<p>As an engineer, only things I needed from Office have been Word (typing papers), Excel (tons of spreadsheets in engineering), and PowerPoint (for class presentations, poster construction for seminars, etc).</p>
<p>Only thing I've ever needed Access for has been my research in grad school.</p>
<p>Frontpage, Money, etc. are all Microsoft's attempts to nab the market in those fields, but there are enough alternate and shareware programs out there that pretty much everything aside from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint aren't "industry standard".</p>
<p>Works isn't too great, since too many people use Office and cross-platform reformatting etc. is a pain.</p>
<p>I put Mozilla on my computer and deleted all references to Explorer after my fabulous-but-techno-illiterate roommate got my computer quarantined from the university network for unsafe internet usage. Once I put Mozilla on and removed all access to Explorer, all the viruses and spyware and other nasties that kept cropping up magically quit hopping aboard my PC. Amazing!</p>
<p>Openoffice is okay, but if there are good discounts for Office through your university, I'd stick with that, especially if you start to encounter assignments and tutorials using Excel etc. in your classes.</p>
<p>In response to what someone posted earlier, Small Business Edition does come with Powerpoint and Publisher; the latter can be a real useful tool for everything from cards to fliers to a professional-looking cover. </p>
<p>I'm also all for the Mozilla people- it's very rare to come across a website that doesn't support it and you don't have to deal with all the garbage microsoft throws at you while keeping your computer very secure.</p>
<p>It's very rare that it doesnt support it (some do but just dont say they do and insist on having a forward to a "unsuported browser" site instead of just letting you try). When it comes to these sites, personally I say screw it. Why would I want to support the continued violation of web standards by people who only test their sites in IE? If I really need the site, I will load up IE but otherwise I just dont give them my business (many such sites are online stores) and send them a quick email saying that they would have had my business if they had supported proper web standards so that the site would work with proper browsers.</p>
<p>I'll definitely check out the college computer store; who DOESN'T like student discounts?? And I will get the whole pack - I have a feeling Powerpoint and Excel will come in handy somehow. Still wondering if I should go for Office 2000 or 2003 - I've used 2003 and can't see much difference aside from it looking spiffier. (I could be wrong of course) One of the things I love about word is equation editor, and plus I'm so used to it I don't think I could ever switch. :P Which means I'll probably stay away from Works. (Remember the Mac days of Clarisworks and Kidpix??) And I haven't heard of Open office, but will probably check it out; am curious.</p>
<p>aibarr: seriously?? I thought Mozilla was supposed to make you LESS susceptible to spyware! And I agree, Firefox can be a pain at times: sometimes java things don't load, and it doesn't have that richtext thing if you're using hotmail, but I think they're minor issues - I still like how it blocks pop-ups, and I like having all the pages under one window instead of 15 IE windows on my taskbar, lol. And I've never had any problems with it being unsupported. Go Firefox!</p>
<p>If you make a lot of use of the equation editor, you should consider learning LaTeX which is a true typesetting program. Once you learn it, it becomes simple to do problem sets and such and include equations...you just type them in. It also is usefull if you need to do anything LONG because word chokes when the documents start getting really big (and having lots of objects like equations).</p>
<p>I think you misread aibarr's comment, he said that the spyware and junk QUIT after he installed firefox. If you use gmail instead of hotmail (I can give you an invite if you want it) not only do you get a much better email service but it will work perfectly with firefox.</p>
<p>thanks otto, I did misread aibarr's comment :)</p>
<p>and thanks for the offer! I do have gmail; I use it mostly for storage (I love how it keeps growing lol), and it's much better than hotmail - except I've been using hotmail forever (I really should switch though cause my hotmail only has 2 (!!) MB). The only thing about gmail for me is the tabs; I'd really prefer folders. Ooh and Yahoo's cool cause it has a photo album, unlimited storage space (yes yes I have 3 accounts I don't know what to do with :P )</p>
<p>For viewing incompatible sites in Firefox you can download and install one of the extensions. I like ieview, which you can set so that whenever you come to a page that needs ie, will open ie and let you view that page (or site or whatever) in ie then go back to firefox. There is another similar extension that allows java only where ever you instruct it to, like your personal banking site with a restricted, secure log on.</p>