Date: prev next · Thread: first prev next last
2015 Archives by date, by thread · List index


Hi :)
Yeh, i had a feeling it wouldn't include Access!!  I was just digging
around on the microsoft.com website but it's extremely difficult to
find out what is in each different bundle on there.

I did find that MS "Office 365 University" DOES have Access but i'm
not sure if it's the full version or if it's just some sort of
read-only version.  365 is the web-apps version of MS Office;
http://products.office.com/en-GB/university

Whatever version of MS Office is included on any new machine these
days is likely to be trialware (more like ransomware) that only works
for about 30 days and may have restricted functionality.  So it'll
suddenly demand payment when you use it and those demands will get
more insistent as the time-limit gets closer.  I'm not sure if it is
automatic actually nor when it's demands start (assume they do).  It's
possible that the pre-installed MS Office just suddenly stops woirking
or something like that but i'm fairly sure they do have a pop-up bag
box.  I'm not sure how to convince it that you have installed a
different version of MS Office.  In "the good old days" (they weren't
really that good tho ;) ) a new machine would have a full version of
MS Office.  Times change though.

Advantages of 365 over regular MS Office 213. apart from actually
having Access, include £60 for a 4 year license rather than £109 for
forever.  Err, is that an advantage?  I guess it is because in about 4
years there will be the next version to upgrade to, ie to buy/rent.

Also allows you to install on up to 4-5 devices/machines such as
desktops, laptops, notebooks, netbooks, tablets, phones (errr Windows
phone is a tad sub-optimal compared to Android as it tends to suffer
the usual Windows problems such as slowdowns after 6months).  With
other versions of MS Office the license key can only be used on a new
machine when you phone up MS and tell them you are removing it from
your previous machine.  Corporate users sometimes get to install it at
home as well as at work but that's seldom known about and impractical
(try getting your IT department to give you the key for MS Office and
you'll see what i mean).

Biggest advantage with 365 is that you get 1Tb (=1024 Gb in theory but
possibly more likely to be around 800-900Gb = still masses of space)
'free' Cloud storage on the MS "OneDrive" (which is apparently hosted
on Linux servers btw!  Jic you were interested.  Strangely strange
right?).  The regular version of MS Office 2013 gives you 15Gb.  So it
is really good for students who may have to use many different systems
and possibly include a lot of travel.

This online storage space reduces the need for external storage but it
takes time to upload/download stuff so it's probably best to sync the
main machine (the notebook) with the Cloud for most stuff and then
just download (or view online)/upload only when it's a small number of
files.


Of course the biggest problem is compatibility with whatever version
of MS Office the teacher/lecturer is using.  If he/she is using MS
Office 2010 or 2007 then it might be better to buy the same version
and try to find the right bundle to make sure you do get Access.
However it is quite likely that at least 1 student is likely to have
2013 or 365 and that might prompt the teacher/lecturer to upgrade to
one of the those 2 newer versions.

If they are using a more recent version of MS Office than you then
they will probably use features that wont work on an older version of
MS Office and some files might not work at all or more likely just
look a bit odd.  If you are using a more recent version of MS Office
than the teacher/lecturer then you just have to avoid using some of
the latest fancy features otherwise they may have trouble coping with
your files.  Even so files on older versions of MS Office don't always
work in newer versions of it.

This slight incompatibility between the various different versions of
MS Office 2007, 2010, 2013 and 365) is a complete 'accident' (honest
guv) that just happens to kinda force people to keep buying the newer
versions in order to keep doing whatever you were doing with the older
version quite happily - and then buy whichever version most of the
people you deal with are using - and then find you can only have 1
version of MS Office on a machine at a time (unless you figure out how
to force it (and even then Sharepoint and Outlook tend to get a bit
messed-up)).  Still MS are a bit "down on their luck" lately and need
all the money they can trick people out of in order to keep their
shareholders happy.


Personally i am hugely relieved that i don't have to worry about all
that complexity any more! :)  LibreOffice doesn't have any of that
nonsense going on.

At worst some files done using newer branch's newer functionality will
just not show that bit that relies on the new stuff but the rest of
the file would be the same with just a bit of "re-flowing" to adapt
for differerences between set-ups and printers.

It is a bit of a headache trying to keep track of the different MS
Office bundles for different versions and how much they cost and what
you get compared against what you need.


Quite frankly though Base does not have the resources to be a suitable
replacement for Access in this sort of scenario.  Even though it is
more advanced in so many ways it doesn't have quite enough devs
maintaining it so it can be a bit quirky and unpredictable.

However there are other database programs such as MySql/MariaDb that
is an industry standard for web-hosting companies and websites and
Postgresql that is quite widely used for other types of Servers.  Base
can be quite a good (although still quirky) front-end for them to
upgrade from their built-in default front-ends.


I can understand why the teacher/lecturer uses Access even though it
is irksome.  Most desktop machines have it already or can get it
fairly easily.  It's pretty much free to people such as
teachers/lecturer and they probably don't even realise that it is not
free to everyone.  It wouldn't occur to them that the main reason you
have had to buy a machine for £200-300 is purely to be able to use
Access.  If you mention it to them, or to other parents, they will
probably say you would have had to buy such a machine anyway.

Regards from
Tom :)






On 1 February 2015 at 17:05, P. . <wave.root@gmail.com> wrote:
but not access...

On 1 February 2015 at 18:00, P. . <wave.root@gmail.com> wrote:
this comes with office student edition 2013 pre-installed:

http://www.asus.com/us/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/ASUS_Transformer_Book_T100TA/



In any case, Windows 7 and windows 8.1 (not windows 8) will be
eligible for a free upgrade to windows 10. If you are short in disk
space, buy ad external hard disk for 50 bucks (toshiba...), good also
to save your important files twice.

On 1 February 2015 at 15:45, Wiebe van der Worp <w@vanderworp.org> wrote:
Hi lalitadatta

What Tom writes below are very good points. I can understand that it may be
a bit too much detail but it is valuable information for the school
involved. It really puzzles me why schools teach concepts based on MS with a
lock in policy while there is so much better software available for free as
in freedom and price, running on almost every operating system and being
implemented on large scale in a professional environment. In short: Software
you want students to work with.

In my opinion you would do the school, the parents and not at least the
students a favour by handing over this mail to the school/teacher involved.

Having said that, my daughter is using OpenOffice and LibreOffice for 9
years now. She is starting with her master and never used MS Office -
despite all efforts of the schools and universities to force her into MS
Office - for example by mandating MS Word style sheets for a thesis.

The school/teacher is welcome on this list or personal if questions arise
and I really hope you hand this over though it does not answer your question
directly.

Concerning hardware in addition to what is said by others: Don't expect
miracles from the T100 but it should be able to do the job. Lack of internal
memory will force your daughter in time to move larger files to a usb-disk
or stick - i.e. movies in paticular. There are also models with more memory,
64GB. You may want to (let someone) remove all unneeded pre-installed
software you get for "free" since this will free memory and increases
performance.

Best regards, Wiebe


On 29-01-15 16:18, Tom Davies wrote:

Hi :)
Sorry to say that Access is not compatible with almost any other
database program.  Even down to the sql language under the surface of
the Queries it is different from all the rest.

Access is also very restricted in what it can do and how it can be
used - for example it only supports single user input at a time rather
than being able to handle multiple users.  Some of it's restrictions
can be by-passed if you dig deep enough but it's probably better to
use something that is designed to be "the right tool for the job"
rather than to twist Access outside of it's comfort-zone.  If she
learns how to use Access that way then she will be amazed how easy it
is to use any of the others later in life.

However it is still good to learn.  There are key concepts and
generalities that are the same or very similar.  Those concepts are
often difficult for people to grasp.  It's possibly easier to
understand some of it if you have watched "The Matrix".


The main problem would be with trying to use any example files she is
given or that she builds on Access.

It might be possible for her to use Base to do some of her exercises
but most of it will take some initiative to adapt what they ask for in
order to fit.

For example Base is best when used with an external back-end but for
the exercises she will probably be better off using the internal
back-end.  Anything teaching about Access probably wont mention
back-end vs front-end at all - which is one reason why it might be
handy to have watched "The Matrix" (but only to get the rough idea of
what it's about rather than needing to watch toooo closely - mostly
the bit about the cat and the spoon).

Regards from
Tom :)


On 29 January 2015 at 13:45, lalitadatta <lalitadatta1993@gmail.com>
wrote:

Hi,
My daughter's in need of Microsoft access for her homework - she's
studying
computer
technology at high school, and she needs Access for coding.  Anyone knows
if
liber office should do the job?
Thanks in advance.



--
View this message in context:
http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/compatibility-with-Microsoft-Access-tp4138053.html
Sent from the Users mailing list archive at Nabble.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




--
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

--
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

-- 
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

Context


Privacy Policy | Impressum (Legal Info) | Copyright information: Unless otherwise specified, all text and images on this website are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. This does not include the source code of LibreOffice, which is licensed under the Mozilla Public License (MPLv2). "LibreOffice" and "The Document Foundation" are registered trademarks of their corresponding registered owners or are in actual use as trademarks in one or more countries. Their respective logos and icons are also subject to international copyright laws. Use thereof is explained in our trademark policy.