Where and how do Ars staffers work? Our computers, let us show you them!

Our quick "Chairs Technica" write up last Thanksgiving was a hit, and we all enjoyed showing you all the different awesome places where we put our butts while working. This year, though, we wanted to give you something a little more interesting to look at: our computers and desks.






Unlike a lot of other tech publications, Ars Technica is entirely remote-staffed—our core group of writers and editors and techies work from homes spread across the whole US, literally all the way from sea to proverbial shining sea. We spend hours in front of our computers each day, tirelessly bringing you guys interesting tech and science news and researching big, long-form features, and some of us even do it without any pants on because there’s no one around to stop us.

The last time we did this was in 2012, and the large number of Macs drew considerable comment from folks. The truth is that the Ars crew uses an eclectic mix of machines at home, and we’re all comfortable using any operating system—we’ve got Linux and Windows and OS X machines all represented, and everyone uses whatever they want as their daily driver.

So, as you relax with your turkey this Thanksgiving, if you're American, or wonder where the hell all the Americans are if you're not American, allow us to pull back the curtain once again on our inner sanctums (sancta?) and show you the secret places where we hide from the burning light of the Day Star, busily toiling away at our technological tasks!

Reviews Editor and Android Genius Ron Amadeo


Source:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/11/where-and-how-do-ars-staffers-work-our-computers-let-us-show-you-them/

Best office suites for Linux: 5 reviewed and rated - part 2

We test the best Linux office suites around to see which is the best

Presentation app

Create and show dazzling slideshows

A collection of apps can't be called an office suite if it doesn't have an app that lets you create presentations. There's very little to choose from between the suites. All have usable templates and do a wonderful job of creating a visually stunning presentation. That said, there are subtle differences.

LibreOffice Impress offers the most views, including Normal, Outline, Notes, Handout and a Slide Sorter.





SoftMaker Presentations and Google Slides are equally capable, with a wide variety of AutoShapes. They also have comprehensive drawing functions, and let you draw all sorts of objects, including organisational charts, flowcharts and design diagrams. What sets them apart is unique animated transition effects. And with SoftMaker Presentations, you can edit images and change their brightness, contrast and other settings from within the app.
Calligra Stage has most of the basic features you'd expect, including a selection of templates and layouts, as well as a choice of animated slide transitions. However, it only offers the Normal, Notes and Slide Sorter views.

The presentation app is the Achilles' heel of the Gnome Office suite. There have been several candidates, such as Agnubis and Ease, but none have been developed long enough to compete with other apps. Although Ease is still available in the official repos of some Gnome distros, in its current state it is barely usable.

Verdict

LibreOffice: 5/5
Calligra Suite: 3/5
Gnome Office: 1/5
SoftMaker Office: 5/5
Google Docs: 5/5

Source:
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/best-office-suites-for-linux-5-reviewed-and-rated-1146417/2

Best office suites for Linux: 5 reviewed and rated

We test the best Linux office suites around to see which is the best

Office suites are the quintessential productivity apps, and they come in all shapes and sizes. In fact, you'll find them in every general purpose Linux distro - from full-blown desktop distros like Fedora and Ubuntu, to miniscule ones such as Puppy Linux.

An office suite is made up of apps - typically a word processor, a spreadsheet and a presentation app. Mainstream office suites like LibreOffice bundle these apps, occasionally along with other components such as a database or note-taking app, in an integrated package. But these monolith suites are not for everyone, and that is why KDE developed its own set of optimised office apps packaged as the Calligra Suite.






Instead of shipping such integrated suites, some distros mash up different apps, such as AbiWord and the Gnumeric spreadsheet app. Although these are lighter than the other suites, they still have many of the features that most users want.

This is something that's leveraged by online suites. Most can't match the offline suites for features, but their lower cost and negligible hardware requirements make them an attractive option for users with older hardware.

Word processor

Source:
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/best-office-suites-for-linux-5-reviewed-and-rated-1146417

We are happy to announce the second beta release in 2.9 series of Calligra Suite for you to test

Hi,
We are happy to announce the second beta release in 2.9 series of
Calligra Suite for you to test. We are focusing on fixing issues
including those that you?d report so please continue to work with us.

https://www.calligra.org/news/calligra-2-9-beta-2-released/








--
regards, Jaroslaw Staniek

KDE:
: A world-wide network of software engineers, artists, writers, translators
: and facilitators committed to Free Software development - http://kde.org
Calligra Suite:
: A graphic art and office suite - http://calligra.org
Kexi:
: A visual database apps builder - http://calligra.org/kexi
Qt Certified Specialist:
: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jstaniek






Source:
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-announce-apps

Updated mobile apps for Docs, Sheets and Slides

With Google Docs we want to help you work better, everywhere you are. So today’s Android and iOS updates forDocs, Sheets and Slides make it easier to get things done while you’re on the go.  

Doing, not just viewing 
You’ve asked for more editing tools on mobile, so today’s improvements include real-time spell-checking in documents, hiding rows and columns in spreadsheets, and grouping shapes in presentations.

Keeping your content safe 
Online security is really important, so we offer functionality like two-step verification to protect your Google account. Starting today, Google Docs supports Touch ID on iOS, so you can unlock Docs, Sheets and Slides with your unique fingerprint.



Source: 
http://googledocs.blogspot.ro/2015/01/updated-mobile-apps.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+GoogleDocsBlog+(Google+Docs+Blog)

some tutorials for open office - first time user

Table of Contents

• Activate The “Tips” Feature
• Open A New Text Document
• Paper Size
• Change Margins
  • Use The Ruler To Change The Indentation Of Selected Paragraphs
• Icons, Click, Right-click, Insert
• Turn Off The Word Completion Feature
• Close And Open Files
• Undo Entries
  • Delete Word(s)
  • Delete One Paragraph
  • Delete More Than One Paragraph
  • Delete Graphic(s)
• Insert Special Character
• Getting Help

Source:
http://www.tutorialsforopenoffice.org/tutorial/First_Time_User_OpenOffice_Writer.html