Re: [seul-edu] What do the students think?

["Joseph E. Arruda [mr.zenn]" <z@valinux.com>]

Bill Tihen -- TECHNOLOGY wrote:
> 
> However, you forget that many people get very attachted
> to their tools.

This is true.  But I think if things are presented properly, you can get
people jazzed and willing to learn new tools.

>  Like MS Word, Excel, and Power Point,
> Lotus, etc.  Abiword is a strong product but still has a
> hard time with some word files and RTF (this is a
> problem).

I have never been even remotely satisfied with A-Word.  It lacks the
potential to be a suite (pretty much a req these days) and its
functionality is low.  

>  PowerPoint is another problem there is
> currently no good replacement for that.

While I may be in the minority, I always thought HTML and PDF are great
presenation formats...

>  I don't know if
> StarOffice presentation program is a good replacement
> and if it is compatible with PowerPoint,

It is usuable, but not without some headaches.  Since MS really is not
an option here (gee, I work for a linux firm, who'd a thought ;)
we have been implementing Soffice, but the presentation sw is definately
leaving something to be desired.  It's bumpkin-ass slow, and I still
don't understand why they designed it to require running not 1, 5
processes at startup. Total overhead...

> however, I
> won't use StarOffice in a lab environment, because it
> uses way too much disk space for each user and each user
> must install the "stuff" needed for their account.

Applixware is supposely going through a major overhaul (brand new
features, now in GTK, etc), but I haven't tested it since I was a SUN
years ago. And Wordperfect is still good, but no presenation option.

z

> 
> Bill
> 


-- 
Joseph E. Arruda		|	www.valinux.com
Corporate Alchemist		|	sourceforge.net
VA Linux Systems, Inc.		|	www.linux.com
z@valinux.com			|	www.lugod.org
+1 408.542.5730  kernel panic:  cannot read from /dev/caffeine