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Linux and OpenOffice save Microsoft Presentation

EvilGrinUK writes "A presentation about Shared Source (SSI) by the head of Microsoft Ukraine was almost ruined when the Windows machine (a Tablet PC) linked to the projector developed problems. The solution was to adopt OpenOffice.org 1.1.2 and ALT Linux Compact 2.3, which was already running on the presenter's laptop (an IBM Thinkpad). Here's a picture."

22 of 447 comments (clear)

  1. Ha-Ha! by SeanTobin · · Score: 5, Funny

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
    <speech>
    <voice>Nelson Muntz</voice>
    <voiceArtist>Nancy Cartwright</voiceArtist>
    <text>Ha-Ha!</text>
    </speech>

    --
    Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
  2. How funny.. Cache slower than original... by OlivierB · · Score: 5, Informative

    The original link is fster than the cache

    http://paq.osdn.org.ua/~mike/img/MS-uses-OOo/hpim2 544.sized.jpg

    --
    Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
  3. Not working correctly by Nytewynd · · Score: 5, Funny

    It looks like Open Office didn't open the presentation properly. Look at all of those crazy symbols.

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    /. ++
  4. It's always nice when Open Source can lend a hand by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 5, Funny

    Let's just hope they [MSFT] don't get all miffy about it, eh?

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  5. Yeah! Linux saved the day... by mjpaci · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...and at the same time embarassed Microsoft. Maybe now the mighty Goliath can be slain!

    How many Slashdotters now have to change their shorts?

    --bitter

    1. Re:Yeah! Linux saved the day... by bman08 · · Score: 5, Funny

      I would hope all of them, but if this story leads to more slashdotters changing their shorts from time to time, I'm all for it.

  6. uh oh! by aweiland · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He is so fired

  7. Hahahaha by anderm7 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Be careful, Microsoft might think this counts as a Shared Source Initiative.

  8. Intersting. by Atzanteol · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And not one story about all the presentations given at Linux World that were done using Power Point on Windows.

    --
    "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"

    - Charles Darwin
    1. Re:Intersting. by bman08 · · Score: 5, Funny

      This is like going on a porn site and complaining that they show a lot of chicks making out and no dudes. It's not what we're here for.

  9. Re:Is it true? by archen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I believe this isn't the first time someone associated with MS has done this. I've heard of a similar incident happening in Europe. Really I don't think this is newsworthy information. All of us know that you can end up with a bad office install, or office will end up with corrupted documents. Many of us also know that you can open such documents with Open Office just fine. I recommend this to uses on our own network every so often, so this is old hat. Another nice trick is to open MS office documents with Open Office, then save them with OO (to the MS format) and watch the file size decrease up to 30% at times and be able to open them JUST FINE in MS office.

  10. Re:Not to be a partypooper but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I mean, will common people know about it? And more important... will they even care?

    Ummm, let's review: a Ukrainian Microsoft rep had a laptop problem, so they showed his presentation on someone else's Linux laptop.

    Why on earth would "common people" (charming phrasing, BTW) care? This is only "news" in the sense that it's fuel for today's anti-Microsoft raving.

    We Powerbook owners pull some Windows user's fat out of the fire on a weekly basis -- it's not really news.

  11. That's rich by g0bshiTe · · Score: 5, Funny

    [MSFT-Tablet]"Damn, I am crapping out."
    [lin-laptop]"I can save the day."
    [MSFT-Tablet]"I will never be saved by riff-raff the likes of you. You are open source and therefore evil. I was created using millions of dollars in r&d capitol. You were made from donations, and other open source contributors, and are therefore an inferior product."
    [lin-laptop]"Yeah, but I can do something you can't right now."
    [MSFT-Tablet]"What's that?"
    [lin-laptop]"Run your presentation."

    --
    I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
  12. Re:haha by Rei · · Score: 5, Informative
    --
    I believe Bird-Person can arrange that.
  13. Re:laughed out loud at that picture by ubuntu · · Score: 5, Funny
    what is it with slashdot running all these captchas lately ? "To confirm you're not a script, please type the text shown in this image:"

    Apparently, the Slashdot editors think our comments are so stupid that we HAVE to be bots. Sorry, Taco, we really are that stupid. At least I am. No wait. I mean, my posts are. I mean, I'm not a bot. I'm sure I'm smarter than a bot, even though I keep typing the captcha thing wrong. Maybe it's an IQ test, like a minimum height requirement on a Roller Coaster. I got it on my third try. What I'm trying to say is... uh, I forgot.

    Dammit IQ Captcha, what are you trying to tell me!?!?!?

    ===========
    Slashdot User Ubuntu, Your IQ = 86

    Some famous celebrities with your IQ are:
    Paris Hilton
    George Bush
    the cast of Friends

    The computer we recommend for you is:
    Apple Macintosh with One-Button Mouse
    ===========
  14. Re:Big deal? by gregbaker · · Score: 5, Interesting
    What's the big deal here? Right tool for the job.
    I suspect this has a lot more to do with Windows video drivers than anything.

    I spend a good chunk of time dealing with laptops and projectors and I can tell you wil certainty that display drivers are getting harder and harder to get working with projectors.

    There was a time when you could press fn-F4 and flip to the external display. Now, there's a control panel on the system dock (or whatever that thing with all the icons is called). You might get an extended desktop, you might have to go through four dialogs to find a setting, you might never find it. Mercy on your soul if you have a wide-screen display.

    My new tablet refuses to drive the external display at resolution >800x600, even though the built-in display and projector both have a native resolution of 1024x768. Even that takes multiple-clicks to get turned on. It works exactly right under Linux (fn-F4 and Bob's your uncle at 1024x768), but the Windows drivers get in the way.

    My guess is the presenter had a new laptop with such a display driver. OO-guy had an older laptop, or had this stuff stored out already.

  15. Re:Is it true? by Anonymous+Monkey · · Score: 5, Funny
    I can't confirm this story but I've had a very similar experience.

    I was working at an almost all MS office as a bookkeeper. Most of the accounting was done with Exel, good backups were kept, and the server had UPS. Still, one day a major spreadsheet got corrupted, as did all it's back ups. All the office was in freak out mode, except for me, I downloaded and installed Open Office (I think it was ver 1.0.1) and opened the corrupted spreadsheet. Cut the data out, pasted it into a new Excel spreadsheet and saved the day!

    Ironically I was spoken to about installing non approved software...

    --
    We are the Borg...
  16. Re:Is it true? by Dread+Pirate+Shanks · · Score: 5, Funny

    OO.o doesn't always open .ppt documents fine; my physics lecture notes are always PowerPoint presentations, but OpenOffice.org can sometimes misinterpret the symbols. Nothing's worse than studying for an exam and wondering why the derivative of airplane over star equals hand.

  17. Mod Submitter Up! by Hobart · · Score: 5, Funny

    Someone actually used Coral Cache in a direct image link from a slashdot story?!?

    World... ending... pigs flying ... dogs and cats living together ... mass hysteria...

    (-1: Silly)

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    o/~ Join us now and share the software ...
  18. Hi from Kiev -- we're OK, and it's old but fact ;) by gvy · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Thanks for the direct link, cache lags indeed as I can see; there's a story page there too (thrown together after the first wave of pre-slashdot effect hit our gallery; and yes, the fact is just as this, there is one more independent photo link there).

    The bottleneck ATM is the shaper, we enjoy sponsored colocation and hardware (by WNet ISP) and current outbound traffic is around 512Kbps.

    Otherwise, our ALT Linux server that's serving you now is perfectly OK, given it's 4-way Xeon with a meg cache per CPU with a gig of RAM and SmartArray. So load average is more like: 0.19, 0.14, 0.12.

    Here's a postcard from Apache (no nginx on top of it even ;-) -- 167 requests currently being processed, 8 idle servers (I've upped MaxClients from 150 to 250, hope it's enough for some time -- seen 180+ max today).

    and here's top's top:

    CPU0 states: 1.1% user, 4.4% system, 0.0% nice, 0.0% iowait, 93.3% idle
    CPU1 states: 0.2% user, 0.2% system, 0.0% nice, 0.0% iowait, 99.1% idle
    CPU2 states: 0.3% user, 0.0% system, 0.0% nice, 0.0% iowait, 99.2% idle
    CPU3 states: 0.0% user, 0.1% system, 0.0% nice, 0.0% iowait, 99.4% idle
    Mem: 1033300k av, 680024k used, 353276k free, 0k shrd, 4168k buff
    346864k active, 246712k inactive
    Swap: 522072k av, 2240k used, 519832k free 482032k cached

    PS: we'll be doing 4th conference like that this October, feel free to contact me during next weeks if you're eager to travel to Kiev and roll a speech on Free Software!

    --
    Michael Shigorin EMT.Com.UA * OSDN.Org.UA * Linux.Kiev.UA * ALTLinux.ORG
  19. Re:Is it true? by LilMikey · · Score: 5, Funny

    OO.o doesn't always open .ppt documents fine; my physics lecture notes are always PowerPoint presentations, but OpenOffice.org can sometimes misinterpret the symbols. Nothing's worse than studying for an exam and wondering why the derivative of airplane over star equals hand.

    Maybe you need to turn off the improbability drive of your laptop.

    --
    LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
  20. Re:laughed out loud at that picture by deviator · · Score: 5, Funny

    Lumping Paris Hilton and George Bush together like that insults her intelligence.