Entire Italian province drops Microsoft Office for LibreOffice

Not too long ago I wrote about the entire city of Munich switching from Microsoft Windows to Linux.

Now the Italian province of Umbria is switching from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice.

This kind of thing is happening all over the world. Microsoft will have to lower their prices and offer better, cheaper customer service in order to continue to survive. Time is on the side of the open source community, not Microsoft in my opinion.

"According to ZDNet.com, the authorities from the province of Umbria have started a project called LibreUmbria, which aims to transition the entire regional governmental apparatus from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice." -Softpedia

“We found out that most of our users exploit just 15 percent of their productivity suite, but you are paying for the other 85 percent as well. It's just like if you owned a Ferrari and only used it to drive at 30km per hour through the middle of town,” -Alfiero Ortali, head of IT in the province of Perugia.

“Right now, along with Munich, I'd call LibreUmbria the most advanced experience of migration in the world.” -Italo Vignoli, a member of Assoli, an Italian association of Free Software advocates and member on the Board of Directors of The Document Foundation, the nonprofit organization that makes the LibreOffice Suite

For more information about LibreOffice, or to download a copy for free, go here: http://www.libreoffice.org/

Microsoft lied about Google Chrome OS today

Microsoft out and out lied on a commercial today about Google's Chrome OS/Chromebook during a commercial that aired during American Idol tonight.

The commercial out and out said there was no office options for Chrome OS.

This is not only a lie, but is a disgusting display by the aging, pedantic, even perhaps evil Microsoft.

This is just another attempt by Microsoft to "scroogle" Google. (Not my words, Microsoft's.)

Google Chrome OS has many office options, some of which I would say are better than Microsoft Office.

The first office suite on the list has to be Google Docs. It is a full office suite, period.

Live Documents is the next on my list, and touts the ability to edit MS Office docs without data loss, just beautiful.

Zoho Writer, Sheet, and Show combine to provide a comprehensive and free web-based office suite. The tools are more robust than some other web applications.

SlideRocket brings measurement, sharing, and multimedia to presentations in for your Chromebook.

280Slides is an online, Chromebook-ready presentation solution aimed at helping you create beautiful presentations.

Vyew offers Chromebook users a visual collaboration and sharing solution.

Evernote is the cross platform productivity tool that helps you remember everything. Armed with a Chromebook and a scanner, this tool will help you organize your life. Evernote is available for many devices and is very popular in the Chrome Web Store.

Gravity is a web based project management tool that has both free and paid options. Gravity has a very functional, drag-and-drop interface that makes scheduling and editing tasks relatively easy. Gravity, which is available in the Chrome Web Store, would work for managing website upgrades, new inventory or warehouse projects, or more.

5pm is a web-based project and task management tool that provides fairly robust way to handle many common business, marketing, and web development tasks. Like similar solutions, 5pm is available in the Chrome Web Store, and may be easily integrated with a Chromebook.

The Deadline is a sort of combination news-feed reader and digital sticky note tool that bills itself as an online personal assistant. It is available in the Chrome Web Store.

Remember the Milk is a to-do list tool that will work on your Chromebook or mobile device. The solution has been very popular with iPhone users and with early adaptors for some time. Now Remember the Milk is available in the Chrome Web Store.

Wave Accounting is a business accounting suite that will run from a Chromebook.

Zoho Books is a simple business account tool.

This list would be exhaustive enough, if it were not for the fact that yet another office suite for the Chromebook called QuickOffice, which promises to be as good as MS Office, and even better, is coming out soon.

Microsoft's sickening out and out lies should be brought to light, and I believe I have done this.

I personally would love to see a law suit against Microsoft succeed. It seems it's the only way to get their attention, even if only for a while.

This garbage must stop, Microsoft.

*This list thanks in large part to an article that first appeared on Practical E-Commerce

Skype accounts hacked by the "Syrian Electronic Army"

Reports from The Verge, ZDNet and Gigaom report that the "Syrian Electronic Army" or "SEA" have hacked Skype's blog, facebook and twitter accounts.

Once the SEA got the access, they spewed several nasty anti Microsoft based messages, over and over again. Reports are saying that in some cases it was over 6000 times, especially on twitter.

It seems everyone and his uncle these days is getting their twitter or facebook accounts hacked, so it's time to re-strengthen the passwords again.

It will be interesting to see if the SEA backs up their messages with proof of some sort.

I am no Microsoft fan by any means, but I doubt anyone has the dirt to back up the SEA's statements.

Here are some of the articles I dug up myself, if you want more background information:

http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/1/5264540/skype-twitter-facebook-blog-accounts-hacked

http://www.zdnet.com/skype-social-media-and-blog-hacked-by-syrian-electronic-army-7000024698/

http://gigaom.com/2014/01/01/skype-hacked-by-syrian-electronic-army-told-to-stop-surveillance/