RE: [libreoffice-users] Re: Mac OS X 10.4 Check for Updates Glitched

Hi :)
Thanks :) [bows]  

It's difficult to pick a group of users that all fit a stereo-type of being bad with computers.  
Even office workers sometimes know how to recover from trivial accidents and sometimes even 
advanced stuff (ok, that is extremely rare but it happens!).  Even terms such as "noob" (not an 
insult as we were all noobs at something sometime and hopefully are still pushing our limit into 
'new' areas) don't always mean completely hopeless.  

I think the trick is to empower people and help them with gentle nudges so that they can fix their 
own problems and deal with new problems they might find in the future and hopefully pass that 
knowledge on.  I know that is completely contrary to the MS world but it seems a much better 
strategy.  One repair shop admitted they prefer it when people do try to solve their own problems 
because the user then has more appreciation of the work done by the shop but it was an unusual shop 
to say the least.  Most would rather try to keep everything secret so that you are forced to keep 
returning to them.  

Btw i have not yet had a problem with leaving the office before a Windows machine has finished it's 
lengthy and delaying "Shutting down after installing 7 of 9".  Sometimes i have held the off-button 
in for about a minute to force a shut-down so that i can turn off the mains power!  Nothing seems 
to have been harmed by that either, except the next day it wants me to resume the updates and then 
reboot.  So, generally i have learned to leave them to do updates and trust them to turn off 
without me.

Regards from
Tom :)


--- On Tue, 17/4/12, Bruce Carlson <Bruce.Carlson@nepean.com> wrote:

From: Bruce Carlson <Bruce.Carlson@nepean.com>
Subject: RE: [libreoffice-users] Re: Mac OS X 10.4 Check for Updates Glitched
To: "users@global.libreoffice.org" <users@global.libreoffice.org>
Date: Tuesday, 17 April, 2012, 2:53

In regards to your observations on updates/upgrades, Well put Tom,

If I may add, Every now and then when I click "Shut down" on my new windows 7 machine (which I 
absolutely loath)  I get a message "DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING....INSTALLING UPDATE 1 OF XXX"
(I know all about turning windows updates on and off but that is not the issue.)

This last happened yesterday afternoon as I was leaving work. ---- Installing update 1 of 11. it 
took 17 minutes to download and install the 11 updates which it claimed were all security updates 
????????????
(I keep asking why but not even microsoft knows why.) (anyone who thinks windows is wonderful is 
ignorant of the obvious.)

However when I finally did get to go home I fired up my laptop and did some more work on a document 
I was working on before leaving work.
I DO NOT HAVE ANY MICROSOFT OFFICE PROGRAMS ON MY MACHINE  I use only LO, however, when I tried to 
do a spell check on the doc I was working on spell checker said "OK no Errors"
But I knew there were errors. I opened a few other documents in both writer and calc and the same 
result. Spell checker failed every time. Now I last used spell checker and it worked fine just 
before the windows updates.

After much testing and reinstalling LO  3.5.2.2 still no spell checker.

I uninstalled LO again and this time reinstalled an older version (3.4.4) and suddenly spell 
checker worked fine again.
So without uninstalling version 3.4.4,  I re-installed 3.5.2.2 over the top and guess what..... 
everything is fine again.
Why would a windows security update (1 of 11) suddenly make LO spell checker fail and require the 
installation of an older version to get it back?

The same thing has happened on a number of other company laptops running LO on windows operating 
systems, both XP and Win7 and all immediately after a windows update.
In all cases installing a different version and then re-installing the latest version again fixed 
the issue.

How many Grannies would know to install an older version of LO and re-install the latest version 
every time Microsoft issues faulty automatic updates?

By the way, being a grandfather I take offence when grannies are referred to as being somehow 
technologically illiterate. And I'm still a programmer ...among other things :-)

Bruce Carlson
Business Systems Analyst / IT Projects Manager 


bruce.carlson@nepean.com 
Website: www.nepeangroup.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Davies [mailto:tomdavies04@yahoo.co.uk]
> Sent: Tuesday, 17 April 2012 10:35 AM
> To: users@global.libreoffice.org
> Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Mac OS X 10.4 Check for Updates Glitched
>
> Hi :)
> Updates and upgrades are different things although i guess there is some
> overlap in the middle.
>
> "Frequent updates and bug fixes are a mark of quality" which is odd really,
> when you really think about it.  What it means to me is that the program, as
> sold to customers, was so broken and easily exploited that it needs a whole
> load of extra work to be added later.
>
> Note that the updates for MS Office are almost entirely "Security
> updates".  There is almost never any mention of updates increasing
> functionality nor to add extra features.  Similarly for Windows, for Adobe
> products, Oracle stuff and so on.
>
> LO and other OpenSource programs tend to be written with security as a top
> priority.  Over the past year or so there have only been about 2 times when
> upgrades have been about solving security issues.  Those security issues
> were pre-emptive as there didn't appear to be any threats out in the
> wild.  All the rest of the upgrades have been about adding functionality and
> simmering the code down to make it smaller and faster.
>
> MS Office only upgrades once every few years.  Four years between 2003
> and 2007, then another 3 before 2010.  Each install is a major pita.  Everything
> changes.  Compatibility issues with older documents.  Several rounds of
> updates and reboots.  Settings and all that tend to be lost by default.
>
> Installing an OpenSource product  is easier as it keeps the old settings and
> stuff and still reads old documents the same.  If you don't like the newer one
> then reinstalling the older one back over the top is easy. Regards from Tom
> :)
>
>
> --- On Tue, 17/4/12, precutcolours@mailcan.com
> <precutcolours@mailcan.com> wrote:
>
> From: precutcolours@mailcan.com <precutcolours@mailcan.com>
> Subject: [libreoffice-users] Re: Mac OS X 10.4 Check for Updates Glitched
> To: "Users LibreOffice" <users@global.libreoffice.org>
> Date: Tuesday, 17 April, 2012, 0:10
>
> Well thank you Tom.  I know beacoup info about release cycles, open vs.
> proprietary, and user configs.  I seek to help grandmas.
>
> > Updates item [is] pointless
>
> When Libre app reports no update to grandma, but I counter-invite to Libre
> org's home page news, grandma gets confused.  Why does the app say
> different than the web site?  Microsoft Office update doesn't behave so, nor
> Windows Update.  The patches listed on Microsoft's web are the patches
> one gets in Windows Update.  They are in sync.
>
> > Updates tend to be minor patches
> > LibreOffice doesn't have minor updates very often
>
> Frequent updates and bug fixes are a mark of quality.  Advising people not to
> patch bugs is rather poor advice.  Grandma needs a simpler way than full
> reinstall.
>
> Minor bugs kill grandmas.  I want minor patches.  I want the menu to tell
> grandma about them.
>
> Release cycles seem aggressive enough.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice#Release_schedule
>
> > OpenSource [keeps user] stuff safely away
>
> User prefs aren't relevant.  The trouble is getting bugs fixed.
>
> A menu tells grandma no update exists, yet I claim to know better, but my
> info just means more work, a re-install.  What seems easy to you and me is
> very intimidating to grandma esp. when she didn't do the original
> install.  Some people did not grow up with computers either for age or
> poverty or both.  So she ignores me, or says "manyana," all merely because
> there's no one-two click update.  The result is users not keeping LibreOffice
> bug-patched.
>
> Next they complain if Calc breaks over something that Excel does perfectly
> well, only because they lack a "minor" fix.  After that, they tell others that
> LibreOffice "broke on me doing X, so I went back to Excel" etc.
>
> Thanks very much to the team for all the hard work!  Pushing fixes out to
> users is a no-brainer, I hope...
>
> --
> http://www.fastmail.fm - Faster than the air-speed velocity of an
>                           unladen european swallow
>
>
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