Book Review #27

Home Buying for Dummies
Eric Tyson and Ray Brown

This book puts a clear vision for first time home buyer. Starting with, "which one is more expensive, rent or buy?" the authors give clear examples of advantages of renting vs. buying. Both views are fairly presented so that you can make a good decision. Of course, the book then proceeds on the assumption that you're buying your house.

A workbook is provided to tell you exactly what you can afford. Followed by mortages, insurance, and other headaches. In chapter 9, the book advises hiring an agent, even if you find the home yourself. Luckily for me, I did find a good agent. And so, I can recommend that you do so, as well. You still need to do your homework, and find out what the price range, neighborhood, and type of home you're looking for.

The last part of the book deals with forms. I can tell you that going through the process, there's quite a bit more paperwork than that. In the end, my agent got me a special loan processor, who is worth her fee, because the amount of work is equivalent to building up a big, thick, dictionary. I lost count of the number of signatures I had to sign.

If you ever wonder whether or not you should stop renting and buy a house for yourself, reading this book will get you ahead in your decision. Recommended.

Raspberry Pi Journal #16

Installing Abiword

Leafpad is fine, if what you're doing is some light word-processor, without any fancy things. If you want to have graphics, though, you need something better. There's open office or Libre office. There's also Abiword and Gnumeric. Let's do the easy way first. Install Abiword!

The first thing I check is to see whether or not Abiword is installed:

which abiword

Not installed. Okay, so let's download the package

sudo apt-get install abiword

It'll go through the installation process, and will put a link on the desktop under Office. I decided to type something and add some graphic to it.

As you can see, AbiWord has multiple fonts, and the ability to add graphic. That's not all. It also has various capabilities, such as HTML markings, and epub export. I have book making ambition, remember? So, this capability is a big deal to me.

I don't have a scanner attached to my Raspberry Pi, yet, and there's no instruction on it. So, I don't plan to add some anytime, soon. I'm happy with my current set up of taking pictures with my 3DS and transfer it via SD card. I do batch transfer, though, so it's not like it's an everyday occurrence.

The printer setup is quite flexible. I'm not sure whether to credit AbiWord for it, or maybe CUPS printer driver. There is an option to print 2 or even 4 pages on one page, and it looks to be quite robust, with various options. I'm pretty happy with it.

And there it is, the double page print. It's quite charming to have, and I like it very much! I think AbiWord should be in everyone's toolbox, assuming you're not running it headless. If you install GUI for work, then you should definitely get AbiWord.

By the way, I eventually did installed Open Office, also known as Libre Office.

which libreoffice

Installing it:

1. sudo apt-get install openoffice.org
2. sudo apt-get install libreoffice

I always know it by the openoffice moniker, so imagine my surprise when it installed libre office! Ah, the constant march of progress!