Friday February 13, 2009

About the update feature in the Sun ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office

One of the questions I receive quite frequently is whether or not it would be possible to disable the update feature from the Sun ODF Plugin.

Well - from my point of view, this wouldn't change much, because the update feature doesn't look for updates on it's own, nor would it download or install anything itself.

I tried to explain that in the FAQ, but it seems someone decided my explanation would be too long or too technical, and shortened the item in the FAQ.

For those who want it explained a little bit more, here is my original FAQ item:

Q: Can I disable the auto update feature?

A: No. The auto update feature just checks whether or not a newer
version is available, but it doesn't download or update anything on it's
own. Also the check is never done automatically, but the user has to
select it manually. When a newer version is available, the same download
web site will be presented to the user like when he would look up for a
new version there. Download and installation is the same procedure like
for users who don't use the Sun ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office yet, so
there are no additional other mechanisms involved which a system 
administrator might want to restrict.

Makes sense?

Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Feb 13 2009, 06:06:14 PM CET ) Permalink Comments [1]

Friday February 06, 2009

Sun ODF Plugin 3.0 for Microsoft Office

Finally, a new version of the ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office is available!

It's been a while that we have released version 1.2 - but hey, why is it called 3.0? Did I miss version 2.0?

Well, the answer is very simple. I thought it would be a good idea to give it the same version number like the underlying version of OpenOffice.org.

This way, people know exactly which versions of the conversion filters are used.

The conversion between ODP/PPT and between ODS/XLS is exactly the same like in the equivalent version of OpenOffice.org.

The conversion between ODT/DOC is basically the same, but might differ in some case because the Word Filter API is based on RTF, so there is an additional conversion involved.

This version of the plugin supports ODF 1.2 and loading ODF template files. The conversion filters have been further improved.

Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Feb 06 2009, 12:13:51 PM CET ) Permalink Comments [3]

Tuesday February 03, 2009

How useful is encryption?

Well, I consider it very useful - but I really like this one :)

Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Feb 03 2009, 05:10:55 PM CET ) Permalink Comments [0]