Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 4th Apr 2011 22:59 UTC
And yes, the stream of controlled Windows 8 leaks continues. This time around, Thurrot and Rivera have published a number of screenshots from Windows 8's brand-new tablet user interface, and surprise surprise, its built on Metro, the same design language that underpins Windows Phone 7. Windows 8 will also include its own PDF reader, Modern Reader, which also happens to be the first application packaged in Microsoft's new AppX format. Update: Long Zheng has some technical details on AppX, including this little tidbit: "The extensive list of properties signifies the comprehensive scope of this system to be the ideal deployment strategy for 'applications', in all essence of the word. In fact, the AppX format is universal enough so it appears to work for everything from native Win32 applications to framework-based applications and even *gasp* web applications. Games are also supported."
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RE[6]: Comment by Stratoukos
by lucas_maximus on Tue 5th Apr 2011 08:39
in reply to "RE[5]: Comment by Stratoukos"
Member since:2009-08-18
Since using it means that one has a very full-featured, work-alike free Office Suite program with better interoperability than MS Office, and which doubles as a PDF generation and edit facility as a bonus, then it is very surprising that this number is not much higher.
It only has better interoperability idealogically, pragmatically the business world uses Office, and there are gotchas on anything but the most simple of documents. Most places use Office 2000 or 2003, if you are lucky they might have 2007 installed.
The vast majority of Workstations in a business will either be Mac or a Windows workstation .. the only common format for documents is either PDF or Microsoft Office formats.
You can argue the toss all you like, but this won't change overnight.
The features that are supported are listed here:
http://help.libreoffice.org/Common/Export_as_PDF
This is probably not everything that can be done using Adobe software, but it does seem to cover a lot of bases and should be perfectly adequate for most people and use cases.
http://help.libreoffice.org/Common/Export_as_PDF
This is probably not everything that can be done using Adobe software, but it does seem to cover a lot of bases and should be perfectly adequate for most people and use cases.
Not everything means, that for the most basic uses it will be insufficient. Also these open source readers and free readers don't render everything exactly the same.
I work with a system that has 10000s of PDFs and I have had calls where Foxit and Mac PDF readers are not rendering it correctly, therefore we mandate Adobe Reader since our publication team use Adobe Pro PDF tools. So to ensure compatibility I can only recommend using Adobe PDF reader.
Edited 2011-04-05 08:43 UTC
RE[7]: Comment by Stratoukos
by bert64 on Tue 5th Apr 2011 09:14
in reply to "RE[6]: Comment by Stratoukos"
Member since:2007-04-23
Businesses may use msoffice, but they use several different versions and compatibility between them can be quite poor for all but the simplest of documents... Someone using openoffice often doesn't even get noticed.
But yes, PDF is the only sensible format if you want to preserve your formatting, and osx/linux actually include far better out of the box support for pdf than anything microsoft has.
RE[7]: Comment by Stratoukos
by lemur2 on Tue 5th Apr 2011 10:03
in reply to "RE[6]: Comment by Stratoukos"
Member since:2007-02-17
"Since using it means that one has a very full-featured, work-alike free Office Suite program with better interoperability than MS Office, and which doubles as a PDF generation and edit facility as a bonus, then it is very surprising that this number is not much higher.
It only has better interoperability idealogically, pragmatically the business world uses Office, and there are gotchas on anything but the most simple of documents. Most places use Office 2000 or 2003, if you are lucky they might have 2007 installed.
The vast majority of Workstations in a business will either be Mac or a Windows workstation .. the only common format for documents is either PDF or Microsoft Office formats. "
Actually, between 10% and 20% of machines have an OpenOffice variant installed, depending on the country. This holds just as true for business machines as it does for personal machines.
You can argue the toss all you like, but this won't change overnight.
No it won't. The OpenOffice (or variant) installed base is creeping upwards at only about 1% or so per year. Still, at least it is going up, and the MS Office installed base, likewise, is falling.
"The features that are supported are listed here:
http://help.libreoffice.org/Common/Export_as_PDF
This is probably not everything that can be done using Adobe software, but it does seem to cover a lot of bases and should be perfectly adequate for most people and use cases.
http://help.libreoffice.org/Common/Export_as_PDF
This is probably not everything that can be done using Adobe software, but it does seem to cover a lot of bases and should be perfectly adequate for most people and use cases.
Not everything means, that for the most basic uses it will be insufficient. Also these open source readers and free readers don't render everything exactly the same. "
I think you may be a little confused, the features I showed were for PDF export from LibreOffice. (LibreOffice and OpenOffice have a large team of programmers working on the project). Anyway, those are the features one may use when generating a PDF from LibreOffice.
The reader software I use is Okular:
http://kde.org/applications/graphics/okular/
Okular has fantastic PDF compatibility, I have never come across a PDF file it couldn't render.
Unlike Adobe reader, Okular is a document viewer which supports multiple formats: PDF, PS, Tiff, CHM, DjVu, Images, DVI, XPS, ODT, Fiction Book, Comic Book, Plucker, EPub, Fax.
Some of the lesser-used supported formats do not have quite the same level of support in Okular that PDF format has.
I work with a system that has 10000s of PDFs and I have had calls where Foxit and Mac PDF readers are not rendering it correctly, therefore we mandate Adobe Reader since our publication team use Adobe Pro PDF tools. So to ensure compatibility I can only recommend using Adobe PDF reader.
I can't speak for the support of single-author amateur freeware programs for Windows and Mac, but Okular has excellent support from a team of programmers.
http://okular.kde.org/team.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poppler_%28software%29
It only occupies about 20MB on disk, as a bonus.
http://okular.kde.org/
http://okular.kde.org/formats.php
Okular purportedly works on multiple platforms, including but not limited to Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, *BSD, etc. Perhaps you should look into it.
Enjoy.
Edited 2011-04-05 10:22 UTC
RE[7]: Comment by Stratoukos
by nt_jerkface on Tue 5th Apr 2011 17:20
in reply to "RE[6]: Comment by Stratoukos"
Member since:2009-08-26
I work with a system that has 10000s of PDFs and I have had calls where Foxit and Mac PDF readers are not rendering it correctly, therefore we mandate Adobe Reader since our publication team use Adobe Pro PDF tools. So to ensure compatibility I can only recommend using Adobe PDF reader.
I've seen this too and I no longer recommended the alternatives, especially now that Reader is sandboxed.
Foxit renders properly 99% of the time but I saw someone almost fail a licensing exam because Foxit rendered the entire test incorrectly. There was no indication that Foxit was the problem or that Reader was required. The 1% problem can ruin someone's day.
I'm the one who told him that he could trust Foxit so please don't give me some spiel about alternatives. People are free to discover alternatives on their own but I'm no longer endorsing them.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:58 UTC
"The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:52 UTC
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 21:03 UTC
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 20:46 UTC
"And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 17:32 UTC
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 11:39 UTC
"The key takeaway we've reached (after two less than 24 hours playing with the iOS 7 Beta release) is this - every App must consider even basic updates to its UI to survive in a post-iOS 6 world." Great. Telling developers to update their entire application - user interface and behaviour alike - to target a look and behaviour that isn't final yet. Seems like potential for a lot of wasted work here.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 11:32 UTC
"Overall the app is really basic, and designed for on the go editing. Microsoft says it's not planning to create an iPad version, noting that tablet users can utilize the Office Web Apps instead. We'd like to see some additional options for editing, including more clear options for text formatting and the ability to insert and change images, but it's a solid attempt for something you're only really going to use for editing in emergencies." A resounding meh can be heard from all over the world.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/13/13 19:39 UTC
"Today, most people are using modern browsers that support the majority of the latest web technologies. Better yet, the usage of legacy browsers is declining significantly and newer browsers stay up to date automatically, which means the leading edge has become mainstream. Given these factors we've decided to retire Chrome Frame, and will cease support and updates for the product in January 2014." Eh.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/13/13 14:45 UTC
The Next Web: "First of all, many of the new icons were primarily designed by members of Apple's marketing and communications department, not the app design teams. From what we've heard, SVP of Design Jony Ive (also now Apple's head of Human Interaction) brought the print and web marketing design team in to set the look and color palette of the stock app icons. They then handed those off to the app design teams who did their own work on the 'interiors', with those palettes as a guide. We've also been hearing that there wasn't a whole lot of communication between the various teams behind say, Mail and Safari. And that there were multiple teams inside each group that were competing with various designs, leading to what some see as inconsistencies in icon design. Those may well be hammered out in days ahead." What. Reminds me of how Microsoft does (used to do?) things.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/13/13 11:43 UTC
"The German Parliament, the Bundestag, has introduced a joint motion against software patents. The resolution urges the German government to take steps to limit the granting of patents on computer programs. In the resolution, the Parliament says that patents on software restrict developers from exercising their copyright privileges, including the right to distribute their programs as Free Software. They promote the creation of monopolies in the software market, and hurt innovation and job creation." After New Zealand, we now have one of the most powerful economies in the world moving to ban software patents for all the reasons smart people have been outlining for years. also: "The government should also push to ensure that software is covered by copyright alone, and that patent offices (including the European Patent Office) stop granting patents on software." Germany is not a country the EU can ignore. Very good news, this.More News »
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Member since:
2007-02-17
OpenOffice/LibreOffice has an installed base between 10% and 21%, depending on which country.
Since using it means that one has a very full-featured, work-alike free Office Suite program with better interoperability than MS Office, and which doubles as a PDF generation and edit facility as a bonus, then it is very surprising that this number is not much higher.
The features that are supported are listed here:
http://help.libreoffice.org/Common/Export_as_PDF
This is probably not everything that can be done using Adobe software, but it does seem to cover a lot of bases and should be perfectly adequate for most people and use cases.