Marketing Planet

OpenOffice.org 3.0 - videos

2008-05-09T22:59:49+00:00

OpenOffice.org 3.0 was released for beta this week. Here is a few videos from the Danish version: New front page: New zoom function New comment function

OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta: Creativity Extended

2008-05-09T15:55:33+00:00

We’re now on the 9 ^th of May and the final version of OOXML is still not be published either by the ISO or the Ecma as they had to do so. This ongoing scandal affects the industry as a whole and proves once again that OOXML has never been an open standard.

The OpenOffice.org project has just released the first « public » beta version of OpenOffice.org 3.0.This first beta version may not support all the expected features that will be included in the stable version but it does give a very good feeling of how the 3.0 will be like. You will find a more detailed list of features on this page. As you can see the 3.0 will sport a number of very interesting and useful features, such as the ability to import PDF documents, switching language inside one document, a new StartCenter, new icons, etc.I wanted to go a bit beyond the list of new features and tell you about the effect that OpenOffice.org 3.0 will have on its users and ultimately on the way we create content share it and stay happily productive in this always-on world.

Perhaps what matters the most with OpenOffice.org 3.0 will not so much be the flurry of new features; perhaps what will ultimately matter is the brand new architecture of OpenOffice.org that has been introduced with this new release. You already knew about the ability to use extensions in order to add features to OpenOffice.org. With the 3.0, OpenOffice.org becomes even more modular, allowing even more interested people to develop their own features on top of the 3.0 platform.In the long run, this completely revisited, rearchitected platform will play an essential part in extending the yield of OpenOffice.org .

The concept of office suite has kept evolving ever since its appearance in the eighties. At first, what mattered was the wordprocessor and the spreadsheet application. Then, Powerpoint came in and started to control our minds, becoming both a tool and a concept. We then learned about the concept of productivity suite, growing the office suite with all kinds of tools, from a PIM module to specific financial applications and elementary document management features.

Today, the paradigm has changed, but it does not necessarily involve the fattening of the whole suite. Rather, I believe that this new paradigm is about creating all sorts of content and sharing it freely. Sharing freely involves two perequisites: The easyness of sharing and the use of open formats, open standards that allow the users to master their own data and content and does not push them into vendor lock-in. This assumption also implies another, subtle point: the boundaries between applications are blurring and the applications themselves become easier to use.What this means leaves some room for interpretation and unveils new, different paths. Let’s see first what these new paths will not be, and second, let’s see what options there are and what are the options Openoffice.org chose.

The new paradigm in office suite rests on the following elements:

Creation of open content through the use of open and free formats, ideally standards
Freedom to share and distribute this content
Ease of use, simplicity

These three elements ultimately make up for an interesting consequence; they don’t just liberate the content and the creativity of users, they also lower significantly the barriers of adoption for people who could never afford this before. In doing so, this paradigm puts forth the urge to enable participation. Ultimately, that’s what office suites should be nowadays: Participation Enablers.

One can understand now why I think MS Office 2007-2008 has already missed this shift of paradigm: The use of proprietary formats and spreading confusion around the concept of openness will not really help in the end. Yet, the latest versions of MS Office suffer from their excessive integration with MS SharePoint, the mother of all office technologies by Microsoft. This CMS/Groupware platform may be very easy to use, but it does create a fortress of formats and DRMs beyond which users are forbidden to go, and share. This centralized process is also very telling of a deprecated mentatlity even before being a compelling offer for certain types of organizations.

The truth here, tools such as SharePoints will fade away, as wikis take the lead. And precisely, OpenOffice.org allows you to export your content in certain wiki syntaxes while choosing directly the server that needs to be accessed. So much for command and control…But lets go back to our topic.

The appearance of online office suites such as Google Docs and Zoho shows a new path and illustrates the shift of paradigm in office suites. Online office suites make it easier to create and share content while making the issues of platforms and applications fall thanks to their online nature. The ability to import and export from and to multiple formats, some of whose being open standards (ODF, PDF) is also present. At the same time, online services such as Slideshare add value to traditional tools.

Nobody wants to have to deal with proprietary barriers of any kind. It is about creating and sharing freely, and ultimately, it is about enabling participation.OpenOffice.org is not an online office suite. But by enabling people to share and to communicate, OpenOffice.org works like a hub for content creation. Its features set covers the full range of functionalities expected by advanced users, and its inherently free nature (in beer and in speech) allows anybody to use it in order to create and share in the easiest way possible.Its extendability not only creates an ecosystem, it creates something more powerful: A community of users contributing to OpenOffice.org in order to serve their needs, and ultimately enriching the codebase.The modularity of OpenOffice.org (turning it into a set of modules running on top of a runtime environment, the URE) also make it possible to turn the overall platform into a RIA (Rich Internet Application) , thus addressing even more use cases.

In any case, OpenOffice.org is on its way to become the hub of your digital content, by enabling freedom; freedom to use, freedom to share, freedome to modify, and freedom to distribute.

A New User Experience Team Logo

2008-05-09T06:33:08+00:00

I'm happy to announce the new logo of the User Experience Team.
The main goal of the logo is to penetrate core values of the project:

Usability,
Productivity,
Enjoyment

The three terms summarize in a very short manner what the User
Experience Team's overall goals are. The list below describes the
meaning a little bit more in detail:

Usability:
This term explains the ease with which people can work with
OpenOffice.org to archive their goal in a particular context in an
effective and efficient manner. Sadly, this term is usually meant to
describe the “user friendliness” in the field of computer-human
interaction.

Productivity:
This term accompanies “usability” because of the general
misunderstanding of meaning “user friendliness” only. Again, it
emphasizes that working with OpenOffice.org should raise the
“productivity” significantly.

Enjoyment:
Working with OpenOffice.org should be pleasant. This is important, if
OpenOffice.org wants to attract new users and keep the experienced ones.
Currently, OpenOffice.org loses many potential users who dislike the
overall behavior/look of OpenOffice.org. But there is also a serious
fact: people which are happy with a product tend to be more creative in
their solution findings.

The logo is the first step to improve the external communication of the
User Experience project. If you want to know more, then please have a
look at:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/User_Experience/Project_Strategy/External_Communication

As always feedback and comments are highly appreciated.

Christian

199 Euro laptop with OpenOffice.org pre-installed

2008-05-08T16:32:36+00:00

I just found about this offer in Germany. A vendor called "one" is selling a low-cost laptop with Linux and OpenOffice.org pre-installed for 199 Euro. This special offer lasts until May 12th according to the website. Cool to see more and more hardware vendors bundle OpenOffice.org!

New ODF API available

2008-05-08T11:56:13+00:00

A new ODF API just became available. A first preview version of ODFDOM has just been released.

Linux Journal’s Readers’ Choice Awards 2008

2008-05-07T22:16:48+00:00

Linux Journal’s annual user survey has arrived in the form of Linux Journal’s Readers’ Choice Awards 2008.

More than 5,900 readers completed the survey this January and February to voice their opinions on open source tools, programs and services.

Some of my favorite programs had very strong showings: Ubuntu was the favorite primary Linux distribution for 37.4% of respondents, Firefox the preferred browser for 86%, and OpenOffice the favorite office program of 85.1%.

Many of my other favorites appeared, such as GIMP, Eclipse, WordPress, Drupal, Frozen Bubble, the Nokia N800, OLPC XO, and more.

New: OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta released

2008-05-07T14:38:10+00:00

OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta (build BEA300_m2) has been released.

If you find severe issues within this build please file them to OpenOffice.org's bug tracking system IssueTracker.

For US English installation files please use the following link
http://download.openoffice.org/3.0beta/index.html

Localized builds and Language Packs can be downloaded from one of the mirror servers listed at http://distribution.openoffice.org/mirrors#extmirrors
OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta files are within the ../extended/3.0.0beta directory.

MD5SUMS:
http://download.openoffice.org/3.0beta/md5sums.html

Running different operating systems in parallel

2008-05-07T13:44:47+00:00

In case you did not notice, a new version of VirtualBox just came out. I use VirtualBox on my MacBook to also run Windows, Linux and OpenSolaris, so that I can easily take screenshots on other platforms or test software on other platforms. For example users might want to test the new OpenSolaris using VirtualBox. VitualBox definitely has made my life much easier!

Groovy For OpenOffice.org

2008-05-07T13:36:05+00:00

Cool! With it's now even possible to use Groovy for OpenOffice.org programming. The website says: "Groovy For OpenOffice is an OpenOffice Extension that adds support for scripting OpenOffice Macros in Groovy".

Useful MySQL / OpenOffice.org Tutorial

2008-05-07T13:30:39+00:00

Roland Bouman wrote a very nice tutorial about using MySQL in connection with OpenOffice.org. Here is a short extract:

"Of course, I do not want to suggest that MySQL "...is a Desktop Database", because it's not. Rather, MySQL is a general-purpose database, so there's no reason at all to dismiss it for typical "Desktop Database" purposes.

Even though MySQL is a server product, MySQL resembles a typical Desktop Database in a number of ways. For example, MySQL is not extravagantly resource-hungry, and does not require much maintenance - (not for this purpose anyway). So, there's not much against using MySQL here.

In fact, it's probably a good idea to back your Desktop Database applications with MySQL. A lot of the typical problems (resource contention due to locking, file corruption due to crashing application programs, scale limits, and much much more) that you encounter as these applications grow larger, are either not-existent or easily solved using a server solution such as MySQL.

So - let's dive in, and see what it takes to use MySQL in the daily office. Oh yeah - I once did a write-up on connecting MS Access and MySQL. This time, we won't be using MS Office at all. We'll use OpenOffice.org instead."

OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta now available for download!

2008-05-07T13:23:59+00:00

As can be read in the announcement, OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta is now available. Considering these customer reviews at Amazon, I have the feeling that the Mac version of OpenOffice.org will become very popular!

OpenOffice.org wins the 2008 Duke's Choice Award

2008-05-07T10:27:41+00:00

OpenOffice.org wins the 2008 Duke's Choice Award for Fans' Choice. "The Duke's Choice Awards program recognizes the year's most influential Java technology-based applications submitted by developers and companies around the world. The winners are chosen by Vice President and Sun Fellow James Gosling, along with a panel of Java technology experts at Sun." Read more in the official press release.

OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta has been released

2008-05-07T09:31:39+00:00

The first public beta version of OpenOffice.org 3.0 has just been released. We're keen on your feedback to this new version. Read more about it at http://marketing.openoffice.org/3.0/featurelistbeta.html

Behind or ahead

2008-05-07T00:10:30+00:00

Clarifying versions: OpenOffice.org 2.0 - 2.3.1ODF 1.0Approved by ISO OpenOffice.org 2.4ODF 1.1Has not submitted to ISO for approval OpenOffice.org 3.0 (upcomming) - ?ODF 1.2Under development The problem with Alex Browns validation test (http://www.griffinbrown.co.uk/blog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=f0384bed-808b-49a8-8887-ea7cde5caace) is, that he is using a document from OpenOffice.org 2.4 and

Where’s OpenOffice.org’s Desktop Publishing program?

2008-05-06T16:16:40+00:00

From time to time I receive emails asking me when will OpenOffice.org have a desktop publishing (DTP) program. My reply is always the same: “Have you tried Writer”? Although we position Writer as a word processing package, in the hands of an expert user it can do so much more, well into the realms of what I would consider DTP. No doubt if we were selling OpenOffice.org, we’d split Writer into two products: Writer for word processing, and Publisher for DTP - but as OpenOffice.org is licensed as free software, we really don’t have a motive for doing that

However, I can’t really claim to be an expert in this area, and I make no claim whatsoever to having skills in graphics, layout, etc. That’s why I was pleased to read an article in Linuxworld from the folks behind GNUzilla magazine, who do know what they are talking about. As enthusiasts for free software, they have tried a number of different packages to produce their magazine, but have not found anything to tempt them away from Writer:

During the first year of GNUzilla’s existence, several
observations were made in sense of using some more professional tools like Scribus, or maybe Tex/LateX, but Writer followed the requirements very well. In the past three years OpenOffice.org became faster, Writer started to produce more and more optimized PDF’s, and remained everything GNUzilla needs right now.

Judge for yourself - have a look at their magazine (in Serbian), and think what OpenOffice.org Writer could do for you!

Extend and Conquer

2008-05-06T06:49:31+00:00

GCN reports on Juergen Schmidt’s talk about using OpenOffice.org Extensions as an alternative to conventional macro languages. Macros have introduced many people to ‘computer programming’ - sometimes with disastrous results, for example when the office ‘macro expert’ quits the company, leaving a mass of incomprehensible code behind. Maybe extensions could be a better solution?

OpenOffice.org wins Linux Journal Readers' Choice Awards 2008

2008-05-04T17:17:14+00:00

Belltown Media, Inc., publisher of the award-winning monthly magazine Linux Journal, has announced the winners of its annual Linux Journal Readers' Choice Awards. The 2008 winners appear in the June issue, with awards presented to vendors and organizations in 34 categories, ranging from favorite software development tool to favorite Linux laptop. OpenOffice.org was awarded the prize in the category of favorite office program.

Java update adverts OpenOffice.org

2008-05-04T13:11:34+00:00

For some time there has been an advert for OpenOffice.org showing on the screen as the regular Java Update downloads and installs. I'm very happy about Sun advertizing for OpenOffice.org like this and its a good way to spread the message to millions and millions of computers and users all over the world. A few days ago I got a call from a journalist (http://www.computerworld.dk/art/45636) asking

"ODF Validation for Dummies"

2008-05-02T17:10:12+00:00

Here is Rob Weir's answer to Alex Brown's validation test.

We’re Calling for Papers!

2008-05-01T19:36:58+00:00

Despite being down in England today, I managed to get the Call for Papers page live today on the OpenOffice.org website. There’s also the usual announcement on the home page and a little piece on the news page.

The OpenOffice.org Annual Conference (OOoCon 2008) site is now also online in outline. It will be expanded considerably over the next six months or so - and will get its own OOoCon logo real soon now! This is really going to be an OOoCon to remember.

Being on the move, once again the little eee PC proved its worth, alongside the 3com dongle for mobile internet access. There were a couple of curiosities - I had to kill my ssh session after every cvs commit to the website and restart before I could commit again (anyone seen anything similar?). Also my email to the announce mailing list has failed to appear - however I suspect a human failure among the moderators rather than a technical issue

The dongle does have technical limits - it’s completely useless on a moving train for example. It was a relief to get on this train with wifi from York to Edinburgh, and be able to blog - I can just about tolerate Frozen Bubble from Manchester to York, but after changing trains I was really feeling in need of something more mentally stimulating.

On the train, I had some problems getting the on-board WiFi to work (I suspect an overloaded onboard proxy server as the root cause). Again, the National Express helpdesk was wonderful. I expected the usual “oh we don’t support Linux” but instead found Dave, who was delighted to find someone using Linux and wanted to know all about the eee. He also solved the problem.

Maybe we need a special day when all the Linux lovers lying low in Microsoft enclaves are encouraged to come out of the closet (maybe the wiring closet ) and declare their genuine orientation. Or maybe we already have such a day?