Dienstag Juni 17, 2008

OpenOffice.org being distributed to Portuguese schools
I was just made aware of this Portuguese blog entry. CDs including OpenOffice.org will be distributed to Portuguese schools again. Great news!
( Jun 17 2008, 02:20:22 PM CEST ) Permalink Kommentare [1]

New article about the OpenOffice.org mail merge feature
"The office where I am network administrator switched most users to OpenOffice.org (OOo) back at version 1.1, and has followed the upgrade process to the current version 2.3 (a few poor users who have to exchange documents outside the office with high fidelity are still clinging to their MS Office 97). Our receptionist does a lot of general secretarial duties, including lots of letters, envelopes, and labels that involve mail merge. Since this seems to be a sticking point for many people, I am putting everything I have learned from helping her and have gleaned from various sources on the Internet together in this tutorial."
The full article can be found here.
( Jun 17 2008, 02:15:30 PM CEST ) Permalink

Donnerstag Juni 12, 2008

Video showing the new PDF import feature for OpenOffice.org
I just created a short video in which I demo the new Sun PDF Import Extension (beta) for OpenOffice.org. Don't expect a perfect screencast! It's just a quick hack. It was more of an experiment! It was interesting for me to realize that I started to "stutter" and to have my brain "go blank" the more the longer I played with the screencast software. I'm sorry that I can't offer more / different video formats right now! Anyway, I think the video should still give a good impression of the new PDF import feature. Have fun!
( Jun 12 2008, 12:12:35 PM CEST ) Permalink Kommentare [5]

Already 1,800 downloads of the Sun PDF Import Extension
The new Sun PDF Import Extension (beta) for OpenOffice.org and StarOffice could quickly become the most popular extension for OpenOffice.org. It has been available less than 24 hours, but has already been downloaded more than 1,800 times. Very cool!
( Jun 12 2008, 09:19:17 AM CEST ) Permalink

Mittwoch Juni 11, 2008

Editing PDF files with OpenOffice.org
With the new Sun PDF Import Extension people can now edit PDF files. For example it's very easy to change a typo, date, name, phone number, diagram, etc. In addition, the Sun PDF Import Extension can be used to reuse content from old presentations.

Once the extension is installed, the PDF export feature shows a new option at the bottom as well. With the Sun PDF Import Extension, OpenOffice.org allows creating so-called "hybrid files". These are PDF files that also include the ODF content, i.e. the original source document. As a consequence, everybody can view these hybrid files with a simple PDF viewer. However, OpenOffice.org users can also edit these PDF files without any information loss, since OpenOffice.org will simple recognize and open the ODF content instead of trying to import the PDF information. Please keep in mind that this new extension requires OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta! It does not work with OpenOffice.org 2.x!

Since both OpenOffice.org 3.0 and the Sun PDF Import Extension are currently in a beta state, I'm curious to hear what your experiences with both tools are and how you're planning to use the PDF import feature including the hybrid file format (PDF including ODF).

BTW, please also read this note by Artem, so that you know how you should provide feedback to the developers.
( Jun 11 2008, 01:07:38 PM CEST ) Permalink Kommentare [3]

OpenOffice.org Support Incidents for 9.99€
In case people get stuck with an OpenOffice.org problem and don't find the right answer in the OpenOffice.org Community Forum, they might take advantage of the special promo for professsional OpenOffice.org support. Until mid September support incidents can be purchased for just 9.99€.
( Jun 11 2008, 01:00:21 PM CEST ) Permalink

Dienstag Juni 03, 2008

"Polish Walmart" selling laptops with OpenOffice.org pre-installed
I just received a link to this Polish offer. A Polish store similar to Walmart is selling a laptop with Kubuntu and OpenOffice.org pre-installed. Cool! I guess this means even more OpenOffice.org and ODF users!
( Jun 03 2008, 08:49:43 PM CEST ) Permalink

French hospital migrates to OpenOffice.org
According to this French article, the French hospital of Thiers is migrating its 150 desktops to OpenOffice.org in order to spend money on training instead of licenses.
( Jun 03 2008, 01:14:40 PM CEST ) Permalink

Millions of copies of OpenOffice.org distributed by Asustek
I just read this article, and found the following statement particularly interesting:
"The company, which had previously estimated that it would sell 5 million Eee PCs this year, forecasts low-cost PC sales are set to hit 20-30 million units globally in 2009, Asustek's Chief Executive Jerry Shen told reporters."
Considering that the Eee PCs ship with either OpenOffice.org, StarOffice or StarSuite, these are great news! Last month there were close to 7 Million downloads of OpenOffice.org (not counting Linux distros, magazine CDs, etc.), but having major hardware vendors like Asustek shipping Millions of laptops with OpenOffice.org pre-installed is definitely even more helpful from an OpenOffice.org market share and ODF adoption point of view.
( Jun 03 2008, 11:45:05 AM CEST ) Permalink

Munich released template management software as Open Source
As can be read in this German article, the City of Munich just released their template management software for OpenOffice.org as Open Source under the European Union Public License (EUPL). It's great to see that government organizations start to embrace the open source development model!
( Jun 03 2008, 08:09:39 AM CEST ) Permalink

Acer laptop with OpenOffice.org pre-installed
Cool! The "Acer Aspire one" is yet another mainstream laptop that comes with OpenOffice.org pre-installed:
"The Aspire one series comes preinstalled with Linpus™ Linux® Lite version or Windows XP® Home. Additional software such as OpenOffice 2.3, one Mail, Messenger, Acer eRecovery Management, Acer Launch Manager, Adobe® Reader®, McAfee® Internet Security Suite, Microsoft® Office Trial 2007 are also installed5."
Found here.
( Jun 03 2008, 08:05:33 AM CEST ) Permalink Kommentare [1]

Montag Juni 02, 2008

Sharjah school adopts OpenOffice.org
"Sharjah-based SIA chose a number of freely available open-source programs - including OpenOffice and the Solaris 10 operating system - to run on top of its new thin clients and servers from Sun Microsystems, which it finished installing last year. ... SIA has installed sixteen thin clients in its student labs, with an option to increase to 70 clients in the future. The implementation includes two Sun servers running Solaris 10 and serving virtual instances of Windows XP to the thin clients via VMware."
Found here.
( Jun 02 2008, 12:41:50 PM CEST ) Permalink

Samstag Mai 31, 2008

Survey: Strong Use of Open Source Desktop Applications
"That's no longer the case, according to a survey of IT and business executives and managers, conducted in late April 2008 by CIO.com. The survey, collecting data from 328 respondents, showed that more than half the respondents (53 percent) are using open-source applications in their organization today, and an additional 10 percent plan to do so in the next year. For nearly half, 44 percent, open-source applications are considered equally with proprietary solutions during the acquisition process.

Among those currently employing open-source solutions, the primary uses are operating systems such as Linux (78 percent), infrastructure applications, such as back-end databases and Web servers (74 percent), and software development tools like Eclipse (61 percent).

Those may sound fairly geeky, but business application use isn't far behind. Nearly half of the survey respondents, 45 percent, are using desktop applications such as OpenOffice.org, and 29 percent use open-source enterprise applications. The most popular of those enterprise applications are collaboration tools, customer relationship management (CRM) tools and ERP applications."

Found here.
( Mai 31 2008, 05:43:43 AM CEST ) Permalink

Dienstag Mai 27, 2008

What are your experiences with Zotero?
I just came across this blog entry about Zotero, where it says:
"When you visit a website like ScienceDirect, and start reading a paper, a little icon will appear on the address bar. Click it and Zotero will save the citation information to its library. It can spit that information into Microsoft Word or OpenOffice in lots of different formats."
Just curious, what are your experiences with Zotero? Does it work for you as an alternative to EndNote?
( Mai 27 2008, 08:06:24 PM CEST ) Permalink Kommentare [4]

OpenOffice.org Event in Brussels
I just learned that the ProFoss event in Brussels on June 10 will have a focus on OpenOffice.org. The list of speakers sounds very interesting!
( Mai 27 2008, 11:22:32 AM CEST ) Permalink Kommentare [1]