<p>Vistany, Office should do you just fine. You'll need to download Norton Antivirus from the ITC website (which you can do from home), but there's really not much else you need. If your computer doesn't have Vista, you can buy it for $10, but there's really no hurry to upgrade.</p>
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Vistany, Office should do you just fine. You'll need to download Norton Antivirus from the ITC website (which you can do from home), but there's really not much else you need. If your computer doesn't have Vista, you can buy it for $10, but there's really no hurry to upgrade.
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<p>Thanks Canuck. I got Vista Ultimate because that is this years spec from UVa. Hopefully the latest version has less bugs than earlier releases. I didn't want to pay a lot for office 2007 from Dell when I could get it for ten bucks from the book store. I loaded my Office 2003 just to get me through the next week.</p>
<p>The antivirus thing has me worried. Dell jammed McAfee down my throat, which I expect to delete. I am loading AVG, which has alway been fine for me, as I type. Is Norton Mandatory, or can I stick with AVG?</p>
<p>Hmm, I've never understood anti-virus programs. Why slow my computer down to a crawl when I can just backup my files onto a external hard drive and re-install windows in half an hour?</p>
<p>Vistany, you're probably ok with whatever you want to use, but you need to make sure you keep it up to date. ITC only supports norton too. </p>
<p>Jask, the antivirus is to protect your compiter and all computers on the network. Viruses don't just delete files, some will transmit your online banking info, etc. You could infect the whole network with a virus on your computer.</p>
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<p>or for free...</p>
<p>Is $10 too much of a price to pay to stay on the right side of the law?</p>
<p>Pssssh Microsoft Office.</p>
<p>Go free (as in freedom) and get yourself OpenOffice. Not only is it legal, it is the moral thing to do. It is also brought to you by the same guys (with some assistance from the Linux folk) who brought you Java.</p>
<p>canuck: Technically that's known as a worm. :p</p>
<p>I wouldn't know, I use a Mac :). Even as a diehard mac user, I still will only use Office.</p>
<p>I'm referring to malicious programs that replicate without user-intervention (opening emails etc.) But OpenOffice is actually cross-platform, though it was originally developed for Linux.</p>
<p>Does anyone have a suggestion for a Dell XPS port replicator? The one Dell offers is a piece of junk from Belkin that got bad reviews. XPS doesn't offer a docking station so I'm searching around and having zero luck.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
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<p>yes. Especially when its $10 for such a sh1ty piece of software.</p>
<p>Openoffice is fine, free (as in freedom) and does just about everything office did before 2007/2008. It has some compatibility problems with mac os 10.5 though. Also, google docs works just as well, and is free (but not as in freedom).</p>
<p>Or you can be a real man (or woman) and use LaTeX for everything, which is what I do, and now I have beautifully typeset documents that Office could never even touch, as well as 1000000x the power of Office.</p>
<p>I find it does everything that I need, and more. Although Google Docs is nice on the go, it doesn't have quite the same power as Office.</p>