For over 8 months I have been working on a Mac Pro now. Let me share some of my experience with the you. First I ran the beast with Windows XP on it. And this machine is a beast! It’s quad core server type processors are fast and the box in itself is put together in a way that it deserves the “Pro” for professional in its name. After realizing that memory under Windows XP was limited to 2 GB for some reason and we could not get it to even accept 3 GB of the 6 that it was con... Read Full Story

Today, I re-checked to see if the BBBOnline website is still unsecured. The good news is, the expired SSL Certificate is gone. Instead the online form which asks all kind of confidential business and personal information is completely unsecured (http:// instead of https://). Apparently they BBB is not willing to invest $50-$200 in a SSL Certificate to secure my data I submit to them. Way to go Better Business Bureau! Read Full Story

My trust in the Better Business Bureau® just got shattered. I always thought of it as a useful and trustworthy institution. Here is why I don’t think of them highly anymore. I was researching good practices in privacy policies for websites and came across a terrific page by BBBOnline.org How to craft your privacy policy. It is really well written and I found it very helpful. So I decided to learn more about their BBBOnline Seal program. So far so good. It hit me in the face, when I... Read Full Story

This week, Ingots, a group dedicated to teach IT skills based on open source, has published “Introduction to OpenOffice.org for Windows and Linux” (Use “Login as a guest”, to view the material). I like the concept and the content of the course. However, I’m curious how it compares to the innovative approach of “Plan-B for OpenOffice.org. What is your opinion? Do you prefer a traditional course offering like the one from Ingot or do you prefer the video bas... Read Full Story

OpenOffice.org Release 2.4 is now available for free download. Curious about what changed? Release 2.4 has improved Ease of use for setting languages for selected text in multi language documents The chart module with improved label formatting and positioning, regression charts, and inverted axis The presentation application (Impress) has added 3d slide transitions Pictures as slide background The spreadsheet application (Calc) has added Splitting text into separate columns Start fo... Read Full Story

According to InfoWorld, Walmart discontinued selling its $200 gPC from Everex in stores. The $200 PC loaded with Google applications will continue to be available at the Walmart.com website. As reason, Walmart’s spokes person, O’Brien said “The idea was to see if shoppers in our stores would respond as they do online to the offering. The answer is that customers did not respond to expectations, so we decided not to restock.” This is an interesting contrast to the many ... Read Full Story

At ZDNet, Christopher Dawson compares NeoOffice vs. OpenOffice vs. Office 2008 vs. iWork. He obviously comprares them on Mac OS X, as GeoOffice or iWork and Office 2008 are special releases for the Apple Mac platform. His report is influenced by his experience managing the IT for a school in Western Massachusetts. Chris concludes: iWork is very slick and integrates well brilliantly with iLife. It’s easy to use, but powerful enough for serious users. However, it’s lack of compatibility with o... Read Full Story

This weekend something amazing happened to the traffic at Plan-B for OpenOffice.org. It doubled! Why? Someone discovered the Open Office Calc video table of content page using the StumbledUpon Toolbar and must have shared it with her friends. And the crowd was really interested. Visitors that came from Stumbledupon stayed 35% longer than average visitors and their bounce rate was half of the usual average. Read Full Story

We at Plan-B for OpenOffice.org do love feedback from our users. On average, about 50% send us back a thank you for our answers to their OpenOffice questions. Some of the best we publish on our testimonials pages. Dear users and readers keep them coming. We love your feedback and appreciate a thank you any time. It is so rewarding! Read Full Story

I just stumbled upon this quote The design uses the same hardware platform as existing WiMax base stations, bearing out assertions from Airspan and others, that a WiMax base station can be sold as an LTE base station, using a different software load. “It’s just like a PC that can run either OpenOffice or MS Office,” said Baines. “We can build a card with the same hardware and run either WiMax or LTE.” about OpenOffice in an unusual place. It is part of a report... Read Full Story