John Dilbeck Musings

A couple of weeks ago, I installed NeoOffice.

Now, to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t replacing Microsoft Office. I quit using Microsoft products over ten years ago and didn’t upgrade after Word version 5 for the Mac, several years before.

I’ve been using Microsoft products seemingly forever. I started with Word version 1.0 on the Mac and I used Microsoft Office on both Mac and PC for quite some time, since Windows 1.0 and Microsoft Office 1.0.

I even wrote a book using Word 5 for Mac that included table of contents and an index, so I feel like I know the product, even if I haven’t used any of the most recent versions.

For most of the last ten years, ClarisWorks and AppleWorks have offered everything I needed, and since I own my own business, I’m not tied to any corporate dictates about the software I have to use.

The only problems I faced were people who sent me documents in .doc format, which I could not read and didn’t feel much of a need to read. If they sent the files as Rich Text Format (.rtf) files, then I could import most of them into AppleWorks - at least well enough to read.

I was perfectly content until last month, but then my needs changed.

I have plans to write a variety of reports and short ebooks over the coming months. I spend a lot of time researching various things and I’m going to write about them and make the reports and ebooks available - some free and some paid.

In the past, I would have written in PageMaker and produced the PDF files by printing to the included Acrobat distiller.

With my new iMac, I can no longer use PageMaker, so I had to look at different solutions.

As you may already know, it is easy to print to PDF from just about all Mac OS X applications, but I discovered something that was very surprising.

It seems that the applications I had available could create active hyperlinks in the docments, but those hyperlinks would not be active when I printed the documents to a PDF file.

I tried AppleWorks, and, while the PDF showed the correct words styled with underlines and blue text, the links were not active; I could not click on the text and go to the URL in my designated browser.

I downloaded Nisus Express with the same results.

I tried Voodoo Pad with the same results.

While researching the problem, I found on a forum (don’t remember which one) that Word would create PDF files with active hyperlinks. That wasn’t an option for me.

So, if Word would do the job, I wondered if there was an alternative that would do what I wanted. I’d been following OpenOffice for awhile, and I was willing to install X11 and OpenOffice if it would do the job.

While researching this, I ran across a project I’d never heard of: NeoOffice.

NeoOffice takes the OpenOffice code and turns it into a Mac OS X application, complete with easy installation, and the Mac look and feel.

Best of all, it wasn’t related to Microsoft and it was free.

The trouble was, however, that it was a 145 MB download, and on my slow dial-up connection, that just wasn’t feasible.

I mentioned this on the NeoOffice forum and several people offered to burn a CD and send it to me. I accepted an offer from one very generous person and a few days later, when the CD arrived, I was able to install and start using NeoOffice in less than an hour.

The NeoOffice team used to ship CDs, but discontinued doing so due to lack of demand.

Linboo.com had been shipping the NeoOffice CD, but when I tried their site, it was offline. I didn’t know if it would come back or not.

Since then, it has, and LinBoo ships a variety of Unix and Linux CDs, including NeoOffice 2.1 and OpenOffice. If I’d waited a day or so, I could have ordered directly from them.

I am perfectly happy with NeoOffice 2.1. It does exactly what I want to do.

At first, I was really disappointed. I tested a short report with multiple hyperlinks, and, when I printed it to PDF, I got the same results I’d been getting with all the other applications I tried. The resulting PDF had what looked like links (underlined and blue), but they were not active.

So, apparently, the fault lies with the Print to PDF feature of Mac OS X. I would say that not creating active hyperlinks is a rather major shortcoming of the programming. I’m surprised that Apple hasn’t fixed this problem.

However, when I went looking through the NeoOffice menus, I noticed “Export to PDF.” That sounded promising.

Instead of printing to PDF, I chose to export to PDF and that made all the difference.

The resulting PDF file has real, active hyperlinks.

Why is this so important?

If I were writing a short report of 10 pages or less, I would have to edit the document and print to PDF. Then, I’d have to load my full version of Acrobat (version 4), add hyperlinks to the PDF in the appropriate places, and then re-save the PDF report.

For a one-off version of a short report, this is not much of a problem. However, the longer the report or ebook, the more the links and the more trouble to rewrite and update all the links. I don’t even want to get started if I have to go through such a complicated process.

I intend to update these reports and ebooks as it becomes necessary, and I don’t intend to go throught this process over and over. I should be able to modify the report and produce an updated PDF with all the links in place, directly from my word processor.

Now, with the NeoOffice export to PDF command, I can do this exactly how I want. Perhaps I’m getting lazier as I get older, or maybe I’m finally learning about this “work smarter, not harder” concept.

I tried a variety of different links of varying complexity and all of them worked as desired when I exported the document to PDF.

I’ve tried exporting word processing docs (Writer) and spreadsheets (Calc) and the resulting PDFs were exactly what I wanted.

Now, I am not a corporate power user and have no need for probably 99% of what NeoOffice provides, but now I have the perfect application for creating reports, ebooks, and even books with tables of contents and indexes.

A side benefit - that some of my friends may appreciate more than I will - is that I can open .doc files directly and they don’t have to send the files to me in .rtf format. I still serve on a nonprofit committee that makes small seed grants and matching grants for fundraisers to small grassroots nonprofits in western North Carolina, and the standard format for sharing information by nonprofits is Microsoft Word.

If you have a broadband connection, you can downlowad NeoOffice for free, or you can get a CD from LinBoo.com.

If you don’t use a Mac, you may want to look at OpenOffice.org or purchase a CD with OpenOffice from LinBoo.

I’ve had no problem with NeoOffice and I spent half-a-day putting the various modules through their paces. The only thing that feels weird is that NeoOffice opens all the modules in one integrated whole and that feels more like AppleWorks than Microsoft Office. As long as your computer has enough RAM, it shouldn’t be a problem. Right now, I have Radio Userland, TextWrangler, Safari, Preview, and NeoOffice all running in a Mac with 512 MB of RAM.

I’m happy with NeoOffice, and I recommend it to you if you want to dump Microsoft Office.

Will it do everything you need or want?

I don’t know. You’ll have to test this for yourself, but the cost is right. There is very little work or risk involved in trying it for yourself.

Act on your dream!

JD

On Memorial Day, the monitor on my faithful Macintosh 8500 died.

I’ve been using that computer and monitor for about 14 years and even after all that time, I was surprised when the monitor went from a full screen to a thin horizontal line and then turned itself off.

I’ve been thinking for some time that it’s about time to get a new - or newer - Mac. After all, the 8500 is a dinosaur in terms of computers, and sometimes I’m surprised that I can still use it for real work.

On the other hand, I have many thousands of dollars worth of software that will not run on the newest Macs and I don’t plan to upgrade all of that perfectly usable software unless I absolutely have to.

So, I went rumaging through my old computer parts and found an old multisync VGA monitor that I used on the last PC I owned - or ever plan to own. When I turned it on, it looked like it would work, so I turned my attention to finding a VGA adapter so I could use it with my Mac.

But, I couldn’t search online with a headless computer.

So, since I’ve been working 7 days a week for months, I decided to take a few days off and consider the best path for moving from my ancient computer to a much faster system running the latest version of OS X.

The trouble is, some of my software will only work in Mac OS 9, so I need to be sure to buy a computer that will dual boot into OS 9 or OS X. Even classic mode in OS X won’t be sufficient for some of my software - including some I developed for myself. One of the reasons I haven’t wanted to move from that computer to a new one is because I’ve spent over a decade customizing and programming that system to work exactly how I want. If I started over with a new computer, I’d lose lots of functionality and I’d have to either recreate what I’ve been using or do things totally differently.

So, taking time off and musing about it seemed like a good idea.

I caught up on my sleep and watched about a dozen episodes of Stargate Atlantis from Netflix.

Yesterday, I decided I would go to the library the next day (today) and do some searching for companies that sell refurbished Macs so I could order a custom system with exactly what I want.

I was talking to Mom and noticed her even-more-ancient Mac LC 580 system sitting in the corner. She had used that computer for years for genealogy research and email and it hadn’t been turned on in months. She hasn’t been able to use it for several years and the last time it was turned on was so I could play Tetris on it - a game I won’t put on my working system if I want to get any real work done.

I fired it up, dialed into the Internet, and started the Netscape version 4 browser.

I was totally surprised that not only could I search on Google and find several refurbished Mac dealers, but I could even look through their websites. It was slow, yes, but it worked. I don’t even know how old that computer is, but it worked!

So, I browsed MacOfAllTrades.com in Tampa, Florida and found some interesting systems and software for sale.

Later, I went to PreOwnedMac.com (resale.headgap.com) in Memphis, Tennessee and looked at what they had to offer. This was the company I was looking for. They build custom systems using old Macs and new optical and hard drives. I can configure just what I want and purchase from them and maybe not lose all the functionality I have with my current Mac 8500. Plus, the newer system would be much faster and have much more storage.

So, I spent much of the day looking over what they offer and comparing it to brand-new systems.

I still haven’t made up my mind about what I want to do; I make these decisions slowly and deliberately because I intend to use any system I buy for years.

I found a universal Mac to VGA adapter that I’ll be ordering in a few minutes and that will solve my immediate problem. It feels strange not to check my email or work on any of my blogs or websites for a whole week, but it has been a restful week and I look forward to getting back to work.

This morning, just to see if it would work, I went to JohnDilbeckAndFriends.com on Mom’s old LC 580. I could read the blog, but could not log in and post any updates.

Then, I tried some of my WordPress blogs at JohnDilbeck.com/musings/ , blog.cherokeecountync.com , and MurphyNC28906.com .

I was completely surprised to find that I could post new items to all of those blogs.

I couldn’t see the blogs with the theme I expected, but I could read all the entries and click all the links.

So, I spent a few hours this morning posting some updates.

I tried logging in to Localendar.com , but that didn’t work, so I’ll have to wait to update my calendar there.

The point I guess I’m trying to make is that these Macintosh systems from back in the 20th century are still useful and can do real work in the early 21st century. Yes, they are slow, have outdated browsers, not enough memory, and don’t support current software and hardware, but they still work for much of what I want.

I move forward slowly and no longer adopt anything on the bleeding edge of technology or even the leading edge of technology. I did way to much of that over the 30 years I worked as a computer consultant. Now, I want a system that works - all the time. I don’t want to constantly update the software or the hardware. I still use software that I bought or developed over 15 years ago and it works just fine.

Yes, it’s about time to move to OS X and I may even buy some new software one of these days, and then again, maybe I won’t.

Time will tell.

Think different(ly).

Act on your dream!

JD

Peter Cohen writes about: Forbes profiles ‘Apple’s Supercomputing Scientists’.

“Virginia Tech’s new G5-based supercomputing center isn’t the only place that Macs are being used for scientific research, writes Matthew Herper. Herper’s new Forbes.com article, Apple’s Supercomputing Scientists, profiles some of the other uses for Macs in the scientific world.”

[MacCentral]

Mac Founders Push for New Ideas. The crew that put together the first Mac is celebrating its 20th birthday, but some are disappointed over the apparent lack of innovation in personal computers.

By Daniel Terdiman. [Wired News]

January 07, 2004

5:49 AM

New Report: Macs and Cell Phones. Readers offer a ton of tips about integrating Macs with cell phones, which isn’t always an easy thing to do. [MacInTouch]