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Monthly Archive:: July 2007

Microsoft Document Formats Gain Massachusetts’ Favour

Massachusetts has proposed changing its standards policy to make room for Microsoft Office document formats. The state's Information Technology Division on Monday posted a draft proposal, part of a periodic revision to its overall technical architecture, to its Web site where it will be under review until July 20. If accepted, the policy update would list Office Open XML as acceptable 'open formats' for use by executive-branch state agencies. Office Open XML, also referred to as Ecma-376, are the XML-based file formats in Office 2007 that Microsoft standardized at Ecma International late last year.

Microsoft Ending Vista Family Discount

Five months after its introduction, Microsoft is discontinuing a program that offered some Windows Vista purchasers the ability to buy additional copies of the operating system at a substantial discount. Since Windows Vista went on sale to consumers at the end of January, US and Canadian buyers of Vista Ultimate have had the option of buying up to two additional copies of Vista - albeit the Home Premium version - for an additional USD 50 apiece. The company had said it would re-evaluate the 'Windows Vista Family Discount' after 30 June. In a posting on the Windows Vista Team Blog, Microsoft product manager Nick White said the program would 'sunset' as of 11.59pm PDT on 30 June.

ASUS Eee PC Hands on Preview

"One of the biggest news stories out of this year's Computex wasn't of a new chipset, GPU, or graphics card, but rather of the announcement of the ASUS Eee PC, a small, slim, and light portable computer that is priced at USD 199. Introduced by Jonney Shih, Chariman and CEO of ASUS at Intel's keynote address the first day of the show, the Eee PC has already made headlines world wide. Not only have we had the chance to actually use the ASUS Eee PC, we can also confirm some important new specifications of the notebook."

What Are the ‘Usability Experts’ Doing?

Sometimes, Apple's (or any other software maker's) complete lack of respect for usability never ceases to amaze me. Take today for example. Apart from the close, minimise, and "maximise" widgets Apple places on window decors, there is also a fourth widget programmers on the Apple platform can use. This widget resembles a sort of dash, and is placed on the top right corner of the window decor. This widget is used in many applications, both from Apple as well as from various third parties. It has one function: toggle the visibility of the window's toolbar.

Parallels Accused of LGPL Violation

SWSoft, the company behind Parallels Desktop for Mac, is possibly violating the LGPL license by using LGPL libraries from the WINE project without providing access to the source code. The WINE project first discovered the violation early this June, and after several failed attempts at getting the source code to the libraries, they set up a wiki page to keep track of the ongoing violation. The WINE project wants to resolve the issue "without starting legal action". Thanks to MacWereld for pointing this out .