Is Libre Office compatible with Microsoft Office?

Yes, to a very high sense it is totally compatible. Only at the most advanced usage with advanced use of macros might there be a problem.

The same is true of OpenOffice but Libre Office has one advantage over OpenOffice in that it can both read and write .docx files – the default format for Microsoft Office. Open Office can only read .docx, but writes out in a slightly different format.

As I recall, LibreOffice can also read .PDF files. We covered this in a Computer Group meeting and without checking I can’t remember that for a fact off the top of my head.

Cleaning-up your PC or Mac???

Try dupeGuru – it’s very good at finding direct matches of files on your machine even when they have different names. It also provides a matching score so that if it’s not exactly sure that it’s found a match it will score it and you can then make a decision after inspection. Otherwise you can delete or move it to an archive folder – just in case!

Problems with Two-factor authentication on a Mac during a recent upgrade

John raised the problem he’d had with implementing Two-factor authentication on his Mac during a recent upgrade (to High Sierra, I think). Now Two-factor authentication is generally a good thing when you’re talking about access to cloud based services, eg OneDrive, eMail, Google Drive, iCloud – but it seems a bit OTT when you’re talking about an operating system as protection to prevent access to services running on the hardware. But Apple doesn’t make this clear.

When I was doing my High Sierra and iOS upgrades the other day I was prompted to ask whether I wanted to implement Two-factor authentication, but was also advised that some of my devices wouldn’t support it and I would lose access to services if I chose to implement it. That was enough to warn me off, so I didn’t. John was not scared off – possibly because he didn’t get the warning that I got – and has had to make a trip to the Apple Store to try and get it sorted.

Two-factor authentication is a “good idea”, don’t get me wrong, but Apple’s implementation is a bit clunky it would appear.

https://www.macworld.com/article/3130566/security/the-apple-two-step-my-disastrous-attempt-to-use-apple-s-two-factor-authentication.html

Difficulties/problems of running Google’s Backup and Sync as a Service

I shared with the Tuesday group some of my difficulties/problems of running Google’s Backup and Sync as a Service which runs at Start-Up. It appears that this is not a problem, but a design feature – no doubt created by Microsoft. You can do this on the Mac, but apparently not on a Windows 10 machine.

The article below explains how you can get round this difficulty. For myself, I’m just going to have to remember to right-click the Backup and Sync Icon and run the application as Administrator every time I login. Sometimes, the simple solutions are the easiest!!!!

https://www.coretechnologies.com/products/AlwaysUp/Apps/RunBackupAndSyncWindowsService.html

Compromised Yahoo accounts

I think it might be a very good idea to change your password if you have an account associated with Yahoo, and that includes Flickr and Tumblr. Yahoo also provided the eMail service for BTinternet. After this breach I made a decision to move away from using my BTinternet eMail account. Just about done for me, but not for others in the family. What a pain!!

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yahoo-cyber/yahoo-says-all-three-billion-accounts-hacked-in-2013-data-theft-idUSKCN1C82O1

Here's one for the Mac users, but it's not a problem unique to Mac users.

Fed-up with selecting the wrong contact from you address book? Time for some tidy-up. This article also shows how you can sort out duplicates held on your iOS (iPhone/iPad) device by using iCloud, Apple’s cloud storage, where you can hold your contacts, so that means that if you’re an iOS/PC user you should be able to clean your iPhone contacts as well.

https://9to5mac.com/2017/02/09/how-to-remove-merge-duplicate-contacts-macos-ios/amp/