19 Feb 2011

Sat, 19 Feb 2011 21:14:31 GMT

A secretary's problem

Recently, a friend came to me with a problem. She's working as a secretary, and when she told me that she had difficulties with a Microsoft Office file, I was pretty sure that I would not be able to help her.

A colleague had sent her the file, but apparently this colleague was using a different version of Microsoft Office. When she tried to open the file, an important table was missing in the document.

I told her that I hadn't used Microsoft software in more than a decade, but she insisted that I have a look at her file.

So I opened her file in Abiword, without a problem, and to her surprise the table appeared exactly in the right place of the document. Consequently, she urged me to give her a copy of Abiword, which I gladly did.

Oh well. The day that secretaries start to install Abiword on their computers in order to be able to open Microsoft Office files must be a really black day for the software vendor.

3 Jun 2006

Sat, 3 Jun 2006 10:33:07 GMT

It has come to my attention that in a number of places I'm attributed as the author of the Istanbul desktop session recorder. This is incorrect. I frankly can't tell about the quality of this piece of software, as I never have used it, but I wouldn't rule out that I'll have a look at it some day.

However, I can see where this misconception stems from: Some time ago, I fixed a typo at the FSF wiki, and since that time the bottom of the Istanbul wiki page there says something like "Last change by Nicolas Kaiser". Now someone must have erroneously taken me for the author of this project, which I'm not, and this misconception apparently has spread to other sites.

Credit where due - in this case, not me.

Advogato blog for nikai

19 Feb 2011

3 Jun 2006