Rob Weir did some tests of the new Microsoft Office 2007 SP2, which is supposed to provide support for the Open Document Format, ODF, out of the box. From his tests of an ODF spreadsheet, ODF files created by Office 2007 SP2 can be interpreted only by Office 2007 SP2 and no other application that supports ODF. And Office 2007 SP2 cannot read/interpret ODF files created by any other application. And we’re talking about a large number of applications here: OpenOffice, Google Docs, KSpread, IBM Symphony, Sun’s ODF Plugin, and the CleverAge ODF plugin.
Interestingly, all the other applications are able to create ODF spreadsheets that are readable by each other, except in the case of the old version of KSpread, which the reviewer used for reasons given in the article. So it’s not the case that the ODF format does not give enough details for spreadsheet formulas to be properly interpreted. Everybody else managed to implement it correctly.
Is this a case of Microsoft paying lip service to standards, so that they can gain inroads into governments’ procurement systems that demand open standard document support? If so, it means that they think all government officials are suckers and idiots.
If that’s not the case, then you’ll have to blame the Microsoft developers: are they so imcompetent that they cannot implement an open standard when everyone else and their grandmother has implemented it correctly? And it’s not as though they cannot see how the others have implemented it: OpenOffice is open source after all. Perhaps they will say ODF is not clear where spreadsheet formulas are concerned. Then how is it every other application is able to implement it correctly?
It’s official. Microsoft has announced that the next version of Windows, currently codenamed ‘Windows 7′, is to be named… wait for it, drums roll… ‘Windows 7′.
Hopefully it will be a much better OS than the disaster known as Vista. I think Vista has eclipse the horrors of Windows ME in my mind.
TechCrunch points to Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere report, reporting many interesting aspects about bloggers and their blogs.
Did you know, for example, that bloggers rate the success of their blogs primarily on the following, with the most important items listed first and the least important items listed last?
Personal satisfaction
Number of posts or comments on the blog
Number of unique visitors
Number of links to the blog from other sites
Number of RSS subscribers
Your Technical authority and/or rank number
Accolades from other media
Number of people who are ‘favoriting’ you
Revenue
Number and quality of new business leads
How did they read my mind? And are we all really so alike? The above more or less reflects how I feel about my blogs too. How could it be so accurate? I didn’t take any survey.
And like the other bloggers, revenue is low on my list. Of course, on wordpress.com, revenue is non-existent since we can’t put ads. But then, I didn’t start this blog to make money.
The report has other points too. Those who post more frequently are more likely to be top blogs. Or maybe it’s the other way around. The top blogs can afford to pay staff to blog. Bloggers like me blog for fun. There’s no way I’m going to bind myself to a schedule of posting 3-4 times a day.
There’s a report that Blu-Ray is in decline, and the Blu-Ray backers are trying to boost its market share by giving away free Blu-Ray discs.
I have my personal computer-centric theory about why Blu-Ray can’t take off the way DVDs do. The software for Blu-Ray drives only work on Vista and not on XP. Look at the web statistics from all the sites. 2 or more years after Vista’s release, XP is still going strong and Vista is still bumping along the bottom of the barrel. This is in spite of the fact that Vista is installed on all new machines.
I’m personally not going to buy a Blu-Ray disc because I can only play it in a special Blu-Ray player attached to my TV. I can’t play it on my computer where I’m logged in most of the time. I don’t use Vista. Maybe there’re a lot of people out there like me.
Maybe they should take away the DRM from Blu-Ray so that the drives can work on XP and Linux. Then all the geeks and new computer owners will start buying Blu-Ray. And when the geeks start using something, you know they’ll influence the people around them.
Look what happened to Vista. Do you think it’s the computer n00bs that pan Vista? They don’t know any better. It’s the geeks that pan Vista. And that has a tremendous effect. Vista now has a horrendously bad reputation that Microsoft is struggling to undo. The geeks are the information guardians and movers in the modern Internet world.
You need the geeks.
And geeks don’t like DRM. And if they can’t run their free software to play Blu-Ray discs on their free OS like Linux or favorite OS like XP, they aren’t going to be buying Blu-Ray discs. And neither are those whom they influence.
Most people following the questionable RIAA tactics will have heard of Ray Beckerman’s blog Recording Industry vs The People where he exposes the RIAA for what they really are. Ars Technica tells of a recent filing by RIAA accusing Ray of “vexatious litigation” saying that this is like the pot calling the kettle black. They quote EFF attorney Fred von Lohmann as saying “I find it a little perplexing that the recording industry would be complaining about Ray giving the other side of the story.”
But doesn’t that just show the flaws in RIAA’s case? If they were wholly operating aboveboard, they will have nothing to fear from other people given their side of the story. But when someone’s modus operandi is questionable, exposure is something they are afraid of. Their actions speak louder than words.
As previously mentioned, the CERN Large Hadron Collider will start up today, Sep 10. The idea is to understand some of the conditions that were present at the start of the universe.
But not everyone believes the experiment is safe, including a commenter to my earlier post. There are concerns that microscopic black holes may be created that will ultimately lead to the end of the world.
Today’s start of the collider won’t do anything as yet. It will take months before the parts of the experiment that will allegedly cause black holes come to bear. And even then, as it is claimed, the black holes won’t immediately swallow the earth.
Actually I’m not too clear about both sides of the argument, not being a physicist and all. But it sounds both intriguing and potentially alarming.
WordPress 2.6.2 has been released. At this time, I can’t seem to find the release notes on the site, but judging from the proximity to the 2.6.1 release, my guess is that it fixes security problems.
Since there are no release notes yet, the quick way to upgrade WordPress referred to in my previous post can’t be used.
I don’t have to update this blog on WordPress.com, but I’ve got another one with a normal WP install to update. So much for getting a life. I’m a slave to technology.
Update: Yes It’s a Security Fix
I was right. It looks like 2.6.2 is a security fix. Here’s apparently what’s new in 2.6.2.
If you allow open registration on your blog, you should definitely upgrade. With open registration enabled, it is possible in WordPress versions 2.6.1 and earlier to craft a username such that it will allow resetting another user’s password to a randomly generated password. The randomly generated password is not disclosed to the attacker, so this problem by itself is annoying but not a security exploit. However, this attack coupled with a weakness in the random number seeding in mt_rand() could be used to predict the randomly generated password.
It’s only 2 days to the start up of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on Sep 10. The collider is the world’s largest particle accelerator, spanning some 27 kilometers under Europe. This is a big event in physics, since it may help us understand the Big Bang a bit better.
Some time ago, a number of people feared that black holes will be created by the collider and will cause the end of the world. The LHC Safety Assessment Group however assured everyone that it was impossible for microscopic black holes to be created by the collider.
Everybody’s talking about it. Google is about to launch their new open source web browser, called Google Chrome. The link doesn’t work yet, but it will when the browser is launched.
Since it hasn’t been launched, there isn’t very much information about it yet. There’s supposed to be a comic on it, but the server hosting it is down. All I know is that the browser will open a separate process for every tab, so that if a particular site crashes the browser, only that tab will close. And when the user closes the tab, the process will terminate and all the resources consumed by the browser for the site will be released. Apart from that, I don’t know anything.
BBC reports that a computer virus has made it to space. Apparently laptops carried by astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) were found to be infected with a virus that steals passwords and login ids for certain online games. The laptops do not have any antivirus software, so I’m not sure how they discovered the virus in the first place. Speculation is that one of the astronauts brought an infected USB drive and plugged it into the laptop.
Don’t get excited though. According to NASA, this is not the first time computer viruses have gone into space.
Google’s drivers, gathering photos for Street View, have again ignored someone’s “No Trespassing” sign, gone onto yet another private property to take photos. This is not the first time they have done this. Remember the lawsuit a few months back when Google’s van drove up a private road, taking pictures? What was their defense? Some spin-doctoring and smoke-screen.
I suppose we’re going to get another round of spin-doctoring. Maybe they should employ literate drivers, who can read signs. And brief them thoroughly about respecting laws. Otherwise the drivers may feel that Google is the Law, and can do anything with impunity.
Following my posts on DNS testers to make sure that your ISP is not vulnerable to the DNS poisoning problem that is now in the wild, Dan Kaminsky has a video of the progress of the DNS fixes around the world. It’s embedded below.
The red spots are unpatched, yellow are patched but with the NAT causing problems, and green are the fully patched areas with properly working DNS servers.
In case you missed the launch of Joss Whedon’s online video series, Dr Horrible, a while ago, it’s still available on Hulu for free in both US and internationally. Joss needs no introduction. He’s the guy who created the famous Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly series, and the Serenity movie. He has a guest blog post on Dr Horrible at http://blog.hulu.com/2008/7/29/dr-horrible, which also links to the Hulu video.
Unlike the original free launch of the 3 part series about the super-villain Dr Horrible and the irritating superhero Captain Hammer, this one has ads.
Oh, the actress for the female lead, Felicia Day, also has her own online series, The Guild, which is also free.
I posted a couple of days ago about a free DNS checker to see if your ISP’s name servers are vulnerable to the DNS poisoning exploit that is now in the wild. I found another reputable one: https://www.dns-oarc.net/oarc/services/dnsentropy. Or at least, it seems reputable. This one has a more elaborate test than the one provided in my previous post.
Posted by florafaunarocks 
Posted by florafaunarocks 
Posted by florafaunarocks 