Re: migrating to new systems, was: Fw: [libreoffice-users] LibreOffice paragraph styles exported to other software/formats?

Hi :)  
Yes, there are a lot of Kings Arms too, i'd kinda forgotten.  In Brighton there was one called the 
"Queens Head" with it's sign being a painting of Freddy Mercury.  Usually the signs are fairly 
predictable.  I saw a Queens Legs once but can't remember where.  

Actually wrt to removing Windows that is really not necessary at all.  It's what the MS world 
prefer people to do but is absolutely NOT what  the OpenSource world recommends.  The whole point 
about using the word "migrate" is to avoid the idea of "switching".  

Most OpenSource people have a "dual-boot" (or "multi-boot").  When they turn on their system they 
get a "boot" menu giving a list of the different operating systems on their machine.  The commonest 
is to have 2 options; with one being for Windows and the other being for 
Mint/Ubuntu/openSuSE/whatever.  

The usual recommendation from most OpenSource people is to start the migration with the boot-menu 
defaulting into Windows.  Then after some time switch that around making the Gnu&Linux the default. 
 

Almost all my colleagues' machines still default into Windows but i have a few that would default 
into Ubuntu if their users didn't press the up arrow in time.  I give them 10 seconds which is more 
than enough for most people.  


I get the impression that MS would rather people switched rather than migrate because it always 
takes people time to learn a new system.  

During that learning process there are bound to be times when you don't know how to do something 
really quite trivial.  People often claim the new system can't do something, not because they have 
exhaustively searched for it - but just because they can't be bothered to poke around for 2 seconds 
or ask someone.  For some reason such morons are usually highly regarded and their opinions widely 
sought.  Anyway if they had been able to quickly reboot back into Windows, complete the task, and 
then take their time finding out how to do whatever then they would probably find plenty of ways.  
People who do the switch often end up rejecting the new system and taking it back to the shop and 
demanding whatever they were used to previously.  People who do the migration often end up staying 
away from Windows more and more.  

There was the case of a German town council that had been taking advice from the "Free Software 
Foundation" and everything was going really smoothly with most councillors much preferring 
OpenOffice (just before the launch of LO) and the new systems and loving the reduction in license 
fees.  Then a change of personnel at the top led to the IT department suddenly stopping all 
communication with the FSF and started hiring in MS employees to help them migrate.  The MS people 
said to do a complete switch and get rid of all remaining  MS stuff.  Within a few months the whole 
thing had collapsed and the council 'had to' re-purchase all new MS stuff.  There was a big 
newspaper article about how rubbish OpenSource was and how it had ended up costing the council a 
huge fortune.  

Meanwhile a Spanish government had put several thousand Gnu&Linux desktops into schools and 
following the FSF people's advice found it such a huge success that they put in a lot more similar 
systems into government offices.  All a complete success and a massive saving.  

So, don't let yourself get pushed into getting rid of Windows because there really is no need to.  
Just go for the dual-boot and use both.  Let yourself be led gently by the hand instead of being 
"dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century".  Gentler option wins.  
Regards from 
Tom :)  





________________________________
 From: anne-ology <laginnis@gmail.com>
To: Tom Davies <tomdavies04@yahoo.co.uk> 
Cc: "users@global.libreoffice.org" <users@global.libreoffice.org> 
Sent: Thursday, 29 August 2013, 15:33
Subject: Re: migrating to new systems, was: Fw: [libreoffice-users] LibreOffice paragraph styles 
exported to other software/formats?
 

       the birds do it ... the fish do it ... now, the computerists
migrate  ;-)

       Does anyone really wish to remain with MSFT?; it's just already
programmed into these glorified-typewriter machines ...
            scary prospect to remove it then install something else -and
all alone, nary a soul to even lend a hand  ;-)

       BTW - I thought many of your pubs were called the King's Arms  ;-)



On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 9:44 AM, Tom Davies <tomdavies04@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

Hi :)
> Even though this thread went waaaay off-topic it's ended up being very
> relevant to a problem many of us have.  How to migrate.
>
>
> Given that most people want to stay with MS systems we are a bit stuck in
> the phase of having to deal with both systems at the same time.  Even when
> the ODF format does become dominant there will probably be a few people
> still using the ever-changing proprietary format that could disappear
> any-time at the whim of a single company.
>
>
> It's interesting to hear that Km changed it's base without changing it's
> size (or may have changed length just a tiny bit that most of us wouldn't
> have noticed).  I quite like the idea of re-measuring a long dead king's
> arm as it slowly crumbles away but that might be a bit dark for most
> people!  Probably better to just quaff a few ales in the Queens Arms
> instead.  Not sure why so many pubs are called the Queens Arms.
>
> Regards from
> Tom :)
>
>
>
>
> From: James Knott <james.knott@rogers.com>
> To: "lo >> LibreOffice" <users@global.libreoffice.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, 28 August 2013, 15:13
> Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] LibreOffice paragraph styles exported to
> other software/formats?
>
>
> rost52 wrote:
> > The metric system has it is advantage in the factors of 10 or 1/10. I
> > consider this as the reason why most countries adopted the metric system.
>
> It was also designed as a logical system, tied to defined physical
> constants.  I recently watched a video about how the new standard for a
> kilogram was the number of atoms in a precisely measured silicon
> sphere.  The kilometre was originally defined in relation to the
> distance from the equator to the poles, but is currently determined by
> the wavelength of light emitted by the kryton-86 items.  This shows the
> metric system is defined in terms of physical constants and not some
> unmeasurable item such as the length of a long dead king's arm.
> > If a country is serious about a change, than all measures must be
> > provided for a while in both units and after while the old units must
> > disappear.
>
> In Canada, when Km and °C came in, there was a switch over date, the
> road sides had stickers placed over the old speed limit in miles to show
> in Km.  Weather reporting switched to Celsius.  As for physical things,
> there was a date given, where dimensions had to be specified in metric,
> but this applied to things made after that date and older items could
> still be sold.  However, manufacturers switched production well before
> that date.  The switch over was also phased in, so only one thing
> changed at a time.

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