Re: [libreoffice-users] Any thoughts on Tutor.com's policy of "MS Word only"?

On 04/17/2014 11:14 AM, Jeffrey Deutsch wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm thinking of applying for an online tutoring position at Tutor.com.
> However, they require that tutors (and applicants, for the mock tutoring
> session) have Microsoft Word (2007 or later) itself -- they specifically
> say that OpenOffice is not acceptable. I'd rather not spend $110 just to
> get MS Word (or $140 for MS Office, or $10/month or $100/year to rent MS
> Office) for this specific job, when OpenOffice/LibreOffice has worked just
> fine for me for the past decade.
>
> Does anyone here have any relevant experience (eg, does Tutor.com in
> practice allow OpenOffice/LibreOffice, is it absolutely necessary to get MS
> Word, do you know of similar online tutoring services that allow
> OpenOffice/LibreOffice, etc)?
>
> Thank you in advance!
>
> Jeff Deutsch
> Speaker & Life Coach
> A SPLINT - ASPies LInking with NTs
> http://www.asplint.com
>
> "Listen to the universe while it whispers before it has to shout."
> Marion Grobb Finkelstein, Communication Catalyst --
> http://www.MarionSpeaks.com
Jeff,

Either they do not know a number of applications can handle the vast 
majority of MS Word documents, not just LO. I have at least four 
applications (all available at no cost some FOSS and some proprietary) 
on my Linux box that can read/write MS Word documents plus Google Docs. 
Or they use  VBA macros which is a very, very, very, very serious 
security risk/stupidity. If they are requiring running VBA macros, I 
would seriously question their competence and/or ethics for risking 
anyone's computer. My experience is that many VBA macros can be replaced 
by a template with user entry fields.

The normal security rule is never allow a foreign (one you have not 
reviewed/written) VBA macro to run on your computer because they have 
been a notorious attack vector in the past. The problem is there is 
often no indication in the file extension a macro is present that could 
run automatically when the file is opened. I would generalize this to 
never allow any foreign macro to run on your computer.

--
Jay Lozier
jslozier@gmail.com


--
To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscribe@global.libreoffice.org
Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted