Posts Tagged ‘Ingots

07
Apr

Quick Update

By andylockran 0 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized
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OOXML

Unfortunately last Wednesday, MS (n)OOXML was fast-tracked to becoming an ISO standard.  There’s alot of controversy in the geek-world about this decision (and rightly so) - but it’s something we’re all probably going to have to live with.  Check out Zeth’s Article for a succinct and simple analysis of the issues.

Birmingham Bloggers

In what started out as an offer of some free hosting, I’ve now helped shockhead (Pete Lewis) set up a few Brummie related IT ’solutions’.   The biggest one is currently up at http://dev.zrmt.com.  Thanks to Paul Bradshaw, we shall soon be setting up a permanent home @ http://planet.birminghambloggers.com.

There’s alot of Brummie stuff I’ve been made aware of this week, thanks to the repercussions from a Bloggers Meeting earlier in the week.

We also have an IRC chatroom @ ##brum on irc.freenode.net.. and a nice non-geeky web-frontend at http://dev.zrmt.com/brumspace.html.  For non-geeks, this is basically a 90’s style chatroom.  My nickname (handle) is andylockran… I bet you wouldn’t have guessed.

LNMF.info

In tragic circumstances in December 2006, a good friend’s mother was killed in a freak horde-riding accident.  However, so that her memory may live on, a fund was set up in her name, and a number of fantastic projects have been run in order to build a boarding chool in Bidar Province, India.  I’ve set up a WebSite to keep people up to date about what’s happening with the project, and it’s coming very close to completion.  It works well in firefox and opera (and IE7).. but I’ve had some issues with IE6 and Safari.  Please check it out (and pass me feedback on how it works in your browser to andy@SPAMTRAPlnmf.info).

Make IT Modular 

I’ve been doing a bit of charity work recently, and wanted to share a bit of advice that I think is pretty generic to Charities and Small to Medium Business.  One things I am passionate about (with my geek hat on) is Open Standards.  I hopefully aim the articles at a more general end-user.

The article is part of an ongoing collection of blog-style articles that are presented in a more professional way than this blog.  I often find I’m repeating the same message in lots of emails - so it’ll hopefully become a useful resource that I can point clients/charities to.

Ingots 

Now that this blog is reaching a bigger demographic - I urge the new readers to take 5 minutes out of their day to have a look at the Ingots.  If you thought that the ECDL was the only computer qualification worth having - this one could be right up your street.  The INGOTs stand for InterNational Grades in Office Technology - and are the brainchild of a Tamworth based company.  Big up the West Midlands!

Twitter

Twitters proven to be a nice way of breaking up the day.  It’s nice to see some random stuff pop up now and again.  It’s amusing to see the ramblings of loudmouthman and his Humphrey Littleton-esque style departings.  Also the collaborative book review by paulbradshaw et al. I though to be a neat little idea.

Documentation

I’ve been working on lots of documentation this week and my head hurts.  I need sympathy.

01
Apr

libodf

By andylockran 1 Comment
Categories: Tech Geek
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What a silly idea - but It’s not mine.. it’s someone elses.
Why not have a cross-platform document library that can be ‘open sourced’ and thus developed by no-one single vendor as a means of standardizing file formats.

The specification of the file format would become less important - as any changes to the format would be available for all to see.  The whole process could be overseen by a few developers repressenting a number of different vendors on a “development council.”  This would also allow the format to develop logically and smoothly, rather than the archaic method of jumping up to a new format - leaving those using the old one behind.

The idea of a document format becoming obsolete/unreadable always seemed to me to be a problem for the future.  However, I recently read that a Service Pack to XP will make some document formats unreadable. A church in America is moving to the Open Document Format in order to provide continuing accessibility of their priests’ sermons.

Is it practicable?

Can it be done - well.  Hands up if you don’t think a group of volunteers can create software than runs 75% of the internet.   Doing this is probably more practical than continuing with the current approach.  The move to XML is meant to be one that opens up documents - and allows greater cross-format compatibility.  I can produce a spreadsheet and a word document using XML.  I can integrate and sort things better than I’d ever have thought possible.  Freedom of Information is just beginning.  Let it continue.

01
Apr

OOXML - Problems for the masses

By andylockran 0 Comments
Categories: Tech Geek
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It’s ironic really.  Tomorrow the ISO council are likely to vote OOXML to be fast-tracked to a standard.  There’s been good coverage on Groklaw and by Zeth Green.  One of the problems with technical decisions like this is that they really don’t get the average person in the street interested.  It’s only when problems occur that they realise there’s an issue - and they expect their IT guy/friend/consultant to be able to fix it for them.

Well, today I had a call from my mate - saying that he’d sent a company his CV, but they’d written back to request that he send it from Microsoft Word.  He did.  He was using Office 2007.  I smelt the problem right away.

He was using OOXML, and they weren’t.  At this juncture, one has two options.

a) Try and get the organisation you’re sending the document to to download the “OOXML Compatibility Pack.”   Your chances of success are small.

b) Save the file in a different format.  RECOMMENDED!

Here’s how:  See the list at the bottom of the page for recommended (and not-recommended) defaults.

To change default file save options in Office Excel 2007

  1. Double-click Microsoft Office Excel 2007, double-click Excel Options, and click Save.
  2. In the right pane, right-click Save Excel files as, and select Properties.
  3. In Save files in this format, select Enabled.
  4. In the drop-down box, select a default file save format.
  5. Click Apply to save the settings.

To change default file save options in Office PowerPoint 2007

  1. Double-click Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, double-click PowerPoint Options, and click Save.
  2. In the right pane, right-click Save files in this format, and select Properties.
  3. In Save files in this format, select Enabled.
  4. In the drop-down box, select a default file save format.
  5. Click Apply to save the settings.

To change default file save options in Office Word 2007

  1. Double-click Microsoft Office Word 2007, double-click Word Options, and click Save.
  2. In the right pane, right-click Save files in this format, and select Properties.
  3. In Save files in this format, select Enabled.
  4. In the drop-down box, select a default file save format.
  5. Click Apply to save the settings.

The possible value for the default file save format include:

For Excel:

  • Office Excel 2007 workbook (.xlsx), (NO)
  • Office Excel 2007 macro-enabled workbook (.xlsm), (NO)
  • Office Excel 2007 binary workbook (.xlsb), (NO)
  • Web page (.htm, .html),
  • Excel 97-2003 workbook (.xls), (YES)
  • Excel 5.0/95 workbook (.xls)

For PowerPoint:

  • Office PowerPoint 2007 presentation (.pptx), (NO)
  • Office PowerPoint 2007 macro-enabled presentation (.pptm), (NO)
  • PowerPoint 97-2003 presentation (.ppt) (YES)

For Word:

  • Office Word 2007 document (.docx), (NO)
  • Office Word 2007 macro-enabled document (.docm), (NO)
  • Office Word 2007 macro-free template (.dotx), (NO)
  • Office Word 2007 macro-enabled template (.dotm), (NO)
  • Single file Web page (.mht), (NO)
  • Web page (.htm, .html),
  • Filtered Web page (.htm, .html),
  • Rich text format (.rtf), (YES)
  • Plain text (.txt),
  • Word 97-2003 document (.doc), (YES)
  • Word 97-2003 template (.dot),
  • Flat XML document (.xml),
  • Word 6.0/95 document (.doc),
  • Word 6.0/95 Chinese (simplified) document (.doc),
  • Word 6.0/95 Chinese (traditional) document (.doc),
  • Word 6.0/95 Japanese document (.doc),
  • Word 6.0/95 Korean document (.doc),
  • Word 97-2002 and Word 6.0/95 rich text format (RTF) (.doc),
  • Word 5.1 for Macintosh (.mcw),
  • Word 5.0 for Macintosh (.mcw),
  • Word 2.x for Windows (.doc),
  • Works 4.0 for Windows (.wps),
  • WordPerfect 5.x for Windows (.doc),
  • WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS (.doc)

Of course, if you want to make sure you don’t come across this problem in the future - choose an open and free format - and ask your friends/colleagues/clients to do so too.  There’s already a documented format standard in *.odf.

Download your cross-platform Free Office Suite (completely legally) from OpenOffice.org 

30
Mar

The Ingots

By andylockran 0 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized
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Want to do an ECDL but don’t run MS Office? There is an alternative.

The INGOTS

QCA accredited in the UK, and coming to countries all over the world - the InterNational Grades in Office Technology is a platform-agnostic approach to computer education.

It’s projects like this which will help the widespread adoption of non-MS products in both Education and Public Sector institutions. Please take a look and consider mentioning the benefits to your friends/relatives/neighbours/milkman/strangers.

Great Work.