November 13th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Wired seems excited about Everex’s $200 Linux PC–and why not, because it is an interesting little item!
Members of the OpenOffice community had predicted that cost pressures would eventually break Microsoft’s hold on the most price-sensitive part of the PC market, leading to OEMs installing OpenOffice on their machines. Everex did so earlier this year for the models they sell at Wal-Mart, and the last I heard, Wal-Mart was planning to require OOo on all the computer brands it sells.
The newest Everex innovation takes its commitment to open source one step further. A customized version of Ubuntu Linux helps the gPC to break the $200 barrier, the first for a retail personal computer.
After their initial post, Wired got even closer to the gPC with a hands-on review. And they like it!
Edit: Slashdot announces Wal-Mart has already sold out its stock of gPCs!
Our friends at Zareason also sell the gPC at the same price point.
Posted in GNU/Linux, ODF, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on Wired on the $200 Everex PC
November 12th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
The Sun Report Builder is a relatively new extension for OpenOffice.org that adds code from the Pentaho reporting tool to OOo. It allows you to create “stylish, smart-looking database reports. The flexible report editor can define group and page headers as well as group and page footers and even calculation fields are available to accomplish complex database reports.”
Much of the new functionality coming in future builds of OpenOffice will be delivered in the form of extensions. This will allow the basic application to remain smaller and more efficient, while users who need particular specialty functions will be able to install an extension for their needs.
Posted in Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on Sun Report Builder
November 9th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Heise Online reports “German Foreign Office comes out in favor of Open Document Format.”
In fact, the German Foreign Office hosted an international workshop for users of ODF, and it seems this will become an annual event.
“At the first international workshop of users of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) in Berlin to which the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic had invited about 150 users and political observers, Brazil and India, in addition to German cities such as Munich, emerged as leading proponents of open standards in the office area.”
Across Brazil, India, Germany and other nations, ODF adoption is proceeding at an accelerating pace. The article provides several concrete examples in each of these countries, to which I am sure many more will be added in the coming year.
Posted in ODF | Comments Off on Heise on ODF in the German Federal Government
November 8th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Sam Hiser writes a follow-up to several high-profile migrations to OpenOffice.org and Linux for the Financial Times. It’s good to check back in on major migration stories to see how things have progressed after a few years, and in his three case studies, the results are good.
All three of these take place in Europe: the French Gendarmerie police force’s installation of OpenOffice.org, Firefox and Thunderbird on 70,000 Windows boxes (70% of its total desktops), Munich, Germany’s migration of 14,000 desktops to Linux with OpenOffice (about 100% of its desktops), and Peugeot Citroën’s migration of 20,000 desktops (40% of its total) to Linux with OpenOffice as well.
It’s a great followup with some very encouraging results. It’s got me excited to see the next major round of migrations, which I expect soon.
Posted in GNU/Linux, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | 1 Comment »
November 7th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
SlideShare is a social slide and presentation sharing website. Alexandro Colorado has set up a group for OpenOffice.org slideshows from this year’s OOoCon in Barcelona, as well as other events and presentations. (SlideShare is ODF-capable, too!)
Feel free to join the group and participate with your own presentations, or use those already posted as inspiration for your next OOo talk.
Posted in ODF, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on OpenOffice.org on SlideShare
November 6th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Among the many programs that can display ODF files, you can add Firefox to the list. (Though I’m not sure this is fair, since we’re actually relying on OOo in the background with the following trick.)
Mozilla Links explains how to “view OpenOffice.org documents in Firefox.”
It’s pretty easy, in fact: “you need to activate the plugin. To do so, in OpenOffice.org, select Options… in the Tools menu. Expand the Internet item, select Mozilla Plug-in and check Enable.”
Once you have set this option, you can click on a link to an ODF in your browser (with .odt, .ods, .odg, and .odp or the other extensions) to simply open it within your browser window for viewing.
Posted in How-to, ODF, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on View ODFs in Firefox
November 5th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Rupert Goodwins blogs for ZDNet UK “Vista versus the Gutsy Gibbon…”
Goodwins is clearly a hardcore computer user going back decades, and currently has seven functional machines with a mix of operating systems. However, he is becoming more and more focused on using Linux as his primary platform.
“How come I’m so much more at home with Ubuntu than Vista? It boils down to one abiding impression: Ubuntu goes out of its way to get out of your way, even if it doesn’t succeed all the time. Vista goes out of its way to be Vista and enforce the Vista way. You must conform regardless of the implications.”
Call me curmudgeonly, call me prejudiced, call me atypical, but isn’t computing all about doing what users want?”
Posted in GNU/Linux, Open Source | 1 Comment »
November 2nd, 2007 Benjamin Horst
One by one, states and city governments in India are adopting ODF as their standard file format:
“India has already made a lot of progress with regard to ‘open standard.’ There are about 10 states which are fairly pro-active and have made significant progress in implementing e-governance projects.
“For instance, the Department of IT, Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi, adopted the OpenDocument Format (ODF) standard, and as a result has saved around 78 percent in costs by eliminating the need to purchase proprietary office suites or licenses. This has encouraged other government departments to adopt open standards instead of proprietary softwares.
“The high court of Allahabad is another case in point. It moved all its electronic documents to ODF because it felt that it was cost-effective and safe to store its documents in a format which is open and also to carry out any kind of information exchange through open standards. So is the case with the West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu governments.
“Even the Election Commission decided to migrate to OpenOffice.org after the elections of May-June 2006.”
Posted in Free Culture, ODF | Comments Off on Indian States Adopting ODF
November 1st, 2007 Benjamin Horst
I’m sure I have linked to the Sun ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office before, but I think it has been updated and also has a new site.
The plugin is well-integrated into MSO (it “seamlessly integrates with the Load and Save As dialog and the Save (Ctrl+S) shortcut of Microsoft Office Word”), and gives legacy users the very valuable ability to work with ODFs, which are becoming more and more common across the internet.
Click the “Get it” tab or follow this link to the download page.
Posted in ODF | Comments Off on Sun’s ODF Plugin for MSO