The problem with not owning the software

[CrudeSausage]

<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.

According to online user reports on Reddit and Microsoft's own community
website, affected users randomly received these "Product Deactivated"
errors in Office apps, prompting confusion and disruptions.

As Redmond explained in a support document published on Thursday, these
problems stem from licensing changes initiated by administrators.

More precisely, the known issue arises when moving users between
licensing groups (including Azure Active Directory groups or synced
on-premises security groups) or switching user subscriptions, such as
changing from an Office 365 E3 license to a Microsoft 365 E3 license.

It can also be triggered when admins remove and re-add users to license
groups, adjust license or service plan settings, or toggle the "Latest
version of Desktop Apps" service plan under the Microsoft 365 subscription.

To address this deactivation issue, customers can click the "Reactivate"
button on the error banner and sign in when prompted. Alternatively,
they can sign out of all Microsoft 365 apps, close them, and restart
them before signing back in.

If the issue persists, users are advised to contact their administrators
to check if the Microsoft 365 subscription has expired. Admins can check
subscription details under the Microsoft 365 subscription management portal.

​For further troubleshooting, Microsoft advises users with open support
cases to provide diagnostic data to its engineers, collected using the
Office Licensing Diagnostic Tool, which can help find the root cause of
licensing-related issues.

Affected users are also prompted to provide support engineers with the
logs stored in the %temp%/diagnostics directory.

While Microsoft has yet to share a timeline for a fix, its engineering
team is actively investigating this known issue. The company encourages
affected users and administrators to monitor its support channels for
updates.

Last month, Microsoft also shared a temporary fix for a known issue
affecting Microsoft 365 customers that causes classic Outlook to hang or
freeze when copying text.

In September, the company fixed another bug that crashed Microsoft 365
apps (i.e., Outlook, Word, Excel, OneNote) when typing or spell-checking
a text.

[Mr. Man-wai Chang]

Post by CrudeSausage
<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". :)

[CrudeSausage]

Post by CrudeSausage
<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.

[Mr. Man-wai Chang]

Post by CrudeSausage

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.

[Ant]

Post by Mr. Man-wai Chang

Post by CrudeSausage

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". :)

And if this company goes away... :(

Post by Mr. Man-wai Chang
Office 365 is not the same as the older standalone Office 2021. Well...
I am still using 2007 and 2010.

I am using updated 2007 SR3 and LibreOffice, but I rarely use Office
anymore like my younger days since Office 95.

[Mr. Man-wai Chang]

Post by Ant
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.

[Ant]

Post by Mr. Man-wai Chang

Post by Ant
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.

Like me!

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Mr. Man-wai Chang
As a programmer, I also seldom use Office, except for writing
application letters and resume.

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.

[Mr. Man-wai Chang]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro
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.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Mr. Man-wai Chang

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro
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.

[Mr. Man-wai Chang]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by Mr. Man-wai Chang
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.

And downright old and legacy management information systems(MIS)!!! :)

[rbowman]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by Mr. Man-wai Chang

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro
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]

Post by rbowman

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by Mr. Man-wai Chang

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro
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?

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.

[Joel]

Post by Andrzej Matuch

Post by rbowman
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.
--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

[Andrzej Matuch]

Post by Joel

Post by Andrzej Matuch

Post by rbowman
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.

[Joel]

Post by Andrzej Matuch

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.
--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

[-hh]

Post by Joel

Post by Andrzej Matuch

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.

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.


-hh

[Joel]

Post by -hh

Post by Joel

Post by Andrzej Matuch

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.

Post by -hh
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.
--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

[-hh]

Post by Joel

Post by -hh

Post by Joel

Post by Andrzej Matuch

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.

Post by -hh
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.

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.


-hh

[Joel]

Post by -hh

Post by Joel

Post by -hh
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.
--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

[Andrzej Matuch]

Post by Joel

Post by -hh

Post by Joel

Post by -hh
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.

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.

[Joel]

Post by Andrzej Matuch

Post by Joel
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$.
--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

[Andrzej Matuch]

Post by Joel

Post by Andrzej Matuch

Post by Joel
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.

[Joel]

Post by Andrzej Matuch

Post by Joel

Post by Andrzej Matuch

Post by Joel
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.
--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

[Andrzej Matuch]

Post by Joel

Post by Andrzej Matuch

Post by Joel

Post by Andrzej Matuch

Post by Joel
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.

He's a failure and quite aware of it. Rather than improve himself in any
way, he prefers to delude himself about how successful he is. He can't
afford better than the garbage he boasts about.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by -hh
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.

[Joel]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by -hh
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.
--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

[sticks]

Post by Joel

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by -hh
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

[Andrzej Matuch]

Post by sticks

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by -hh
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

It's funny to an extent, but part of why I get attached to free software
is the sympathy I feel to people who simply can't afford to buy new
hardware all the time. Had I not been clever in my adolescent years, I
wouldn't have had the income to upgrade my hardware the few times that I
did because money was lacking. At that time, I would have overjoyed to
learn that I could at least procure the software at no charge and
without breaking any laws, and that it would run fine on my modest
setup. I am also faced with poor kids on a daily basis. It warms my
heart to know that my knowledge of open-source software is going to
allow them to use software much like the kids in wealthier
neighbourhoods, even on the computers their parents received as a
hand-me-down or got from goodwill. Linux makes that a possibility,
Windows and MacOS do not. Additionally, the amount of compromises people
have to make to use Linux today are not as overwhelming as they once
were. If anything, the experience is often superior.

[sticks]

Post by Andrzej Matuch

Post by sticks
"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.

[knuttle]

Post by sticks

Post by Andrzej Matuch

Post by sticks
"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.

If you don't treat them kindly how to you get them to work for you. I
thank my computer, frequently especially after trying to do something
and the computer finall

[rbowman]

Post by sticks

Post by Andrzej Matuch

Post by sticks
"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.

That brought back horrible memories. A friend's wife referred to the mutt
as precious puppy. I think it was an Airedale or something up that line.
It ate her pantyhose which led to her chasing it around the yard trying to
step on its new nylon tail being extruded from its butt.

Even sadder, she had a cat that was precious kitty that was exiled to the
basement when they got precious puppy. My wife and I had a bet on whether
the dog would wind up in the cellar with the cat when she popped out a
precious baby.

[Joel]

Post by sticks

Post by Joel

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by -hh
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

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.

Post by sticks
--
I Stand With Israel!

"That's funny."
--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

[sticks]

Post by Joel

Post by sticks
"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.

Post by Joel

Post by sticks
--
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!

[Joel]

Post by sticks

Post by Joel

Post by sticks
"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.

Post by Joel

Post by sticks
--
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."
--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

[Jack Sovalot]

"I obviously have some emotional issues."

https://postimg.cc/dh0Q46jq

[Andrzej Matuch]

Post by Joel

Post by sticks

Post by Joel

Post by sticks
"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.

Post by Joel

Post by sticks
--
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 Microsoft won't ease up on the TPM requirement
and manufacturers don't want to deploy an update for the machines
they've sold.

[Paul]

Post by Joel

Post by Joel

Post by sticks
"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.

Post by Joel

Post by sticks
-- 
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 Microsoft won't ease up on the TPM requirement and manufacturers don't want to deploy an update for the machines they've sold.

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!

Paul

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Paul
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.

[-hh]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by -hh
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 you've also not bothered to save works as other-than-psd's.

Presently, that's false on just the first part alone without the second,
as I'm aware of at least four (4) non-Adobe Apps which open .psd files,
namely GIMP, Darktable, Luminar, and MacOS's Preview.


-hh

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by -hh

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by -hh
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.

[Andrzej Matuch]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by -hh

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by -hh
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.

And nobody can deny that this issue remains as much of a problem in 2024
as it was in the late 90s. Corporations don't see a profit in supporting
open standards so they will allow their software to read them, but will
save in their own proprietary formats.

[rbowman]

Post by Andrzej Matuch
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.

Yes and no. VS Code or Vim patiently waits for many more cycles while I
figure out what I'm trying to do. Otoh I can do things with Python that
wouldn't have been possible 25 years ago. The user doesn't have a clue if
the back end is FastAPI or FastCGI using compiled C.

I recall when Java was young, lithe, and slender. Then Swing came along
and it turned into a hog. The answer was 'you need a faster machine.'

As far as the user is concerned there is no difference but the speed
increases enabled technologies that (supposedly) made development faster.

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. The Arm based chips are faster and have more
flash so for many applications you can use MicroPython or CircuitPython
unless you need very fine control of the chip. If you want to do your
Christmas lights with neopixels, Python is a lot easier than fiddling
around with the C SDK.

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.

[Mark Lloyd]

On 29 Dec 2024 00:53:43 GMT, rbowman wrote:

[snip]

Post by rbowman
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.

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).

The table needed only 96 entries because I masked off bit 7 and considered
there to be no Morse equivalent for characters below 0x20. Since Morse
code is variable-length, a table entry needs 2 parts: code (maximum 6
bits) and count (3 bits). I managed to get both in a single byte.

[snip]

[rbowman]

Post by Mark Lloyd
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).

I wasn't that ambitious. At one time I was good enough with Morse to pass
the Advanced code test. Use it or lose it as they say.

The neopixels are fun since you can randomly assign RGB values and get
strange effects.

[Mark Lloyd]

On 29 Dec 2024 00:53:43 GMT, rbowman wrote:

[snip]

Post by rbowman
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".

Post by rbowman
Filling your house with Victorian
kitsch didn't advance civilization.

[rbowman]

Post by Graham J
[snip]

Post by rbowman
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.]

Post by rbowman

Post by Graham J
[snip]

Post by rbowman
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).

[rbowman]

Post by Carlos E.R.

Post by rbowman

Post by Graham J
[snip]

Post by rbowman
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).

afaik, all commercial eggs in the US are washed during the grading
process. I haven't had a problem although I do refrigerate them when home.

[Chris]

Post by rbowman

Post by Graham J
[snip]

Post by rbowman
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.

Depends on the ambient temperature. Which is the benefit of refrigeration;
lifetime of food is more predictable.

[Chris]

Post by Andrzej Matuch

Post by Joel

Post by Andrzej Matuch

Post by rbowman
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.

[Andrzej Matuch]

Post by Chris

Post by Andrzej Matuch

Post by Joel

Post by Andrzej Matuch

Post by rbowman
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.

A 2008 machine won't be able to run Teams, but that's not the fault of
the hardware as much as the bloated nature of Microsoft's software
itself. For what it's worth, my wife's 2015 Intel Core M couldn't run
Teams either.

[rbowman]

Post by Andrzej Matuch
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.

[Ant]

Post by rbowman

Post by Andrzej Matuch
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?

Post by rbowman
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.

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.

[Joel]

Post by Ant
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.
--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

[rbowman]

Post by Joel

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.

The computer I used in college, an IBM 360/30, didn't have much in the way
of word processing software :)

[rbowman]

Post by Ant
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.

As far as program descriptions, expected behavior, parameters, and so
forth, it's all entered into Jira directly. The tech writer extracts it
to create a FSD (functional specification document) for the clients.

I have never created a spreadsheet or had a reason to. Most of the
spreadsheets I receive for RFPs don't make use of a spreadsheet's
capabilities as I understand them. They're a convenient row and column
form to enter freeform data.

Post by Ant
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.

When I was in elementary school the Apple II was close to 20 years in the
future. As a programmer you tend to read documents and produce software.
Before I gradually moved to software with the advent of microprocessors I
would read documents and produce schematics or sometimes logic flowcharts
if necessary. Those were done on a drawing board with a 2H pencil and a
handful of plastic templates.

[Carlos E.R.]

Post by rbowman

Post by Ant
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.

[Frank Slootweg]

Carlos E.R. <***@es.invalid> wrote:
[...]

Post by Carlos E.R.
Amazing that none of you has mentioned latex.

This isn't that kind of group!

[Carlos E.R.]

Post by Frank Slootweg
[...]

Post by Carlos E.R.
Amazing that none of you has mentioned latex.

This isn't that kind of group!

Latex is software :-P

[Frank Slootweg]

Post by Carlos E.R.

Post by Frank Slootweg
[...]

Post by Carlos E.R.
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>

[rbowman]

Post by Carlos E.R.

Post by rbowman

Post by Ant
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.

The only things I know about latex are gloves and paint. It goes back to
never needing to make documents look pretty. I do know a little about
nenscript from a programming aspect. We used a modified version to allow
for headers, footers, and font selection for printed reports and I had to
tweak the code.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Carlos E.R.
Amazing that none of you has mentioned latex.

The few times I tried to get started with TEX or LATEX, I kept getting
baffled by screeds of mysterious error/warning messages.

Then I tried writing man pages with groff and some standard macros. Now I
can get nice typeset-quality PDF output from the same source, and I can
actually understand what I’m doing.

[-hh]

Post by Carlos E.R.

Post by rbowman

Post by Ant
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.


-hh

[Carlos E.R.]

Post by Carlos E.R.

Post by rbowman

Post by Ant
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.

Me, I am aware of Latex, but I prefer LyX myself.

I have seen an engineer produce production ready math papers and complex
formulas using Latex in Windows. Some process going from the Latex file
to the PDF output, marking the same word on both sides.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by -hh
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.

Think of PDF as being the PostScript graphics model without the actual
PostScript programming language.

[rbowman]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro
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.

And then there is Ghostscript... One of our applications that prints
reports sniffs at the document to determine if it's PS, then checks the
configuration of the printer to see if it can handle PS. If not, it spawns
Ghostscript to massage it into something the printer can handle. Great
fun.

[Chris]

Post by Carlos E.R.

Post by rbowman

Post by Ant
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.

Writing direct latex is quite a learning curve. I prefer markdown for
simple documents which can be converted to pdf or docx as needed with
pandoc.

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.

[Frank Slootweg]

Ant <***@zimage.comant> wrote:
[...]

Post by Ant

Post by rbowman

Post by Andrzej Matuch
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?

[...]

Post by Ant
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.

Like rbowman, I used/used vi/vim for my documents. Have been using it,
ever since it became available (to me). First on Unix/UNIX and later -
mainly privately - also on DOS and Windows. I currently have some 3500
of such documents. And FTR, I'm using vim to compose this very article!
:-)

In a past working life, I shortly used nroff when vi couldn't yet
format/reformat text (or I didn't know about it or didn't know how to
do it).

On a temporary assignment, I had to use WordPerfect, because the
organization which hired me was more (only?) interested in how research/
investigation/etc. reports looked, than in their content/substance.
Luckily after a few months, I managed to escape.

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.

[...]

[rbowman]

Post by Frank Slootweg
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...

[-hh]

Post by rbowman

Post by Frank Slootweg
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...

That's a very common 'organizer' use case.

I have some analytically based Excel stuff; it can get involved to build
in certain types of logic (like "last entry" instead of "MAX"). Ditto
for cell formatting which doesn't break from "divide by [no data]". I
don't know how many cells it is, but a couple are over 1MB in size,
including one with 21 tabs plus links to pull in data from other
spreadsheets.

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.


-hh

[Char Jackson]

Post by -hh
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?

[rbowman]

Post by Char Jackson

Post by -hh
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

I used JScript which was similar to JavaScript but Microsoft didn't want
to butt heads with Sun. They had been down that road with Visual J++. You
could use either with Windows Script Host.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Script_Host

and make COM calls against the applications that supported it. For example
I used it in conjunction with EagleView (now Pictometry). Given the
latitude and longitude of an incident I could create a URL referencing the
EagleView server, instantiate a connection to IE, and call the
NavigateTo() function with the URL. The relevant page would come up in IE.

It was a long way around the barn but it was easier than trying to
incorporate COM into an existing application. That was a very simple use
but you could make calls to any functionality exposed as COM. That whole
technology goes back to OLE and DDE.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_Linking_and_Embedding

Very powerful but as it was designed to work with VisualBasic the data
structures were the wierd Basic things like BSTRs.

[-hh]

Post by rbowman

Post by Char Jackson

Post by -hh
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

To be honest, I don't know ... I'd have to go ask which one ... although
knowing this person, I'd not be surprised if they used both.

At the time, this spreadsheet model was a "sanity" distraction while
worrying through his son's cancer treatments; in one summer he used it
to make $80K by day-trades on the Stock Market .. it helped to pay down
the medical bills. I laughed when he commiserated that the biggest
shortcoming the model had was that it was predicting up to two (2) days
in advance, which made it tricky to use.

-hh

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by -hh
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.

[-hh]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by -hh
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.

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.

He has expressed that he should rewrite it in {some flavor of C}, but
there were reasons why it originated in Excel: it was a personal
spin-off from the original application which was a work project, and
that (smaller) model ended up going through a M&S for ~10 million design
permutations.


-hh

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by -hh

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro
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.

I’m sure something could be whipped up in Python with NumPy/Pandas/
Matplotlib etc that would go through the same operations much more quickly
and efficiently.

Microsoft is even offering access to these Python toolkits to Excel users
now -- at a cost. You know -- charging for something that the users could
bypass Microsoft and access for free, only they’re too dumb to realize it.

[Chris]

Post by -hh

Post by rbowman

Post by Frank Slootweg
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...

That's a very common 'organizer' use case.
I have some analytically based Excel stuff; it can get involved to build
in certain types of logic (like "last entry" instead of "MAX"). Ditto
for cell formatting which doesn't break from "divide by [no data]". I
don't know how many cells it is, but a couple are over 1MB in size,
including one with 21 tabs plus links to pull in data from other
spreadsheets.
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.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Chris

Post by -hh
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.

Even Microsoft realizes that now.

[Andrzej Matuch]

Post by rbowman

Post by Andrzej Matuch
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.

[rbowman]

Post by Andrzej Matuch
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.

[Andrzej Matuch]

Post by rbowman

Post by Andrzej Matuch
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 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. Either way, if that guy is still alive, I imagine
he'd make a perfect Linux user because of his reluctance to change his
equipment to follow trends.

[Graham J]

Andrzej Matuch wrote:

[snip]

Post by Andrzej Matuch
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.

[Andrzej Matuch]

Post by Graham J
[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.

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.

[chrisv]

Post by Andrzej Matuch

Post by Graham J
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)

Post by Andrzej Matuch

Post by Graham J
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!

[Andrzej Matuch]

Post by chrisv

Post by Andrzej Matuch

Post by Graham J
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)

Post by Andrzej Matuch

Post by Graham J
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!

And I will bet that the toner cartridge (or whatever it is called)
lasted forever. I never printed enough to figure out how long it lasts
and eventually sold that printer for a measly $105 or so. I'm sure it
was worth a lot more though.

[Mark Lloyd]

On Sun, 29 Dec 2024 08:48:34 -0500, Andrzej Matuch wrote:

[snip]

Post by Andrzej Matuch
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.

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.

[Mark Lloyd]

On 29 Dec 2024 19:32:59 GMT, Mark Lloyd wrote:


[snip]

Post by Mark Lloyd
My first printer was an Epsom MX-80 (8-pin).

Correction: it was a 9-pin printer, but only 8 were used for bitmap
graphics. I don't remember how line feed worked.

Post by Mark Lloyd
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.

[rbowman]

Post by Andrzej Matuch
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.

[Andrzej Matuch]

Post by rbowman

Post by Andrzej Matuch
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.

I actually had some trouble with my printer with Linux a couple of days
ago. Unlike my previous Linux installations, it just wouldn't detect the
damned thing. After a minute or so, I realized that I had changed my
ISP's router a few months back and hadn't connected the printer to it
since because my basement, where the printer is located, was flooded in
August and we were waiting for it to be restored. A push-button setup
later and it worked like a charm.

[-hh]

Post by rbowman

Post by Andrzej Matuch
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.

We are all very quickly dating ourselves to the pre-digital era.

Post by rbowman
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.

For mainframe based, I migrated to JOVE over VI, as it wasn't for
programming and JOVE was IMO better suited for business communications.

Post by rbowman
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'm oversimplifying, but as a broad sweeping statement, I'd say that
monospaced fonts are better for writing code, whereas proportional fonts
are better for human-based reading of narrative.


-hh

[Ken Blake]

Post by Andrzej Matuch

Post by rbowman

Post by Mr. Man-wai Chang

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro
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?

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.

Not must-have to me. I never open Word (I greatly prefer WordPerfect)
and open Excel very rarely.

[DFS]

Post by Andrzej Matuch
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.

[DFS]

Post by Mr. Man-wai Chang

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro
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.

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.

WordPerfect and LibreOffice also offer some automation/programmability,
but not nearly at the level of MS Office.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by DFS
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.

[Mr. Man-wai Chang]

Post by Ant

Post by Mr. Man-wai Chang
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". :)

And if this company goes away... :(

So you wanna talk about real and virtual? Well... :)

[Chris]

Post by CrudeSausage

Post by CrudeSausage
<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]

Post by Chris

Post by CrudeSausage

Post by CrudeSausage
<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.

[DFS]

Post by CrudeSausage
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.

[bad sector]

Post by CrudeSausage
​Microsoft

"By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to
the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust
you will return.”

I don't see rental or proprietary anything in the above.