I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately using OpenOffice Writer. I want to like it. And, y’know, it has a lot of positive attributes (most notably, that it doesn’t cost anything). But it is utterly infuriating to use over a long period of time, or for writing anything that’s likely to be drafted more than a couple of times. At the end of the day, I find myself longing for Microsoft Word, in spite of the fact that I know full well Word is far from perfect itself.

My main gripe, I guess, is that OpenOffice’s word count is inaccurate, sometimes wildly so. It’ll give different answers depending on what day of the week it is, even if the document remains unchanged. (Okay, so it’s not THAT bad, but if you run a word count, then close the document, then open it and do another word count, you’re likely to get a radically different number. Not ideal, when you’re working with strictly word-counted articles.)

And the next issue? There’s no thesaurus. I never realised how often I use the thesaurus in Word, usually when I want to check that a word I’m using really means what I think it means. When my Internet connection is actually in existence, I can always check online, but it’s nowhere near as convenient. Come to think of it, I can use web-based word counters when the Internet’s working, too, but that again is just not as efficient as using a word processor that gets it right in the first place.

So, humbug. Anyone got any suggestions for other word processors that won’t drive me up the wall? Or should I just accept that the devil I know is, at least, the devil I know, and go back to Word?

My blogging muscles are twitchy today because, well, mostly because I’m the contrary type, and today a group of LiveJournal users are having a blogging strike. Or, more accurately, a LiveJournal-using strike. It seems a large number of LiveJournal’s userbase is angry over a couple of recent decisions made by LiveJournal’s new management, the Russian online media company SUP.

One of these decisions was to discontinue creation of “Basic” accounts. To backtrack a bit - LiveJournal, as the name implies, is a blogging site. Users can create blogs, and also join blogging networks by adding other bloggers as “friends”. When the service was created, its founder promised that there would never be advertising on LiveJournal, but since then the company has changed hands twice, and advertising has, inevitably, turned up. When the ads were introduced, there were three levels of account types: Basic, which was free, had no adverts, and had only the most basic of features available; Plus, which was free, had adverts, and had more features available, and Paid, which, er, users had to pay for, had no ads, and had advanced features. The idea was that the new Plus level would be attractive to users because of the additional features, for which they would accept advertising being placed on their blogs. At the time, there was controversy over this decision - but nowhere near as much controversy as the news that the Basic account, as of March 12th, was being discontinued, and all new accounts would have to be either Plus or Paid.

The reasoning behind this move seems fairly obvious - all accounts will now generate revenue for LiveJournal, one way or another. Since existing Basic accounts aren’t being forced to upgrade, you might expect little resistance, except in doing so you’d be overlooking something fairly important: LiveJournal users create new accounts all the time. LiveJournal communities can be created by any user at any time, and these too will presumably now no longer be ad-free (unless someone wants to pay for them), but even setting communities aside, people create new blogs for new interests, or just because they want a fresh start, all the time. It’s not a case of not being able to miss what you’ve never had, because it won’t just be new users who are affected by the loss of a Basic account - existing users will either have to stick with the account they’ve got, accept that they’re going to see advertising, or pony up the cash to get rid of them.

Even so, I know what you’re thinking - so what? Aren’t we all used to advertising nowadays? Well… yeah. But that doesn’t mean anyone actually likes it. Plus, the fact that LiveJournal didn’t actually announce this change via its usual News channel but instead left it to one staff member to leave a comment on an already much-commented-upon News update didn’t go down well with users - if you’re subscribing to a News feed for a service you use, wouldn’t you expect a major change to the terms and conditions of the service to be reported there?

There’s another reason many LiveJournal users are on strike today, too: it recently emerged that SUP was removing certain interests from its reports of its users most popular interests. Mostly, these interests related to either fanfiction or homosexuality - it’s not clear why, exactly, SUP chose to purge those interests from its reports, but it’s being presumed that it’s to appeal to advertisers. Again, that might not seem like a particularly big deal, but you’d be underestimating the fervency with which people actually use LiveJournal - SUP probably never expected anyone other than potential advertisers to even notice that the reports had been doctored, yet outraged posts are popping up all over the blogosphere on the topic. And considering that, last May, several LiveJournal users found their accounts suspended without warning because they had listed interests in these same categories, it’s not surprising that there’s a small scale riot going on.

Actually, that might be overstating the case a bit. What’s actually happening is that many LiveJournal users have decided to boycott the site for the day. They won’t read posts, they won’t post content, and they won’t post comments, in the hope that the drop in traffic will signal to LiveJournal’s owners that their recent conduct has been deemed unacceptable by its users. The argument goes that if people can’t sign up free, ad-free, then they’ll go somewhere else; that SUP has fundamentally failed to understand LiveJournal’s business model, which relies upon a great amount of content being posted, much of it by free users, in order to attract traffic … and without traffic, you can’t serve many adverts.

I’m kind of torn about where I stand on the whole thing. I’ve had a Basic LiveJournal account for years and years, although I occasionally pay for a period of paid time, and I’m quite happy with the basic feature set so long as I don’t have to see adverts. I do see adverts on my Gmail account every day, and on almost every single website I visit, so I’m sure I could cope with seeing them on LiveJournal, but, y’know, I’d rather not. And I certainly don’t agree with the censoring of interests, even if it’s just in annual reports designed to attract advertisers. But I can’t help feeling that a one-day strike - on Good Friday, too, which is bound to be a slow day anyway since most people are off work and probably out and about, away from their computers - probably won’t do much good.

It’s like online petitions, in a way - how much good do those ever do? There must be a more effective way of registering displeasure - but other ways, like sending letters or e-mails, take more time and effort. So I guess I’ll be on strike today. Not that anyone will notice, given that I generally post about five times a month on LiveJournal anyway…

The fun never ends when you’re me. Having finally moved house and almost completely unpacked, I came down with some kind of space virus - and, of course, having only just moved to my new flat, I hadn’t managed to register with a doctor yet. Luckily, my wireless connection had been set up, so I could use my Google-fu to track down the nearest doctor’s surgery to my house. (What Google Maps didn’t tell me, sadly, was that the nearest surgery was at the top of a hill. My symptoms included being tired all the time, being short of breath, and having a nasty, burning cough. A 0.65 mile walk up a hill was not what I most wanted in the world on Friday morning, I have to say!)

Skipping over various amounts of hilarious slapstick comedy involving bureaucracy and my inability to memorise maps correctly: I finally got registered with a doctor yesterday. And was diagnosed with laryngitis. Since there aren’t any drugs for this, I’ve basically got to inhale steam with a towel over my head, drink lots of water, rest, and … not talk.

That last part is killing me. See, I can talk - my voice is all crackly and occasionally drops three octaves or comes out in an unexpected whisper, but I can move my lips and tongue and make sound come out more or less normally, and more or less intelligibly. But I’m not supposed to. The alternatives I’ve tried so far involve the following:

- Sending messages on Facebook
- Sending e-mails (occasionally to my boyfriend, while he’s in the room)
- Writing on bits of paper
- Inventing my own sign language

However! I’ve just discovered this, a demo version of IBM’s Websphere Voice text-to-speech software. I can type almost as fast as I can speak, so, assuming I don’t want to move from my desk chair for the next couple of days, this might be the winner.

Or I’ll probably just give up and talk, because I clearly can’t be trusted with anything like my own health. Pfft.

(On the bright side, my new doctor has an online way to book appointments and request repeat prescriptions. Why don’t all doctors have this? That’s brilliant!)

As predicted, getting the broadband sorted out in the new flat is taking a long, long time. Why is it that it seems to take so long for someone somewhere to flip a switch? Grrrr. Not having Internet access on tap is making me realise how much I really take it for granted - I need to register for a doctor, but without Google, I’m at a loss. Happily, I no longer have to use the London Underground to get to work, but not being able to check the current state of the trains and traffic before I leave for work feels strange. And as for finding a local takeaway, well. I’m currently relying on the TV pages of the local paper.

The biggest low-tech shock, though, came when the washing machine broke down. Mid-cycle. I spent about half an hour trying to finish a load of soggy, cold laundry before giving up, bundling it into the car and taking it to a friend’s house instead. (So, thank you!) I never realised before just how essential a functioning washing machine is to comfortable life. It’s amazing.

Anyway, I’m aiming to get normal service up and running shortly, as soon as I’ve got my head around the fact that I don’t live in London any more, and that I can’t use my Oyster card at ticket barriers any more. (Tried that last night by mistake. Whoops.)