it as
long as you agree to share your modifications with the people who
offered it to you. That's as good as it gets outside of producing your
own program.
On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 19:12:32 -0500, Paul wrote:
https://www.ghacks.net/2022/06/27/bypass-windows-11-microsoft-account-requirement-and-deny-privacy-questions-during-setup-with-rufus/
"Remove requirement for Secure Boot and TPM 2.0"
This is why they say, Windows is a great OS -- if your time is worth
nothing.
On Tue, 31 Dec 2024 02:18:09 -0500, DFS wrote:
On 12/30/2024 7:59 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 18:58:06 -0500, DFS wrote:
If you ever do need to automate office software or build custom
applications, you'll find that MS Office and VBA is extremely superior >>>> to ALL other office software.
Unfortunately, no.
You have NO idea what you're talking about.
> Even Microsoft realizes that VBA is crap, which is why it is offering
> Python access to Excel users -- at a cost, of course.
Python can't come close to replacing VBA (and vice versa of course).
Esri did a good job of replacing VBA.
https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-desktop/3d-gis/arcgis- desktop-and-vba-moving-forward/?rmedium=redirect&rsource=blogs.esri.com/ esri/arcgis/2016/11/14/arcgis-desktop-and-vba-moving-forward
They had their own scripting language, Avenue, and switched to VBA over 20 years ago,
https://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/fall02articles/new-tool.html
For a while VBA and Python coexisted, but VBA was phased out.
Enjoy living in the past.
On 12/31/2024 2:25 PM, rbowman wrote:rmedium=redirect&rsource=blogs.esri.com/
On Tue, 31 Dec 2024 02:18:09 -0500, DFS wrote:
On 12/30/2024 7:59 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 18:58:06 -0500, DFS wrote:
If you ever do need to automate office software or build custom
applications, you'll find that MS Office and VBA is extremely
superior to ALL other office software.
Unfortunately, no.
You have NO idea what you're talking about.
> Even Microsoft realizes that VBA is crap, which is why it is
> offering Python access to Excel users -- at a cost, of course.
Python can't come close to replacing VBA (and vice versa of course).
Esri did a good job of replacing VBA.
https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-desktop/3d-gis/arcgis-
desktop-and-vba-moving-forward/?
esri/arcgis/2016/11/14/arcgis-desktop-and-vba-moving-forward
They had their own scripting language, Avenue, and switched to VBA over
20 years ago,
https://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/fall02articles/new-tool.html
The best embedded scripting language I came across was Borland ObjectPAL
(a derivative of Delphi), included with Borland Paradox for Windows in
the early-mid 90s. PDoxWin lives on in WordPerfect Office; not sure if
it still uses ObjectPAL. WP includes a limited VBA.
phased out.For a whil MS would dearly e VBA and Python coexisted, but VBA was
Of what?
Enjoy living in the past.
VBA is thriving in Office 2024 and 365. Get with the present.
Face it, there never have been such kind of artificial roadblocks,
ever from NT via 2000, XP, Vista, 7 and 8[.1] all the way up to 10. That spans some 32 years. Not bad, I would say.
FYI, please don't try to start a Windows versus Linux dispute with me.
I started with Unix/UNIX systems when both memory sizes were expressed
in KB and disk sizes were expressed in (a few) MB.
On 2024-12-30 16:08, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
On 2024-12-30 03:24, Chris wrote:
CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
Le 2024-12-21 à 03:52, Mr. Man-wai Chang a écrit :
On 20/12/2024 9:03 am, CrudeSausage wrote:
<https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-365-users- >>>>>> hit-by-random-product-deactivation-errors/>
Microsoft is investigating a known issue triggering "Product
Deactivated" errors for customers using Microsoft 365 Office apps. >>>>>>
It's not about "owning the software", but whether it requires a real- >>>>> time online account to work. The usual words are "standalone" and
"offline". :)
The moment you require an online account to verify if you are the
person
who bought the software, you don't own it.
You've never "owned" software, afaia. At best, you own a licence which
allows you to use the software within the terms of the licence. If you
break the terms then you can lose the right to use the software.
It's pretty easy to own the software if you use open-source, to be
honest. You have access to the code and can do as you wish with it as
long as you agree to share your modifications with the people who
offered it to you. That's as good as it gets outside of producing your
own program.
I think you can keep your modifications to yourself, as long as you
don't share or publish or sell the binary. Just your own internal usage.
On Tue, 31 Dec 2024 13:54:08 -0500, DFS wrote:
Thanks for that great link. I haven't written any meaningful VBA code
in years, but it helps make MS Office the only office software worth
considering if you need custom applications.
Nobody has written meaningful VBA code in years.
On Tue, 31 Dec 2024 13:18:02 -0500, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
LaTeX is a buncha wrapper macros to simplify TeX, I think.
All I know is 'Tex' is not pronounced like 'Tex Ritter'.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 08:25:01 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
I'd bet a decent python script would do it in minutes, with a tiny
footprint and be reliable.
Even Microsoft realizes that now.
I presume you're referring to excel now including a python interpreter.
I don't think it's much of an improvement.
On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 16:45:04 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 08:25:01 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
I'd bet a decent python script would do it in minutes, with a tiny
footprint and be reliable.
Even Microsoft realizes that now.
I presume you're referring to excel now including a python interpreter.
I don't think it's much of an improvement.
Obviously Microsoft is expecting its users to think otherwise. And it
wants to charge them for the privilege, so it must be expecting them to believe it’s an improvement worth paying extra money for.
So either Python is that much better than VBA, or VBA is that much worse
than Python. Take your pick. ;)
You still don't own it, but now it's purely semantics.
On 1/1/2025 2:31 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 16:45:04 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 08:25:01 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
I'd bet a decent python script would do it in minutes, with a tiny
footprint and be reliable.
Even Microsoft realizes that now.
I presume you're referring to excel now including a python
interpreter. I don't think it's much of an improvement.
Obviously Microsoft is expecting its users to think otherwise. And it
wants to charge them for the privilege, so it must be expecting them to
believe it’s an improvement worth paying extra money for.
So either Python is that much better than VBA, or VBA is that much
worse than Python. Take your pick. ;)
Python in Excel costs NOTHING.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/python-in-excel#pricing-plans
On 2024-12-30 19:12, Paul wrote:Microsoft won't ease up on the TPM requirement and manufacturers don't want to deploy an update for the machines they've sold.
On Mon, 12/30/2024 8:31 AM, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
On 2024-12-29 21:49, Joel wrote:
sticks <wolverine01@charter.net> wrote:
Fine, you obviously have some emotional issues. I don't really give a >>>>> shit what you call or how you feel attached to your computer. Have at >>>>> it weirdo. I'm still laffing at you."Precious hardware"
That's funny
It's my baby, yes, I have an emotional attachment to my computer, I >>>>>> assembled it. M$ crapware, other than such for Linux, can step off. >>>>>
--
I Stand With Israel!
"That's funny."
Now that you Linux guys have completely taken a shit on the win11 group, >>>>> you're now stooping to commenting on sig files. I manage to only use 4 >>>>> words to get my point across. You on the other hand have written a >>>>> short essay for yours. Kinda fits your character.
FWIW, I got no problem with the way the normal people talk about Linux >>>>> here. One of our favorites in this group regularly uses it for things >>>>> and shares his experiences. He even manages to point out the flaws and >>>>> problems with the various microsoft operating systems. Everybody
appreciates the education a handful of people in these groups give us. >>>>>
What they don't do is rave on an on about how horrible microsoft is at >>>>> every chance they get and advocate Linux above all else in a fucking >>>>> windows newsgroup. We're here to learn about Windows 11 and if Linux >>>>> can be of use in sorting things out great. But you can take your Linux >>>>> pom poms and wear yourself out in your advocacy group. It's just
getting a little old around here IMO. Other than that....Fuck Off!
"You obviously have some emotional issues."
Ignore him. Looking back, I had an emotional attachment to the Powerbook G4 I used in the early 2000s and still remember my MSI GT72 very fondly.
Meanwhile, he wants to learn about Windows 11. Good for him. The rest of us want to be educated on why a majority of AMD-powered computers in the wild will be forced to suffer fTPM stuttering even three years after the problem surfaced because
suffer from periodic stutters.
We wave "Hi" from the Windows group :-)
https://www.ghacks.net/2022/06/27/bypass-windows-11-microsoft-account-requirement-and-deny-privacy-questions-during-setup-with-rufus/
"Remove requirement for Secure Boot and TPM 2.0"
Happy motoring!
It's great that such a solution is available, but I'm afraid that won't fix the fTPM stuttering problem because it happens even when secure boot and TPM aren't used by Windows. Unless you can disable fTPM in general from the BIOS, you're still going to
rbowman wrote this post while blinking in Morse code:
On Tue, 31 Dec 2024 13:18:02 -0500, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
LaTeX is a buncha wrapper macros to simplify TeX, I think.
All I know is 'Tex' is not pronounced like 'Tex Ritter'.
A friend of mine always chuckles when I mention "latex".
Obviously Microsoft is expecting its users to think otherwise. And it
wants to charge them for the privilege, so it must be expecting them to believe it’s an improvement worth paying extra money for.
I figured you were lying about MS (your mouth was moving). Python inplans
Excel costs NOTHING.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/python-in-excel#pricing-
On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 16:45:04 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 08:25:01 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
I'd bet a decent python script would do it in minutes, with a tiny
footprint and be reliable.
Even Microsoft realizes that now.
I presume you're referring to excel now including a python interpreter.
I don't think it's much of an improvement.
Obviously Microsoft is expecting its users to think otherwise. And it
wants to charge them for the privilege, so it must be expecting them to believe it’s an improvement worth paying extra money for.
So either Python is that much better than VBA, or VBA is that much worse
than Python. Take your pick. ;)
One of the benefits of using Python, is then LibreOffice can add that,
and files with scripting can be interchanged. It would solve a certain
class of problem we have with Excel, which is the exclusivity of VBA.
Very few people pronounce anything like her. Other than perhaps "crypto scam".
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 16:47:42 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
You still don't own it, but now it's purely semantics.
“Semantics” means "meaning”. So “now it’s purely meaning”?
Correct. With FLOSS you don't own the software, as it's still just a
license, but you can do with it more or less whatever you want. Meaning
in practice it is indistinguishable from ownership.
LO should have stopped copying excel long ago and taken its users to a
better spreadsheet experience.
LO should work with Posit and build a proper analytical/statistical data platform based around R.
... suggests that people don't do much other than open up Word and
Excel.
In the professional world that's pretty accurate.
On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 12:09:27 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 16:47:42 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
You still don't own it, but now it's purely semantics.
“Semantics” means "meaning”. So “now it’s purely meaning”?
Correct. With FLOSS you don't own the software, as it's still just a
license, but you can do with it more or less whatever you want. Meaning
in practice it is indistinguishable from ownership.
So the distinction from actual ownership ... is that meaningful or not?
On 2025-01-02 16:59, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 12:09:27 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 16:47:42 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
You still don't own it, but now it's purely semantics.
?Semantics? means "meaning?. So ?now it?s purely meaning??
Correct. With FLOSS you don't own the software, as it's still just a
license, but you can do with it more or less whatever you want. Meaning
in practice it is indistinguishable from ownership.
So the distinction from actual ownership ... is that meaningful or not?
I'm just going to say this again because it bears repeating:
1) I don't need to make an account to download software to Linux.
2) I don't need to make an account to use the software I downloaded.
3) I can install Linux without needing to log into an account I have or create one.
If privacy is a concern, those are interesting advantages. Even if you
don't care about privacy, you might be sick of logging in everywhere.
Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
On 2025-01-02 16:59, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 12:09:27 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 16:47:42 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
You still don't own it, but now it's purely semantics.
?Semantics? means "meaning?. So ?now it?s purely meaning??
Correct. With FLOSS you don't own the software, as it's still just a
license, but you can do with it more or less whatever you want. Meaning >>>> in practice it is indistinguishable from ownership.
So the distinction from actual ownership ... is that meaningful or not?
I'm just going to say this again because it bears repeating:
1) I don't need to make an account to download software to Linux.
2) I don't need to make an account to use the software I downloaded.
3) I can install Linux without needing to log into an account I have or
create one.
If privacy is a concern, those are interesting advantages. Even if you
don't care about privacy, you might be sick of logging in everywhere.
FYI, you don't need to do any of those things for/on Windows either.
But most people don't know or can't be bothered that they have that option.
For Windows, it's quite easy and practical. No so much for, for
example, Android.
On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 12:09:28 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
... suggests that people don't do much other than open up Word and
Excel.
In the professional world that's pretty accurate.
Doesn’t sound like that adjective “professional” extends to the actual quality of results, then.
On 2025-01-03 06:26, Frank Slootweg wrote:
Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
On 2025-01-02 16:59, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 12:09:27 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:I'm just going to say this again because it bears repeating:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 16:47:42 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
You still don't own it, but now it's purely semantics.
?Semantics? means "meaning?. So ?now it?s purely meaning??
Correct. With FLOSS you don't own the software, as it's still just a >>>> license, but you can do with it more or less whatever you want. Meaning >>>> in practice it is indistinguishable from ownership.
So the distinction from actual ownership ... is that meaningful or not? >>
1) I don't need to make an account to download software to Linux.
2) I don't need to make an account to use the software I downloaded.
3) I can install Linux without needing to log into an account I have or
create one.
If privacy is a concern, those are interesting advantages. Even if you
don't care about privacy, you might be sick of logging in everywhere.
FYI, you don't need to do any of those things for/on Windows either.
Installing Windows 11? The installer won't allow you to continue without logging in to your account. Sure, there are workarounds if you pray five times a day and stand on your head doing so, but it doesn't allow it be default.
But most people don't know or can't be bothered that they have that option.
For Windows, it's quite easy and practical. No so much for, for
example, Android.
And what does Android have to do with this conversation?
Sales people sending materials to me at work, they always sent them in
.docx (not PDF) and the documents were always three pages long. You had
to wonder why all the documents were three pages long... I bet there is
a funny story involved there.
On Fri, 3 Jan 2025 09:09:35 -0500, Paul wrote:
Sales people sending materials to me at work, they always sent them in
.docx (not PDF) and the documents were always three pages long. You had
to wonder why all the documents were three pages long... I bet there is
a funny story involved there.
A little paranoid but our FSDs were docx in house but were converted to a read-only PDF when sent to the clients. I'm not sure anyone read them let alone tried to alter them. That fight came later when what we said we were going to provide wasn't what they thought we were going to do.
People using Office, there is an amazing range of skills.
We make fun of the people, who can barely tie their own shoe laces using computers. But there are also those, who win programming contests, who
can run circles around you.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 12:09:28 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
... suggests that people don't do much other than open up Word and
Excel.
In the professional world that's pretty accurate.
Doesn’t sound like that adjective “professional” extends to the actual >> quality of results, then.
Based on what, exactly?
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
We have that, too. It’s called Jupyter <https://jupyter.org/>.
Not user-friendly enough.
On 12/31/2024 5:10 AM, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
Le 31-12-2024, DFS <guhnoo-basher@linux.advocaca> a écrit :
On 12/21/2024 7:26 AM, CrudeSausage wrote:
The moment you require an online account to verify if you are the person >>>> who bought the software, you don't own it.
You don't own GuhNoo-GPL software either. The only sofware you actually >>> own is stuff you write for yourself, or that you get copyright to.
You don't own public domain stuff, either.
It means nothing to own an immaterial stuff in a general sense. Nobody
owns any software, music or book. Some own the right on it, it's not the
same. Or some own a digital copy of it. It's still not the same.
It means a LOT to own digital and intellectual property:
Now, you can own the exclusive privilege to manage what's on your own
computer (in a large sense, a smartphone is a computer, too). With FOSS,
you can be the master. With Windows and Mac, you can hope they won't do
anything bad, but you have no certainty.
Linux users THINK they can be the master,
but since virtually nobody audits FOSS code it's easy for a bad actor
to mess with Linux systems.
For instance, until I told him about it, the pathetic and smug Feeb
didn't know his precious Cooledit spyware program phoned home upon
install to tell the developer about the computer it was being installed on.
Open or closed source, it's all based on trust.
But day to day, I don't even think about it.
Look at what Amazon did, when people believed they managed the kindle
and the books they bought. Before, there was no proof. After, there is
proof, but it's too late:
<https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html>
You can say that they removed illegal stuff refunding the customers, but
the fact remains: people discovered Amazon, not they, manage the kindle
they had in their hands and can interfere.
ALL this is a battle between good and evil:
Good: content creators and Windows users
Evil: pirates and Linux people
On Sat, 4 Jan 2025 02:32:28 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
We have that, too. It’s called Jupyter <https://jupyter.org/>.
Not user-friendly enough.
If by “user-friendly” you mean “aimed at those accustomed to Microsoft mediocrity”, then you’d be right.
At first glance, there is a lot about Windows that is way more
user-friendly than Linux. However, if you take something like Linux Mint
and compare it to Windows 11, you'd wonder _how_ Windows 11 is
friendlier. In Windows 11, some applications can't be removed and you
don't get an idea why. Some Windows components aren't even listed in the applications so you have to wonder how to install or remove them. For drivers, they're installed through Windows Update but if they don't work right, you just have to know about the Device Manager which is
impossible to find on your own because they're phasing out the Control
Panel. Some programs are available through the Window Store, others
through the web which means that some are repairable and easily
uninstallable whereas the others aren't... and so on. For new users,
Linux Mint is actually _much_ simpler than Windows is.
rbowman wrote this post while blinking in Morse code:
On Tue, 31 Dec 2024 13:54:08 -0500, DFS wrote:
Thanks for that great link. I haven't written any meaningful VBA code
in years, but it helps make MS Office the only office software worth
considering if you need custom applications.
Nobody has written meaningful VBA code in years.
Not that anyone needs this, but...
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/BASIC_Guide
On 1/4/2025 10:01 AM, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
At first glance, there is a lot about Windows that is way more user-
friendly than Linux. However, if you take something like Linux Mint
and compare it to Windows 11, you'd wonder _how_ Windows 11 is
friendlier. In Windows 11, some applications can't be removed and you
don't get an idea why. Some Windows components aren't even listed in
the applications so you have to wonder how to install or remove them.
For drivers, they're installed through Windows Update but if they
don't work right, you just have to know about the Device Manager which
is impossible to find on your own because they're phasing out the
Control Panel. Some programs are available through the Window Store,
others through the web which means that some are repairable and easily
uninstallable whereas the others aren't... and so on. For new users,
Linux Mint is actually _much_ simpler than Windows is.
Right-click on the Win11 Start button.
On 1/4/2025 10:01 AM, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
At first glance, there is a lot about Windows that is way more
user-friendly than Linux. However, if you take something like Linux
Mint and compare it to Windows 11, you'd wonder _how_ Windows 11 is
friendlier. In Windows 11, some applications can't be removed and you
don't get an idea why. Some Windows components aren't even listed in
the applications so you have to wonder how to install or remove them.
For drivers, they're installed through Windows Update but if they don't
work right, you just have to know about the Device Manager which is
impossible to find on your own because they're phasing out the Control
Panel. Some programs are available through the Window Store, others
through the web which means that some are repairable and easily
uninstallable whereas the others aren't... and so on. For new users,
Linux Mint is actually _much_ simpler than Windows is.
Right-click on the Win11 Start button.
On Sat, 4 Jan 2025 10:29:06 -0500, DFS <guhnoo-basher@linux.advocaca>
wrote in <vlbk3v$h0k1$1@dont-email.me>:
On 1/4/2025 10:01 AM, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
At first glance, there is a lot about Windows that is way more
user-friendly than Linux. However, if you take something like Linux
Mint and compare it to Windows 11, you'd wonder _how_ Windows 11 is
friendlier. In Windows 11, some applications can't be removed and you
don't get an idea why. Some Windows components aren't even listed in
the applications so you have to wonder how to install or remove them.
For drivers, they're installed through Windows Update but if they don't
work right, you just have to know about the Device Manager which is
impossible to find on your own because they're phasing out the Control
Panel. Some programs are available through the Window Store, others
through the web which means that some are repairable and easily
uninstallable whereas the others aren't... and so on. For new users,
Linux Mint is actually _much_ simpler than Windows is.
Right-click on the Win11 Start button.
That's not how I found the Spice tools for my Win 11 Pro
For Workstations guest.
The "Microsoft Store" was no help either.
The system is very "micro" -- and very "soft"...
On 2025-01-04 10:29, DFS wrote:
On 1/4/2025 10:01 AM, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
At first glance, there is a lot about Windows that is way more user-
friendly than Linux. However, if you take something like Linux Mint
and compare it to Windows 11, you'd wonder _how_ Windows 11 is
friendlier. In Windows 11, some applications can't be removed and you
don't get an idea why. Some Windows components aren't even listed in
the applications so you have to wonder how to install or remove them.
For drivers, they're installed through Windows Update but if they
don't work right, you just have to know about the Device Manager
which is impossible to find on your own because they're phasing out
the Control Panel. Some programs are available through the Window
Store, others through the web which means that some are repairable
and easily uninstallable whereas the others aren't... and so on. For
new users, Linux Mint is actually _much_ simpler than Windows is.
Right-click on the Win11 Start button.
You missed the point: there is inconsistency.
Why would you update through Windows Update but manage through Device Manager?
Why would
Device Manager be listed by right-clicking the Start button (by the way,
how would anyone know it's there?
) but not in the Settings?
People are likely to be more lost in Windows than in Linux Mint.
On Tue, 31 Dec 2024 13:18:02 -0500, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
LaTeX is a buncha wrapper macros to simplify TeX, I think.
LaTex is the global standard for mathematical typesetting.
Regarding mathematics publishing of any kind, there is no mention,
and there never was any mention, and there never will be any mention,
of Microslop.
It's FOSS LaTex all the way!
Microslop is for brain-dead secretaries what cannot even
add 2+2.
Right-click on the Win11 Start button.
You missed the point: there is inconsistency.
Which Linux distro offers perfect consistency?
I agree there is significant overlap/duplication/confusion between
Win10/11 Settings and Control Panel. Either it was too much work to
migrate all the Control Panel functionality at once to Settings, or they
left Control Panel intact for a while because of the massive installed
base that expects it.
Why would you update through Windows Update but manage through Device
Manager?
That's how it's done in ALL operating systems, right?
Maybe. Maybe not.
I haven't picked apart a GuhNoo distro in years, but it's always
entertaining to find glaring distro bugs, even in 2025.
Apparently GuhNoo devs get so distracted by their long blue hair and uncomfortable ball-tucking that they can't focus on the unpleasant task
of testing.
Which Linux distro offers perfect consistency?
Le 04-01-2025, DFS <guhnoo-basher@linux.advocaca> a écrit :
Which Linux distro offers perfect consistency?
First, I'd say it's not the job of the distro. It's the job of the
Window Manager.
Now, the first time I installed Mint for someone else, I installed a few different WM to show that there is no better WM, there is only a WM
which suit more the user. And they have to be tested to know which one
to chose. I have to say it was disturbing to see they all look similar
and I still don't know if I like it or not.
So, Mint is not perfect, but it's the only one I know which offer real consistency.
I agree there is significant overlap/duplication/confusion between
Win10/11 Settings and Control Panel. Either it was too much work to
migrate all the Control Panel functionality at once to Settings, or they
left Control Panel intact for a while because of the massive installed
base that expects it.
On 1/4/2025 1:01 PM, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
Le 04-01-2025, DFS <guhnoo-basher@linux.advocaca> a écrit :
Which Linux distro offers perfect consistency?
First, I'd say it's not the job of the distro. It's the job of the
Window Manager.
Now, the first time I installed Mint for someone else, I installed a few
different WM to show that there is no better WM, there is only a WM
which suit more the user. And they have to be tested to know which one
to chose. I have to say it was disturbing to see they all look similar
and I still don't know if I like it or not.
So, Mint is not perfect, but it's the only one I know which offer real
consistency.
Cinnamon desktop?
At first glance, there is a lot about Windows that is way more
user-friendly than Linux. However, if you take something like Linux Mint
and compare it to Windows 11, you'd wonder _how_ Windows 11 is
friendlier. In Windows 11, some applications can't be removed and you
don't get an idea why. Some Windows components aren't even listed in the applications so you have to wonder how to install or remove them. For drivers, they're installed through Windows Update but if they don't work right, you just have to know about the Device Manager which is
impossible to find on your own because they're phasing out the Control
Panel. Some programs are available through the Window Store, others
through the web which means that some are repairable and easily
uninstallable whereas the others aren't... and so on. For new users,
Linux Mint is actually _much_ simpler than Windows is.
Installing Windows 11? The installer won't allow you to continue without logging
in to your account. Sure, there are workarounds if you pray five times a day and
stand on your head doing so, but it doesn't allow it be default.
I've been itching for the better part of 20 years for a cola-based MS
Office detractor to do some significant LO/Basic coding so it could be compared to my Office/VBA.
[OT] That's the great thing about Apple: from the users' viewpoint it
all "just works".
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sat, 4 Jan 2025 02:32:28 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
We have that, too. It’s called Jupyter <https://jupyter.org/>.
Not user-friendly enough.
If by “user-friendly” you mean “aimed at those accustomed to Microsoft >> mediocrity”, then you’d be right.
I mean if presented to someone for the first time do they have a
fighting chance of creating *anything*. With jupyter that's a big fat
nope.
On Sat, 4 Jan 2025 10:32:52 -0500, DFS wrote:
I've been itching for the better part of 20 years for a cola-based MS
Office detractor to do some significant LO/Basic coding so it could be
compared to my Office/VBA.
I can post more, if you like.
On 2025-01-03 23:50, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:removed and you don't get an idea why. Some Windows components aren't even listed in the applications so you have to wonder how to install or remove them. For drivers, they're installed through Windows Update but if they don't work right, you just have
On Sat, 4 Jan 2025 02:32:28 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
We have that, too. It’s called Jupyter <https://jupyter.org/>.
Not user-friendly enough.
If by “user-friendly” you mean “aimed at those accustomed to Microsoft >> mediocrity”, then you’d be right.
At first glance, there is a lot about Windows that is way more user-friendly than Linux. However, if you take something like Linux Mint and compare it to Windows 11, you'd wonder _how_ Windows 11 is friendlier. In Windows 11, some applications can't be
On Fri, 3 Jan 2025 09:09:35 -0500, Paul wrote:
People using Office, there is an amazing range of skills.
We make fun of the people, who can barely tie their own shoe laces using
computers. But there are also those, who win programming contests, who
can run circles around you.
Using Excel? I’d go up against a champion Excel user, armed only with Python and Jupyter, and I would likely show them a thing or two.
On Sat, 4 Jan 2025 21:50:21 +0000, Sn!pe wrote:
[OT] That's the great thing about Apple: from the users' viewpoint it
all "just works".
Until it doesn’t. Why do you think Mac users feel the need for something like Homebrew? That adds Linux-style package-manager functionality that is missing from macOS. Because without it, trying to install open-source software turns into a complete nightmare.
Installing Windows 11? The installer won't allow you to continue without logging
in to your account. Sure, there are workarounds if you pray five times a day and
stand on your head doing so, but it doesn't allow it be default.
[long-winded installation procedure deleted]
Why did you post python code?
I have no doubt that jupyter is awesome. In the right hands. Not for
excel jockeys.
At another place I worked, it was PERL. The CAD tools had a few
shortcomings, and on some days, if you walked by desks, everyone
was coding in PERL to make up for the productivity shortfall of
the CAD tool. The funny part, was when one of our engineers won
the award with that brand of software, for the "most complex design
of the year" using the stuff. The potential customers would think
the CAD tool had done the work, when it was something like a hundred individual PERL scripts that managed the design (the PERL updated
signal lists on wide buses in the design -- the CAD tool expected
you to "click each one and edit it", which is idiotic).
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sat, 4 Jan 2025 02:19:07 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 12:09:28 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
... suggests that people don't do much other than open up Word and >>>>>> Excel.
In the professional world that's pretty accurate.
Doesn’t sound like that adjective “professional” extends to the actual
quality of results, then.
Based on what, exactly?
Based on the known issues with over-reliance on Microsoft products.
Such as? Excluding the gene name issue, which is pretty niche.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
That adds Linux-style package-manager functionality that is missing
from macOS. Because without it, trying to install open-source software
turns into a complete nightmare.
Hardly.
On Sat, 4 Jan 2025 21:17:47 -0500, Paul wrote:
At another place I worked, it was PERL. The CAD tools had a few
shortcomings, and on some days, if you walked by desks, everyone
was coding in PERL to make up for the productivity shortfall of
the CAD tool. The funny part, was when one of our engineers won
the award with that brand of software, for the "most complex design
of the year" using the stuff. The potential customers would think
the CAD tool had done the work, when it was something like a hundred
individual PERL scripts that managed the design (the PERL updated
signal lists on wide buses in the design -- the CAD tool expected
you to "click each one and edit it", which is idiotic).
Were your Perl scripts able to access the CAD files directly? Were they in some non-proprietary format?
On the one hand, this kind of labour-saving operation is exactly why programmable computers were invented. On the other hand, as you mentioned, too much of the credit tends to go to the name-brand proprietary tool at
the most conspicuous point of your workflow, instead of the generalized open-source toolkit operating in the background, that greatly simplified
the major part of the work.
On Sat, 4 Jan 2025 19:32:32 -0500, Paul wrote:
Installing Windows 11? The installer won't allow you to continue
without logging in to your account. Sure, there are workarounds if
you pray five times a day and stand on your head doing so, but it
doesn't allow it be default.
[long-winded installation procedure deleted]
Which is why they say, Windows is a great OS -- if your time is worth nothing.
Huh.. My Canon pixma wouldn't work with Mint, which is a Ubuntu, during
one whole day of trial and error.
On 1/1/2025 12:32 AM, Physfitfreak wrote:
Huh.. My Canon pixma wouldn't work with Mint, which is a Ubuntu,
during one whole day of trial and error.
Welcome to Linux!
First thing you need to do is setup an account at https:// forums.linuxmint.com/
On 2025-01-05 11:05, DFS wrote:
On 1/1/2025 12:32 AM, Physfitfreak wrote:
Huh.. My Canon pixma wouldn't work with Mint, which is a Ubuntu,
during one whole day of trial and error.
Welcome to Linux!
First thing you need to do is setup an account at https://
forums.linuxmint.com/
It is most likely not a Mint problem as much as a camera problem. Unlike > in Windows where the user would be prompted to install drivers to use
the camera as-is without any kind of modification, he will probably have
to set it up to be detected as external storage on the camera itself.
This is yet another example of hardware insisting on using proprietary protocols to be communicated with when none should have been necessary,
much like the iPhone in Linux.
<snip>
And Canon does provide some support for Linux printer drivers, but as
per their website's language, it is apparently quite limited:
"Canon currently only provides support for PIXMA products and the Linux operating system by providing basic drivers in a limited amount of
languages.
These basic drivers may not encompass the full range of functionalities
for all printer and all-in-one products but they will allow basic
printing and scanning operation.
Linux drivers are not supplied as part of Canon’s installation CD-ROM
and these are instead made available via our support area. Please select
your product and filter the results based on language and operating system.
Canon does not offer specific after care support for Linux related
issues beyond the provision of the initial drivers."
<https://www.canon-europe.com/support/operating-system-information/>
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sat, 4 Jan 2025 19:32:32 -0500, Paul wrote:
Installing Windows 11? The installer won't allow you to continue
without logging in to your account. Sure, there are workarounds if
you pray five times a day and stand on your head doing so, but it
doesn't allow it be default.
[long-winded installation procedure deleted]
Which is why they say, Windows is a great OS -- if your time is worth
nothing.
Paul's procedure has *nothing* to do with the issue
which Andrzej raised ...
Having said all that, claiming that using MS Office is "unprofessional"
is laughable.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
That adds Linux-style package-manager functionality that is missing
from macOS. Because without it, trying to install open-source
software turns into a complete nightmare.
Have been using OSS on Mac for 15+ years, including building packages
from source. Far, far easier than on Windows.
-hh wrote this post while blinking in Morse code:
<snip>
And Canon does provide some support for Linux printer drivers, but as
per their website's language, it is apparently quite limited:
"Canon currently only provides support for PIXMA products and the Linux
operating system by providing basic drivers in a limited amount of
languages.
These basic drivers may not encompass the full range of functionalities
for all printer and all-in-one products but they will allow basic
printing and scanning operation.
Linux drivers are not supplied as part of Canon’s installation CD-ROM
and these are instead made available via our support area. Please select
your product and filter the results based on language and operating system. >>
Canon does not offer specific after care support for Linux related
issues beyond the provision of the initial drivers."
<https://www.canon-europe.com/support/operating-system-information/>
I bought a Canoscan LiDE scanner and it worked out of the box with
xsane and skanlite. Never needed to find their "drivers".
The scanner has copy and other buttons to press, but those are not
relevant to getting the job of scanning done.
On 2025-01-05 15:08, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
-hh wrote this post while blinking in Morse code:
<snip>
And Canon does provide some support for Linux printer drivers, but as
per their website's language, it is apparently quite limited:
"Canon currently only provides support for PIXMA products and the Linux
operating system by providing basic drivers in a limited amount of
languages.
These basic drivers may not encompass the full range of functionalities
for all printer and all-in-one products but they will allow basic
printing and scanning operation.
Linux drivers are not supplied as part of Canon’s installation CD-ROM
and these are instead made available via our support area. Please select >>> your product and filter the results based on language and operating system. >>>
Canon does not offer specific after care support for Linux related
issues beyond the provision of the initial drivers."
<https://www.canon-europe.com/support/operating-system-information/>
I bought a Canoscan LiDE scanner and it worked out of the box with
xsane and skanlite. Never needed to find their "drivers".
The scanner has copy and other buttons to press, but those are not
relevant to getting the job of scanning done.
I have a Canon scanner myself here at work. With Windows, I can get it working but it requires a driver to be installed. Windows Update will
offer it, but not immediately after you plug it in, for whatever reason.
You have to wait for it to offer you the update later, still in Windows Update. Yes, I tried forcing it to check for update and it did not find
a driver until I rebooted.
In Linux, it works out of the box.
I have a Canon scanner myself here at work. With Windows, I can get it working but it requires a driver to be installed. Windows Update will
offer it, but not immediately after you plug it in, for whatever reason.
You have to wait for it to offer you the update later, still in Windows Update. Yes, I tried forcing it to check for update and it did not find
a driver until I rebooted.
In Linux, it works out of the box.
On 1/6/2025 10:17 AM, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
I have a Canon scanner myself here at work. With Windows, I can get it
working but it requires a driver to be installed. Windows Update will
offer it, but not immediately after you plug it in, for whatever
reason. You have to wait for it to offer you the update later, still
in Windows Update. Yes, I tried forcing it to check for update and it
did not find a driver until I rebooted.
In Linux, it works out of the box.
A screenshot of the scanner options/properties under Windows vs under
Linux is usually good for a laugh.
On Sun, 5 Jan 2025 01:10:42 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sat, 4 Jan 2025 02:19:07 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 12:09:28 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
... suggests that people don't do much other than open up Word and >>>>>>> Excel.
In the professional world that's pretty accurate.
Doesn’t sound like that adjective “professional” extends to the actual
quality of results, then.
Based on what, exactly?
Based on the known issues with over-reliance on Microsoft products.
Such as? Excluding the gene name issue, which is pretty niche.
It’s affecting a whole lot of research work <https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13059-016-1044-7>.
Then there was the massive screwup over underreporting of COVID-19
figures in the UK, which went undetected for months <https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/10/excel-glitch-may-have-caused-uk-to-underreport-covid-19-cases-by-15841/>.
The Austrian Social Democratic Party’s botched election of a new
leader <https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/06/austria_election_excel_blunder/>.
How many Excel screwups can you commit in just one job? <https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/12/excel_anesthetist_recruitment_blunder/>.
Is it a good idea for a Formula 1 team to use Excel to manage its
parts inventory? <https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/03/formula-1-chief-appalled-to-find-team-using-excel-to-manage-20000-car-parts/>.
There are entire websites devoted to compiling errors caused by using Microsoft Excel.
On 2025-01-06 12:34, DFS wrote:
On 1/6/2025 10:17 AM, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
I have a Canon scanner myself here at work. With Windows, I can get it
working but it requires a driver to be installed. Windows Update will
offer it, but not immediately after you plug it in, for whatever
reason. You have to wait for it to offer you the update later, still
in Windows Update. Yes, I tried forcing it to check for update and it
did not find a driver until I rebooted.
In Linux, it works out of the box.
A screenshot of the scanner options/properties under Windows vs under
Linux is usually good for a laugh.
The scanning application in Windows didn't even allow me to scan in a sequence (like 40 pages of one book inside of the same file). I had to download another application in the Windows Store to get that
functionality. Meanwhile, even the default Skanpage gives me that
feature out of the box.
I entered a gene named 'March 2' (no apostrophes) into LO Calc and it converted to a date.
That egregious data mangling issue would affect a whole lot of genetics research work... if anyone was crazy enough to use LibreOffice.
You're literally blaming human error on Excel.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sun, 5 Jan 2025 16:07:15 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
That adds Linux-style package-manager functionality that is missing
from macOS. Because without it, trying to install open-source
software turns into a complete nightmare.
Have been using OSS on Mac for 15+ years, including building packages
from source. Far, far easier than on Windows.
That kind of thing doesn’t scale without a package manager, though. How
many hundred open-source packages were you able to build and install at
once?
My point is that most OSS software that users need are available as ready-to-use downloads.
More to illustrate that building from source was possible.
How complex were those builds you managed? Does each download include
all its dependencies?
Fairly simple to moderately complex with internal and external
dependencies, but that was a while back.
On Tue, 7 Jan 2025 00:12:18 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
More to illustrate that building from source was possible.
I never said it wasn’t, just that it doesn’t scale well without a proper package manager to help with the dependencies -- something that macOS
lacks.
How complex were those builds you managed? Does each download include
all its dependencies?
Fairly simple to moderately complex with internal and external
dependencies, but that was a while back.
How did you handle getting hold of the dependencies for each build?
Installing OSS is not a "complete nightmare" without a package manager *because* most software is already packaged for easy installation.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Tue, 7 Jan 2025 14:12:43 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
Installing OSS is not a "complete nightmare" without a package manager
*because* most software is already packaged for easy installation.
Including its dependencies? So if multiple packages share the same
dependency, you end up with multiple copies of that dependency?
Depends on the dependency, but often yes. Just like on Windows and, sometimes, Linux with pre-packaged/compiled software.
I entered a gene named 'March 2' (no apostrophes) into LO Calc and it converted to a date.
That egregious data mangling issue would affect a whole lot of genetics research work... if anyone was crazy enough to use LeeberOffice.
I feel comfortable running on my precious hardware."Precious hardware"
That's funny
It's my baby, yes, I have an emotional attachment to my computer, I
assembled it.
| Sysop: | Keyop |
|---|---|
| Location: | Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK |
| Users: | 546 |
| Nodes: | 16 (3 / 13) |
| Uptime: | 19:24:22 |
| Calls: | 10,390 |
| Calls today: | 1 |
| Files: | 14,061 |
| Messages: | 6,416,962 |
