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Openoffice vs Libreoffice

Dave Farquhar Software January 20, 2020January 20, 2020

If you need a free, open source office suite, the leading choices are Openoffice and Libreoffice. And if you’re comparing, the two may seem more alike than different. The apps all have the same names, the user interfaces are really similar, and so are the feature sets. It’s not a coincidence, but there are some differences. Let’s take a look at Openoffice vs Libreoffice.

Libreoffice is derived from Openoffice, so that’s why the tools are so similar. However, there are some minor differences between the two that may be important to you.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

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Advantages and disadvantages of CLI

Dave Farquhar Software June 25, 2019June 9, 2019

Many people regard command line interfaces as old-fashioned. They’re certainly less friendly and much less intuitive than icons and a mouse. Nevertheless, command line interfaces still exist, and even the Macintosh, the computer that introduced the masses to icons and mice, has one. So what are the advantages and disadvantages of CLI?

Command lines can be cryptic but they can be a whole lot faster, and they make automation and dealing with huge data sets possible. Network administrators, system administrators, security professionals, and data scientists may all spend significant time using a CLI for this reason.

Dave Farquhar

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How game cracking works

Dave Farquhar Software March 28, 2019June 8, 2024

Copying software is a problem as old as software itself. Software manufacturers immediately sought to prevent people from copying their products. And it’s been a game of cat and mouse ever since, as people figured out how to crack the software so they could copy it. Here’s how game cracking works.

Cracking games, or any other software, is a matter of making the software stop performing whatever checks the manufacturer put in place to defeat copying. It typically takes some knowledge of machine language, and sometimes encryption, to make it work. But once the check is circumvented, the software generally can be copied freely.

Dave Farquhar

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How to create a stacked bar chart in Excel

Dave Farquhar Office, Software July 15, 2018November 19, 2018excel, Plumbing, sprint

My boss’ management is clamoring for metrics. They want to know, at a glance, what we’re doing and how far along we are. Sounds like a job for stacked bar charts in Excel to me. So here’s how to create a stacked bar chart in Excel.

Figuring out a way to track our progress was fairly easy. Figuring out how to make Excel display that chart in a meaningful fashion… Well, that took about five hours. I’ll try to make it easier for you than it was for me.
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Dave Farquhar

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How to accept all changes in Word

Dave Farquhar Office, Software July 15, 2018November 19, 2018markup, microsoft word

Every couple of months or so, we have to collaborate at work on a Microsoft Word document and submit it without all the distracting markup in it. And it seems like it always takes four of us half an hour to re-figure out how to accept all changes in Word and remove the comments. This applies to Word 2007 and all newer versions.

Sometimes I also find the tracked changes and other markup causes weird problems, and the fastest way to make them go away is to get rid of the markup.

So I figured it might help someone. This is something that either takes you 30 seconds or 30 minutes. If you don’t do this every day, it’s likely to take too long. This is for those of you who can’t do it in less than 30 minutes.
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Dave Farquhar

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What does compressing a file do?

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing, Software June 11, 2018November 16, 2019

What does compressing a file do? There are several ways to describe it, from eliminating redundancy, to just thinking of it as digital shorthand. The goal is to make the file take up less space on disk and in transit. How it works is a bit more complicated.

Dave Farquhar

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What is a bot in computer terms?

Dave Farquhar Software May 21, 2018September 16, 2023

You hear the word “bot” thrown around a lot today. It’s in conversations, on the news, and even in stand-up comedians’ routines. So everyone assumes you know what it means. But what is a bot in computer terms?

Don’t be afraid to ask. I’ll explain it.

Dave Farquhar

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Zero client vs thin client

Dave Farquhar Software May 2, 2018January 6, 2025

Zero clients and thin clients are two ways companies deal with the problem of sprawling computer infrastructure its associated costs. Instead of putting an expensive computer on every desk, you put something small and cheap on every desk and share that expensive computer. Let’s look at zero client vs thin client, and the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Dave Farquhar

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What is public cloud?

Dave Farquhar Software April 12, 2018January 23, 2022

Cloud computing is all the rage right now, and it’s created a mess of jargon that can make your head spin. Don’t worry though. No one was born knowing this stuff. So, what is public cloud, and what makes it different from other clouds? Assuming there are other clouds?

Public cloud is a booming business. In Q4 of 2017, Amazon’s cloud business accounted for 60 percent of the company’s total operating income. Amazon made its name selling books, but today it makes its money renting computer time. A lot of people don’t know that. Or at least it seems that way.

Dave Farquhar

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What is machine language?

Dave Farquhar Software April 3, 2018May 2, 2020

From time to time you may find a reference to something mysterious and computer-related called machine language. Most people just assume you know what it means, if you care. But what is machine language in computer terminology, and why is it important?

Dave Farquhar

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