Alternatives to Microsoft Office

Every single desktop, laptop, and netbook purchased by consumers today comes preinstalled with oodles of software with varying degrees of usefulness. It is pretty standard that nearly everyone is familiar with the preinstalled antivirus software that has only two weeks of usage and then demands a 50 dollar payment for the renewal of the subscription. Then there is the impossible to uninstall random toolbars that come with IE. It is generally a rare computer that doesn't come loaded down with a lot of useless software like this. But the one thing that every student does need in the slew of preloaded trite that accompanies their computer is the word processor. It is a rare student that is not able to get by without today defacto standard, Microsoft Office.

When Microsoft Office 2007, with its new interface face-lift and file format, were introduced many people and institutions have been finding it hard to get past that steep learning curve. And some of those same people and institutions are having to come to the hard decision of whether or not to pay the steep expense of purchasing and then upgrading to Microsoft 2007, without ever reasoning that there are cost effective alternatives that can still interface with .doc and .docx formats. There are some alternatives to Microsoft Office that provide the same level of useability that users have grown use to but at generally fractions of the cost.

Star Office
http://www.sun.com/software/staroffice/

This office productivity suite from Sun Microsystems features direct analogs to whatever Microsoft office has to offer. At roughly 20% of the cost of the full Microsoft Office Suite this is not only an award winning software product, but one that costs significantly less than the competition while delivering comparable services and results. The current iteration Star Office 8 is available for immediate download or can be ordered in the traditional method of on a CD. The chief difference between Star Office and Open Office is that Star Office comes software support provided by Sun. This extra level of service is especially attractive to businesses who more often than not do not have the time to worry about toying around with new software acquisitions. And if there are any problems there is full technical support which is provided for Star Office. While right now Star Office 8 does not have compatibility with Office 2007, the new edition Star Office 9 will have full interoperability with Office 2007 and is on schedule to be released before the end of this year.

Open Office
http://www.openoffice.org/

With Star Office providing such a well rounded experience not only in an entire office suite, but also all the technical support features that make it attractive for businesses and some consumers. All of this still comes at a cost. And for students who already spent most of their money on tuition and books, there might not be that extra 20 or 30 dollars. This is where Open Office comes in. Star Office and Open Office are essentially the exact same product, but Star Office has technical support included and Open Office is an open source project.

What is meant by an open source project is software which is developed in a public, collaborative way with few copyrights restrictions. When those restrictions do exist it is more to restrict other parties from being able to say who can and can not make changes to the project, because the essence of open source is allowing anyone to take the foundation of the project and then allow them to make any changes needed to it. Since Open Office is an open source project it is distributed freely among individual users and only asks for a donation. That donation can be as much, or as little as the individual downloader wishes to make it.

Open Office as of October 2008 officially offers full compatibility with Microsoft Office 2007. This for many people is the key reason to select Office 2007, with its giant price tag, in the first place.

Google Docs
http://docs.google.com

The most exotic alternative Microsoft Office surprisingly was debuted by Google about two years ago. Their aim was to create an Office suite that would be fully integrated with your Internet browser with the ability to save documents that you create and work on. Better still with the ability to work on any document, from any computer and all that is needed is internet access. When Google Docs first started off there was only the option of working on word processor files, but very soon after that it expanded into excel spreadsheets, powerpoint presentations, and also web surveys. As of the writing of this review Google Docs does not have anyway of interacting with .docx format, but Google is always adding new things and is continually refining Google Docs. There is the additional ability to share any documents created among any number of Google Docs users. Using this powerful collaborative tool thereby to jointly refine, and edit documents at the sametime.

If there are people out there thinking that there might be problems if internet connectitivity is lost, then the ability to interface with their documents is lost also until internet access is restored. That problem to has been solved by google with the introduction of Google Gears. A software program that once installed allows offlines access to all documents on Google Docs, and when internet access is restored automatically updates your online Google Account.

As of the writing of this review I have 100% migrated to using Google Docs for nearly all my Office Suite Needs. The one thing that continually sticks out to me is the absolute wonderful feeling of being able to do my work from wherever I am, and not being tied down to any single computer.

Wrap Up

To wrap things up whatever your need 24/7 technical support, freedom of movement, low cost it is good to know that there are definite alternative to Microsoft Office that can still meet a users or companies demands places upon it.

Website Evaluation

So picture this scene. There is a student sitting in front of a computer, and it is late. Maybe its 2am or 5am, the exact time doesn’t matter. Empty cans of red bull, and coke are strewn about haphazardly. The student is paying absolutely no attention to the cleanliness of the room at this moment. All of the student’s attention is fixated on the glowing pixilated screen in front, while alternating between feverishly typing, thinking, deleting, or googling.

And what is all of this effort being put into? The odds are if you are reading this, then the probability exists that you already know. That there is some essay X, which is due for class Y, at time T. And to make things even better the essay is 178% of the final grade. There that nameless student sits; trying to find some sources and glean a last few scraps of information to patch together this Frankenstein of a document.

In this flurry of essay writing, how does this student know that the websites being visited have the information that is needed? Odds are also that the websites being cited were probably found within the first page or two of search results on Google, or some other search engine like Yahoo.

Just as important as finding an informative website, is being able to judge the quality of the information found within the website before utilizing it. The scene portrayed above is played out on countless computers, but how many of those students take the 2 or 3 minutes to stop and look at the website to judge if the information contained is accurate and unbiased.

Taking the time to learn how to look at a website is just as important as finding the information. Learning the cues to look for could potentially tip one off to an inaccurate website and may mean the difference between passing and failing. So while searching through any search engine can always turn up results, the ability to judge the accuracy and truthfulness of that website is infinitely more valuable.
This is a very important skill that can be practiced every time a webpage is visited by just keeping in mind a few simple guidelines.

Author – Things to consider about who wrote the document
o Is the author qualified to write to document? A lawyer would not necessarily write about how to program.
o Is the author’s contact information provided?

Organization – Things to consider about who is hosting the document
o What kind of organization is it? This can be quickly seen by looking at the Top Level Domain of an internet address. For example ‘.com’ is commercial websites and ’.gov’ is used for government websites.
o What sort of interest does the organization hosting the web document have? For instance an article on smoking being hosted by a tobacco corporation.

Publication – Things to consider about the document itself
o When was the last time the web document was updated?
o Is the information still accurate?
o Is it fact or opinion based?

These guidelines very often won’t help students finish essays the night they are do. No one, but the poor soul writing the essay can help with that. But by keeping these guidelines in mind can help insure greater accuracy when an essay is submitted.