Happy Spooky Season!

It's October and I want to move from focusing on my privacy phone, GrapheneOS, to talking about LibreOffice, the office suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and creating pdfs. I got a lot of visits this month to my post talking about how to make the menus in this office suite look like what you might already be familiar with with the Microsoft ribbon in its tools. I also show how to set the default file extension saved to those open document formats that Microsoft uses, like .docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc.

What I learned this week

I learned something new this week that I want to share. Check out my YouTube channel soon for a video where I share two lightbulb moments about community and cultivating our human connections carefully and mindfully with tech.

It all started when I got stuck with a low gas tank while trying to also get the kids to school. Busy life culminated in a bad situation where I felt like I had to choose whether to get to school on time or whether to fill the gas tank... except I didn't have any money on me! The solution I reached for was an app. What happened next? Hopefully in the next day or two, you'll find out!

I also learned that maybe I can do video. It took me about 2 years to get from unwatchable cringe to slightly awkward. And I think people can tolerate slightly awkward. It's still quite difficult to get a take down, but I am making progress!

Privacy isn't weird

Along those lines, I posted a video about why it's not weird to want a privacy phone. Some boundaries, privacy, is a normal human need, and tech companies have given us no reason to trust them with our financials, our health records, or our browsing history.

Libre Office Tip

My goal for October is to post on YouTube a little bit, so keep an eye out for that. Maybe even subscribe! With the focus on LibreOffice this month, I'd like to demo its features, how to use it with the cloud, and a "how to" companion to my earlier blog post.

This month's newsletter tip is that LibreOffice Calc, the spreadsheet software, is able to do formulas like Excel. In fact, I tested about 20 common formulas in Calc and they behaved as expected. I'll share this and more this month.

GrapheneOS round up

September didn't go as smoothly as planned, and since things got off to a bit of a rough start, I didn't post on the blog as much as I wanted. However, I tried to make up for it toward the end with posts on GrapheneOS.

• Why I choose a privacy phone everyday
• GrapheneOS restarting over and over? Here's a solution
• Google Play Services on GrapheneOS
• USB ends - inspired by my friend trying to help her daughter over the phone find a charger for her iPhone
• Profiles on GrapheneOS
• Why GrapheneOS's RCS plans matter for privacy
• Why the Graphene+Motorola partnership matters for everyone

I also wanted to write a blog post on tap to pay with GrapheneOS. I have a lot more I can share about my phone.

For example, in the USA, there's not really any tap-to-pay to speak of. Garmin has a slick watch that can pair with a wallet for tap to pay, but I'm not sure it's in the US. Curve Pay is also not in the USA. Google and Apple really seem to be the only tap to pay available in the US. If you're in Europe, it sounds like there might be quite a few options available.

What office tasks do you struggle with?

I'd love to hear about your word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, and other needs that you are wondering about when it comes to LibreOffice.

[email protected]

Have a good month!

May you have more treats than tricks and a full gas tank.