Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: StarOffice, Antennae, Handiness
Fewer excuses for the "memos and shopping lists" crowd. Sean Lamb writes: "Now that everyone's done slashdotting Sun's servers, I've posted an Out-Of-Box-Experience review of StarOffice 6.0 beta over at Linux Orbit."
Some things just want to be Free. Bruce Perens writes: "HP has made a public statement supporting royalty-free web standards and urging the community to write W3C with their opinion. "
A document on Perens' web site outlines Hewlett-Packard's response to the ongoing discussion of allowing technologies into W3C standards which could require patents on the so-called Reasonable and Non-Discrimatory (RAND) basis. That document reads in part:
"Agreement on royalty-free standards does not end this discussion. The licensing of patents embedded in standards must be compatible with the GPL license that is applied to the Linux operating system kernel, the MIT-derived license that is applied to the Apache web server, and a number of other software licenses. Because of the many thousands of copyright holders who have already contributed to existing products under those licenses, those software licenses can not be changed - the patent licensing mandated by W3C standards must accommodate them."I hope other companies benefiting from software like Apache, Linux, and any other software which could be hurt by royalty-based standards make similar statements.
Wardrivers, begone. Moshe Barr may have laid out how to share a network connection with the neighborhood, but what about when you don't want to or can't afford to? trevmar writes: "BYTE.com has just published an article I wrote about WLAN antennas -- how they work and how to choose them. Hopefully I have put in all the stuff you will need to know whether you are setting up a community freenet, or just want to make your own home network harder to hack. If you are hardware inclined, I also describe some low cost hardware, and an access point that can be pulled apart very easily and resoldered at will ..."
Need an integrated keyboard here ... Adrian writes "Forget the guys with the glove from Berkeley, check out these guys -- they have a great product that interfaces with 3D Max for realtime animation generation that is on the market and won best of SIGGRAPH a couple of years back -http://www.didjiglove.com.au" While that's nice, I'd rather not forget the Berkeley guys just yet, since their seems like a more generalized concept.
Now the major problem is the FCC Certs that we must acquire for our antennas. Most of the manufactures will help get the FCC Cert for the Linksys AP, but, when they do it raises the cost by 75-125%. This Cert is mandatory for installation by the end users, due to the current FCC Part 15B rules. As a professional you may have forgotten about this effect. We and several other manufactures are working on getting the FCC to expand the "Certified Components" rule that was made for computer to cover the wLAN antennas. Till they do, the cost isn't going down much.
The antennas you are thinking about are Directional. The antennas needed for access points are omni-directional. We have tried to use small yagis and other semi-directional antennas to only moderate success. The only true good results have been from using GOOD omni-directional antennas. Also, the RP-SMA wont fit on most APs, but, I'm sure we can get the RP-TNC on them cheaper, its a matter of demand. The omni antenna set for the Linksys is a new product, if demand goes up, we can lower prices, if demand stays where it is, the prices stay where they are.
That cute little yagi that Telex makes will make a great client antenna for indoors...
Now, we have been able to acquire a contract with MaxRad to make antennas for us with RP-TNC connectors, FCC Cert, up to 5dbi that will screw onto the back of the access point. This will make a nicer and **cheaper** antenna, but it will not be as good as the dual 6 and 8 sets, but it will make an acceptable "consumer" grade antenna. Don't think we don't evolve, the main reason we started making the Linksys config is due to consumer demand. The Linksys specials are only about 3 weeks old, it takes a little time to get the certs shoved through the FCC! For now, whoever needs a legal antenna set for end user install, we have the commercial grade Linksys antenna sets.
We have been making commercial grade antenna kits and wLAN hardware for some time now. Soon, the 802.11 standard for 5.8ghz will hit the streets, This is going to put most of the consumer gear @ 2.4ghz and the commercial gear @ 5.8ghz, which will have the effect of causing the 2.4ghz antenna prices to go way down.
Another problem is that no matter how cheep we get these antennas, they are always going to be a niche market. Economy of scale isn't going to hit till over 100/week antennas are made, which is an amount almost = to the production of the linksys WAP11.
As a professional, you posted links to antenna sites with antennas ment only for instlation by professionals. You really need to warn people about the FCC issues with this, as most dont even know the diffrence. Big fines await the unknowledgeable...
There are several on the market now. Check here for some:
Motion Capture Hardware
Or how about a whole bodysuit:
Body Suit
The guys over at lwn.net were talking out and out rebellion in this weeks issue and cited Xfree86 as historical precidence. We have several open web servers. We have several open web browsers. That's all we need. Just keep the pressure on the sites you browse to support open standards and vote with your feet if they don't, no matter how easy it is to just dual boot back to Windows or fire up Wine. We don't have to be dragged along if the W3C people sell out.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I think not all features are available in all the platforms. I downloaded the Windows version and the Toolbar Configuration that he mentioned doesn't function.
Also, for those asking about the difference between StarOffice and OpenOffice, the former comes with a big clip-art gallery, for example. But, it's also 30% of that 100MB download...that's why OpenOffice downloads are so much smaller.
The IEEE is making all the 802 standards available for free on their web site. Have a look at http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/ for details.
So a vertical monopole antenna with an omnidirectional planar radiation pattern is now considered a dipole, huh?
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
From this page it seems both Apple and Kodak claim to have patents covering SVG.
The author of the StarOffice article is a bit off base about how the XML works. Basically, the document consists of SEVERAL XML documents, images, and fonts all packed into a JAR file (a ZIP file with a maifest file). After you extract these files, you then find that each of these XML documents contains so much info that it makes them nearly impossible to be read by humans! (No VI or EMACS, sorry)
The upshot of this is that KOffice or some other suite could support these documents very easily. On top of that, the compression makes these files tremendously small. I took a 700K Word document (500 pages!) and converted it to a 100K StarOffice file. Now if that isn't cool, I dunno what is!
You can find more info at http://xml.openoffice.org/.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Yeah, and I have tested this drug called a "placebo," and it seems to cure all my illnesses! I haven't actually tried the drug on anything except for the common cold, but I guess I can infer that it will work great on expelling all types of crap from my system. Therefore I conclude the placebo drug will cure all diseases.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
So, is it legal to war drive and sniff packets off of a network?
I ask because up here in Alberta, it's common for oil and petrochemical companies to hire spies to take pictures of competitors facilities from public roads, to get an idea of what technology they may be deploying and what strategies they may be using. I wonder if it's legal to have people sniff corporate wireless LAN's from the road too, and report back to their client.
I tried to install StarOffice as root on my RedHat 7.1 system, and all hell broke loose. I couldn't launch StarOffice from any user account at all. I uninstalled it and installed it in my user account, and this time it worked fine. But now only I can use it.
* Anyone know why it failed as root?
* Anyone know how I could make it run the user configuration part of the setup, so other users on my computer can use StarOffice?
I'd love to hear other StarOffice tips and tricks, too...
From this, i see:
0 81 6/
This Version:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-patent-policy-2001
Latest Version:
http://www.w3.org/TR/patent-policy/
Editor:
Daniel J. Weitzner, W3C/MIT, djweitzner@w3.org
Authors:
Michele Herman, Microsoft, micheleh@microsoft.com
Scott Peterson, Hewlett-Packard, scott_k_peterson@hp.com
Tony Piotrowski, Philips, tony.piotrowski@philips.com
Barry Rein, Pennie & Edmonds (for W3C), barry@pennie.com
Daniel Weitzner, W3C/MIT, djweitzner@w3.org
Helene Plotka Workman, Apple Computer, plotka@apple.com
What gives?
To summarise, the names of the committee are on the report. It doesn't, HP/Perens say, that the individual committee members agree with the report. The take is that Peterson was opposed to the idea....
Ascension Technologies makes the Flock of Birds and related products, motion trackers based on a pulsed magnetic field. They're very accurate and quick to respond. I have no idea what they cost, I've just been on the user end of a Flock and loved it. :)
This is possible and practical and we should prepare to do it. However, to have three Internet standards bodies would be a bad thing. What we should really seek to achieve is a situation where:
So long as W3C remains a rich corporations club this sort of proposal will come bach again and again. It is, after all, in the rich corporations' interest.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
I have been reading very positive reviews about SO during the past few days. So, I decided to give it a try myself. Here's an overview of my experiences.
:-).
Let me start by saying that it looks promising, despite some obvious flaws which I will detail below.
Installation
I installed it on windows 2000. The installer looks pretty and userfriendly and seems to be doing what it is supposed to be doing in a straightforward way. I haven't tried the uninstall yet (duh) but I trust that will be equally good.
Compatibility with office
I normally use framemaker to write my papers but occasionally I have to deliver word documents. Star office certainly supports word better than framemaker. However, I found that it had some trouble with the word documents I had. All of these documents are rather complex and they use tables, crossreferences, images and paragraph styles. I was impressed that the document was successfully imported. However, there were a few errors that though easy to correct would have lead to visible errors if I had just printed them without looking at them. I had a similar experience with my powerpoint documents. Near perfect but not entirely perfect. Conclusion: you will need to revise imported non trivial office documents to make sure everything is the way as intended.
User interface
From the point of view of features most of it seems to be there and functioning. However, it is far from pretty. One of the key features of office is that it offers a polished userinterface. Obviously MS has a few graphical designers who know what they are doing. I can't say the same about SO it all looks rather primitive when compared to office (far better than framemaker though
In addition to the look and feel I found some of the dialogs a bit confusing. Some buttons don't have tooltips and there are slight inconsistencies, especially in the more advanced dialogs.
Features
After having played with star writer a bit I would say that I would actually prefer it over word and may even consider to use it as a replacement for framemaker in the future. As mentioned before, I use stuff like crossreferences and paragraph styles quite heavily. The prime reason I am using framemaker rather than word is because word is designed for stupid users and tends to "improve" the deisgn of your document on the fly which is a PITA if you do know what you are doing. Aside from that it's handling of graphics is really bad and you are at a constant risk of seriously messing up the layout of your document. Star office doesn't seem to suffer from these flaws and in addition has a build in literature references database!!!! That last feature (once I figure out how to use it because the GUI is a mess) might pull me over. Also I like the fact that everything is stored as XML and I am looking forward to any add on utilities that rely on this.
So in conclusion, star office looks very promising. I have only looked at star writer and compared it to word 2000. Word 2000 arguably is more polished and user friendly. In terms of features the two suits can compete even though star writer is lacking some of the popular word features (e.g. grammar checking). However, it also has features that either work better than or are not even present in word (e.g. the bibliography tool).
It looks like I am going to give it a try but it also looks like I won't be recommending as an alternative to office to less advanced users. If you know what you are doing and are equally annoyed with word as I am you might actually like it (otherwise I recommend you take a look at framemaker). It is not the office killer it is advertised to be but it certainly looks like you could use it for most of the stuff you would MS office for, especially when handling more complex documents. It's biggest problem is the user interface which just doesn't have the same quality as MS office.
Jilles
HP's policy regarding RAND may have been mis-interpreted by the public and the press, because the name of an HP attorney appears on the Patent Policy Framework draft. Of the participants in the W3C Patent Policy Working Group, HP has been the most vigorous proponent of the importance of avoiding patent encumbrances on W3C Recommendations.
:) You are, of course, correct.
EEEP sorry. My bad
Feel free to moderate me down, I jumped the gun.. don't worry I have karma to burn.
It's only slightly offtopic... OpenOffice 638c (latest build) is probably pretty close to StarOffice 6beta.
The other day, I downloaded OpenOffice build 638C for Linux and for Windows. I use Red Hat Linux (7.1) at home, and I already use StarOffice (5.2) for my regular office needs. It works great. I think my main complaint with OpenOffice is the silly desktop. Other than that, I consider it a fully functional office suite that can replace my MS Office needs anytime.
I didn't see any cool OpenOffice screenshots, so I made my own of the text document program. I didn't do any (yet?) of the spreadsheet program, or presentation software. These were really captured for the benefit of my brother, but I'm posting them here so that others can see them.
Install it with the -net option. This installs the program in a central place and allows for multiuser use (even across a network) (~200MB).
Then run setup as each user you want to be able to use SO (see install guide). This will install a local SO directory in the user's $HOME, with config filers, etc. (~2 MB)
Now each user can run SO with their own settings, without installing all ~200MB in each user's $HOME
I simply use visio to do drawings in framemaker. Works fairly well. I actually like framemaker a lot. It's a complex application with a lot of features which at the very least are non-trivial. However, once you get into it it seems like the people who built it anticipated what you really need.
Object linking and embedding supports both types of links you are talking about (even though it defaults to embed rather than link). On windows star office just uses the windows infrastructure so it is not different from ms office in that respect.
Jilles
Note that the IETF policy is RAND, not RF.
The reason for that is that under RF, it's MUCH too easy to see essential work blocked by claiming a patent and refusing RF status.
It is much harder to appear reasonable and refuse RAND.
that's because JPG is a compression format, while BMPs are exact data
Jpeg is a lossy format. Macintosh PICTs take a lot less space, but don't loose anything. Undoubtedly this can be said of other formats. Doesn't PNG have a lossless compressed format? Why can't MS use a lossless compressed format as Apple has done for many years now? I think the original MS criticism stands.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.