Holy fucking shit...STOP USING MS OFFICE and spread the word!!!!

[bwid_s_01]

http://www.utne.com/web_special/web_specials_2003-08/articles/10807-1.html

At least China has some sense:
http://silicon.com/news/500012/1/5726.html

[ August 26, 2003: Message edited by: bwid_s_01 ]

[avello500]

hmm asians get m$ code, then comes cheaper version of windows. goto love it.
i cant wait to see the OS they come up with.

[suselinux]

quote:Originally posted by avello500:
hmm asians get m$ code, then comes cheaper version of windows. goto love it.
i cant wait to see the OS they come up with.

Red Flag Linux

[sime]

This is not new and was pointed out to the troll who was up here @ the weekend which he / she / it chose to ignore as is the norm for trolls.

Interesting to note Mr. Blair was burned by this and the UK Gov now utilizes PDF documents.

More info can be found here ...

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3154479.stm

http://www.cs.uit.no/~tobias/NEW/word-rejection.html

Keep this in mind when you email attachments - Don't attach Word docs for 2 reasons.

1] You will potentially be passing personal data that you don't even know is there to all and sundry.

2] The document sizes are HUGE in comparison to a text file. There is enough rubbish on the net, using up bandwidth without adding the overheads of a Word document and potentially 10%+ more information than is actually necessary.

Sime

[Calum]

here's another very good reason not to use them:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

[jasonlane]

This applies to all M$ products, dirty little things.

Red Flag! Chinese penguins!

[sime]

Spot on Calum!

Anybody tried sending their CV (resume) to an IT recruitment agency that is NOT in Word format? Simply put they won't accept it!

Bloody nonsence, the only time I have seen that rule broken was when I was applying for a contract with IBM who require your CV as a text file.

Good on ya Big Blue!

Sime

[Jens14]

why dont they use open office

[Calum]

well, for the answer to that question, here's a little game, rearrange the following letters to get the answer:

S T U I P D I T Y

i heard once about a guy in my LUG who was applying for a job admining some red hat linux servers. they asked for his CV as an  MSword document (after refusing his html version).

[ August 27, 2003: Message edited by: Calum ]

[sime]

At present Open Office is obviously the way to go for non Windows users as it can read MS$ files however in the foot note of the second link I gave above it states ....

"Word files can only be read by Word" .. exceptions: Word documents can probably be viewed by some standard tools under MS-Windows, and there also exists some tools for viewing the files under Linux and other operating systems. However, that is not a point. Microsoft Word documents are saved in a secret format, the format is changing between every version, and in the future it might even be ILLEGAL to decipher the format."

If MS$ gets it's way and it does become ILLEGAL to decipher the file format then ONLY Word users will be able to read the format and no other program regardless.

Common sense should tell anyone that this is a complete monopoly scenario. The end result being MS$ would be able to hold the computing world to ransom and charge whatever they see fit for their product knowing full well that the customer can't change regardless of wether they want to or not.

Allowing a company to make a file type that is proprietary is simply wrong as it prevents other companies from developing software that can make use of it (note $MS will of course read other companies files) thereby stifling competition and business.

Worse still it allows the company controlling the file format to change it at a whim under the guise of improvement or some such and while they are doing it lock out previous versions of their OWN software giving users no choice but to upgrade.

Sime

[bigsleep]

quote:Originally posted by sime:
Spot on Calum!

Anybody tried sending their CV (resume) to an IT recruitment agency that is NOT in Word format? Simply put they won't accept it!

So send it in RTF.

[Calum]

true. just append ".doc" to the filename of your rtf and NOBODY will EVER know... (which is pretty dumb in itself, but that's life)