Libre Office and Open Office both grow up a bit–together

Dave Farquhar Software , , , , ,

Both Libre Office and Open Office released new versions this week, and the changelog indicates a good amount of shared code between the two, at least in this go-round. The animosity between the two—Libre Office is a fork of Open Office, dating to before the time Oracle spun the project off to Apache—may thus be overstated. Read more

Have a busload of servers? Need to know what version of Windows they’re all running?

Dave Farquhar Windows , ,

Every once in a great while, I have to answer a question like what version of Windows a range of servers is running. If the number of servers is very small, you can just connect to them with a Terminal Services client and note what comes up. But sometimes that’s impractical. Right now I’m working someplace that has 8,000 servers, more or less. I’m not going to check 8,000 servers manually. I’m just not.

Here’s a more elegant, much faster way to go about getting that information.

Read more

Hisense pushes out a Sero 7 Pro update

Dave Farquhar Android

My Hisense Sero 7 Pro asked to update itself this morning. The update billed itself as a stability update. Indeed, afterward, it still reports itself as running Android 4.2.1.

That said, I’m all for a stability update. My Sero 7 Pro sometimes has issues coming out of sleep mode, so I let it update. Whether it makes a difference will take a while to figure out–I tended to have the issue once or twice a week. A day is too little for anything but a first impression, and my first impression is that this was a very low-profile update. But mainly I’m happy to see that Hisense seems to be supporting the tablet with updates. Not every update needs to make a big splash.

Wookie suits at work

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized , ,

I have a coworker who owns a Darth Vader costume. If you ask him really nicely, he might dress up as Darth Vader to scare your kids. He’s proud enough to own that costume that he keeps a picture of himself in it on his desk.

Someone–I forget who–had the idea this past week that his cubicle neighbor ought to get a Chewbacca the Wookie suit. Because nothing goes with Darth Vader like Chewbacca, right? Several of us even reached for our wallets in anticipation of taking up a collection to fund this Chewbacca suit, and then someone threw out a stipulation–that the two of them need to wear their costumes to work.

For some reason, I still have my copy of the corporate dress code, so I got it out to see if it would be legal to wear Chewbacca and Darth Vader costumes to work. Read more

Now that Microsoft is IBM, it needs to avoid IBM’s big mistake

Dave Farquhar Windows , , , , , , , , ,

Whether Microsoft likes it or not, it’s turned into IBM. The biggest difference I see is that when Microsoft makes a mistake, it catches up with them much faster than the same mistake did to IBM.

But IBM’s biggest mistake was its adamant refusal to compete with itself. And that’s what Microsoft is going to have to avoid. Like Computerworld says, Apple says if you don’t compete with yourself, someone else will. Read more

Lawn mower blade bolt stuck? Try this

Dave Farquhar DIY, Saving money
Lawn mower blade bolt stuck? Try this

I needed to change a stubborn mower blade this weekend. The lawnmower blade bolt was stuck and wouldn’t budge. That proved to be a challenge, but not an insurmountable one. If your lawn mower blade bolt is stuck, it’s possible to fix with simple tools you probably already have.

To remove and replace a lawn mower blade safely and easily, you need a length of 2×4 board long enough to stand on, a small plastic pan, the biggest socket wrench you can find, and a socket that matches the stuck bolt on your mower. If you don’t have a socket wrench or torque wrench, you can use a regular crescent wrench, but you want the biggest one you can find. Longer wrenches give more leverage, and you need lots of leverage to free a stuck bolt. Read more