Author: Stan Shinn

OpenOffice.org's excellent software suite has now release version 2.4. This is available from OpenOffice.org, or get a portable version for toting around on a USB drive or to use on locked-down worked computers. OpenOffice now supports extentions (like FireFox) to extent the software's features. Here are some of the best extentions for Novelists and Writers:

1. TestFonts -- Reporting for missing font faces, all used fonts and get statistic available system fonts.
2. OpenOffice.org2GoogleDocs -- Export and Import your documents to and from Google Docs.
3. Writer's Tools -- Back up documents, look up and translate words and phrases, manage text snippets, and keep tabs on document statistics.
4. OpenOffice.org2GoogleDocs -- Export and Import your documents to and from Google Docs.
5. Linguist -- Provides an easy way for users to create a list of new candidate words to the existing spellcheck dictionary.
6. Alternative dialog Find & Replace for Writer -- Advanced search capabilities including regular expressions, multiple search and replacement in one step, and more.

O3Spaces is another service you should look into. O3Spaces Workplace brings document management and document collaboration features to OpenOffice.org, including real-time version control, check-in/check-out and document security.

The OpenOffice.org2GoogleDocs extension imports documents from Google Docs and Spreadsheets to OpenOffice.org and exports from OO.org to GDocs so you can work with your docs both online and offline. Works onWindows/Mac/Linux. Also it is a simple way to backup your local documents to the internet.

The OpenOffice.org2GoogleDocs extension is free, works anywhere you've installed OpenOffice.org. Web site DocSyncer is looking to do similar things for your Microsoft Office docs, but right now it's in an invite-only beta. Needs Java 6 to work.

Whether on Windows, Mac, or Linux, the Writer's Tools extension adds a useful new menu to the popular, open source office suite OpenOffice.org that bakes convenient tools like Google Translate, an online dictionary lookup tool, email backup, remote backup to an FTP server and more directly into the OpenOffice.org free software suite.

If you're using OpenOffice.org as your main word processor, the Writer's Tools extension is a must-have. Writer's Tools is free, works wherever OpenOffice.org does.

Another valuable to is OxygenOffice, also for Windows/Mac/Linux. It adds clip art, advanced PDF functions, and in-editor Wikipedia searching to OpenOffice.org. Along with adding roughly 3,400 clip art files and templates, OxygenOffice's extensions also add support for Microsoft's Visual Basic for Applications in the Calc spreadsheet program and conversion tools for the Office Open XML format used in Office 2007. Combined with the Writer's Tools package, this gives OpenOffice.org a number of exclusive features.

I like this prayer I heard from the April 5, 2006 Pre-sanctified Liturgy. It is referred to as a "Prayer behind the Amvon":

Almighty Master, You created the universe in wisdom. By your ineffable forethought and great goodness, You led us to these sacred days for cleansing of souls and bodies, for subduing passions, and for hope of resurrection. For forty days, You shaped the tablets written with godlike characters for Your servant Moses. Grant also to us, good Lord, to fight the good fight, to finish the course of the fast, to keep the faith whole, to shatter the unseen heads of dragons and to show ourselves victorious over sin, and to arrive blamelessly, without condemnation, to worship also Your holy resurrection. For blessed and glorified is Your honored and magnificent name, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

This prayer at the dismissal is said before the icon of Christ. Commonly we see dragons in the LXX , and to shatter their heads is a very biblical theme. In the book of Job, in the LXX, the leviathan is 'the dragon' literally. It is stated later in the Old Testament in the Prophets that the creatures listed in Job are demonic beings, hence the icon of St. George slaying the dragon.