Application: Quasar

This time around I'll be showing a great open source accounting package called Quasar. It runs with PostgreSQL, and is the most comprehensive accounting package I've seen in the open source realm.


This program has features that normally are only seen in commercial accounting packages. I'll step through usage of this program. First thing you need to do is setup a company, you can even import some sample accounts. Although I usually build these from scratch this is a nice feature.


Once you've setup your company you are ready to start. On the ledger tab you simply enter the transactions as they come in. Although if you make a mistake there is no undo function or similar, and sometimes if you create an account incorrectly you cannot delete it. So backup often. In fact I usually backup before every session.

On the whole this program has kept me away from windows in the one area where I might have needed to use windows. If you need a full featured accounting package, and gnucash and it's ilk don't cut the mustard this is the application for you.

-NT

Application: Gaim

Well as you noticed the podcast is not here yet. It is in process though, I just got bogged down with work. So stay tuned for episode one of Bluescreen Free.

This post we are looking at an excellent instant messaging client called Gaim. It enables you to use AIM, ICQ, Gadu-Gadu (Which I have to admit, I have no idea what that is), Groupwise, IRC, Jabber, MSN Messenger, Napster, Yahoo, and Zephyr. I find it useful to talk to people on different networks without needing 10 million different IM clients open. Also I can talk on networks that no native client for linux exists.



You can see all the your contacts from every network in one window. This alone makes this program a very worthwhile application.

While in the chat window there's a useful chat history as well. It keeps track of all your past chats with the contact. Very useful.



If you need some form of IM for collaboration this is an excellent application. Get it at http://gaim.sourceforge.net

See you next time.

-NT

Application: OpenOffice

Just a note before I begin today's post...I've figured out how to do the podcast thing, and will bring making the Bluescreen Free podcast in the upcoming week or so. Stayed tuned for further updates.

Today I will be talking about OpenOffice which is an excellent office suite for Linux. Not by any means the only one, but one of the better suites for transitioning from Microsoft Office. It consists of several modules, there is writer, math, calc, impress, and draw. I will talk about all of these modules in turn. One of the great things about OpenOffice is that the data format for all the different save files is in xml, and is an open standard. This means in the future your save files will be able to be opened in other applications.

First: Writer


This is the word processor component of the suite. It has some very impressive features, the best being the ability to export to pdf. You can also import you Microsoft Word documents into it, which is essential for transitioning. There is a windows version of OpenOffice as well, which helps for the transition. If you have a lot of word documents, you can convert them first before making the jump to Linux. My personal favourite feature of Writer is the Stylist feature, where you can customize styles and then quickly switch between them as you are creating your document. There is also a submodule in the suite called Base which allows database integration. I've used this with Writer to generate reports based on individuals check ins on a fun little project I was working on that didn't see the light of day ;-).

Second: Math


To be honest I haven't used this one yet, as far as I understand it's for making mathematical formulae. This will definitely be useful when I'm writing on astronomy, or the mathematical side of computer science. To be honest though my day to day activities normally don't require formatting mathematical formulae ;-)


Third: Calc


This is the spreadsheet module of the suite. It is a full featured spreadsheet program, and like writer has a database access component. This is very useful, as I've used it to import, and export information into a MySQL database. It was very easy to do. This program has a full set of formula commands as well so the transition from excel is completely painless. It's just a case of learning the new functions.

Fourth: Impress


This is the presentation manager. It has a few things going for it that Power Point doesn't. One is you can create a presentation, and you don't need impress to show it. One of the most annoying things I had to deal with using Microsoft Office was getting Power Point Pack and Go to work properly. I didn't have any difficulty at all with Impress.

Five: Draw


This is similar to Word Perfect Draw, and is a vector graphic drawing program. It's a good complement to Impress, and Writer.

All in all OpenOffice is a powerful suite of applications, that in some cases (in my opinion anyways ;-) ) even surpasses Microsoft Office. The one thing this suite is lacking is the functionality of Outlook, but as I showcased in a previous post, Kontact more than fills that role. I would be surprised though, if the OpenOffice crew didn't add PIM functionality to a later version of OpenOffice.

Next time I'll be talking about a fun application that enabled me to IM with all my contacts whether they used ICQ,AIM,MSN Messenger, or Yahoo Pager, it even has IRC capabilities. It's called Gaim, and is one of the best Instant Messenger applications I've used.

-NT

Application: Scribus

This application I just recently discovered. I had heard about it, but wasn't sure what it was. It's a desktop publishing program, that's quite full featured. I hadn't used something with this capability since my college days, when I worked on the student newspaper. It's great if you need to produce, newsletters, brochures, business cards, you name it.

Here's a screen shot:


There are a number of sample templates, that give you somewhat of an idea of the sort of things you can do with this software. In an upcoming post, I think I'll even do a tutorial for making a small newspaper. These examples are definitely not the limitations, from the initial perusal I would say this is more capable than most of the popular "publisher" programs available for windows. The only thing that's missing of course is a huge clipart library, but these things are freely available on the net. Check out the creative commons for more information on free graphics, audio, copy, etc.

Scribus uses a layout method for inputing the information, as opposed to being content centric. So it is definitely not a word processor. This is a desktop publishing application. The closest piece of software I've used that would give an idea of the functionality would be Adobe's Pagemaker.

Here's a more in depth screenshot showing one of the sample templates for a newsletter:


As you can see everything is layed out in boxes, as opposed to the flow type layout that you see in most word processors.

Over all this is a great application for getting yourself free of the bluescreen.

Next time I'll discuss one of the more obvious applications needed to break away from Microsoft software OpenOffice.

-NT