For the same reason companies sell printers well below cost. They make their money from the peripherals.
Do you think Canonical doesn't have a stake in Ubuntu?
With over 400 designers, developers, and project managers all on salary, they have to be making money somewhere.
OpenStack Cloud server program, Landscape, Juju, and MAAS are just a few of their many sources of income.
Why do you think Mickey$oft is moving into Cloud and Subscribed OS?
That's where the money is, not selling desktop OSs.
Apple did make a smart move by supplying schools with Apple computers.
What a kid learns on, and grows up using, may eventually end up in the workplace.
Unfortunately, with so many workplaces already using Windoze computer, they had to relearn a new OS to get a job.
However, several companies did use MAC computers, and I still see lots of them in use in hospitals in specialty departments, like for hearing tests, and other lab areas, where Apple came out with the software that shines for those areas.
Rather than paying Mickey$oft 500 bucks for msOffice, millions of users have switched to LibreOffice for FREE
LibreOffice has many more features, and is now rated 9.7 with msOffice at 9.8
Satisfaction of seasoned users, 97%; msOffice still up at 99%.
If you can find some folks who have never used msOffice or LibreOffice and gave them each the same group of assignments to perform, using LibreOffice get all of the assignments done first all the time.
They also have to learn how to use each of those programs on their own. And that is where those using msOffice get hung up, and LibreOffice users shine. LibreOffice is Logical compared to msOffice's haphazard way of setting up where things are located.
Once again, I'll use msOffice WORD as an example:
If I told you to Format a Page in LibreOffice, you would have the project done instantly.
If I told you to Format a Page a page in msWORD, you will probably be still looking around to figure out how to do it.
Why, because who would think of looking under FILE Operations to do a Formatting job?
Only those familiar with the strange layout of WORD would be able to do the job in a timely manner. IF you don't count the time it took for them to learn the wrong places things were put.
Of course, once they are familiar with looking in the WRONG places for things, for them moving over to LibreOffice is hard, because they have to now think Logically about where everything is located.
Also, would you rather pay 500 dollars to be able to write a presentation newsletter to aunt Sara, or have a better program for FREE?
Apex Pro
Re: Apex Pro
Microsoft is doing away with the entire Office Suite package. You will not be able to purchase it in the near future. It's all going to be subscription to Office 365 going forward.
As far as learning how to format a page goes, I'm neither logical nor haphazard. I press F1 and look up what I need to know. It works in almost every program ever invented. LOL
As far as learning how to format a page goes, I'm neither logical nor haphazard. I press F1 and look up what I need to know. It works in almost every program ever invented. LOL
Re: Apex Pro
Yes F1 brings up the help file, but you still have to figure out why Page Format is under File Systems and remember it is in the wrong place if you use msWord.
Re: Apex Pro
I only wonder why I have to press F1 in order to do something simple that should be intuitively obvious. Logical placement of program functions is purely subjective, and programmers are not known for being cognizant of user needs. Been there done that. Been accused of not being logical myself. Well go use something else if you don't like my program. And, that is exactly what you are doing. LOL
Apex Pro
There are a couple of things about both PhotoShop and GIMP that often drive me nuts if I hit the wrong one first.
There are the same commands under a couple of different headings, but they do something in a different way.
It often takes me a couple of tries to get the right one for what I want to happen.
But you do have to be careful with any of them.
Heck, sometimes even the simplest of commands can be confusing.
One E.g. is Crop Image To Selection. (What Selection? They don't tell you).
If you used Crop Image to Selection in the Image Dropdown box, not only does it crop the image, but it also crops the background layer GLOBALLY. But if you use Crop Image to Selection from the Toolbox, it crops the image and leaves the background alone. Then there is the one to Shrink an Image, also found in two places. In one drop down box, it shrinks the background box, but leaves the image the same size. In the other it shrinks both the image and the background box. Then if you look hard enough you will find the same command that shrinks the image without disturbing the background.
If I used it everyday I would remember which ones do what, but I only need to use the program about once every three or four months.
There are only a few things that PhotoShop can do that is easier, and a couple of features not found in GIMP. But for me those extra features never produced the results I was after anyhow, so they are not really missed when using GIMP.
Back in the XP days, I had AutoSketch and AutoCAD. For much of what I used them for, I preferred AutoSketch.
I had made numerous drawings over the years, but just like Family Tree Maker, they quit supporting old formats.
And there was no way I could afford to buy the upgrades for a program I only used about once a year or less often.
When I was remodeling my house, before I had my heart attacks, I did all the drawings on Q-CAD and found it to be easier than AutoCAD, but not as easy as AutoSketch. However, going back in and making changes was easier on Q-CAD
There are the same commands under a couple of different headings, but they do something in a different way.
It often takes me a couple of tries to get the right one for what I want to happen.
But you do have to be careful with any of them.
Heck, sometimes even the simplest of commands can be confusing.
One E.g. is Crop Image To Selection. (What Selection? They don't tell you).
If you used Crop Image to Selection in the Image Dropdown box, not only does it crop the image, but it also crops the background layer GLOBALLY. But if you use Crop Image to Selection from the Toolbox, it crops the image and leaves the background alone. Then there is the one to Shrink an Image, also found in two places. In one drop down box, it shrinks the background box, but leaves the image the same size. In the other it shrinks both the image and the background box. Then if you look hard enough you will find the same command that shrinks the image without disturbing the background.
If I used it everyday I would remember which ones do what, but I only need to use the program about once every three or four months.
There are only a few things that PhotoShop can do that is easier, and a couple of features not found in GIMP. But for me those extra features never produced the results I was after anyhow, so they are not really missed when using GIMP.
Back in the XP days, I had AutoSketch and AutoCAD. For much of what I used them for, I preferred AutoSketch.
I had made numerous drawings over the years, but just like Family Tree Maker, they quit supporting old formats.
And there was no way I could afford to buy the upgrades for a program I only used about once a year or less often.
When I was remodeling my house, before I had my heart attacks, I did all the drawings on Q-CAD and found it to be easier than AutoCAD, but not as easy as AutoSketch. However, going back in and making changes was easier on Q-CAD
Re: Apex Pro
I gave Gimp what I considered to be a fair trial. Somebody gave me a copy of PSP (Paint Shop Pro) but it could not be updated because I didn't have the license. That's when I went looking for something free. This was at least a dozen years ago and perhaps things have changed, but back then Gimp was ridiculously difficult to use compared to PSP. You could not simply save an image, for example. You had to "export" it, whatever the hell that means. There were many such functions that were nearly intuitive in PSP but required multiple pressings of the F1 key for me to figure out in Gimp. It did seem to be a very powerful tool, but the frustration of trying to figure out the logic was too much for me. I paid for my own copy of PSP and have been using it ever since. I know a few people who swear by it, and I admire their tenacity. I get along best with things that are simple, and Gimp is not simple. 
Re: Apex Pro
It's no different than PSP saving its programs as PSP, or back to the same format of the file it started with.
You don't have to Export images in Gimp to save them. They just get saved in Gimp format.
Now, if you open a JPG for example and work on it, you CAN save it back as the JPG without exporting it.
The main purpose of Export is to load a program of any file type and Export it to another file type.
I guess it is all what you get used to, and how much money you have to spend each year on programs.
I didn't find Gimp any harder to use than PhotoShop.
You don't have to Export images in Gimp to save them. They just get saved in Gimp format.
Now, if you open a JPG for example and work on it, you CAN save it back as the JPG without exporting it.
The main purpose of Export is to load a program of any file type and Export it to another file type.
I guess it is all what you get used to, and how much money you have to spend each year on programs.
I didn't find Gimp any harder to use than PhotoShop.
Re: Apex Pro
I looked into Photoshop before I decided on PSP. It was a simple choice of paying $1200 vs $100 for a fully functional program. There used to be something called PhotoShop Essentials which was a stripped down version of the original. I was able to download and use it free for 30 days, or some such thing. After that they wanted several hundreds of dollars to continue using it.
I think Gimp was made for Linux and follows the same philosophy. If you like to hack at your photos, Gimp is the way to go. If you just want something that works ... there are alternatives. At least that's the impression I got when I was looking for an image editor. Now and days I barely use PSP and only update it every three or four years. They also give me a bunch of free peripheral programs which alone are worth the upgrade price.
I think Gimp was made for Linux and follows the same philosophy. If you like to hack at your photos, Gimp is the way to go. If you just want something that works ... there are alternatives. At least that's the impression I got when I was looking for an image editor. Now and days I barely use PSP and only update it every three or four years. They also give me a bunch of free peripheral programs which alone are worth the upgrade price.
Re: Apex Pro
In relation to my genealogy work, I used to restore super old family photo's, not only for myself, but for several other folks too.
In my early years of doing this, I had several free programs that came with printers.
Each one did something unique, so I had a list of which program to use for which operation, and that did it the best and easiest.
Some of those programs only worked if you had the printer installed, which was no problem, because once they were installed they would keep working. At least until I changed computers. This is one reason I kept the driver disks for several old printers.
However, when I moved south, I didn't bring all that old broken stuff with me, and a few of the programs would not install without the printer connected.
After I was down here about a year or a tad longer, I bought the cheaper version of PhotoShop offered at the time.
Sadly, it did not work as well on the special features I was used to using on the free programs that came with the printers.
But I suffered along and learned to do things with PhotoShop to get the end results I needed. It took longer, and their do-all tools never did anything close to what I wanted either.
It wasn't until I began using Linux again and found it was now a million times better than the old early versions I messed with eons ago. I started out with Ubuntu, tried a few others, but stuck with Ubuntu for a couple of years.
For most of those first couple of years of using Linux, I was still using Windows XP for my programs like PhotoShop, Family Tree Maker, AutoCAD and AutoSketch, QuickBooks, and several other proprietary programs.
I needed to make some book covers for one of my early books, and some family booklets I published.
This is when I tried out Gimp, because I was having problems getting PhotoShop to let me do what I wanted.
I didn't learn everything there was about Gimp, but picked up a lot while doing maps and drawing for another book I was working on.
Then I received an order to do several old photographs for a family, and some of these were in really bad shape too.
They had already used someone else to do a few of them, but were not happy with the quality of work for the price they were charged. I should have prefaced this with, they sent me ONE really beat up photograph to do. They didn't tell me it was one they already had someone else work on also, they sent me a copy of the original so I had the worst of them to work with. When they got it back, they were so pleased with my work and with my price (which I thought was way to high, but they didn't), they sent me seven more to do, all at my same high price. Some of them were easier than others, so when I told them they were ready, I also sent along the bill for about 1/3 less than we agreed on. They were elated and sent me many more from their other family members to do for them.
All of these were done using GIMP. I could do them faster than on PhotoShop and get the results I wanted without going through a lot of hassles. Even so, the programs that came with the printers still did a couple of things better and easier, but I couldn't use them anymore. Been using Gimp for nearly everything since then now too.
Somewhere in my files here, I have a copy of an original photograph, plus a copy of what it looked like when a family got it back from a high priced restoration service, and then a copy of how my final product looked. I wish I would have kept the full size finished copy, but they had requested a cropped version so that is the one I kept on file.
As an aside: My first jobs out of high school and a couple of years of college mixed in there, I was a Draftsman. This was LONG before computers. Even at my very first job, they like my work so well they moved me up to the top department within a month. I left there to work for another company at almost twice the pay, got moved up there also, but hated working downtown. I eventually moved to a big shot company in the county and although I took a cut in pay, due to less expenses, my income was technically higher. And it was a cushy job on top of it. Although we still did all the drawings by hand, they were trying out CAD/CAM programs over in the main office building. Home computers were not out yet, but I did have an Apple I motherboard I turned into a small computer, but it was just a toy compared to what they had at work. This was back when everything was still using IBM punch cards too. But they had an electro-mechanical machine with a surface on it, probably magnetic. You used hand-held pens in a guide, and picked up different tips from a selection tray at the top. And talk about wasting paper, hi hi. You drew a line on the box, hit a button to print it out, if it was right you saved it to a punch card. Then you drew the next line, printed out the punch card then your new line on the same piece of paper, if it was right you saved it to a punch card, if not you deleted it. When you made the third line, you would print out the next two punch cards, plus what was in the machine, again if right you saved it to the third punch card. By the time you finished a simple small drawing, you would have used up about a ream of paper and had a 4 inch tall stack of punch cards, which would draw all the lines on the paper to get the completed image.
Crazy Slow and wasteful, but it was a start.
Then of course came monitors and drawing tablets where you could see everything you were doing, and CAD/CAM programs began to evolve rapidly. I was out of the business of being a Draftsman by the time computers were popular.
In my early years of doing this, I had several free programs that came with printers.
Each one did something unique, so I had a list of which program to use for which operation, and that did it the best and easiest.
Some of those programs only worked if you had the printer installed, which was no problem, because once they were installed they would keep working. At least until I changed computers. This is one reason I kept the driver disks for several old printers.
However, when I moved south, I didn't bring all that old broken stuff with me, and a few of the programs would not install without the printer connected.
After I was down here about a year or a tad longer, I bought the cheaper version of PhotoShop offered at the time.
Sadly, it did not work as well on the special features I was used to using on the free programs that came with the printers.
But I suffered along and learned to do things with PhotoShop to get the end results I needed. It took longer, and their do-all tools never did anything close to what I wanted either.
It wasn't until I began using Linux again and found it was now a million times better than the old early versions I messed with eons ago. I started out with Ubuntu, tried a few others, but stuck with Ubuntu for a couple of years.
For most of those first couple of years of using Linux, I was still using Windows XP for my programs like PhotoShop, Family Tree Maker, AutoCAD and AutoSketch, QuickBooks, and several other proprietary programs.
I needed to make some book covers for one of my early books, and some family booklets I published.
This is when I tried out Gimp, because I was having problems getting PhotoShop to let me do what I wanted.
I didn't learn everything there was about Gimp, but picked up a lot while doing maps and drawing for another book I was working on.
Then I received an order to do several old photographs for a family, and some of these were in really bad shape too.
They had already used someone else to do a few of them, but were not happy with the quality of work for the price they were charged. I should have prefaced this with, they sent me ONE really beat up photograph to do. They didn't tell me it was one they already had someone else work on also, they sent me a copy of the original so I had the worst of them to work with. When they got it back, they were so pleased with my work and with my price (which I thought was way to high, but they didn't), they sent me seven more to do, all at my same high price. Some of them were easier than others, so when I told them they were ready, I also sent along the bill for about 1/3 less than we agreed on. They were elated and sent me many more from their other family members to do for them.
All of these were done using GIMP. I could do them faster than on PhotoShop and get the results I wanted without going through a lot of hassles. Even so, the programs that came with the printers still did a couple of things better and easier, but I couldn't use them anymore. Been using Gimp for nearly everything since then now too.
Somewhere in my files here, I have a copy of an original photograph, plus a copy of what it looked like when a family got it back from a high priced restoration service, and then a copy of how my final product looked. I wish I would have kept the full size finished copy, but they had requested a cropped version so that is the one I kept on file.
As an aside: My first jobs out of high school and a couple of years of college mixed in there, I was a Draftsman. This was LONG before computers. Even at my very first job, they like my work so well they moved me up to the top department within a month. I left there to work for another company at almost twice the pay, got moved up there also, but hated working downtown. I eventually moved to a big shot company in the county and although I took a cut in pay, due to less expenses, my income was technically higher. And it was a cushy job on top of it. Although we still did all the drawings by hand, they were trying out CAD/CAM programs over in the main office building. Home computers were not out yet, but I did have an Apple I motherboard I turned into a small computer, but it was just a toy compared to what they had at work. This was back when everything was still using IBM punch cards too. But they had an electro-mechanical machine with a surface on it, probably magnetic. You used hand-held pens in a guide, and picked up different tips from a selection tray at the top. And talk about wasting paper, hi hi. You drew a line on the box, hit a button to print it out, if it was right you saved it to a punch card. Then you drew the next line, printed out the punch card then your new line on the same piece of paper, if it was right you saved it to a punch card, if not you deleted it. When you made the third line, you would print out the next two punch cards, plus what was in the machine, again if right you saved it to the third punch card. By the time you finished a simple small drawing, you would have used up about a ream of paper and had a 4 inch tall stack of punch cards, which would draw all the lines on the paper to get the completed image.
Crazy Slow and wasteful, but it was a start.
Then of course came monitors and drawing tablets where you could see everything you were doing, and CAD/CAM programs began to evolve rapidly. I was out of the business of being a Draftsman by the time computers were popular.
Re: Apex Pro
Over the years I've heard and read a lot of good reviews about Gimp. It didn't work out that way for me at the time I tried it. Perhaps if I reevaluated the 2019 version I could see an improvement. But, I don't have a great need for a graphics editor and am happy with what I already paid for. The incentive to change isn't there. I am also of the mind that I'd rather pay for an upgrade than travel the learning curve on something new. You know, I like things that just work. 
I am happy to say that my experience with IBM punch cards is minute to non-existent. I seem to recall handling some punch cards in my distant past, but can't even bring to mind why. I did use computers that required paper tape readers, but that's about as ancient as I get. My only drafting experience is from two classes I had to take in high school. I liked those classes and did well in them but never considered drafting as a possible career path. Of course, that was well before CAD/CAM. I was called upon to help install and maintain Autocad for a very small group at Motorola. The most impressive part of that software was the degree of complexity involved with using it. It could easily take several years of OTJ training to understand how to use it fully. I got to admire people who make a living using it.
Photo restoration would be right up my alley, if I had an alley. I don't know enough about image processing to be successful at restoration, but I'm sure I could learn. I have some primitive software for touching up portraits and have done a bang up job on a few. That's not the same as restoration, but I like the idea of making something beautiful out of a trashy image. What I have is the free version of AfterShot Pro and am duly impressed with what it can do. I might be even more impressed if I had a need to use it.
I am happy to say that my experience with IBM punch cards is minute to non-existent. I seem to recall handling some punch cards in my distant past, but can't even bring to mind why. I did use computers that required paper tape readers, but that's about as ancient as I get. My only drafting experience is from two classes I had to take in high school. I liked those classes and did well in them but never considered drafting as a possible career path. Of course, that was well before CAD/CAM. I was called upon to help install and maintain Autocad for a very small group at Motorola. The most impressive part of that software was the degree of complexity involved with using it. It could easily take several years of OTJ training to understand how to use it fully. I got to admire people who make a living using it.
Photo restoration would be right up my alley, if I had an alley. I don't know enough about image processing to be successful at restoration, but I'm sure I could learn. I have some primitive software for touching up portraits and have done a bang up job on a few. That's not the same as restoration, but I like the idea of making something beautiful out of a trashy image. What I have is the free version of AfterShot Pro and am duly impressed with what it can do. I might be even more impressed if I had a need to use it.
Re: Apex Pro
You may eventually run into the same problems I did with proprietary software.
You don't use it often enough to keep it updated, and file you created with it you have stored.
After X number of upgrades, suddenly they are no longer able to read those older files.
And the only way you can get those files readable again, is to buy some of the major upgrades you skipped over.
Since I run a business, and have used accounting software since the days of Cougar Mountain, and Quickbooks, I learned to make a paper printout of everything associated with my federal filing requirements. Doing so has saved my tail section numerous times.
If it were not for Gimp, I could not read several of my image files anymore.
I'm also using other Linux programs to read old but necessary files I created years ago.
I had numerous files made with CARDFILE on Windows. The suffix was .crd
Almost all of my late wife's recipes were in this format. She made some really neat looking cards too.
But the problem with Windows is they ABANDON too many things.
Their very best writing program was the Original Windows WRITE. The later versions were not so good.
It was the one and only word processor with a Global Font Increase or Decrease function.
Try to read a .wri file today.
You don't use it often enough to keep it updated, and file you created with it you have stored.
After X number of upgrades, suddenly they are no longer able to read those older files.
And the only way you can get those files readable again, is to buy some of the major upgrades you skipped over.
Since I run a business, and have used accounting software since the days of Cougar Mountain, and Quickbooks, I learned to make a paper printout of everything associated with my federal filing requirements. Doing so has saved my tail section numerous times.
If it were not for Gimp, I could not read several of my image files anymore.
I'm also using other Linux programs to read old but necessary files I created years ago.
I had numerous files made with CARDFILE on Windows. The suffix was .crd
Almost all of my late wife's recipes were in this format. She made some really neat looking cards too.
But the problem with Windows is they ABANDON too many things.
Their very best writing program was the Original Windows WRITE. The later versions were not so good.
It was the one and only word processor with a Global Font Increase or Decrease function.
Try to read a .wri file today.
Re: Apex Pro
I know what you are speaking about when you tell of obsolete file formats. It happens out of necessity. Microsoft Write, for example, was part of Windows 1.0 - that's a ONE not a malformed TEN. LOL I'm pretty sure processors were running with 8 bits in those days. It would be unrealistic to expect today's 64 bit machines to be compatible. Not only does hardware change, but so do people's needs and wants. I'd agree with anyone who says today's word processor programs are bloated with a lot of unnecessary functions, but there are also folks who can't get enough of the bells and whistles not even dreamed about in Windows 1.0 days. Regardless, I do appreciate your admiration for the perfect version of a program that becomes outdated through no fault of your own. I'm facing that exact problem with Windows 7.
There are conversion programs that will change one old and ancient format to something readable in the current century. The issue there is you need to do the conversions early on and often. You can't skip six generations of change and expect things to convert easily. My answer to that is and always has been to not change. Keep the old equipment and software operational as long as is physically possible. There would be nothing wrong with running a Windows NT 3.5 machine today if you had an absolute need to do so. The downside is that you will be operating on an island. Very few folks have computers these days which are compatible with what worked on NT workstations.
There are conversion programs that will change one old and ancient format to something readable in the current century. The issue there is you need to do the conversions early on and often. You can't skip six generations of change and expect things to convert easily. My answer to that is and always has been to not change. Keep the old equipment and software operational as long as is physically possible. There would be nothing wrong with running a Windows NT 3.5 machine today if you had an absolute need to do so. The downside is that you will be operating on an island. Very few folks have computers these days which are compatible with what worked on NT workstations.
Re: Apex Pro
When a company develops a certain format, such as the .crd extension.
They should maintain that format, else millions if not trillions of stored data files will become obsolete.
Or at the very least, create a program that will convert the old type of file to a newer format, and make those converters for abandoned file types FREE, and updated if they discontinue the file type they converted up to.
Almost all copies of my companies data and contracts were originally saved in PCX format because it was LOSSLESS compared to other formats. I was able to convert most of them over to low resolution new file types so have not lost them, but they look horrible.
Nearly every award certificate I had made electronic copies of were done in the PCX format, using a very low resolution scanner. It's all we had at the time.
The two floods we had destroyed the originals, but I still had the old PCX files, now converted to TIFF.
Until my last XP computer died, I was able to still run Windows 3.1 in compatibility mode.
So was able to get most of my old WRI files copied to DOC files, but could not do anything with CRD files, other than bring each one up and create a screen shot of the cards.
This is just another one of the reasons I have switched to using Linux and chose to stay away from proprietary programs with their proprietary file types.
Adobe is ending Flash Player, how long before they end PDF?
They should maintain that format, else millions if not trillions of stored data files will become obsolete.
Or at the very least, create a program that will convert the old type of file to a newer format, and make those converters for abandoned file types FREE, and updated if they discontinue the file type they converted up to.
Almost all copies of my companies data and contracts were originally saved in PCX format because it was LOSSLESS compared to other formats. I was able to convert most of them over to low resolution new file types so have not lost them, but they look horrible.
Nearly every award certificate I had made electronic copies of were done in the PCX format, using a very low resolution scanner. It's all we had at the time.
The two floods we had destroyed the originals, but I still had the old PCX files, now converted to TIFF.
Until my last XP computer died, I was able to still run Windows 3.1 in compatibility mode.
So was able to get most of my old WRI files copied to DOC files, but could not do anything with CRD files, other than bring each one up and create a screen shot of the cards.
This is just another one of the reasons I have switched to using Linux and chose to stay away from proprietary programs with their proprietary file types.
Adobe is ending Flash Player, how long before they end PDF?
Re: Apex Pro
There is no claim that I know about for anybody's file format to last forever. This can be said of anything Linux might latch onto as well as what is sold as proprietary. Formats change with the circumstances, and those circumstances are not static. Holding a company responsible to maintain it's format indefinitely isn't realistic. I don't have a good answer for a permanent archiving of data. Most of what we saved at Motorola had a time limit that was generally dictated by some law or another. Files simply got deleted after their lifetime expired. I understand that your personal archive is more valuable than what large corporations might be forced to save, but the means of preservation isn't something the vendor of a given format would be concerned about. My idea of keeping the old hardware functioning is the only solution I can imagine. I have a laptop with Windows 3.1 on it sitting in the closet, but no files. LOL
Re: Apex Pro
In my case, especially with Family Tree Maker, I could not afford their upgrades any longer, so kept using the latest version I had upgraded to. I did upgrade from FTM to FTW and even upgraded FTW a few times, they still use FTW but cannot read older FTW files. At least I was able to export the old FTW to GED, but then you lose all the added info that is not included in GEDcom files.
Personally, I think GRAMPS is not user friendly enough. I do use it, but only to view GEDcom files, not do my work in.
I figured at this point, and at my age, it was finally time to upload my files to Ancestry and after a couple of years I changed it from Private to Public, this way the data is there forever. I still download a GEDcom file every so often for safe keeping.
The whole thing with CARDFILE on Windows is they never offered any type of alternative one could save their data to.
To me, that was mean and nasty trick they pulled on their customers.
As far as businesses go, we must save our data for at least 10 to 15 years, or longer if possible. Some data must be saved nearly forever, or at least for the life of the company.
My daughter-in-law worked for MCI until they went belly up, and the job she got after that was with a data archive company. They resave to new media every file they have in storage every five years. The program they use watches for file types that are obsolete, and flags all of them for modification.
This is what she did, grab those flagged files and use a program to convert them from an old file format to a new file format that won't ruin the files, most of the time. One type of file that dealt her fits was PFS WRITE files. Because they were formatted documents she couldn't just copy them to a text file, or even a document file as they would lose their formatting. I don't remember now what file type it was she had to convert them too first, then check each one with a PFS reader and compare it to the output file in the new format. Once they were correct, then she could make them into a document file of the type they used for archive purposes.
She was thankful she was not in the department that saved database files, because back then there were several independently written databases that were impossible to convert to a new database without rewriting the entire database by hand. Their IT department could write programs that could do it for them to eliminate some of the hand copying.
There were so many different financial programs in use over the years that the company converted all new storage to LaTex I think she said, and that is how they store long term financial data.
A lot of data does become obsolete, so the format doesn't matter all that much. It gets deleted after a certain time period, things like call logs, purchase orders, inventory sheets, stuff that was no longer relevant to the company paying for the storage. Many companies had Permanent, Long Term, and Short Term storage accounts, but Short Term was still 7 to 10 years.
There are also companies who archive paper documents that must be kept nearly forever. Like the deed to buildings or land, contracts with 100 year leases and other similar things that never expire.
I read once many years ago about a certain contract from the government to a family written in like 1806 giving their family a permanent tax free right to use 80 acres as they see fit as long as a member of their family is still alive and occupies the property. Unfortunately it did not allow them to build skyscrapers or office buildings on the land, only personal dwellings for family members. They could not sell the land, if they ever fail to occupy the land, it goes back to the government. If I recall this was in a major magazine, probably something like National Geographic or something similar.
Personally, I think GRAMPS is not user friendly enough. I do use it, but only to view GEDcom files, not do my work in.
I figured at this point, and at my age, it was finally time to upload my files to Ancestry and after a couple of years I changed it from Private to Public, this way the data is there forever. I still download a GEDcom file every so often for safe keeping.
The whole thing with CARDFILE on Windows is they never offered any type of alternative one could save their data to.
To me, that was mean and nasty trick they pulled on their customers.
As far as businesses go, we must save our data for at least 10 to 15 years, or longer if possible. Some data must be saved nearly forever, or at least for the life of the company.
My daughter-in-law worked for MCI until they went belly up, and the job she got after that was with a data archive company. They resave to new media every file they have in storage every five years. The program they use watches for file types that are obsolete, and flags all of them for modification.
This is what she did, grab those flagged files and use a program to convert them from an old file format to a new file format that won't ruin the files, most of the time. One type of file that dealt her fits was PFS WRITE files. Because they were formatted documents she couldn't just copy them to a text file, or even a document file as they would lose their formatting. I don't remember now what file type it was she had to convert them too first, then check each one with a PFS reader and compare it to the output file in the new format. Once they were correct, then she could make them into a document file of the type they used for archive purposes.
She was thankful she was not in the department that saved database files, because back then there were several independently written databases that were impossible to convert to a new database without rewriting the entire database by hand. Their IT department could write programs that could do it for them to eliminate some of the hand copying.
There were so many different financial programs in use over the years that the company converted all new storage to LaTex I think she said, and that is how they store long term financial data.
A lot of data does become obsolete, so the format doesn't matter all that much. It gets deleted after a certain time period, things like call logs, purchase orders, inventory sheets, stuff that was no longer relevant to the company paying for the storage. Many companies had Permanent, Long Term, and Short Term storage accounts, but Short Term was still 7 to 10 years.
There are also companies who archive paper documents that must be kept nearly forever. Like the deed to buildings or land, contracts with 100 year leases and other similar things that never expire.
I read once many years ago about a certain contract from the government to a family written in like 1806 giving their family a permanent tax free right to use 80 acres as they see fit as long as a member of their family is still alive and occupies the property. Unfortunately it did not allow them to build skyscrapers or office buildings on the land, only personal dwellings for family members. They could not sell the land, if they ever fail to occupy the land, it goes back to the government. If I recall this was in a major magazine, probably something like National Geographic or something similar.
Re: Apex Pro
You bring up an interesting point about preserving databases. As you must know this site runs off php software that builds it's web pages from data stored in an SQL database. You must also know that there are two archives that have more or less preserved our public history. Those two archives are running on versions of phpBB that are obsolete. I can't upgrade them either. It turns out that upgrading the site software also involves upgrading the database. The old database structure is not the same as what we are using today. It's all SQL, but tables, and indexes, and a variety of other variables are all different and cannot be converted automatically. A live person could sit down and do it all manually. That's a lot a manual data entry to pay for by the hour. LOL Some day the phpBB will not work with the php current version. That will be the end of our history. I'm not sure what I'll do, but I know I'll feel bad about losing it all.
Re: Apex Pro
I wouldn't exactly call it a Database, but when I was doing businesses that required I mail out notices to everyone, using msWord, I had files of peoples names and addresses. It worked with msWord to add their name to the letter, and it also printed out the envelopes. It was basically just another document if I recall correctly, but there was something special about it, that I no longer remember how it worked.
In any case, when I finally bought the msOffice suite, the Word program in it worked differently.
Hmm, maybe I'm thinking of msWRITE is what I was using before getting msOffice.
Seems like it required the names be in either a spreadsheet or database and I didn't want to have to retype all 400+ names, addresses, and phone numbers, plus other info on that page.
I mentioned this to someone and he said he could do it for me easily.
So I went over to his business and he just wrote some command line info which read my name and address document, then added it to the database I needed. Took him less than 2 minutes to write what he needed, and perhaps another 2 minutes for the spreadsheet, which he copied to 3-1/2" floppy and handed everything back to me. I took it home and it worked perfectly. The one and only problem he had was with the one field where I had other information I really didn't need, so somehow he told me to skip that field. I think this worked for him because that particular field had a label used throughout the document listing. But then it if it was two or more lines, he had to fix that by hitting delete, hi hi. Whatever he wrote made it stop running if there was more than one line, and thankfully there were only about 15 or 20 like that.
I know I mentioned this before, but one website I visit daily, their database program was hand coded so not transferable to any other newer style of database.
By my way of thinking, it sure seems like any database could be converted fairly easily. Unless they use some convoluted way of storing data. However, looking at my CRD files converted to TXT, there is a lot of garbage characters in there that were probably delimiters. But as far as the CRD files that were names and addresses, if I still knew how to write a basic program, I could have it search for the character that comes before a name, before an address, etc. and have it extrapolate the English from the Nonsense, hi hi. I'm sure Bash could do it to if I knew Bash, hi hi.
I'm sure a website database is much more complex since it holds a lot of different fields and probably not all together either.
In any case, when I finally bought the msOffice suite, the Word program in it worked differently.
Hmm, maybe I'm thinking of msWRITE is what I was using before getting msOffice.
Seems like it required the names be in either a spreadsheet or database and I didn't want to have to retype all 400+ names, addresses, and phone numbers, plus other info on that page.
I mentioned this to someone and he said he could do it for me easily.
So I went over to his business and he just wrote some command line info which read my name and address document, then added it to the database I needed. Took him less than 2 minutes to write what he needed, and perhaps another 2 minutes for the spreadsheet, which he copied to 3-1/2" floppy and handed everything back to me. I took it home and it worked perfectly. The one and only problem he had was with the one field where I had other information I really didn't need, so somehow he told me to skip that field. I think this worked for him because that particular field had a label used throughout the document listing. But then it if it was two or more lines, he had to fix that by hitting delete, hi hi. Whatever he wrote made it stop running if there was more than one line, and thankfully there were only about 15 or 20 like that.
I know I mentioned this before, but one website I visit daily, their database program was hand coded so not transferable to any other newer style of database.
By my way of thinking, it sure seems like any database could be converted fairly easily. Unless they use some convoluted way of storing data. However, looking at my CRD files converted to TXT, there is a lot of garbage characters in there that were probably delimiters. But as far as the CRD files that were names and addresses, if I still knew how to write a basic program, I could have it search for the character that comes before a name, before an address, etc. and have it extrapolate the English from the Nonsense, hi hi. I'm sure Bash could do it to if I knew Bash, hi hi.
I'm sure a website database is much more complex since it holds a lot of different fields and probably not all together either.
Re: Apex Pro
Traditional SQL data is stored in tables that look a lot like spreadsheets. These tables are independent of each other but can be linked using various criteria. It's the making sense of all these tables in a database that complicates the issue of converting one. There are control characters embedded into the data, as you found out with your cardfile, not to mention data formatting. I wanted to merge the two archives I have and looked into how it might be possible. A lot of the tables there matched so that importing one into the other would not be a big problem. However, each database assigned members a unique ID number. That's just part of the software. Those ID numbers are used to sign the posts in the forums. So, if the two databases merged, it's very likely a given ID number would point to two different people; one from each database. That would complicate the presentation of the topic posts because the database could not resolve who posted what. That's just a very simple example of complications that could arise.
I've used that mailing feature of MsWord, and like yourself I don't recall all the details. The names and addresses had to be in one document of a specific format but easy to edit. Running the "mail merge" function from the document you are sending will magically print one copy for each unique name/address on the list. Technically mail merge is not a database operation, and you can get a regular SQL database to do the same thing. The database, of course, can do so much more than send out letters.
I've used that mailing feature of MsWord, and like yourself I don't recall all the details. The names and addresses had to be in one document of a specific format but easy to edit. Running the "mail merge" function from the document you are sending will magically print one copy for each unique name/address on the list. Technically mail merge is not a database operation, and you can get a regular SQL database to do the same thing. The database, of course, can do so much more than send out letters.
Re: Apex Pro
Aha, I see your dilemma with trying to merge databases created at different times.
It was easy to update the mail merge document since it was in plain text.
Even so, it was still tricky to use, because some people have 2-line addresses, and some have 3-line addresses. And if I recall I had a couple with 4-line addresses.
So my file was not maintained in perfect alphabetical order, and I had to keep track of what number on the list the new range of addresses started. The list didn't need numbered, but you needed to know how many to print before changing to another envelope type. So if 1 to 188 were 2-line addresses, you needed to know to start at 189 for 3-line addresses.
After doing this a while, I simply made three different mail merge sheets, hi hi.
I also used another companies program that worked similar as msWord for setting it up to print the name on the letter, and print the envelopes, but the database of names was done much differently, and there were checkboxes to turn off certain names, rather than delete them from the list. This was actually a really handy feature for one of the clubs I used this program for. I could also send to those unchecked, to remind them of club events they might like to come to, since they no longer got the newsletter or calendar.
Ever since those days I've just used either a plain document file or spreadsheet to keep personal and business addresses in.
Speaking of which, do you remember the old commands Renumber and Append?
I lost more data in the early Append days, due to running out of space and crashing the file.
I kept text files and each time I needed to add new things to it, I would Append it to the old text file.
It would get about 15 or 20 pages long, and when I went to add the next text file, it would run out of room and blow the entire document. No fear, I always kept a backup of the one that worked, hi hi.
Then came Netscape and it had a really nice Address Book feature in it. Well, we know how long that lasted, hi hi.
It was easy to update the mail merge document since it was in plain text.
Even so, it was still tricky to use, because some people have 2-line addresses, and some have 3-line addresses. And if I recall I had a couple with 4-line addresses.
So my file was not maintained in perfect alphabetical order, and I had to keep track of what number on the list the new range of addresses started. The list didn't need numbered, but you needed to know how many to print before changing to another envelope type. So if 1 to 188 were 2-line addresses, you needed to know to start at 189 for 3-line addresses.
After doing this a while, I simply made three different mail merge sheets, hi hi.
I also used another companies program that worked similar as msWord for setting it up to print the name on the letter, and print the envelopes, but the database of names was done much differently, and there were checkboxes to turn off certain names, rather than delete them from the list. This was actually a really handy feature for one of the clubs I used this program for. I could also send to those unchecked, to remind them of club events they might like to come to, since they no longer got the newsletter or calendar.
Ever since those days I've just used either a plain document file or spreadsheet to keep personal and business addresses in.
Speaking of which, do you remember the old commands Renumber and Append?
I lost more data in the early Append days, due to running out of space and crashing the file.
I kept text files and each time I needed to add new things to it, I would Append it to the old text file.
It would get about 15 or 20 pages long, and when I went to add the next text file, it would run out of room and blow the entire document. No fear, I always kept a backup of the one that worked, hi hi.
Then came Netscape and it had a really nice Address Book feature in it. Well, we know how long that lasted, hi hi.
Re: Apex Pro
You got a lot more use out of those mailing programs than I ever did. My experience was casual and incidental use and not much more than a novelty. I had this fancy computer that could do things I never even dreamed of, so I think I tried everything that was possible on Windows 98. LOL Now and days I have s spreadsheet with special formatting for package labels. All I do is manually type in the updated address information and voila. One label is automatically printed. Of course I could not handle a business that way. The other thing I do is print return address labels with pretty pictures on them. The Avery label making software makes the task very easy.
I'm afraid I don't recall using Append or Renumber. I might have in my distant past, but I can't think of a time when I did. I know the early office suite programs had limits. That makes sense given that the hardware of those days was limited too.
I'm afraid I don't recall using Append or Renumber. I might have in my distant past, but I can't think of a time when I did. I know the early office suite programs had limits. That makes sense given that the hardware of those days was limited too.