Vista vs. XP for LL

[Rodrigo]

Originally Posted by LaurV

Windoze does not offer any kind of support for a "compose" key. I am quite sure of this, being from an east-European country, I always was in need for "strange accent" characters. We have ă, î, â, ş, ţ, etc in our language, and there was a time when it was difficult, almost impossible, to get them on the screen (that is why Windows 3.2 for Central European Countries was created, which in fact was just Windows 3.1 with diacritics).

Modern versions of Microsoft Office include extensive character/symbol sets in numerous typefaces, and you have four ways of inputting them: by using the ALT key + a 3-digit ASCII combination; by using the ALT key + a 4-digit Unicode combination; by using the [CTRL key] + [a character that stands in for the diacritical mark] + [the character that carries that mark]; or by clicking on Symbol and then selecting the desired complete character.

Of these four methods, the first two (using the ASCII or Unicode sets) are available throughout Windows, while the other two are specific to Office. (This distinction is the reason why I made that comment to Dubslow.) However, the ASCII route gives you much more limited options, as you found out way back in Windows 3.1.

You can also program series of keystrokes to render characters or symbols that don't have ASCII or Unicode equivalents and you don't feel like looking them up in the character set every time you need them. For example, when working on my chess notebooks, if I need a bishop figurine, I can either mouse up to Symbol, click on it, scroll around to select a chess typeface, mouse down to the bishop, and click on it every single time it's needed. Or I can do that once and then associate it with the sequence ALT+F2+B (my selection) so that I can just do that whenever I need a bishop. ALT+F2+Q for a queen, and so on.

I imagine that this, too, is possible in LibreOffice? That you can install a new font (say, a TrueType chess font such as DiagramTTFritz, without going through a lot of conversion contortions) and then create macros to render the symbols with just a few keystrokes?

Rodrigo

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by Rodrigo

I imagine that this, too, is possible in LibreOffice? That you can install a new font (say, a TrueType chess font such as DiagramTTFritz, without going through a lot of conversion contortions) and then create macros to render the symbols with just a few keystrokes?

I dunno.

Google? The goal is to be able to replace (and hopefully/eventually usurp) MOffice, so presumably yes, but I don't know how in either MO or LO.

[Rodrigo]

By the way, last night I got notification that a new message was posted in this thread, but clicking on the link in the e-mail took me to this:

Is this another creation by Xyzzy , or should I be worried? I'm leaning toward the former, but keeping fingers crossed...

Rodrigo

[retina]

Originally Posted by Rodrigo

By the way, last night I got notification that a new message was posted in this thread, but clicking on the link in the e-mail took me to this:

Is this another creation by Xyzzy , or should I be worried? I'm leaning toward the former, but keeping fingers crossed...

I thought the message was clear. An update was in progress. There is no drama here (except, perhaps, for the lack of punctuation by troll 3).

[Dubslow]

For the last week or so, notifications on new posts for me has been slightly flaky as well, though only slightly. Sometimes a thread will highlight as new, but when I click the last post is a post I read the day before; a few times when I clicked newpost, it actually skipped a few posts that I hadn't previously seen.

[Rodrigo]

Originally Posted by retina

I thought the message was clear.

Nuh-uh, not here! From my perspective, put together (1) a normal notice of a new posting with (2) an unexpected and (3) weirdly written message that (4) intercepted the thread link and which (5) talked about "security" -- and alarm bells started going off.

Rodrigo

[xilman]

Originally Posted by Rodrigo

Nuh-uh, not here! From my perspective, put together (1) a normal notice of a new posting with (2) an unexpected and (3) weirdly written message that (4) intercepted the thread link and which (5) talked about "security" -- and alarm bells started going off.

I understand your concern but that's the way trolls are and you either have to put up with it or petition Mike to sack the trolls and replace them with someone else. Given that the trolls do a good job, by and large, and do so at extremely low cost I doubt you'll have much success. After all, a job which pays peanuts tends to get done by monkeys so replacing the trolls is probably not a good idea.

[Rodrigo]

Originally Posted by xilman

I understand your concern but that's the way trolls are and you either have to put up with it or petition Mike to sack the trolls and replace them with someone else. Given that the trolls do a good job, by and large, and do so at extremely low cost I doubt you'll have much success. After all, a job which pays peanuts tends to get done by monkeys so replacing the trolls is probably not a good idea.

Rodrigo

[joblack]

The free Microsoft Security Essentials works fine for me.

[henryzz]

Originally Posted by joblack

The free Microsoft Security Essentials works fine for me.

Microsoft Security Essentials seems to be a pretty lightweight antivirus and effective most of the time. I have never personally had a virus with it. School had loads with it however they also did with both Norton and AVG.

[debrouxl]

In serious comparisons of AV software:
* all programs, paid or for no fee, are severely defective and ineffective (not to mention inefficient) - the choice is between bad programs, and worse programs;
* Microsoft Security Essentials is usually one of the least efficient programs. Microsoft's AV software cannot be on par with others, lest they're willing to let themselves subject to anti-trust scrutiny.

It was pretty enlightening to watch what VirusTotal had to say about the several virus I removed from neighbors'/relatives' computers over years. Needless to say, I had to find the virus myself, through other methods (e.g. msconfig, ProcessExplorer, fsbl) - the AV software installed on the computers themselves didn't find anything wrong with the computers...

The entire AV software industry is a scam. For users, the only sane choice is not to use paid AV software. Indeed, no-fee AVs have a major advantage over paid AVs: users don't get constantly milked for updates to software that doesn't protect them...