As you all know, I hate Microsoft. Everyone hates Microsoft. I think even Bill Gates might, if he's ever honest with himself at 2 in the morning after a 16 hour day of doing nothing but counting his money, or perhaps swimming in it Scrooge-McDuck-style in an oversize money bin 20 minutes outside of Redmond.

The problem is, much as we hate them, quite a few of us end up using their products for one thing or another. In college, I used windows as much because I like computer games as anything else. I don't play as much as I used to (mostly because I got tired of upgrading the CPU/video card every six months. That and I tend to suck at the hand-eye coordination thing) but I still use Windows, out of inertia if nothing else.

A lot of my life is in saved computer files. I have electronic backups, but not so much is printed out anymore. So if I wanted to continue to write the novel the way I have been (which, considering the volume of text I already have, is a given) then I have to continue using Word and Excel (I use some spreadsheets to keep background info) (you think I'm kidding. Ever try and make a fantasy setting from scratch? I'm supprised I don't have to resort to a pro dBase application) though I haven't bothered to upgrade either since Office 97.

Put all that in the past tense. I recently switched over to OpenOffice.org and I don't think there's going to be a need to go back.

It works the same. I opened up the program, and immediately knew how to use at least half of what's up on the menu bar. Figuring out the rest may or may not be necessary. The conversion from my end will be seemless, just a matter of saving each file in the new (open source) format the next time I get around to reading or updating it. And OOo will export to the old MS formats if I ever need to share with someone else who hasn't cut the apron strings.

It's a small thing.