Workstation Productivity

[Paul Schulz]

Simon,

One 'work flow' that I recently heard about for doing reasonably
complicated diagrams (from Glen Turner, via LinuxSA)

 - draft in Dia
 - annotate in Inkscape
 - present in OpenOffice.

There would probably be other cases where a chain of tools could be
used a better job that any alternative single tool.

Cheers,
Paul

On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 9:53 PM, Simon Ives <simon at simonives.info> wrote:
>> This is strange, are you a recent uni graduate yourself? I ask because
>> I am currently studying and my experience has been that reports could
>> be written in anything and had to be submitted basically in a format
>> that the lecturer could read. Most of the letcturers were open to
>> installing standard/free software if need be. To me .doc, .sxw, .ppt
>> etc are formats for authoring, but why would you submit a report in
>> one when the marker has _no_ need to edit your work? PDF is a format
>> that is ideally suited to the job and this is what I submitted in.
>
> Formats for assessment are an issue, but more so with Windows than with
> Linux.  I've done a fair bit of external study and submitting your
> assessment items through web systems such as blackboard (or whatever
> that weird one is that UniSA use) often requires Microsoft formats.
> What's good about Open Office (for example) is that you can save in .DOC
> if you must, but you also have access to quite a range of other formats.
> If your T.A. wants .DOC then you can do that, if another T.A. wants .PDF
> then you can do that too.
>
> Aside from a list of alternate programs, which is a necessary
> requirement, I'm also interested specifically in productivity and
> usability benefits that come with using Ubuntu.  For example, can a
> particular student perform a particular task as easily, or easier, on
> Ubuntu.  Can a particular task be done quicker?  What program options
> are available in Linux that aren't available in Windows?
>
> Simple case study.
>
> Student A is provided the task of undertaking a research project and
> needs to submit a literature review.  This review should be presented
> in .PDF format with links between the table of contents and the relevant
> headings.  A title page should be attached.  The page numbers should be
> as follows:
> Cover Page: No Number
> Table of Contents: Roman Numerals (IVX etc.)
> Content: Standard Characters (0-9)
> Appendix: Roman Numerals (IVX etc.)
> It should include at least 50 references presented in the text and a
> list of references at the end in Harvard format.  The table of contents
> should also provide a list of illustrations/images.
>
> Now, if the student were to undertake such a project in Ubuntu where
> would he or she start?  What tools are available?  How do they compare
> to any commercially available Windows alternatives?
>
> The list of recommended programs so far includes:
>
> a) Open Office.org
> b) Gimp
> c) Makefile
> d) Gcc
> e) Open-jdk
> f) Mozilla Firefox
> g) Zim (personal wiki)
> h) Eclipse
> i) gedit
> j) RapidSVN
> k) Pidgin
> 
> --
> Simon Ives
>
> E - simon at simonives.info
> M - simon.ives at live.com.au
> W - www.simonives.info
>
> Please consider the environment before printing this email or any
> attachments.
>
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