On Sun, 30 Mar 2008, William R. Buckley wrote:
It is unreasonable to expect the entire Windows using community to avoid a mechanism that is part of the Windows operating system.
However, William, I think it's reasonable to expect the entire Windows using community to defenestrate to linux, *BSD, even OS X or open solaris. All open source projects have fits trying to work with Microsoft's proprietary, patented, non-standards-compliant way of doing things. Heck, even Microsoft's web browsers and Word cannot be backwards compatible with their own former specs. I've heard and read all the reasons why one must remain a Microserf. And, as far as I'm concerned, that's a personal or business decision that's none of my business. However, if you want to use open source applications built to open standards, then understand that almost all of these were originally build for linux or one of the *BSDs, those are the platforms the developers use, and making them available to the Windows world is a courtesy, not a requirement. I, as a linux user for more than a decade, have to suffer from web sites and Microsoft-specific data file formats that just don't play nicely with any of the options available to me. However, the developers of tools such as OpenProject do a fantastic job of reverse engineering data file formats, and each release is better than the one before. In the meantime, I live with what's available to me. I'm confident that there is a current replacement for Ventura Publisher that is designed for all the quirks, bugs, and other "features" of Windows. Perhaps that would better serve your needs. You might also look at VMware's free offerings that will let you run a virtual linux distribution on your Windows box, and use linux versions of applications with that linux distribution. Or, grab a live CD (Knoppix, Ubuntu, whatever) that will boot linux on your machine, allow you to run linux apps and save your work, then leave your machine totally untouched when you halt it and remove the disk. Rich -- Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D. | Integrity Credibility Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. | Innovation <http://www.appl-ecosys.com> Voice: 503-667-4517 Fax: 503-667-8863
