Open Office - Microsoft on the Cheap
In my current economic state, I am always looking for a good value. It is good to know that there are many, many people like me around the internet, a fact that is demonstrated by the plethora of Open Source applications floating around the internet. I admire that so many web developers and programmers are willing to devote their time to projects that won’t directly make them money. In the long run, people who work to develop Open Source programs will make a ton of money, but in a kind of inverse-capitalistic way.
I’ve been using Open Office for about a month now, because I cannot afford to upgrade to the brand-new, and terribly confusing MS Office. I’ve found Open Office surprisingly powerful and flexible. OO is a suite of programs intended to replace-or at least replicate-the MS Office Suite. Office has a word processor, presentation software, a spreadsheet program, a database program, and much more. Because my field is writing, I’ve spent most of my time with the word processor, so here’s my take on it.
The strength of the OO Writer program is that it can read nearly any kind of text file, no matter what utility created it. I imagine that, as new text editing programs emerge, OO will add plug-ins enabling the Writer to read them as well. This power makes writer woth its weight in gold. With the Writer, I can import, edit, and save text documents so that they will function in nearly every word processing platform.
One of the drawbacks of Writer that I’ve discovered is that though it can import nearly all text files, sometimes it interprets the special functions within those text files incorrectly. Bullet points, tables, and images in particular at times appear in Writer awkwardly, but with a little adjustment, I have found that I can customize their look fairly easily. This is a design weakness that I really don’t mind a great deal, because I have not had to pay a dime to use Writer.
So, in these trying economic times, maybe instead of upgraded to the fancy new MS Office, you might try an unconventional approach. Try Open Office, and I think that you’ll discover an incredible value at exactly the right price. Have any of you tried OO? What are your thoughts?
A Little Experiment
As a I continue to broaden the scope of my freelance writing career, I am realizing the importance of making a variety of contacts with people who can further my career. I’ve always approached this idea online, but I am beginning to wonder if I should take a bit more old-fashioned approach.
So, here’s the experiment. Tomorrow, I am going to prepare a packaged e-mail detailing my services and providing links to my portfolio to local advertising and PR firms in my area. I am going to send a simple inquiry and describe my rates and aptitudes, and see just how seriously these people will take me.
What do you think? Any other ideas I should apply as I experiment with this strategy?
Top Ten Annoying Phrases
This seems especially relevant to my line of work. You should check it out too!
Know Your Style
I was recently talking to a client about some writing that I’m doing for her website, and I asked an important question that I believe is crucial to good web content, “What is the tone that you would like your website to project?”
Many clients haven’t really considered this question, and sometimes they don’t really understand what I mean by the question. Often, I’ll ask that question in another, more subtle way. “What is your business climate like? Are you very professionally dressed when you come to the office? or Do you dress business casual on a daily basis?” These questions help me as a writer to tailor my style to the climate of the office that I am writing for.
Knowing this helps me to choose the appropriate vocabulary and writing style for the job. If someone works in a very formally professional environment, I am probably not going to write content for them that contains a number of contractions, or that refers to the reader. Likewise, if I’m writing for a more casual client, I want to choose words and sentence structures that convey this message to my client.
The client I was working with conveyed to me that her most important style consideration had to do with the fast pace of her business. This was the key to the writing choice that I made for her project. I decided that the style I would use for this project was very specifically concise. Since her readers don’t have a lot of time on their hands, it is probably best that I break things down into the bulleted list and easy to read text.
Knowing where my clients stand in regard to style is crucial to my business, and if I didn’t ask these questions, it would limit my flexibility and ultimately I would face confusing and circular conversations regarding the content that I had produced for my client. By taking care of these style questions before I begin, I handle lots of problems ahead of time.
Really Great Resume Writing Tips
This video is based upon a podcast from secretsofthejobhunt.com, a great resource for us jobhunters. Check out the tips given for resume writing in this interview!
