Setting a mind to rest …

Hmmmm …

You know, I’m thinking that unfamiliarity is a frustrating thing.

At least, when it’s on the outside, at any rate.

I do know I’m getting familiar with the look of mild panic that comes over people’s faces, whenever I mention Ubuntu.

Mixed with curiosity, it must be said.

I do know I’ve had my kid sister swear absolutely, she needs Microsoft Office for work!!!!

You can imagine what I said, can’t you?

Mind you, saying that, I do know that — for many companies — having the various Entourage sharing features that come with MS Office is vital to how they do business.

But it’s not necessarily the case for the rest of us.

I think for most us, the simple fact is we don’t know how — or IF — the functionally identical OpenOffice or NeoOffice will be able to handle MS Word or Excel files.

Which — as you can possible guess from the pictures — they both can. In fact, if you’re familiar with MS Office — which I was, when I started OpenOffice — making the switch is fairly easy.

As you can see, both are capable of opening, as saving in, the relevant file formats!

Including recent versions of .doc and .docx.

And, as I’ve mentioned before, both OpenOffice and NeoOffice can export a given document to the ever popular .pdf format.

I also know — from chatting to, if all people, my mother, this morning — that a big worry is “Can it do email and the net??”

Which I also know Councillor Chilvers admitted she tended to rely on her computer for.

I know from experience, however, that both OS X and Ubuntu have on-board apps to deal with. Both have an email client — Mail.app for OS X, and Evolution Mail for Ubuntu — that are easy to set up and use, and both can be connected, wirelessly or otherwise, to a router, and thus to the ’net.

Overwhelming amounts of detail?

Maybe.

But, these day’s, knowing this stuff is as handy as knowing how to drive …