OpenOffice.org. If you're using the OpenOffice word processor, it "auto-completes" words you've type a few times. If you just keep typing, it goes away, so it doesn't interfere, but you just have to hit enter to accept the suggestion. Not exactly what you're looking for, but similiar.
OpenOffice (the equivilant of Mozilla to StarOffice/Netscape) has gone to an XML format for its native format. It's actually several XML files Zipped up in an archive, but you can easily open it and look at the plain XML. Check out the recent builds of OpenOffice. Many of the gripes against StarOffice 5.2 have been resolved.
Though it's been mentioned in passing, Adobe's SVG viewer, though distributed alone, is also included in the standard distribution of Acrobat Reader 5.
To those who are predicting SVG's demise, I have several comments.
No, the current versions of the browsers don't support it natively now. However, did those browsers support HTML 4.0, CSS, PNG or any other of a host of open standards as of the week the spec was finalized?
Some people seem to be focusing on an either/or between SVG and Flash. Remember that animation isn't SVG's only purpose. There currently isn't any other open standard graphic format for building charts and graphs while letting the text of those charts be indexable.
For some reason, Macromedia is praised for it's open spec on SWF even though they could close it off. MS has "open" file format specs, but they get bashed. Flash is just like GIF, Fraunhoffer(sp) MP3 codec, Word 6.0, etc. They are controlled by a single company who can change the direction or licensing on a whim. SVG is like HTML, independent and completely open.
Re:The only chance the industry has against micros
on
Linux Office Suites
·
· Score: 1
"I could go on and on about all the shit that's wrong with it."
Or, you could actually look at a recent build and judge it on its real merits. None of your complaints exist in the current builds.
HTML tables are woefully inadequate for anything beyond basic tables in word processing documents. Ever try to use basic HTML to put a border only on the bottoms of the cells for the bottom 3 rows in a table. Not the first row at all. For that row, you'd actually like grey bg shading and borders on the top, left and right. You'd also like those borders to be thicker for the top row than the bottom. Oh, and you'd like the bottom ones to be 67% grey, but the top ones black. I like HTML/CSS as much as the next guy, but you can't try to offer it up as a replacement for robust table support in a word processor or desktop publishing package.
Though it carries the bias of the paper itself, the St. Paul Pioneer Press has an archive page of Jesse news.
http://www.pioneerplanet.com/archive/jesse/
Re:And you can thank...
on
PDF Virus Spotted
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Many, many forms, both in government and business require that the exact layout be used on all copies. The layout is chosen to meet accessibility regulations, etc. That part is non-negotiable. So, these forms traditionally are printed out and available by mail, or in person. Then Adobe comes up with PDF. This electronic file that retains the exact printed layout and can be downloaded or placed on CD-ROM. So, some agencies start using it. Folks download the file, print it out and send it in. Ahh, but some of those folks filling it out have incredibly illegible handwriting. Adobe, will you please make it so our forms can be filled out with typewritten information by our users before they print it? Sure. Adobe Acrobat forms are born. Then the agencies start to notice that when the form requires the same information in several different places, people are mistyping it in one or more. Hence the Javascript in PDF.
Throughout all of this, the data is NEVER sent to any server at all. The agency is still requiring a printed copy of the filled out form. Keep in mind that in many cases, these forms are published by a government agency to be submitted to folks other than the agency itself. Prime example: the US W-4 form for income tax deductions from a paycheck. The form is submitted to the employer. The IRS makes up the PDF form and you fill it out and give it to your employer. The IRS isn't involved other than providing the proper form.
As far as having built a Javascript 'application', yes I have. Not relevant to the discussion. The original post attacked not the implementation, but the very idea of Javascript in PDF. Your attack on Javascript has to do with a poor implementation in Javascript. I don't care what scripting language is used, the concept is valid and that's what I was defending.
Improper implementations of a concept do NOT invalidate the concept itself. The concept must be evaluated on it's own merits.
Re:And you can thank...
on
PDF Virus Spotted
·
· Score: 2, Informative
My reply wasn't intended to address the virus per se, but the implication that Javascript has no place in PDF.
As far as Javascript in PDF not manipulating the PDF itself, I quote from Adobe's docs on Acrobat Forms Document Model,
"They basically mirror the Acrobat Forms components and give the forms developer a way to access these components programmatically in order to query and change their properties. In addition to defining forms specific objects, there are additional generic objects that allows the developer to access the underlying document and perform certain actions on it."
Re:And you can thank...
on
PDF Virus Spotted
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Why Javascript in PDF? Ever pay taxes? Javascript in PDF works well for forms that have to be printed and mailed, but they'd prefer typed entries to handwritten. It lets you do those inane calculations on the boxes on the US 1040 form and carry data to other fields. It lets you only enter the necessary data and eliminates mistakes based on simple math. Also useful for forms that want things like your name on the top of pages 2-99. Fill in your name on page 1 and it carries through. Want to have an online version of your form and want no legal problems by having two versions of the same form? Put the PDF of the print form on with Javascript validation. Just because you don't have a need for a feature in PDF doesn't mean that it wasn't necessary or isn't useful to someone.
I figured this would be pretty much common knowledge among/. readers, but I guess not.
Iuniverse.com has been using something similar for quite a while to allow people to self-publish. For $99 or so, your book gets put in a format these machines understand, assigned an ISBN number and entered in the Ingram book database. Amazon and BN then can sell your book. The books only get printed when someone orders one and then shipped out. The more successful ones sometimes end up on BN shelves in the brick-n-morter stores.
A great many of the books have been utter drek, but for those looking to get a few copies of their novel out, it's worth it. They are also targeting companies for internal manuals and custom books, professors who write their own texts, authors whose books are out of print, etc. If Amazon or your local Borders got one of these machines, it's still likely that a service like this would exist to get your book into the system.
Reminded me of the April fools joke I saw a few years ago about the little racing game you played with the mouse and it was supposed to recharge the battery on your laptop. I think it was IBM or Compaq. Lots of people fell for it. The game worked completely and only after you played the whole thing did it let you know you'd been fooled. Not that I'd know from experience.
Don't get me wrong. I'm most definitely not making excuses for the RIAA. I was objecting to the meme that seems to crop up quite freqently that CD's have NEVER come down in price. Attacking the RIAA where they have a built up and logical defense doesn't work. I say find a real weakness when you attack the RIAA. After all, there are plenty.
I agree that the prices in some retail stores in some regions of the world have gone up in the last couple of years. However, that would be inflation. True the averaged inflation index has been negligible for the past decade. However, that doesn't mean there wasn't any inflation in the 90's. Take a look at the calculator at: http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ According to that, a $15 CD in 1990 should cost $20.09. While the inflation from 1997 to 2001 wasn't as high, it was present during the 90's. But the averaged inflation index for the whole economy, but individual prices may go down while the whole index goes up. Or, individual product prices for . . . maybe CD's? might go up. Listen when CNN talks about inflation and mentions that energy costs are right now the primary influence on it changing. It's not like all retail establishments get a letter at the end of the year with the inflation figures and they raise the prices accordingly. Prices change and inflation measures it on a macro level.
Repeat after me. "Inflation. Inflation. Inflation." If a product sells for $15 in 1980 and that same product sells for $15 in 2000, it HAS gone down in price. Any product that doesn't increase in price over time has it's real cost decrease due to the inflation of other prices around it.
If a product's price goes down in non-inflation adjusted dollars, then the decrease is substantial when figured in inflation adjusted dollars. There's a reason that economists quote figures in inflation adjusted dollars. It's because it's the most meaningful way to compare prices over time.
This is the same principle used to say that most people are making less money than they did in the 70s. Sure the dollar amounts are more, but indexed for inflation, the real dollars are less.
Re:Why haven't others used wood?
on
Hardwoodware
·
· Score: 2
To me, when you are trying to make the computer fit in the living room by using wood, your goal shouldn't be a small box. How often do you see furniture that is the size of what he designed? Just because the motherboard is that size doesn't mean the thing can only be that tall. I'm designing a case for a multimedia box that is the size of a standard half height bookshelf. The ugly CD-R and DVD drive doors are hidden behind a hinged wooden door and the rest of the face of the thing is used for disc storage. The larger size allows more room inside for air flow. Vents in the bottom and an auxilary fan that is powered seperately from the PC pulls air in through those vents. This will actually be better ventilated than my regular entertainment center. Those are made of wood and have receivers, VCRs, satellite receivers, amplifiers and more inside of them without curling the wood. Paint with metal in it can be used for shielding of the inside.
I've got a few early sketches in SVG format at: http://www.plasticaztec.com/mediacabinet/mcab2fron t.svg http://www.plasticaztec.com/mediacabinet/mcab2fron topendoor.svg
Are you kidding? Do you have ANY historical perspective? In 1950, wearing a shirt without a collar to school would get you labeled as dangerous. Forget even thinking about things like trenchcoats. Chewing gum in class could get you detention. In that environment, how do you think that expressing ideas outside the norm was treated? For modern deviant ideas within a narrow band may be worse, but in 2001, schools have nowhere near the level of repression that they had overall in 1950.
In a creative fiction course you don't need it. Similarities (much less wholesale plagiarism) in short stories are blatantly obvious and in novels even more so. Add that to the fact that most creative writing courses are much smaller than 500 students. In addition, frequently all stories are peer reviewed and discussed. I could still tell you the major plots of virtually all of the stories written by my classmates in every creative writing course I took in college.
For the record, I took as many creative and other writing courses as most CS majors did programming courses.
Terms of service and connection authentication as well as several other things vary on the whole for Roadrunner based on your location. As far as I can tell, the Roadrunner trademark is a franchise sold to cable companies who set the actual policies. There's tons of information on Roadrunner requiring a "sign-on" that I don't have to do. I, on the other hand deal with the MAC address authentication DHCP. I believe some of the Roadrunner franchises use a phoneline for upstream bandwidth. Bottom line: Roadrunner policies, performance and quality of service are totally tied to region and completely distinct.
"Exploit" implies exclusivity. Redhat doesn't have exclusive rights to package and redistribute those components. The fact that they are included in other distributions exemplifies that. There is nothing preventing the developer of YetAnotherMP3 player that gets included in Redhat from building his own distribution with a newer and better version of his app.
RIAA bargains for the exclusive distribution rights. This license doesn't.
But that's my point. You have to have a definition of source code. In a license, allowing arbitrary redefinition of terms is a bad thing. In software, source code isn't a particularly debatable term. A license specifically written for photographs would eliminate the ambiguity of terms like "source code". You wouldn't need to say, "Well, for paintings, source code is "X". You'd say, you can make prints and copies of the painting, but you won't be given an oil painting on canvas at your request (the real "source code").
Even GNU has written a new license for documentation. Email me when you've translated the docs.
They can sell it, but they have to allow their customers to copy it as well (clause 3). Same as the GPL. They're allowed to sell, but won't be able to exploit for extreme amounts of money.
The GPL is useful because it covers a specific domain: software. It covers the situations involved with software development and addresses those specific issues. The language all refers to programs, source code, running programs, source code distribution, etc. Many of those elements have a parallel in art, literature and music, but they come with their own unique situations. Applying a software license to things other than software puts the status of those items on shaky ground. Why do you think lawyers recommend against just using cookie-cutter legal forms and crossing stuff off and writing in the margins. It's not because they're after legal fees. It's because doing that leaves situational loopholes a mile wide. For example, if I apply the GPL to a photograph, what do I need to provide to comply with the "a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange" clause? Photographs don't have source code. Yes you can deliver prints or digital files, but to a photographer, those are the equivilant of binaries. That leaves that clause a bad fit and leaves both a loophole and a potential problem. What about a painting? sculpture? New licenses that deal with the product domain specifically, but still keep the spirit of free licenses provides a far greater advantage than badly adapting an inappropriate license.
So you like Perl. Would you actually try to build an OS with it? Wrong tool for the job. Sure, in some strange twisted way, it might be possible, but it's not the best tool.
It would be unfair if I asked for all submissions to be signed over to me and only handed over a shirt. Because I'm asking for entries to be open source, no one has to buy one from my site in order to get a shirt with a entered design. They can grab the graphic and have their own made up. On the other hand, buying one from my site gives someone who wishes to support my efforts something in exchange for their contribution. Ever notice that PBS gives away something for every donation?
Slashdot Mirror
OpenOffice.org. If you're using the OpenOffice word processor, it "auto-completes" words you've type a few times. If you just keep typing, it goes away, so it doesn't interfere, but you just have to hit enter to accept the suggestion. Not exactly what you're looking for, but similiar.
OpenOffice (the equivilant of Mozilla to StarOffice/Netscape) has gone to an XML format for its native format. It's actually several XML files Zipped up in an archive, but you can easily open it and look at the plain XML. Check out the recent builds of OpenOffice. Many of the gripes against StarOffice 5.2 have been resolved.
To those who are predicting SVG's demise, I have several comments.
"I could go on and on about all the shit that's wrong with it."
Or, you could actually look at a recent build and judge it on its real merits. None of your complaints exist in the current builds.
HTML tables are woefully inadequate for anything beyond basic tables in word processing documents. Ever try to use basic HTML to put a border only on the bottoms of the cells for the bottom 3 rows in a table. Not the first row at all. For that row, you'd actually like grey bg shading and borders on the top, left and right. You'd also like those borders to be thicker for the top row than the bottom. Oh, and you'd like the bottom ones to be 67% grey, but the top ones black. I like HTML/CSS as much as the next guy, but you can't try to offer it up as a replacement for robust table support in a word processor or desktop publishing package.
Would that be like the 2-3 ads for Cold Fusion on every PHP article over at orielly.net?
Though it carries the bias of the paper itself, the St. Paul Pioneer Press has an archive page of Jesse news.
http://www.pioneerplanet.com/archive/jesse/
Many, many forms, both in government and business require that the exact layout be used on all copies. The layout is chosen to meet accessibility regulations, etc. That part is non-negotiable. So, these forms traditionally are printed out and available by mail, or in person. Then Adobe comes up with PDF. This electronic file that retains the exact printed layout and can be downloaded or placed on CD-ROM. So, some agencies start using it. Folks download the file, print it out and send it in. Ahh, but some of those folks filling it out have incredibly illegible handwriting. Adobe, will you please make it so our forms can be filled out with typewritten information by our users before they print it? Sure. Adobe Acrobat forms are born. Then the agencies start to notice that when the form requires the same information in several different places, people are mistyping it in one or more. Hence the Javascript in PDF.
Throughout all of this, the data is NEVER sent to any server at all. The agency is still requiring a printed copy of the filled out form. Keep in mind that in many cases, these forms are published by a government agency to be submitted to folks other than the agency itself. Prime example: the US W-4 form for income tax deductions from a paycheck. The form is submitted to the employer. The IRS makes up the PDF form and you fill it out and give it to your employer. The IRS isn't involved other than providing the proper form.
As far as having built a Javascript 'application', yes I have. Not relevant to the discussion. The original post attacked not the implementation, but the very idea of Javascript in PDF. Your attack on Javascript has to do with a poor implementation in Javascript. I don't care what scripting language is used, the concept is valid and that's what I was defending.
Improper implementations of a concept do NOT invalidate the concept itself. The concept must be evaluated on it's own merits.
As far as Javascript in PDF not manipulating the PDF itself, I quote from Adobe's docs on Acrobat Forms Document Model,
Why Javascript in PDF? Ever pay taxes? Javascript in PDF works well for forms that have to be printed and mailed, but they'd prefer typed entries to handwritten. It lets you do those inane calculations on the boxes on the US 1040 form and carry data to other fields. It lets you only enter the necessary data and eliminates mistakes based on simple math. Also useful for forms that want things like your name on the top of pages 2-99. Fill in your name on page 1 and it carries through. Want to have an online version of your form and want no legal problems by having two versions of the same form? Put the PDF of the print form on with Javascript validation. Just because you don't have a need for a feature in PDF doesn't mean that it wasn't necessary or isn't useful to someone.
I figured this would be pretty much common knowledge among /. readers, but I guess not.
Iuniverse.com has been using something similar for quite a while to allow people to self-publish. For $99 or so, your book gets put in a format these machines understand, assigned an ISBN number and entered in the Ingram book database. Amazon and BN then can sell your book. The books only get printed when someone orders one and then shipped out. The more successful ones sometimes end up on BN shelves in the brick-n-morter stores.
A great many of the books have been utter drek, but for those looking to get a few copies of their novel out, it's worth it. They are also targeting companies for internal manuals and custom books, professors who write their own texts, authors whose books are out of print, etc. If Amazon or your local Borders got one of these machines, it's still likely that a service like this would exist to get your book into the system.
Of course some of us store 8-12" of snow on ours for 3-4 months out of the year. :)
Reminded me of the April fools joke I saw a few years ago about the little racing game you played with the mouse and it was supposed to recharge the battery on your laptop. I think it was IBM or Compaq. Lots of people fell for it. The game worked completely and only after you played the whole thing did it let you know you'd been fooled. Not that I'd know from experience.
Don't get me wrong. I'm most definitely not making excuses for the RIAA. I was objecting to the meme that seems to crop up quite freqently that CD's have NEVER come down in price. Attacking the RIAA where they have a built up and logical defense doesn't work. I say find a real weakness when you attack the RIAA. After all, there are plenty.
I agree that the prices in some retail stores in some regions of the world have gone up in the last couple of years. However, that would be inflation. True the averaged inflation index has been negligible for the past decade. However, that doesn't mean there wasn't any inflation in the 90's. Take a look at the calculator at: http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ According to that, a $15 CD in 1990 should cost $20.09. While the inflation from 1997 to 2001 wasn't as high, it was present during the 90's. But the averaged inflation index for the whole economy, but individual prices may go down while the whole index goes up. Or, individual product prices for . . . maybe CD's? might go up. Listen when CNN talks about inflation and mentions that energy costs are right now the primary influence on it changing. It's not like all retail establishments get a letter at the end of the year with the inflation figures and they raise the prices accordingly. Prices change and inflation measures it on a macro level.
Repeat after me. "Inflation. Inflation. Inflation." If a product sells for $15 in 1980 and that same product sells for $15 in 2000, it HAS gone down in price. Any product that doesn't increase in price over time has it's real cost decrease due to the inflation of other prices around it.
If a product's price goes down in non-inflation adjusted dollars, then the decrease is substantial when figured in inflation adjusted dollars. There's a reason that economists quote figures in inflation adjusted dollars. It's because it's the most meaningful way to compare prices over time.
This is the same principle used to say that most people are making less money than they did in the 70s. Sure the dollar amounts are more, but indexed for inflation, the real dollars are less.
I've got a few early sketches in SVG format at:
http://www.plasticaztec.com/mediacabinet/mcab2fro
http://www.plasticaztec.com/mediacabinet/mcab2fro
The Adobe SVG plugin is available at: www.adobe.com/svg/
Titles are not copyrightable. To be eligible for copyright, it needs to be a unique expression and titles aren't.
Copyright infringment is not an "IMHO" issue. Especially when applied to titles. It's pretty clearcut.
Band names can't be copyrighted either, and as a result are frequently trademarked.
LetterJ
Head Geek
Are you kidding? Do you have ANY historical perspective? In 1950, wearing a shirt without a collar to school would get you labeled as dangerous. Forget even thinking about things like trenchcoats. Chewing gum in class could get you detention. In that environment, how do you think that expressing ideas outside the norm was treated? For modern deviant ideas within a narrow band may be worse, but in 2001, schools have nowhere near the level of repression that they had overall in 1950.
LetterJ
Head Geek
In a creative fiction course you don't need it. Similarities (much less wholesale plagiarism) in short stories are blatantly obvious and in novels even more so. Add that to the fact that most creative writing courses are much smaller than 500 students. In addition, frequently all stories are peer reviewed and discussed. I could still tell you the major plots of virtually all of the stories written by my classmates in every creative writing course I took in college.
For the record, I took as many creative and other writing courses as most CS majors did programming courses.
LetterJ
Head Geek
Terms of service and connection authentication as well as several other things vary on the whole for Roadrunner based on your location. As far as I can tell, the Roadrunner trademark is a franchise sold to cable companies who set the actual policies. There's tons of information on Roadrunner requiring a "sign-on" that I don't have to do. I, on the other hand deal with the MAC address authentication DHCP. I believe some of the Roadrunner franchises use a phoneline for upstream bandwidth. Bottom line: Roadrunner policies, performance and quality of service are totally tied to region and completely distinct.
LetterJ
Head Geek
"Exploit" implies exclusivity. Redhat doesn't have exclusive rights to package and redistribute those components. The fact that they are included in other distributions exemplifies that. There is nothing preventing the developer of YetAnotherMP3 player that gets included in Redhat from building his own distribution with a newer and better version of his app.
RIAA bargains for the exclusive distribution rights. This license doesn't.
LetterJ
Head Geek
But that's my point. You have to have a definition of source code. In a license, allowing arbitrary redefinition of terms is a bad thing. In software, source code isn't a particularly debatable term. A license specifically written for photographs would eliminate the ambiguity of terms like "source code". You wouldn't need to say, "Well, for paintings, source code is "X". You'd say, you can make prints and copies of the painting, but you won't be given an oil painting on canvas at your request (the real "source code").
Even GNU has written a new license for documentation. Email me when you've translated the docs.
LetterJ
Head Geek
They can sell it, but they have to allow their customers to copy it as well (clause 3). Same as the GPL. They're allowed to sell, but won't be able to exploit for extreme amounts of money.
LetterJ
Head Geek
The GPL is useful because it covers a specific domain: software. It covers the situations involved with software development and addresses those specific issues. The language all refers to programs, source code, running programs, source code distribution, etc. Many of those elements have a parallel in art, literature and music, but they come with their own unique situations. Applying a software license to things other than software puts the status of those items on shaky ground. Why do you think lawyers recommend against just using cookie-cutter legal forms and crossing stuff off and writing in the margins. It's not because they're after legal fees. It's because doing that leaves situational loopholes a mile wide. For example, if I apply the GPL to a photograph, what do I need to provide to comply with the "a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange" clause? Photographs don't have source code. Yes you can deliver prints or digital files, but to a photographer, those are the equivilant of binaries. That leaves that clause a bad fit and leaves both a loophole and a potential problem. What about a painting? sculpture? New licenses that deal with the product domain specifically, but still keep the spirit of free licenses provides a far greater advantage than badly adapting an inappropriate license.
So you like Perl. Would you actually try to build an OS with it? Wrong tool for the job. Sure, in some strange twisted way, it might be possible, but it's not the best tool.
LetterJ
Head Geek
It would be unfair if I asked for all submissions to be signed over to me and only handed over a shirt. Because I'm asking for entries to be open source, no one has to buy one from my site in order to get a shirt with a entered design. They can grab the graphic and have their own made up. On the other hand, buying one from my site gives someone who wishes to support my efforts something in exchange for their contribution. Ever notice that PBS gives away something for every donation?
LetterJ
Head Geek