Linux vs Windows vs Mac

The third major installment of OpenOffice.org’s suite of applications has reached its final version. Probably one of the most important aspects surrounding OpenOffice 3 for Mac is that it now runs natively under Mac OS X, meaning no more X11, meaning faster performance, a standard UI and an increased overall reliability.

Being the major update that it is, OpenOffice 3 does many extra tricks, like reading documents saved with Microsoft Office 2007 or 2008 in .docx, .xlsx, .pptx and other new formats. This feature alone is enough to bite some of Microsoft Office’s market-share, and upset some high-ups over in Silicon Valley. The suite can read and write documents in standardized OpenDocument Format (ODF) 1.2 as well.

The Start Centre has received a major overhaul, adding new icons and a new zoom control in the status bar. Chart boosts looks while Draw and Impress come with improved crop features. Writer adds a new notes feature and a built-in math solver component, and is also able to display multiple pages during editing. Workbooks now support up to 1024 columns in each spreadsheet. New sharing options have also been added, enabling multiple users to collaborate on a single workbook simultaneously.As for the Mac version of OpenOffice 3.0, for once, it brings some support for Visual Basic for Applications, which enables users to program macros customize their commands to great extent. Best of all though, the suite adds native OS X support for the first time. This means users no longer have to fire up that pesky graphical environment for UNIX applications known as X11. Thinking of Gimp’s wasted potential on Macs, X11 commits a sin by simply existing. So, what does all this mean?

Well, for starters, you now have an office suite of apps that behaves natively, crashes less (or almost never); it blends in with the Aqua interface which makes it look and feel like any OS X app; it integrates with OS X’s Accessibility API and is more accessible, fast and reliable.

OpenOffice 3.0 was uploaded to the organization’s servers at 10am (BST) on Monday, sources say. “The servers seem to have collapsed under the load,” said OpenOffice.org’s marketing lead, John McCreesh. McCreesh pointed out that the “vast majority” of downloads of the suite take place through local mirrors, but said “the fact that our central site can’t even run the bouncer [to divert requests to those local mirrors] must mean it’s… our biggest-ever download”.

You may download OpenOffice 3.0 Finalhere:

External Mirror 1

Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 now offered via the Web to students looking for a premium Microsoft Office suite at student pricing.

As part of Microsoft Corp.’s commitment to education, the company is re-introducing The Ultimate Steal program this school year, inviting students who are actively enrolled at educational institutions to purchase Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 at a low student price of $59.95 (U.S.). This program begins in the United States today with additional countries to be launched throughout the year. The offer will be available to students throughout the academic school year.

Office Ultimate 2007 provides students with a comprehensive set of tools that can help them create high-quality documents, gather and consolidate lecture notes and other information, stay organized, find what they are looking for quickly, and easily collaborate with colleagues and professors across geographies. Office Ultimate 2007 includes the entire Microsoft Office toolset that students are accustomed to working with and more, including Microsoft Office Word 2007, Microsoft Office Excel 2007, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Microsoft Office Access 2007, Microsoft Office Publisher 2007, Office OneNote 2007, Office Groove 2007 and Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007.

Additional Products Offered this School Year

This year, The Ultimate Steal program features additional products, including the following:

• Windows Vista Ultimate upgrade.1 The most comprehensive edition of Windows Vista, combining the power, security and mobility features that you need for work with all the entertainment features that you want for fun.
• Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2007.1 Visio Professional makes it easy for students to visualize, explore and communicate complex information. Students can go from complicated text and tables that are hard to understand to Visio-based diagrams that communicate information at a glance.
• Microsoft Office Language Packs.1 Office Language Packs help multilingual students who routinely create or edit documents in different languages by providing the flexibility of switching the entire user experience — including menus, help and proofing tools such as spell checker, dictionary and thesaurus — to any of 37 different languages.

The additional products will be available in the U.S. on Sept. 8, 2008. Those wanting to see what upgrades are available in which countries should visit http://www.TheUltimateSteal.com.

SOURCE: microsoft.com

The first patch for the free office suite, NeoOffice 2.2.4 Patch-1 it’s out!

If you are wondering what is NeoOffice, then we can tell you that is a full-featured set of office applications developed especially for Mac OS X. It includes word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing and database programs and it’s based on the OpenOffice.org office suite, with native Mac features. It has the ability to import, edit and exchange files with other office programs. Most Microsoft Office 2007 Word, Excel and PowerPoint files are supported, as well as Excel VBA Macros.

With the release of NeoOffice 2.2.3, the app suite offered QuickTime video support for the first time (but only for Mac OS X 10.4.x and higher), with the ability to import images from scanners and cameras, for different types of projects. NeoOffice 2.2.3 also brought command-clicking on window title bar and Mac OS X Leopard grammar checking support.

NeoOffice 2.2.4 adds native floating tool windows and magnify & swipe trackpad gestures for MacBook users; horizontal scroll wheel support has also been added in 2.2.4.

Fixed bugs by the first patch for NeoOffice 2.2.4:

• an issue where clipping of background images failed when printing
• a problem where Fontwork was missing or banded when printing
• possible crashes at startup or when editing a form in Base due to preferences corruption

Note: NeoOffice 2.2.4 Patch-1 requires a full installation of NeoOffice 2.2.4 or NeoOffice 2.2.3 with NeoOffice 2.2.4 Patch-0 and will not install on any version of NeoOffice 2.2.2. Patch-1 includes all fixes and additions of previous patches.