Carl said:
Folks here were kind enough to suggest several freeware anti-virus
and anti-spyware applications and I have downloaded and installed
one of each on their recommendations.
Can anyone recommend a decent freeware text editor? Again, coming
from the Macintosh "world" I don't know which ones are worthwhile
and which not.
Macs come with a quite decent freeware text editor called TextEdit.
It can open Word documents, etc.
There has to be something like that for PCs.
<special note>
Other responses can be viewed here:
http://groups.google.com/group/micr...1/a8033a650db78d64?lnk=st&q=#a8033a650db78d64
<end special note>
Windows comes with WordPad which is a very basic wordprocessor that
can open .DOC files (it cannot open DOCX files).
However if you want good freeware use OpenOffice.
Sam said:
WordPad is highly limited and Ken Blake already mentioned it.
Sam said:
So it helps to avoid duplicating previous answers.
So what are you trying to achieve by pointing that out Sam?
Attempting to police groups like this is a colossal waste of time
and bandwidth. Let it go and be happy.
Sam said:
Or you could just say sorry and that is the end of that, instead of
continuing to insist. That would be the least bandwidth.
Do either one of you think you're affecting the band width? By how
much? How many electrons were wasted?
Shenan Stanley wrote:
What Sam Hobbs doesn't seem to realize or care about is the fact
that these newsgroups are distributed worldwide and what you
see/don't see of a given thread can easily be determined by what
news server you connect to, how much time has passed since the
post/response was put up as well as how often the news server's
administrator chooses to maintain old conversation threads, etc. (In other
words - the different news servers' configurations.) What Sam Hobbes sees
may be 'more complete' than what Xandros sees.
So Xandros may not have repeated an answer as far as they could
tell.
What Xandros doesn't seem to realize is that the text generated in
this whole thread - even without the argument between these two
(Xandros and Sam) is a 'colossal waste of time and bandwidth' to
someone, somewhere - no matter what. The argument may have a
smaller audience - but given human nature - it likely had a larger
one. It is a waste in terms of the purpose of this thread - which
was to help the Original Poster with their query...
To that end - there have been several good responses. OpenOffice
was echoed a few times. Notepad+, Vim, Wordpad, Note Tab Light,
Jarte and AbiWord... Someone even posted a link to a few:
http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/2007/PL2007TEXT.php. Just because
- I will throw in another: PSPad. Given how the original question
was phrased and presented - the OP wanted something that could open
MS Word documents <- which, dependent on the version of Word the
file was saved with - would vary & slim the option and would not
include my second recommendation as far as I know.
<snipped>
(see the link after the quoted initial posting above to read everything in
its entirety.)
Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
Individuals will often give a response similar or identical to what
others have already said, for a variety of good reasons:
1. Not everyone uses the same news server, and messages are
propagated to different servers at different times. A message
that's available on your server may not be available on everyone's
server, so some people may not yet have seen the other messages
with the same answer.
2. Messages are usually downloaded in batches. Even if the message
is available on someone's server, it may not have yet been
downloaded to his computer. Again, some people may not yet have
seen the other messages with the same answer.
3. Someone may answer a question with what seems to you like the
same answer, but was meant to make an additional point, give a
somewhat different stress to a particular point, or to explain a
particular point in a better way.
4. Someone may answer a question with the same answer to lend weight
to a particular opinion.
5. Someone may, either through carelessness or haste, not realize
that a question has already been answered.
It hardly ever hurts to get the answer more than once, and often
helps. If I want to know something, and four people tell it to me,
I'm a lot more likely to believe it than if only one does.
Sam said:
Again, if the response to my comment had been slightly different,
then this whole mess would not have existed.
Xandros may/may not have known their suggestion/answer to the OP (not you,
not I - but the OP who asked the question and was the one in need of
answers) was repetitive. In either case (whether or not the repetition was
known) <-- it hurt nothing to have a suggestion repeated - and may have lent
credence to previous answers in some ways to some individuals.
Therefore - it can be said (just as true as your statement) that if you had
not chosen to initially comment on Xandros' response, "this whole mess would
not have existed"... Correct?
One could say that you exhibited a lack of restraint first, followed by
Xandros and so on. This is merely an observation backed up by layout of the
thread and the many factors that could have contributed to the way it has
formed. If Xandros had given their answer (which is technically sound) and
no comment had been made about their answer - the temptation to respond to
said comment would not have existed and we would not have an off-topic
off-shoot of the conversation with almost as many responses as the original
question received but with little-to-no relevance to the true reasoning
behind the original posting.
This is not a contest. Being first to respond, being last to respond,
repeating another answer (partially or fully), etc. <-- in the end it
doesn't hurt anything, may help the original poster more than a single
response and may be completely an unintentional result of factors beyond the
control of the entity posting a response.
I see that later in this thread you felt it necessary to respond to someone
else that you had 'previously suggested' a solution. You have said in
another response, "Most of the forums I have been active in definitely
request that we attempt to not duplicate answers." That's fine - this is
not one of those forums (it's really a newsgroup that gets replicated
throughout the world and sometimes to forums whose administrators have
decided to do that) *and* one may never know their response is a repetitive
one. Pointing out a mistake or repetition (especially when the mistake is
not a mistake in the answer in reference to the original question) does
nothing but possibly incite those you are commenting about to retort. I
would bet that the very forums you describe also have some thoughts on such
things as well.
If nothing else - think about it this way... Your commenting on Xandros
answer being a repetitive one gave no further input to the original poster
about their problem and only seemingly caused you and Xandros some level of
discomfort (or venting as the case may be.)
Take to heart the wisdom from very link you posted (a forum posting you used
as an example of why you responded the way you did) - the very last
paragraph in fact...
"This all being said; we all make mistakes (I know I've made my share of
those in this forum), so don't be afraid to try. Just give a thought to the
previously mentioned points before hitting that "submit"-button -- that's
all we ask."
( The link you gave earlier:
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1391750&SiteID=1 )
Keep responding, keep helping, keep having fun...
