scribus and open office base

So I'm trying to create a meeting schedule in scribus. I decided that it would be prudent to try and create a database first given that I have plenty of time to do it right now (the number of computer services calls i'm getting averaging about 2 a week)

Unfortunately, scribus and open office base seem to have high learning curves. my aptitude for windows programs does me nothing for these programs given that they seem to require a good understanding of the underlying code. what was really bugging me was that after I created a table for the meetings with fields such as "time", "location", "day of week", etc.; I found that going back and trying to modify the fields was impossible. so after re-creating the table 3x, I got frustrated and gave up.

i'm thinking of just going back to microsoft access even though it's proprietary. it also makes me think that the programming community that works on these programs might benefit from more closely copying the interfaces and commands of the corresponding windows programs. afterall, if windows copies all of their stuff from apple, why can't the open-source community copy all their stuff from windows?

once a year cleaning

my computer performance has improved dramatically after a quick format of the hard drive and a reinstallation of Windows XP; Dell was nice enough to just send the OS (and I'm not being sarastic here) so I don't have all those extra programs that just take up space

Will now make a partition for Ubuntu edgy eft (6.10) and install that

the linux adventure!!!

I like this story about the adventures of installing linux. IMHO, very well written.

http://www.techsupportalert.com/review-linux-for-windows-users.htm

ended up doing OCW

I’m taking a self-paced course from the Open-Coursware project at M.I.T. It is a beginner’s IT class from the Sloan School of Management. If interested this is the link:

15.564 Information Technology I, Spring 2003

See more progress on: Take a computer class

legal mp3's

I have decided, after purchasing music from i-pod and before that illegally downloading mp3's from bit-torrent sites, to only buy my music directly from bands that sell their songs directly to their fans as high-quality (think 320kbs) mp3's.

as for the on-site computer consulting business, I'm in the "I don't want to do this anymore because it's not my dream-job". So, this week, I am making time on Thursday to meet with a Dean of Letters and Science at UC Berkeley to request a retroactive withdrawl for a semester that I went south due to psychiatric problems (which is a legitimate medical withdrawl that I have taken before for the same reasons). The effect of this being that my gpa will be highly improved when I apply to graduate schools in December 2007. Besides that, I will be spending time this week trying to talk with graduate researchers at my alma mater to get some kind of helper research position, paid or not. Oh, all this is for the field of neuroscience. My dream-job is to study the neurological basis for mental illnesses (including the psychiatric, geriatric, and developmental).

That is all.