Erwin's StarOffice Tango

More from IBM's Rob Weir on ECMA Office Open XML
"By mandating the perpetuation of this bug, we're asking for trouble. Date libraries in modern programming languages like C, C++, Java, Python, Ruby will all calculate dates correctly according to the Gregorian Calendar. So any interpretation of dates in OOXML files in these languages will be off by one day unless the author of the software adds their own workaround to their code to account for Excel's bug. Certainly some will make the "correction" properly, at their own expense. But many will not, perhaps because they did not see it deep within the 6,000 page specification."

... and this one:

"But we need to keep in mind that there is a difference between a specification and a standard. A specification tells the plain facts of what a particular technology does without comment as to whether it is good or bad. I could drop a box of toothpicks on my desk and write up a detailed specification on how they landed. An open standard, on the other hand, goes beyond mere specification, and promotes a preferred way of achieving cross-vendor and cross-application interoperability."

Found here and here.
( Okt 31 2006, 04:26:50 PM CET ) Permalink

ODF at IGF in Athens
"Sun Microsystems Inc and like-minded organizations will promote the use of open standards, including the OpenDocument Format much feared by Microsoft Corp, at the Internet Governance Forum summit this week in Athens, Greece."
The full article can be found here.
( Okt 31 2006, 04:16:49 PM CET ) Permalink

French Ministry for Agriculture and Fishing choosing OpenOffice.org
Great news! If I understood this article correctly (please correct me if I'm wrong!), the French Ministry for Agriculture and Fishing chose OpenOffice.org due to the EOL of Microsoft Office 2000. The article also refers to the recent Danish TCO/cost study which mentions the possibility of significant cost savings based on OpenOffice.org.

The French people reading my blog might be able to provide a more detailed summary.
( Okt 31 2006, 04:11:03 PM CET ) Permalink Kommentare [1]

phpMyAdmin with ODF support
I just realized that I had overlooked this blog entry by Florian Effenberger. As you can read here, phpMyAdmin now offers ODF support.
( Okt 31 2006, 03:54:30 PM CET ) Permalink

Norwegian OpenOffice.org team wins prize
Lars D. Noodén brought to our attention that the Norwegian OpenOffice.org team won a price. Lars writes:

"The annual prize for the advancement of Free Software was handed out yesterday. Of the 25 nominated candidates, the Foundation for Free Norwegian Office Software won.

The prize is given on the initiative of the Norwegian Unix User Group (NUUG) and the Oslo Polytechnic and amounts to 30 000 NOK.

The goal is to increase awareness of free software and open standards, and is awarded to individuals or groups in Norway who distinguish themselves with their contribution. Yesterday's tribute was the fifth time the prize has been given out."
( Okt 30 2006, 11:50:56 AM CET ) Permalink

"Manipulating lists in OpenOffice.org Calc"
Here is another article by Bruce Byfield. From the introductory paragraph: "However, as the number of list items creeps up into the hundreds and beyond into the lower fringes of database territory, the different ways that you can manipulate lists in spreadsheets starts to give them a distinct advantages. In Calc, searching, the printing of selected items, and, to a lesser extent, privacy can all be made easier through the use of outline group controls, filters, and customized sorts."
( Okt 30 2006, 11:46:52 AM CET ) Permalink

New StarOffice/OpenOffice.org Developer Article
Kay Koll just wrote a new StarOffice/OpenOffice.org developer article with the title: Creating Menus and Toolbars With the StarOffice API. The summary says: "StarOffice software add-ins and extensions are often integrated into StarOffice's menus and toolbars so users can employ the functionality. This article introduces a new API in the StarOffice 8 Software Development Kit (SDK) that enables you to do that integration. Note: This API is not available in StarOffice 7 or OpenOffice.org 1.1.".
( Okt 30 2006, 11:32:57 AM CET ) Permalink

"Where ODF stands in the EU"
Laurent Godard pointed me to this ODF article. Here is a quote:
"So where do we go from here? The more stakeholders voice their support for ODF, the more likely it is that Europe will standardise on it, either with a legally binding decision or a series of unambiguous recommendations. Citizens of the EU can talk to their representatives in the European Parliament, pressing home the advantages of ODF by referring to the EIF and the IDABC's recommendations made in 2004, and also talk to their national representatives, increasing the pressure to standardise on ODF on a national and even local level."
( Okt 27 2006, 11:27:53 AM CEST ) Permalink

StarOffice at Italian Schools
This map illustrates the use of StarOffice at Italian schools. AFAIK, the map doesn't include OpenOffice.org, yet. Some schools are probably also still missing. Thus, the map is far from being complete. Nevertheless, the map shows that the usage of StarOffice is not a local phenomenon in Italy.
( Okt 24 2006, 06:02:34 PM CEST ) Permalink Kommentare [1]

If you create complex blog entries containing many pictures, tables, bullet lists, etc. from time to time, you might want to check out the new Sun Weblog Publisher. The Sun Weblog Publisher is an extension that can be installed on top of OpenOffice.org or StarOffice and makes it easy to create sophisticated blog entries by simply using the office suite's formatting features. One can also use the Sun Weblog Publisher for editing existing blog entries or storing blog entries into ODF files. Finally, for all the people who frequently have to fly, the Sun Weblog Publisher allows editing blog entries (like this one) offline for later posting. Here is a screen shot of the 'Edit Recent Entry' dialog:

IBM's Bob Sutor about Open XML
Bob Sutor about Open XML:
"So this is how I see this playing out: Open XML will be nearly fully read and written by Microsoft products, but only written in subset form by other software. This means that data in Open XML form will be largely sucked into the Microsoft ecosystem but very little will escape for full and practical use elsewhere."
( Okt 23 2006, 10:56:58 AM CEST ) Permalink

"When Standards Are Political"
"Web pages are build upon the foundation of open format - called HTML - for hypertext mark-up language. The standards for HTML are determined by the World Wide Web Consortium - which is not controlled by any one company. The formats are open, well documented, and designed to work with different software and hardware. It has probably been the most influential and important data standard in the history of publishing.

There are now thousands of high quality and innovative tools to author web pages. Microsoft offers a few, but they were never able to establish a significant market share. Indeed, there is no "leading" tool for creating web pages. Instead, there is an astonishing variety of methods of doing so - ranging from bare bones text based html editing tools to incredibility easy to use blogging software - offered by a variety of companies, free software projects or even individuals.
...
Next year Microsoft will try to sell the public on it's latest file format -- "Open XML", which they are marketing as a "competitor" to ODF as an "open" data format. Open XML was described by one expert as a standard that only Microsoft could implement - similar to a job description custom made for a single job applicant."

Found here.
( Okt 23 2006, 10:52:18 AM CEST ) Permalink

Standardizing bugs!?
Amazing:

"Datetimes in Excel are represented as date serial numbers, where dates are counted from an origin, sometimes called an epoch, of January 1st, 1900. The problem is that from the earliest implementations Excel got it wrong. It thinks that 1900 was a leap year, when it clearly isn't, under Gregorian rules (not divisible by 400). This causes functions like the WEEKDAY() spreadsheet function to return incorrect values in some cases. See the support article on this issue.

Now I have no problems with that bug remaining in Excel for backwards compatibility reasons. That's an issue between Microsoft and their customers and not my concern. However, I am quite distressed to see this bug promoted into a requirement in the Ecma Office Open XML (OOXML) specification."

The full blog entry by IBM's Rob Weir can be found here. I also found this one quite interesting.
( Okt 20 2006, 02:19:04 PM CEST ) Permalink

Nice article about OpenOffice.org extension development
Here you can find a nice article about OpenOffice.org extension development by Alexis Moussine-Pouchkine. Check it out!
( Okt 20 2006, 05:49:54 AM CEST ) Permalink