Open Document Foundation

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071113-opendocument-foundation-closes-up-shop-after-slamming-opendocument-format.html

The OpenDocument Foundation, a little-known industry group that was originally created to promote the OpenDocument Format (ODF), has closed its doors after controversially dropping support for ODF in favor of an obscure W3C format.

The OpenDocument Foundation’s core members included OASIS ODF technical committee member Gary Edwards, OpenOffice.org marketing lead Sam Hiser, and Paul Martin—a Groklaw writer and legal expert better known as Marbux. The group was working on a document format conversion system that aimed to provide optimal compatibility between existing Microsoft Office documents and ODF. The group never completed its conversion system, citing technical issues with ODF—specifically the format’s inability to retain unsupported metadata.

The group voiced criticism of ODF last month, claiming that the format was encumbered by patents held by Sun and was designed in a manner that isn’t conducive to interoperability with existing document formats. The group began to advocate adoption of the W3C’s Compound Document Format, which is specified in the Web Integration Compound Document Core 1.0 draft. As we pointed out last month, CDF doesn’t support the full range of functionality required for office compatibility, but its extensive use of existing formats like XHTML and SVG is a compelling advantage.

The OpenDocument Foundation has been accused of complicity with Microsoft in a scheme to undermine support for ODF, an allegation that is unsubstantiated and appears to be without merit. In fact, the group has been a vocal critic of Microsoft’s competing Office Open XML format. The OpenDocument Foundation’s opposition to ODF and OOXML was largely based on concerns that the formats lack vendor-neutrality and may have undisclosed intellectual property implications that detract from their openness. The group saw CDF as having the potential to become a neutral data exchange format that was truly created by consensus and wasn’t tailored to any specific product.

Unfortunately CDF isn’t designed to meet the requirements espoused by the OpenDocument Foundation. In fact, W3C’s Chris Lilley says that CDF is currently only good for displaying documents (not editing) and that it was never intended to be used as an office document format.

The OpenDocument Foundation has ceased operations in the wake of the controversy. The heated debate over open document formats continues to escalate, even as businesses in North America exhibit utter apathy about XML-based standards for documents. Despite the raging controversy, PDF remains the single most ubiquitous document format used in industry. As the controversy continues to unfold, it’s likely that Microsoft’s format will win by default, simply because it’s tied to the most popular office software.

Related stories:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071031-opendocument-foundation-drops-support-for-odf-backs-obscure-w3c-format.html?rel

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070828-ooxml-gains-ground-but-u-s-apathetic-on-new-document-formats.html?rel

More Linux News

http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS4557593896.htm

http://www.linuxhardware.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/15/2015212

A Hillarious Youtube Page

Links to Tech Sites and Application Downloads

This Page is updated weekly with useful applications and tech sites. At the end of the week, the apps and website links will be moved to the tech and app downloads catergory.

This weeks links:

xkcd – A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language – By Randall Munroe

IrfanView – Official Homepage – one of the most popular viewers worldwide

GNU Emacs – GNU Project – Free Software Foundation (FSF)

TrueCrypt – Free Open-Source On-The-Fly Disk Encryption Software for Windows Vista/XP/2000 and Linux

VLC media player – Overview

Alpine Robotics 159

Financial Aid Podcast Daily Free MP3 Internet Radio » An Open Letter to Apple: Podcasts in the iTunes Wi-Fi Store, Please!

Ubuntu: Just how popular is it? – Starry Hope Productions

» Undercover video: Why Apple only takes credit cards for iPhones & the legal questions raised | Berlind’s Testbed | ZDNet.com

My Dislikes of Yahoo Mail

This is an e-mail that I sent to Yahoo about their new mail interface beta. I will continue to post to the blog with updates on the feedback from Yahoo.

Dear Yahoo,

I am extremely disappointed with your implementation of the new Yahoo mail. I have gone into about:config in the Firefox web browser and have disabled flash ads as well as the loading of all ads in general.I am a technologically aware person who uses Ubuntu-Linux because Windows XP and certainly Vista would not be able to run on my laptop. I use Ubuntu Linux for many reasons but the biggest reasons are that I am a computer programmer and a tech news blogger. It is great that you support https:// SSL logins, however I want to be able to read my mail with the acknowledgment that my email is not being read by some-one else over a wifi network. The reason that I have been using Yahoo mail is that I would like to help out with the beta development of the new Yahoo mail. Google mail (gmail is not a wrong word) is my primary web email provider because they have more support for newer technologies, and better security. If you wish to contact me, you can reach me at my blog or at oliver@cygcyb.com. I will be posting this feedback message to my blog www.oliverdigital.wordpress.com for anyone to read. I hope that this information has been helpful to you.

Sincerely,
Oliver

You can download Firefox here: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

November 2nd, 2007

This weeks links:

xkcd – A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language – By Randall Munroe

IrfanView – Official Homepage – one of the most popular viewers worldwide

GNU Emacs – GNU Project – Free Software Foundation (FSF)

TrueCrypt – Free Open-Source On-The-Fly Disk Encryption Software for Windows Vista/XP/2000 and Linux

VLC media player – Overview

Mac OS-X Leopard and Time Machine Backup

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=80580

All hope for wireless backup support under Apple’s new operating system may not be lost, recent evidence suggests.

In the months leading up to last week’s launch of Mac OS X Leopard, Apple had widely touted a feature of its new Time Machine backup solution that would allow users to back up their data not only to local disks but also AirPort Disks connected wirelessly via the company’s new AirPort Extreme Base Station routers.

Apple, however, pulled the feature from Leopard and discarded all references to wireless backup from its Leopard-related web pages just days before the software hit retail shelves. No official explanation for the removal was ever provided, but informed speculation was that the feature wasn’t quite ready for prime time.

In the bug report, Apple notes that “Time Machine cannot find AirPort Disk as a Backup drive” even though the feature was “previously stated as available in online documentation.” The issue is “currently being investigated by engineering.”

A couple of comments from the article:

1:That’s good, I’d like to see other networked drives supported too, ideally including SMB…

2:Yes, people have done it, you just have to use the terminal a bit.

Taken from Macrumors forums
Quote:

Someone else please confirm I will post steps.
1) disconnect airport disk and plug into computer as a USB drive directly.
2) Set up time machine to use this volume.
3) In terminal cd to volume “cd /Volume/HDD”
4) In terminal “touch .com.apple.timemachine.supported” this will create an invisible file.
5) In terminal “sudo chown root:admin .com.apple.timemachine.supported”
6) In terminal “sudo chmod 1775 .com.apple.timemachine.supported”
7) In terminal “ls -l -a” the .com.apple.timemachine.supported file should be -rwxrwxr-t
eject disk, unplug from mac, plug into Airport.
9) mount at mac using connect to server in finder (command k) and afp://airportname.local./HDname
10) see if time machine now sees the drive and tries to use it.

Ubuntu Linux

Ubuntu Homepage: http://www.ubuntu.com/

About Ubuntu: http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu

What is Ubuntu?

Ubuntu is a community developed operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. Whether you use it at home, at school or at work Ubuntu contains all the applications you’ll ever need, from word processing and email applications, to web server software and programming tools.

Ubuntu is and always will be free of charge.

We issue a new desktop and server release every six months.

Ubuntu is designed with security in mind. You get free security updates for at least 18 months on the desktop and server.

Everything you need on one CD, which provides a complete working environment. Additional software is available online.

The graphical installer enables you to get up and running quickly and easily. A standard installation should take less than 25 minutes.

Once installed your system is immediately ready-to-use. On the desktop you have a full set of productivity, internet, drawing and graphics applications, and games.

On the server you get just what you need to get up and running and nothing you don’t.

The Google Phone: The Story So Far, Some Launch Details & What’s Next

http://gigaom.com/2007/10/31/the-google-phone-the-story-so-far-some-launch-details-whats-next

The Wall Street Journal has been reporting on Google’s mobile phone efforts and how it is beginning to draw some interest from carriers, especially in the United States. Sprint (S) and Verizon (VZ) are in talks with Google (GOOG), according to the Journal, and an announcement by the company is expected sometime in November. Here is what I have been able to gather from my sources:

• An announcement will likely be made Nov. 13th or Nov. 18th.
• Handset makers will use a Google Mobile OS platform.
• Google Mobile OS uses a highly optimized Mobile Linux; developers will be able to use a Java Development Kit. Google is said to have developed a highly optimized Java running on top of the OS. (Read our previous post, Five Facts about Google Phone.)
• Most major handset makers, with the exception of Nokia (NOK), have devices with Google Mobile OS under development; Samsung and Motorola (MOT) are being linked to it as well. (as are HTC and LG Electronics, according to the Journal.)
• The operators who are likely to be part of the big announcement will be T-Mobile’s USA division and Bharti Airtel, one of India’s largest cellular carriers.

Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player: $100, this Friday, Wal-Mart

If you are still waiting,  for  high-definition (HD) dvd prices to come down, here is your chance! A Toshiba HD-DVD player is going to be on sale for $100 tomorrow at Wal-Mart stores around the country. I however am going to hold off until Blu-Ray prices are lowered to the same level. I would still not advise buying a high-definition dvd player unless you are certain that that one will win, whatever the low price is. Still want to go HD, go ahead and buy whatever format you want.  For now, that is what I am going to say about the format-war of HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray.