Office Archive

The Tor Desktop Virtual Privacy Machine is a USB JumpDrive preloaded with a complete Linux OS and a roster of useful applications. Plug it into a Windows or Linux machine and launch a virtual Linux desktop that routes all network traffic through multiple network proxies using the Tor network. This provides a totally secure way to access your data, even when using an internet cafe PC or an untrusted network.

Fans of just about anything alternative all seem to suffer from a similar affliction: a naïve underestimation of the pains of switching. This goes for U.S. fans of the metric system, alternative fuel proponents, vegetarians, and yes, OS fanatics. Now, personally I'm all for a lot of those things I just mentioned, but as a lapsed vegetarian, I know full well how, despite the advantages of the alternative, sometimes it's hard to switch and easy to go back.

In last week's article, we discussed virtualization and its role in reducing server sprawl. We included VMware server as one of the products used to virtualize a data center. VMware also sells a workstation with a well-established reputation. This week we take a look at VMware Workstation 5.0.

The KDE Project today announced the immediate release of KOffice 1.4 for Linux and Unix operating systems. The KOffice 1.4 release is a large step towards embracing the OASIS OpenDocument file format which has become an approved standard for office file formats. This format is also used by the upcoming OpenOffice.org 2.0, thus providing high interoperability. New applications in the 1.4 release: Krita - A pixel based image manipulation application and Kexi - An integrated data management application.

Anyone who has used Microsoft Word for a reasonable amount of time will recognise my very own Andy's Laws on Word:

Open Source has a wealth of offerings across many different arenas of software, to date a great deal of the offerings out there are development tools, general purpose applications, and first generation vertical applications. In the medical market there has been a long history of development on first generation software such as OpenEMR, FreeMed, FreeB and others. For some users these applications have offered a productive and capable platform on which to run their practice, but it is apparent to most the first time they go to use them that there is not the level of richness and depth found in proprietary alternatives like WebMD's Intergy, NextGen, or The Medical Manager. With the the release of ClearHealth 1.0 RC1 there is now a credible and full featured Open Source (under the GPL) offering that competes point for point in the big five areas of medical software:

The Associated Press has run a short review of OpenOffice.org 2.0 Beta. They ran into some beta-type problems with installation and stability, but overall found it to be a good alternative for casual Office users.

When Bill Gates showed off the new Metro document format in Longhorn at a hardware conference last week, some analysts were quick to call it a PDF killer.

This release specifically introduces the database management application Kexi, the image editor Krita and upgrades the major KOffice components to use the OASIS Open Document format, an industry standard allowing better interoperability across applications and platforms.

According to this Linuxworld article, OpenOffice.org 2.0 will be delayed until at least June or July because of the level of feedback received on the beta. The project's other significant problem, according to developers at this year's OpenOffice.org conference in Canberra, Australia, is the shortage of developers not tied to Sun.

Aditya Nag recently got the chance to ask the OpenOffice.org team a few questions about OpenOffice.org in general, and their upcoming release. The interview is fairly long and detailed, and there are a few interesting tid-bits, like Louis' assertion that there will come a day when there will be no proprietory file formats for Office Suites.

A quick look at what next major version of this popular open source office suite offers to end users.

A long-time Gnome user takes a week to try out SimplyMepis to see what all the hubub is about. The result is not only a favorable look at a capable Linux distro, but an examination of the state of the Desktop Environment landscape, and the areas in which KDE can tempt even a dyed-in-the-wool Gnome fan.

The Sun-sponsored OpenOffice.org project based on open sourced StarOffice code has released a preview of the upcoming OpenOffice 2.0 product. This version touts better MS-Office loading and parsing, strict XML compliant output, a new database program that mimics Microsoft's Access, and much more. The Inquirer took it for a spin.