OOXML from the open source perspective

So then Microsoft decided they were going to do an open standard too, and guess what: it is a .zip file and it's got XML streams inside it. But, having said that, it has been difficult in the past to do binary file format interoperability. You can make many good arguments that it is not a benefit to have one company totally dominating the market. You need some sort of file format interoperability.

and

Isn't one file format (such as ODF) better than two? Surely the weakness of having many is the confusion it creates?
Well, yes, and it should be ODF. In an ideal world... yes, a single file format that was a superset of features and so on would be ideal, but it is very difficult to even conceive of that happening. There is just such a lot of vested business interest in this sphere. It is just very difficult to do anything technical. I just can't see anything like that happening.

Michael Meeks (part of the OpenOffice.org team at Novell)

in conversation with ZDNet.co.uk

ODT and DOCX - are they human readable?

[Note: a revised version of this post can now be found on techwhimsy.com]

One of the supposed benefits of XML is that documents produced in this format are able to be opened as a text file and read by normal people, allowing the content to be recovered, even if the formatting was unavailable After discussing the various merits of the Open Document Format (ODF) and Office Open XML (OOXML) formats (click here to read the earlier post), I was left wondering just how human readable either format was.

I created a simple document in both Open Office as .odt (Open Document Text) and in MS Office 2007 as .docx that had a heading, some paragraphs, an unordered list and an ordered list. I used the Loren Ipsum generator that can be found at Lipsum.

(click on images for larger versions)











.odt is on the left and .docx on the right

To start off with, I opened both documents up in Wordpad to see what they looked like. Not at all human readable.

.odt on the left and .docx on the right

A quick trawl through a Google search revealed that .odt is a container format that compresses all the relevant file parts in to one file. I changed the file extension from .odt to .zip and opened it up to have a look.

What worked for one format might work for the other. I took a punt, changed the file extension from .docx to .zip, held my breath, crossed my fingers, closed my eyes and double-clicked...








...and discovered that in .docx, the goodies are there, albeit buried a little deeper.

Both .odt and .docx are human readable, after a fashion. If for some reason in the distant (or not-so-distant) future either format is unreadable in its container form, with some effort the data could be extracted. It may even be possible to extract large parts of the formatting, but that's beyond my ability to assess.

In my assessment, .odt comes out ahead slightly in the human readable stakes: it isn't buried quite so deep and comes with less additional XML-related formatting and overhead. As to which is the better format overall, I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader (although I wish I could create .odt inside of Office 2007 - I do love the new Office user interface).

Open Warfare: OOXML stumbles while ODF continues to rise

Google Trends ODF vs OOXML for 2007

While Microsoft Office is the undisputed king of the office suite marketplace, the open source OpenOffice.org (OOo) has been worrying at its heels for some time. In recent months controversy has arisen over the accessibility of the XML-based file formats of the competing products - OOo's Open Document Format (ODF) and Microsofts Office Open XML (OOXML).

ODF was accepted as an international standard (click here for my earlier post on the issue) by ISO back in late 2006, giving it much needed credibity as a leading open format for documents. OOXML has also sought ISO approval but was unsuccessful in its attempt earlier this month, amidst suspicion of questionable activities of Microsoft representatives.

Why are open formats necessary?

Open formats perform an important function in the preservation of the information in documents, particularly for archival purposes. An archive is useless if it is stored in a file format that nothing read in 100 or 50 or even 20 years time. Readability is especially important for the storage of public records where there is a need for government activities to be publicly accessible in future years to future generations.

Although Microsoft's .doc Word format is nearly ubiquitous, it is far from a perfect solution. It is not uncommon for the format to become broken, unreadable and not backwards compatible between major releases of Office.

Is this the end for Office?

Defeating Microsoft should not be the main focus for OOo and the ODF, although clawing back some market share is an admirable goal and a worthy one to strive for. the user interface for Office is still a long way ahead of the its open source alternative, and in my opinion the gulf between the two has become wider with the revamped interface used in Office 2007. The differences between the two interfaces reflects the benefits that the support of a large corporation backed by massive reserves of cash and talent can bring.

ODF vs OOXML should not be an ideological battle between free and libre open source software and Microsoft. The best outcome for users is for ODF to be accepted by Microsoft as the international standard that it is and be introduced as a file export option within Office itself. Such an outcome would enable users to enjoy the best of both worlds - an excellent and time-tested user interface that also enables them to produce documents in an open and future-proof file format.

It would be a win-win situation for all consumers and ultimately, isn't that what this should be all about?

Fixing hibernate problems in Vista with Dell Inspiron 1501

[A greatly revised version of this post, including tutorial videos and more tips on how to fix hibernation problems is at http://techwhimsy.com/index.php/fixing-hibernate-problems-in-windows-vista]

I have had problems with the hibernate function of Vista ever since I bought my Dell Inspiron 1501 back in February of this year. I was never able to get the computer to wake up again and I had to go through the entire boot process every single time. Kind of defeats the purpose of "Hibernate", really.

In the end, the answer was simple. All I needed to do was to update the video drivers. The onboard video for this particular Dell is a Radeon Xpress 1150. A quick visit to the ATI website later, and I had the latest drivers.

Ever since I updated the drivers, I have had no problems at all. Hibernate works perfectly.

If you're having problems with Hibernate in Windows Vista, update your video drivers. Chances are that this is the problem.

Microsoft backflips on virtualisation then backflips again

Microsoft was ready to repeal its ban on virtualisation and Vista Home and Basic, before backflipping the backflip, according to Ars Technica.

Microsoft has claimed many times in the past that it didn't feel that virtualisation was "mature" and felt that it should be restricted to enterprise versions and Ultimate, in other words the more tech savvy users. This ignores all those other tech savvy users of Home Premium (like me) who not be able to afford (or even want) Business or Ultimate. Conveniently, Microsoft never mention the price gap between Home Basic or Premium and the more full-featured versions.

The media focus has been on using the high-end versions of Vista as a "guest OS", that is the operating system that runs inside a virtual machine. No one seems to be paying attention to the fact that using Vista Home Basic or Premium as the host OS is also unsupported. It runs fine (as you can see in the above, I run Ubuntu Server 6.10 inside Virtual PC 2007 on Vista Home Premium on my Dell laptop) but you have to click a box that is quite explicit that this is unsupported and continue at your own risk.

Microsoft may claim that its motivation is to protect users from potential security exploits (such as the theoretical blue pill), that is just plain dumb to me. I would much rather it tried to educate me about the risks than simply state it is unsupported and leave it at that.

More on Surface

Ars Technica has a short write up based on a Q&A session with Microsoft developers on the wonder that is Surface.

Interesting facts include:

• it's not a touch-screen as movement is detected by 5 cameras below the surface of the table
  
• inanimate objects can be recognised if they have a tiny "tag" attached
  
• the tag doesn't use RFID but a series of dots to encode information (a "domino")
  
• the tables run on a Core2-Duo, 2GB of RAM and apparently a "newish" video card
  
• at US$5,000-$10,000 (AUS$6,000-$12,000), they're not likely to enter the general consumer market anytime soon, but hey, who knows?
  

I still want one. Oh yes. I still want one.

Breaking the Surface

There have been little rumours floating around this past week that Microsoft was going to launch some kind of iPhone killer, complete with funky touch screen technology.

It turns out that the rumours were half true. Microsoft don't appear to have been working on an iPhone killer (yet), but the funky touch screen technology has seen the light of day - Microsoft Surface (needs Flash).

A 30-inch touch-screen display set in a table-top, Surface appears to have the goods to be very cool and perhaps even innovative. Once again, Microsoft is trying to be a hardware company. It certainly hasn't worked all that well in the past. Origami and the Tablet PC didn't exactly set the world on fire, and the much hyped Vista Sideshow technology for laptops hasn't really gained much traction either. Of course, the less said about the Zune the better for everyone, in my opinion.

History notwithstanding, Surface has a lot of potential, depending on who Microsoft chooses to partner with (currently including Sheraton Hotels and T-Mobile), and the likelihood that the platform will be open to at least some degree.

There some videos on the Surface website (screenshot from one of the videos is above). While they look very impressive, these are probably just mock-ups and not footage of working prototypes. I'm not Microsoft fan-boy, but even I can see the potential that these sort of setups could have.

Found via Read/Write Web [permalink]

Of Vista and Shininess

I know it's cool to bad-mouth Microsoft (and fun, too) but Vista really is...well, shiny. The more I use it, the more I like it. I couldn't point to anything specific that makes me feel this way, which leads me to believe that for once, MS have got the little things right (that, and turning off UAC has made a big difference - that Mac vs PC ad was funny for a reason)

Office 2007 is proving to be a very slick piece of software as well, and a big improvement over 2000 (which is the last version of Office I used).

Don't get me wrong, I don't suddenly want to get down and dirty with the boys from Redmond, but credit where credit is due.

On the other hand, one of my subjects this semester is learning how to administer a Linux system. This is proving to be a lot of fun. I've got a suspicion that by the end of this Semester at least one of my computers will become a dual-boot system.

Bill Gates talks up computer/TV convergence

This has been sprinkled all over the place, but Bill Gates thinks that the internet will revolutionise television, according to reports coming out of this year's World Economic Forum.

Gates points to phenomenon like the popularity of YouTube and other online video services as evidence that people are becoming increasingly disenchanted with what is served up by traditional broadcasters. He does have a good point when he was quoted by eWeek as saying:

"Certain things like elections or the Olympics really point out how TV is terrible. You have to wait for the guy to talk about the thing you care about or you miss the event and want to go back and see it..."Internet presentation of these things is vastly superior."

Major sporting events are perfect for this sort of content delivery, particularly as it allows people to select what niche sport they want to watch, rather than having to sit through whatever the broadcaster thinks will rate best.

I don't think people will want to watch YouTube on their HD TVs, but I do think that 2007 and 2008 will see an explosion in internet-enabled devices that we plug into our TVs. Having "black box" modules will probably also make it easier for manufacturers to and firmware designers to add new features and deal with content licensing issues without causing problems for a device's core functionality (are you listening, Microsoft?)

Interestingly, the WEF also had a meeting of the minds on how Web 2.0 will mould the future. I caught some of this discussion on CNN at about 5:00 this morning (because someone wouldn't go to sleep - at all) and quite frankly, it was a little bit disappointing. The usual buzzwords being churned out by the usual talking heads. However, given the time of day and extreme lack of sleep (and the fact that I only caught about 10 minutes of it), I will happily concede I may have missed something (or the point of the discussion entirely). I note that the WEF blurb quotes YouTube founder Chad Hurley and I don't recall seeing Chad on the TV at all, so maybe I really did miss the important bits. There's also the possibility that I was watching another collection of talking heads in a Web 2.0 seminar in Davos, Switzerland, because I don't recall seeing Bill Gates talking either. In fact, the only name I do recognise is the woman who co-founded Flickr, so perhaps I was just delirious after all.

Where to find viaide.sys

I've had a bit of traffic to my post about upgrading to WinXP from Win2k, in particular from people searching Google for viaide.sys.

There don't seem to be any simple explanations for people as to where to find it. If you are upgrading from Windows 2000 and your motherboard is a Via-based chipset, there's a very good chance that you will find viaide.sys on your hard drive.

When the install prompts you for the location of viaide.sys, point it towards C:\WINNT\system32\drivers. With any luck, it should be sitting there and if your install is anything like mine was, everything should work fine from there.

Hope this helps someone. Please let me know if it does.

Painfully upgrading to WindowsXP

While I am an unashamed lover of gadgets and tech more broadly, I’m also a slow mover. With Vista just around the corner (launching 29 January according to the Windows Weekly podcast), I decided now was the time to upgrade – to XP. In the end, the process was a slow one and I have yet to decide if this was due to operator error or a flaw in the upgrade process itself.

I had a fair idea what to expect in the process as just a few weeks ago I upgraded my sister’s install of a shady copy of Win2k (not her fault, the guy who sold her the computer installed it and since my sister is in no way a geek, I don’t expect her to question whether the software on her computer is legit or not when pre-installed) with a fresh full install of XP Home.

I stumped up the cash for the Academic upgrade version XP Professional. I decided to upgrade rather than do a fresh install because, quite frankly, I can’t spare the cash and I chose the Academic version because as a part-time student, I’m entitled to it. Might as well make use of it.

Since I don’t particularly trust any software to perform exactly as it says it will, I did a basic back-up of all the most important files eg various My Docs folders, some downloaded software that I hadn’t copied onto a disc yet and the like. This wasn’t a very difficult task because I had backed up everything when I had my troubles with a dodgy power supply, motherboard and hard drive mid-way through last year. Since that time I had been so busy with uni, work and raising the boy that I hadn’t added a whole lot to the computer. Lucky me. I also decided to clear out all the cruft that had gathered in the user profiles eg browser cache, temp files and so on.

Sufficiently confident that I had copies of everything important, I popped the XP CD in and away I went. It started off smoothly enough. It appeared to detect my current Win2k install with no problems and all my hardware looked like it was present. So far so good. Somewhere along the way though, Windows stated that it required a certain file – viaide.sys – to continue which, for some reason, my addled brain chose to read as “viade.sys”. The dialog box defaulted to a folder deep inside the temp folder of my Administrator account. Stupid me assumed that Windows knew what it was asking for. As I had already cleared out my temp accounts, I couldn’t quickly locate the file. I tried clicking “Cancel”, which seemed to work just fine as the install continued on its merry way. Oh, how I would learn the error of my ways.

The install continued without any further issues and the computer re-booted. Unfortunately, as soon as it hit the “Windows XP” screen, there was a millisecond BSOD and an immediate reboot. Booting in Safe Mode met with a long line of drivers loading before, you guessed it, immediate reboot. I attacked this problem in a way that has always worked for me in the past with Windows: recovery console. No good. 15 minutes of hacking around in the console left me no better off than when I started.

I tried the next best option: re-install. 40 minutes later (with the same request for “viade.sys”) and I was faced with same result. Obviously, this .sys file was important but I had no idea how I was going to retrieve it. I couldn’t do a search for it and maybe download it on to a floppy because I couldn’t even get a computer to boot in safe mode. I was starting to fear that I was screwed until I could get to work and try and find this file the following day.

I toyed with re-installing Win2k but feared that might make things worse. I decided to have Win2k sitting in my other disc drive and when it came to find this “viade.sys” maybe I could track it down on the Win2k disc. I wasn’t looking forward to this as the dialog box would pop up at a stage where there was no power to the USB ports which left me without a functioning mouse. Tabbing through options and hitting Enter didn’t appeal to me.

The file was not on the Win2k disc. I was screwed. Again. To make matters worse, I couldn’t find an option to cancel the install so I had to let it continue through the remaining 35 minutes so I could get back to my no-boot starting point. Urgh.

It was while flicking through my motherboard’s manual that the answer finally hit me – I was more than likely completely misreading the file. I had a VIA-based motherboard which meant that the file was more likely to be viaide.sys (which turned out to be the case) and that the install needed the driver for the IDE controller that the hard drive was plugged in to. I scratched around for a while but I eventually found my motherboard driver disc. Unfortunately, when I re-ran Setup for I think the fourth time, I couldn’t find viaide.sys on the motherboard driver disc. Not at all. I was screwed. Again. x2. Argh.

Final brainwave hit me. If the file was important, Win2k probably used it as well. Therefore it had to be somewhere. The likely location would be in the WINNT folder which has all the system files. I tried trawling through the “drivers” subfolder with the painfully slow and awkward keyboard method but I was not successful. Not at all. Was I screwed for the final time for the night?

Ultimately, I wasn’t. In final desperation, I searched the “system32” folder where, if I had been thinking at all correctly, I should have looked all along. Lo and behold, the little bugger was sitting there, just waiting for me to find it. Needless to say, the install then completed and the computer reboot with no problems while I held my breath and tried not to scream and cry in frustration (I’m picking up bad habits from my 9 month old son it would seem).

The only other complaint I have with the process is that nowhere could I find a way to get my Administrator account to appear on the Welcome screen. I like the look of the Welcome screen and didn’t particularly wish to return to the Win2k-style login box. For no real reason I can recall I tried hitting Ctrl+Alt+Delete twice at the Welcome screen and I was able to access the login box as well. In the end, a quick perusal of the excellent Windows Supersite means that once I download the TweakUI Power Toy, I should be able to add this to the Welcome screen just fine.

Now I’m going through the painstaking process of tweaking the system so it’s just how I want it, installing all the system updates and so on but that’s pointless busy work I don’t mind doing.

Having used XP for the last few years at work, I’m already comfortable with it, but it still seems like a much nicer experience than Win2k (which I loved dearly and will always remember fondly). I can’t put my finger on what it is but it does make me wonder why I waited so long before upgrading.

Where's the IE7 love?

Well, it looks like my love affair with Windows 2000 means that once again, Microsoft is leaving me out in the cold.

When I built my computer (technically I picked the components and got the shop to build it for me - I certainly wasn't as geekier-than-thou in those days) XP had been in the wild for about 6 months and hadn't even been "Service Pack"-ed yet. As such, I was much happier to have Win2k on my system instead. Since the store only offered XP OEMs, I went out, endured the sticker shock and bought a retail version of Windows 2000 for I think close to $600 at the time. Yes, it did hurt, but I felt smug about it for some reason (shock, I think).

Since then, I've stuck with Win2k because there hasn't been a compelling reason to upgrade to XP. Sure, it looked a little prettier but there didn't seem enough of a difference to shell out another $200 (less now) for the upgrade. There are relatively few programs that don't support Win2k, and what products do exist in this consumer space (for example, Pro Tools LE and MaxMSP) are not things I actually need for day-to-day use (although if I want to salvage my wife's Digi001 and put it in my PC, I'll need to think about it).

With all the hype surrounding the new Internet Explorer 7 upgrade, I thought I would check it out. I try not to be a OS or application bigot, and if IE7 was over all a better browser than the upcoming Firefox 2.0 release, I was prepared to switch back. In the end, it's about using the better software for the better computing experience. It's not a pure geek attitude I know, but since being geek isn't my day job, what I use at home really needs to work as well as possible without as few problems as possible.

It turns out that I haven't been paying attention as the IE7 upgrade requires not just WindowsXP, but XP with Service Pack 2. In other words, no new IE for you!

C'mon Bill, where's the IE7 love for us stuck in the past Win2k users? It's not enough that you keep trying to end-of-the-line my chosen operating system, but you stop giving us new goodies too?

I guess I'm sticking with Firefox then.