• Business adoption - how to make/save money and gain profit using Open and Free Technologies;
• Government, administration and public schools - the importance of Open and Free Technologies;
• Professional growth participating in the FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open Source Software) community;
• Break the code - tips and tricks, things you will not find in IT bocks.

High profile keynote speakers from: Google Inc. - IBM - MySQL AB - Mozilla Messaging (the latest Mozilla Foundation subsidiary) - European Commission - Gartner, Inc. - Python Software Foundation - Romanian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology - eZ Systems AS - OpenOffice.org - Mozilla Foundation - Navarik Corp. - ActiveState Software Inc. - Free Software Foundation Europe - APTI Romania (The Association for Internet and Technology) - Mozdev Community Organization and more.
For more information you can check http://eliberatica.ro website.

This year we have received a record six proposals from teams competing to
host this prestigious event. In alphabetical order, they are:

* Amsterdam, The Netherlands
* Beijing, China
* Bratislava, Slovakia
* Budapest, Hungary
* Dundalk, Ireland
* Orvieto, Italy

If you were a registered member of the OpenOffice.org community on January
1st 2008 then you are entitled to vote. Please read the details of each
venue carefully, and decide where you would like to attend OOoCon in 2008.
Once you have made your choice, please cast your vote.

For full details, please visit: conference location proposals page

Voting closes at midnight UTC on February 29th., and the winner will be
announced shortly afterwards once all the votes have been verified.

For more information about OOoCon please visit: OOoCon pages.

The OpenOffice.org Conference Team

The author - a satisfied Microsoft Office user - expresses his pleasant surprise about OpenOffice.org.
He outlines the fact that OpenOffice.org installation process went smooth, simple and didn’t take over the file associations of Microsoft Office and the installer even recommended not associating MS files if one is only evaluating OpenOffice.org.

In a world in which every program you install literally attempts to take over your entire computer and life (See default options in instant messengers, various audio players, Adobe Acrobat, etc. which bring together tons of browser toolbars and stuff which make your computer slower), what the guys from Installation project of OpenOffice.org did, a simple, clean, non-intrusive installation process is a big plus.

You can read the original posting in The Kratzers blog.

Way to go OpenOffice.org!

P.S. If it were a contest, I’d propose their posting for a prize.

This tutorial is inspired by How to extract the images from a .doc file using OpenOffice.org Writer tutorial which explains another way of extracting the images through exporting the pages as HTML document. The HTML method is good especially if the images are .GIF or .JPG files. But if you have for instance .WMF files in the Word document and you want them in the original scalable format or without loosing information through compression, you need another way of extracting them:

Ingredients:
- the OpenOffice.org free office suite, either installed or the portable version available at PortableApps.com website.
- a .DOC document containing the images (here is a sample DOC document we prepared for you sample-images.doc which contains two cliparts in form of WMF files and one PNG image)

The few simple steps:

1. Converting the .DOC in .ODT files:
–> Open the document in OpenOffice.org Writer
–> Save the document in ODT (Open Document Text) file, the native OpenOffice.org file format (from the File menu choose Save As and in file type select .ODT)

2. Use a file manager/browser to rename the saved ODT document to .ZIP and unpack it
–> Open a file browser and go to the ODT document (sample-images.odt)

–> Rename the .ODT document to .ZIP (sample-images.odt –> sample-images.zip)

–> unzip the document in a folder

3. Get your original embedded and uncompressed images from the PICTURES folder inside the ZIP you unpacked.

THIS IS IT! As simple as easy.

Explanations:
This tutorial takes advantage of the (ODF) Open Document File format and the fact that the document is in fact stored as a ZIP archive, containing the original texts and styles as XML files and the Pictures in their original format in a sub-folder in the archive.

Open and Free:
Of course, the openess of the file format “opens” endless possibilities for creating applications to interact and use the documents you created in OpenOffice.org office suite and the documents you imported from Word.

Unlike the MS-Office file format which is closed, using an ODF based office suite (like OpenOffice.org) means - as you have seen from this tutorial - the freedom to do whatever you like with the files and documents you have created, even without waiting for the developers to create a special tool for extracting the images from the document. Such a feature is missing from Word too.

Enjoy the taste of freedom! …and please drop a comment and tell us your experience and opinion with the above.

This short tutorial will show you how to create dynamic presentations in OpenOffice.org Impress able to display graphical images (figures, charts, etc.) which incorporate latest changes in the reality back at home. You can have last minute information which you had no time to update, presented live to your audience at conferences through your slideshow. You can have your team back in the office assembling last minute charts for you and when you start your slideshow, the charts will show up in your presentation.

Ingredients:
1. The OpenOffice.org office suite. I use to carry with me a portable version of the application on an USB stick, available from http://www.portableapps.com
2. An internet connection
3. A web server which either automatically generates the needed images and charts or where your team uploads by FTP the images having a predefined filename.
4. You need to know the exact URL of the images you are going to display

Creating the presentation:
1. Make sure your internet connection is opened and that the images are available on your web server.
2. Create a new presentation in Impress with the layout you desire. Reserve the space in your slides for the dynamic images you are going to insert.

3. Go to Insert menu and select: Insert -> Picture -> From file…
4. In the file selection window check the “LINK” checkbox so that images are not cached locally and then type in the “File name” box the exact URL of the remote image you want to insert (e.g. http://www.yourserver.com/dynamic-img-1.png)

5. Click the Open button and wait until the remote image appears in your slide.
6. Resize the image as needed, test the presentation and then save your file.

Note: each time you open up the presentation in Impress, the images will update from the Internet presenting you the latest data (for instance: the hit counter from the website).

If you need to update the images without closing and re-opening the presentation, simply follow these steps:
- go to the Edit menu and select Links: Edit -> Links…
- in the links window, select the images you want to reload from the internet and click the Update button

- close the window and you will see the updated images in your presentation

Show time:
- In conferences make sure you have internet connection available on the computer you are using for presentation.
- Open up the presentation in Impress and start conferencing. Of course you need to pay attention to the updated figures or charts too, in order to adjust the comments.

This tutorial takes advantage of a less documented feature in OpenOffice.org which allows you to deliver valid Internet Addresses (URL) instead of a file name in the Insert Picture dialog box.

There can be various usage cases for this feature and different technical ways of having new data created on the server which delivers you the images. You can either have a web script dynamically generating the images you need or you can have an operator in you office uploading the images you use in the presentation.

Good luck with your presentations and please drop a comment if you encountered problems or if this worked for you. Having friends traveling and conferencing ? Send them this article.

Have fun!

It still has the notice “This article does not cite any references or sources. (September 2006)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.”

Since there are many supporters for all the office suites listed, it would be good to have this page updated with everything it needs.

The page is located here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_office_suites

By the way:

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

The question remains and would be a good one to include in the next OpenOffice.org user survey. I personally save in ODF, the OpenOffice.org’s native file format and I send it this way to my partners and friends who do use OpenOffice.org. I export to PDF when I send the documents out for printing or viewing, and yes, I export to .DOC if the document is to be modified by someone not having OpenOffice.org.

What is your behavior ?

OpenOffice.org community celebrates its 7th anniversary
104 million downloads of the open source productivity suite

Today, the open source project OpenOffice.org celebrates its 7th birthday. Founded by Sun Microsystems on October 13th, 2000, continues to experience tremendous growth. The project recently counted 104 million downloads from its website, and downloads have been increasing since the release of OpenOffice.org 2.3 last month. It is widely considered the most important open source productivity suite and one of the largest open source projects.

OpenOffice.org is available in more than 80 languages and runs natively on every major platform; it uses the ISO standard, the OpenDocument Format, for its files. Thousands from around the world contribute to its ongoing success, helping with the development, localisation, documentation, user support and marketing of the program. “OpenOffice.org is being developed around the world, and it is being used around the world by governments, businesses and individuals”, said Florian Effenberger, Marketing Project Co-Lead of OpenOffice.org. “The community has achieved what few predicted seven years ago, and we have just begun!”

In addition to its founder and main contributor Sun Microsystems, OpenOffice.org is also recognizes the contributions of RedFlag Software, IBM, Red Hat, and Novell, among others. OpenOffice.org welcomes the contributions of all organizations and individuals.

OpenOffice.org 2.3 can be found at http://download.openoffice.org/2.3.0/
Links to community and professional support, templates, books, etc., can be obtained from http://support.openoffice.org

Press Contacts

John McCreesh (UTC +01h00)
OpenOffice.org Marketing Project Lead
jpmcc@openoffice.org
+44 (0)7 810 278 540

Florian Effenberger (UTC +01h00)
OpenOffice.org Marketing Project Co-Lead
floeff@openoffice.org
+49 8341 9966 0880

Louis Suárez-Potts (UTC -04h00)
OpenOffice.org Community Manager
louis@openoffice.org
+1 (416) 625-3843

One week after “World Intellectual Property Day”, the OpenOffice.org Marketing Project announces a new campaign: “Get legal - Get
OpenOffice.org”. A new website - http://why.openoffice.org - explains how to escape from Microsoft Office licence costs and compliance worries - for good. Webmasters and bloggers worldwide are encouraged to display the campaign banner to help promote the campaign.

2006 has seen proprietary software companies and their agencies increase their efforts to stamp out illegal copies of their software. Last week, the Business Software Alliance used “World Intellectual Property Day” to announce a record reward for anyone informing against illegal software in UK organisations. Microsoft acquired a company specialising in detecting software installed on PCs. Microsoft also announced its intention to extend its use of the internet to put piracy detection software into copies of MS-Office on people’s PCs.

For many users, this is a worrying development. Microsoft licences are often complex, and it is easy to become non-compliant, especially as the number of PCs in an organisation increases. Illegal copying has proliferated in many developing countries, where foreign currency is scarce and proprietary licence fees are simply unaffordable.

OpenOffice.org 2 offers a simple way out of the licence trap. OpenOffice.org 2 is a free alternative to Microsoft Office products such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Powerpoint. OpenOffice.org 2 is released under an open-source licence: anyone may use the software for any purpose (including commercial). Users are encouraged to pass on copies to friends, family, students, employees, citizens - anyone.

OpenOffice.org 2 uses files created by Microsoft Office equivalents. Users need little or no retraining. Studies have shown that the costs of migrating to OpenOffice.org 2 are minimal - a tenth of the cost of migrating to the new Microsoft Office 2007.

No wonder a poll has shown 86% of users would prefer to try OpenOffice.org 2 rather than buy Microsoft Office 2007.

Get freedom from licence worries - Get Legal - Get OpenOffice.org.

About the OpenOffice.org Community

The OpenOffice.org Community is an international team of volunteer and sponsored contributors who develop, support, and promote the leading open-source office productivity suite, OpenOffice.org 2. OpenOffice.org 2 is released under the GNU Lesser General Public Licence (LGPL).

The OpenOffice.org Community acknowledges generous sponsorship from a number of companies, including Sun Microsystems (founding sponsor and primary contributor), Novell, Red Hat, Intel, and Google.

Links

The campaign website http://why.openoffice.org contains links to the studies referenced in this press release. The OpenOffice.org Community
can be found at http://www.openoffice.org. OpenOffice.org 2 may be downloaded free of charge from http://download.openoffice.org. Further
information about the suite may be found at http://www.openoffice.org/product.

Attribution

Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Word, Excel, and Powerpoint are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

The above quote was from Newsforge’s Tina Gasperson great article following LinuxWorld Boston, in which she describes what open standards are and why they should be addopted. It’s a must read:

http://business.newsforge.com/business/06/04/05/2046210.shtml?tid=3

~ by the OpenStandardsFire