Slashdot Mirror
OpenOffice Online Goes Beta
Stony Stevenson sends word of the beta availability of a software-as-a-service version of OpenOffice 2.3, brought to us by Mandriva Linux creator Gael Duval. According to Ars, this package "easily offers the most features of any online office suite," though it "lacks the collaborative or document-sharing features of competitors like Google Docs or even Microsoft's Office Live Workspace." "To create this feature-rich environment, Online OpenOffice.org requires a modern browser with JavaScript and the Sun Java Runtime Environment version 1.4+ plug-in. The setup has been tested in Firefox 1.5 and above, IE6 and 7, and even Safari, though Ubuntu users are specifically warned that they must be using the Sun Java (Sun JRE) plug-in or the current implementation of Online OpenOffice.org won't work."
I mean, good to know, but Ubuntu comes with OpenOffice.org anyway. Without document sharing, I really don't see the point of this...
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Tested in IE6? That couldn't have been fun.
lynxcache plain-text mirror: http://lynxcache.com/_Hands_on_with_the_new_online_version_of_OpenOffice_org.html
Looks like the program is projected over a VNC, Remote X, Citrix, or some other remote GUI session. The good news is that such a design makes the software as interactive as a desktop application. The bad news is that it's a sign of minimal changes, which can sometimes mean a poor-quality product. (e.g. The complaints about lack of document sharing.)
I'm a big fan of delivering software over the web, but simply remote GUI sessions aren't going to do it. Consumers may not know *why* the software acts the way it does, but they will see through the ruse to something they can get for much less than the asking price. Heck, setup a Unix server or Windows Terminal Server and you can push out the app just as effectively.
I'll give them an B+ for effort, but a D- for execution. Let's hope they customize the app a bit more in the future, and close the gaps to become a competitive product.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
so they have a server running Office and allow you access via VNC
bad things : server Load is large and screen refresh means large bandwidth both reasons why the consumers are going to be frustrated
good things : easy to achieve and fully working (unlike google doc's + others which are basic and I dont trust floating point number rounding to a browser javascript engine )
my personal thing : if I wanted to use VNC / Citrix / MS Remote Desktop / backtomypc / webex I would But I do not I have a nice PC for that basic editing is nice in javascript anything else really cant cut it so far
John Jones
http://www.johnjones.me.uk/
...I wrote this with a web-based editor.
Since neither the article or the summary provide links:
The company:http://www.ulteo.com/
Online OOO:http://www.ulteo.com/home/ooo
And if you dont want to register just to see it. Bug me not works for now.
B5 71 ED FB 55 D6 4E 68 07 25 E2 FA CA 93 F0 2F, is mine! All mine!
The FLOSS vs. Google battle begins? At least a skirmish...
This looks to me like a proof of concept, that they could get an online version of OpenOffice working and were satisfied with that as a first step. The problem is that other online services are past this point.
That said, I'm still not sure why online office suites really need to exist. Commercial and FOSS versions exist that scale or shrink to most needs.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
OpenOffice doesn't face any competition from web-based editors. The entire point of web-based editors is that they provide a free lightweight alternative to full-featured office suites. OpenOffice is a full-featured office suite that also happens to be free. Frankly, I think OpenOffice's open formats and standards allow it to be complemented by web-based editors. I can use full featured OpenOffice when I'm at home, and I can use a web-based editor that outputs to ODF when away from my computer.
Ideally, this'd be a sort of "reference implementation" that shows other web based editors how to properly import and export ODF files. I know Google Docs still has some issues with ODF (especially with double spacing), and I've heard of problems with other web-based editors.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
unfortunately, they don't allow the same user to open 2 sessions at the same time :-P
Why anyone would ever want to use an on-line office suite, especially when more capable off-line suites are available for free, is beyond me.
There is already a collaboration feature implemented: work online with others fully dynamically, much better than any other online productivity suite. Also, if the host of the session prints a document, it prints for all other guests of the session. Just click "share desktop" and invite people to work with you on any OpenOffice.org app (in read only mode or active mode). You can invite as many people as you want (careful not to give active role to too many people or it will be hard to manage ;-)).
So you can already update your post on that point.
Ad much?
It's like firing a salvo across the battleship msoft's bow. Might be firing arrows, and in a house of mirrors, but it's still firing shots. With an arrow, a leader can still be maimed or killed. Shatter the mirrors, and somebody's vision is jarred.
...
Hopefully Mandriva has vision-correction lenses to make up for all the spider webs that will be generated. But, hopefully, thar be toxins on zee arrows, maytes...
--------
http://www.anapsid.org/resources/plants-hn.html
Harmful & Poisonous Plants: H-N
Mandragora officinarum (MANDRAKE); nervous system affected by the toxins hyoscyamine and mandragorin. MANDRAKE (Mandragora officinarum); nervous system
www.anapsid.org/resources/plants-hn.html - 60k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this
--
Captcha: convoke
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Slightly off topic, but I always thought LyX would be a prime candidate for an online document processor. It already has a thin frontend and separate backend. Making the frontend an online application would free users from having to install TeX with all its packages and fonts, and all sorts of other LyX files. It would also let you manage all your templates centrally, for example an organization could have all their templates on a LyX server, and employees would just need to run a possibly browser based thin client.
AccountKiller
Well...
As far as I can tell: there is none.
It seems to me this is just the kind of prep work MS and Adobe need done in order to remove their software from your drive and thus remove *just a little more* of the independence and autonomy of your desktop. Frankly, I think people who are helping this a long are working against their own best interests. I would recommend a boycotting of such research.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
If Java is so bad why is NASDAQ running their mission critical trading system on it?
Thank you for the post. There is already a collaboration feature implemented in Ulteo. Just click "share desktop" and invite people to work with you on any OpenOffice.org app (in read only mode or active mode). You can invite as many people as you want (careful not to give active role to too many people or it will be hard to manage ;-)). Also, if the host of the session prints a document, it prints for all other guests of the session, who can accept or not.
So you can already update your post on that point.
You stupid fucking asshole.
How is this different to what Thinkfree does? They have been doing it for at least a year.
Maybe your version will highlight your lack of punctuation I can't read your message I find it hard to know when things end or begin I am not one of those grammar or spelling Nazi's I just noticed that somethings ran together I couldn't understand what was wrong with my brain
I like starting sentences with "I" also because it's always capital (and I like that the Firefox spell check yelled at me for not capitalizing Nazi)
Get your Unix fortune now!
Waiting a long time just to write a document, its not very practical. Google docs does the work very fast, with almost no wait time. Maybe they should write an ajax open office version, that would rule the world!
It requires JRE? I have made it 12 years without it. Why would I need it now except for this? uhmm..thanks but no thanks.
Let's see we've got a battleship/salvo thing. That's pretty normal.
Then it's an arrow.
Then it's in a house of mirrors.
Apparently the leaders are inside the house of mirrors. Wearing.. wait, breaking the mirrors makes it
harder to see? The mirrors are there to confuse people. Seems like breaking them would be ok.
Then.. oh god, spiders and glasses. Are the spiders wearing the glasses? Are they just climbing on peoples' eyes?
And we're back to the arrows, now poisonous. (Would the poison make it harder or easier to break the mirrors?)
And the poison is Mandrake--way to bring it back around!
I've seen some fucked-up metaphors on here, but you win the blue ribbon for attendance by technical knock-out.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
OpenOffice is pretty slow compared to Microsoft Office, and VNC is slower than Remote Desktop. That's going to result in less than acceptable performance. If they hosted it on Windows just for the RDP performance boost, this idea may work better. Unfortunaly, licensing cost will eat them alive.
The computers at my school have limited access. They won't let you install software at all (without jumping through hoops), therefore, alternatives such as Online Messengers and Online Office applications are the only alternatives to using Microsoft Messenger and MSO2K3.
Check out Unsealed: Whispers of Wisdom! http://unsealed.k3rnel.net It's an action-RPG about Open Sourcerers.
[[obligatory]] ..
friends don't let friends post drunk
http://www.monkeytex.com/
I don't need drugs.
Quack, quack.
Your dealer's weed must be FANTASTIC!
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
FA doesn't include link to online open office, yet it includes link that OO had fragmentation and link to article to m$ office live space
Is it just me thinking it would be essential to include it?
Sounds like a MMO title to me.
About seven or eight years ago, when StarOffice 5.x was still around, shortly after it was acquired by Sun, I remember some Sun/StarOffice guys showing StarOffice as a real client-server version implemented in Java, not as a remote-GUI (VNC) based "normal" app like the one in TFA. The server portion was running on a Solaris server, while the client app ran on any OS; I think they were showing it on OS/2 since the event was a OS/2 users' conference. They claimed to have implemented some kind of sophisticated load balancing between client and server. The functionality was the same as that of the ordinary office suite, the GUI looked not much different and evrerything seemed quite performant.
For a very short time, German telco Mobilcom used to offer it to their customers as a web-based service.
I wonder what became of it. The same what became of the vast and really useful feature set that was ripped out of StarOffice 5.x when it was crippled to become OpenOffice 1/StarOffice 6, probably.
Cheers,
d. d.
"lacks the collaborative or document-sharing features of competitors like Google Docs or even Microsoft's Office Live Workspace."
(Emphasis mine)
Please, does the microsoft dislike even creep in here? I see no actual reason to have a even there. (Or is there a reason? Is Office Live Workspace really that bad?)
TightVNC, for instance, is far more faster than RDP, and eats really less average bandwidth.
Nor the arstechnica article, nor the slashdot entry has a link to Online OpenOffice, so I am posting it here: oOOo.
Maybe we should instruct journalists that linking to external pages won't hurt they business and is actually the building block of the www.
this post contain no useful information, no need to mod it down
This has one advantage that I can see. I don't really expect to do much word processing on line, and it's not a collaborative suite, so that's another missed opportunity.
.DOC format and get them reading - and then writing - ODTs, that's progress. This website and software service might be a decent next step in that direction.
But this does give me the ability to send people ODT documents and when they complain "MS Word won't read this" send them to this site so they can read. Basically this gives me a justification to insist on sending people ODT rather than Word. Perhaps some of them will get tired of the website and decide to install OO.o on their own computer.
These days, it's class-A arrogance to send someone an ODT and require them to download and install the huge OO.o suite just so they can read it. Maybe some day Kword/QT4 running on Windows would make an option attractive enough to let people like me force ODT docs on people with a smug "if you want to read it, download the software" but for now Kword/Windows doesn't exist and OO.o is a hefty download that risk-averse computer users will not be interested in installing. There's a third option: http://officeviewers.com/ which is published by softmaker and actually serves as a decent ODT document reader as well. But again, that involves installing software, and not everyone is willing to do that.
In my opinion, this is the easiest way to increase people's awareness of and ability to read ODT documents. You send them the doc and if they haven't got the software, they can read it using the online suite. And if they're curious they can then go install OO.o. In my opinion, OO.o is more valuable as a vehicle for pushing an document format than as an office suite. Even on windows it's a bit slow; on Linux it's slower. And the "almost as good and FREE" line is the worst way to market a software product ever. But if we can wean people off of the
If this were Usenet, I'd killfile the lot of you.
Very much a proof of concept but Corel/Caldera ported WordPerfect to Java and had it running in a web browser ten years ago. It was predictably incredibly slow but it worked. At the time I couldn't help thinking that they should have ported the DOS WP 5.1 code instead of the Windows WP 6 code.
Online Operational Opinions of OpenOfice.org Online (.org) - oooooooo.org
For those who want the link... http://www.ulteo.com/home/en/ooo?autolang=en
But why stop at just OpenOffice? I've been running like this for years with Xvnc. If you're reasonably comfortable with Linux, know how to use OpenSSH to tunnel TCP traffic (poor man's VPN) and can get around in a gdm config file, then you can do this:
/etc/X11/gdm or /usr/share/gdm. The file is either custom.conf or defaults.conf respectively. Simply copy and paste the "Standard Server" section and change the command from X (with options) to Xvnc -localhost -SecurityTypes=None. Rename the section "VNCDesktop" Then replace the 0=StandardServer with 0=VNCDesktop. (Note this will prevent you from having a local X server running which means no GUI on the server. I run headless so that's fine, but if you want a GUI on your server, then start at 1= and leave the 0=StandardServer untouched) If you want more than one desktop for multiple users, set up, 1=VNCDesktop, 2=VNCDesktop and so on.
:1, and so on.
Prerequisites: OpenSSH server and client on app server, a Gnome desktop environment (can be kludged to work in KDE as well), VNC4 (to make sure you have the Xvnc server application)
1. Edit your Gnome gdm config file. Depending on your distro it could be in
2. Set up your tunneling info in either PuTTY (if you're stuck on a Windows platform) or OpenSSH ~/.ssh/config as follows:
*nix ~/.ssh/config:
host MyVNCServer
hostname your.internet.ip.or.hostname
User myusername
LocalForward 5910 localhost:5900
PuTTY:
In PuTTY, look under tunnels near the bottom of the configuration pane and set up a Local forwarding. Source should be 5910 and destination should be localhost:5900 (to connect to the VNC server run by 0=VNCDesktop). If you are using the server run by 1=VNCDesktop, then your forwarding should be 5911 localhost:5901 and so on. Save your settings and connect to the OpenSSH server.
3. Connect to the tunneled desktop with VNCViewer. Just launch it and point to the local port by typing ":0" for servers configured to run as 0=VNCDesktop. If you are using 1=VNCDesktop then point VNCViewer at
Enjoy... It's worked well for me for years with a minimum of fuss and no downtime. I can run any application I want. OpenOffice, Gimp a web browser, etc... The best thing of all is that it's encrypted and if you set it up inside your home network, you can access it from anywhere in the world with a network connection that doesn't block port 22 for SSH.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
If Java is so bad why is NASDAQ running their mission critical trading system on it?
The answer is the same as why the City of Munich switched all their computers over to Teh Lunix. It's a little thing we in the industry call "stupidity".
If you actually worked in IT, you would know that sometimes there really really stupid decisions made by pointy haired bosses, based on nothing more than some article they read in eWeak.
Oh, Trey & Balmer just shit themselves in fear!
I don't poke smot or drue dugs.
As for the mirror thing, I was thinking of "Enter The Dragon" (IIRC), where the Claw man and Bruce were fighting. Eventually, one of them broke mirrors, but in my mind, having shatters but not removed glass might be as troublesome as the intact mirrors. (I guess it depends on the actual shatter patterns, and I bet there are some people who are NOT fooled by even the intact glass...)
Yeh, I do come up with some peculiar analogies...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
They should make a back end product, storing, indexing, shareing, publishing, work groups, etc.
Provide a fancy interface on line is a dead end.
Well said, but I think someone else said it better...
Brannigan: If we can hit that bull's-eye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards...Checkmate.
If all you have is a grenade, pretty soon every problem looks like a foxhole -- MightyYar