Open Sourcing

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I recently did something that was sort of high-tech and upgraded my operating system. Now it's even more up to date than mom's, and her computer is newer/faster/nicer than mine. I didn't realize you could upgrade for free, but that's exactly what I did.

Upgrading a Mac OS (to Mavericks, named after a big wave in Northern California) is an entirely different beast than upgrading Windows, because the OS is much more integrated into the computer. Either way, because it's a Mac, they sort of do everything for you. It took a couple of hours, during which I wondered if I screwed up my computer, but it worked. Now I have an updated system, and it's pretty cool. I could be deluding myself (wouldn't be the first time), but I can't help but think my computer runs better and faster.

The one problem that came out of this is that my MS Office software doesn't run on the new OS. I need to upgrade all of them, and I don't really want to go out and buy the software. All my Word files won't open because the program won't work. Total bummer.

I did, however, realize that you can live your life without MS Word, though it is convenient to have. I ended up downloading an open source word program, OpenOffice, and it works pretty well. I'm using it right now to write this post. You can open any sort of document, even .docx files, which I couldn't do with my old Word program, and you can save them in any format.

I have to employ an extra step now and then, and it takes a bit of getting used to, but you sure can't beat the price. I also found that I can work on Word documents using TextEdit, which comes with the computer. All in all, I seem to be getting along fine with MS Word, but we'll see how long that lasts.

Until then, thanks for reading, and thanks to Tayla Lyell for the pic.