Tuesday, May 14, 2002

Washington Post on OpenOffice -- 4:35 pm CST, Update by J.t.Qbe

OpenOffice is a free, open-source replacement for Microsoft Office (for those who care, it's a fork of StarOffice). Yep, we've heard that one before, haven't we. But the new release (OpenOffice 1.0) seems to be a contender for "best-yet". A few days ago The Washington Post published some very favorable impressions of this software in an article entitled The Office Suite That Lets You See Past Redmond. Quoteworthy:

It's hardly perfect, but somebody in Redmond ought to be worried about this program.

So what? Big deal? Well, this is a very interesting time. Microsoft has set a mid-summer deadline for its new licensing scheme: pay a subscription fee for regular upgrades, need 'em or not, or pay a lot more when you finally do upgrade. A large number of big companies are very unhappy with this coercion and are checking out alternatives.

And in the end the question is: who owns your data? Is it locked up in a proprietary Microsoft file format (Word, Excel, etc) which can change at any time without warning or notice, and which can only be read by costly Microsoft software? And if so, doesn't that bother you?

Monday, May 13, 2002

Pondering the Imponderable -- 10:43 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Since The Master got to say this before, I'll say it now. Greetings from Red Hat 7.3! I've got a lot of things to get straightened around here, but at least I know it works! I've got it installed on a separate hard drive now so Windows can find it and break it. Now for the customization!

SOF2 Gold! -- 6:28 pm CST, Update by The Master

Blue has a press release from Activision announcing that Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix has gone gold. May 22 is the expected shelf date.

How to Kill an iMac -- 10:38 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

According to MacUser, if you attempt to play the latest Celine Dion CD or a number of other CDs produced by Sony subsidiaries on an iMac, it (the iMac) will immediately become a paperweight. Here's what happens:

[O]nce the CD is inserted into a new iMac it cannot be removed and the machine cannot be restarted.

Hmm. Is that a class-action lawsuit I smell? Thanks HardOCP.

J.t.Qbe comments: Ouch! This is getting ridiculous. The "entertainment industry" needs to be spanked. Or shut down. Both are just as likely to happen.

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