Spotted this snippet on the latest Tux Radar podcast. It has a particularly local flavour ...




(Click the graphic to play the snippet or right-click to download it.)

If you download the whole podcast, you'll find it at around 41:30 ...

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 7:42 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

As I mentioned last time, installing multiple copies of LibreOffice is easy and it allows you to run a final release version while trying out new features in the latest pre-release, or even see what the developers are up to with their nightly-builds.

Here's how to go about it ...

1. Download the code
   

2. Unpack the download.

tar -vxzf file-name

3. Prepare the alternate installation.

cd LibO_3.4.2rc3_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-GB

cd DEBS

cd RPMS

4. Do the alternate installation.

mkdir test_install cd test_install

for i in ../*.rpm; do rpm2cpio $i | cpio -id; done

for i in ../*.deb; do dpkg-deb -x $i . ; done

5. Ready to run.

6. (Optional) Change your user profile location.

chmod +w bootstraprc

UserInstallation=$SYSUSERCONFIG/.libreoffice/3

UserInstallation=$ORIGIN/..

You'll find more detailed information -- all with how to perform parallel installations for Windows and Mac -- in Installing several versions of LibreOffice in parallel on the LibreOffice site.

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Have you made the switch to LibreOffice yet? You really should! The project is going from strength to strength, with versions available for all Linux, Mac and Microsoft users. Most big name Linux distributions have alreeady made the switch from OpenOffice.org, and organisations such as Red Hat, Google, SUSE and the Free Software Foundation are throwing their weight behind the project too.

LibreOffice began as a fork of OpenOffice.org after Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems last year. OOo's future was uncertain under Oracle, and the project had been dogged for years by bureaucracy and dithering on the part of Sun. Updates were irregular, developers of even simple patches apparently struggled to get them implemented, and the code was a real dog's breakfast, with many comments (in German) harking back to its earlier incarnation as StarOffice.

All that's changed under management by The Document Foundation. The beta of version 3.3 was released last September. Initially a clone of OOo 3.3, the final release (3.3.3) in June added a number of new features including SVG image import, better import filters for Microsoft Works, Lotus Word Pro and WordPerfect, and an "experimental" mode that lets users test unfinished features.

Version 3.4.2 hit the servers at the beginning of August. Along with a huge code tidy-up (more than 5,000 lines of dead code have been removed), there are memory usage improvements, reduced reliance on Java, the ability to test and reset styles within Writer, improved speed and compatibility with Microsoft Excel, and better text rendering too.

I've been using LibreOffice since its first beta -- principally the Writer component -- and it performs flawlessly. I like to run at least two versions so I can try out the pre-releases and even the nightly builds. But more on how to do that in the next blog ...

In the meantime, check out the best free office productivity suite around!

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 6 )

Blogger Peter Bregman returned his iPad after little more than a week. Reason: it was too damn good, and that meant too much of a distraction.

It's too easy. Too accessible. Both too fast and too long-lasting ... For the most part, it does everything I could want. Which, as it turns out, is a problem. Sure I might want to watch an episode of Weeds before going to sleep. But should I? It really is hard to stop after just one episode. And two hours later, I'm entertained and tired, but am I really better off? Or would it have been better to get seven hours of sleep instead of five?

It didn't take him long to work out what was missing ...

Boredom. Being bored is a precious thing, a state of mind we should pursue. Once boredom sets in, our minds begin to wander, looking for something exciting, something interesting to land on. And that's where creativity arises. My best ideas come to me when I am unproductive. When I am running but not listening to my iPod. When I am sitting, doing nothing, waiting for someone. When I am lying in bed as my mind wanders before falling to sleep. These "wasted" moments, moments not filled with anything in particular, are vital. They are the moments in which we, often unconsciously, organize our minds, make sense of our lives, and connect the dots. They're the moments in which we talk to ourselves. And listen. To lose those moments, to replace them with tasks and efficiency, is a mistake. What's worse is that we don't just lose them. We actively throw them away.

Is he right? Got an iPad? Been missing anything lately ...?

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 )

It's official: IE users are dumb as a bag of hammers, according to UK news site The Register.

A comprehensive study of web users has determined that the dumber you are, the more likely you are to use Microsoft Internet Explorer. After measuring the IQs of exactly 101,326 users and correlating their scores with the browser they had used to access the test, "There was a clear indication ... that the subjects using any version of Internet Explorer ranked significantly lower on an average than others," concludes the study, conducted by the Vancouver, Canada, psychometric-assessment firm, AptiQuant.

According to the study:

"There was no significant difference in the IQ scores between individuals using Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Apple's Safari, however, it was on an average higher than IE users."

And something every web developer knows, that Internet Explorer is an expensive drag on web development:

"Any IT company involved in web development will acknowledge the fact that millions of man hours are wasted each year to make otherwise perfectly functional websites work in Internet Explorer."

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 6:16 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 )