AWG - Client Computing

OpenOffice 2.0 Released

Thu, 20 Oct 2005 09:30:56 -0700

Its been five years since Sun Open Sourced the StarOffice suite they purchased from German company Star Division. Today OpenOffice has released version 2.0 which represents a very significant re-engineering of the 1.0 codebase.

OpenOffice.org 2.0 is the productivity suite that individuals, governments, and corporations around the world have been expecting for the last two years. Easy to use and fluidly interoperable with every major office suite, OpenOffice.org 2.0 realises the potential of open source.

With new features, advanced XML capabilities and native support for the OASIS Standard OpenDocument format, OpenOffice.org 2.0 gives users around the globe the tools to be engaged and productive members of their society.

ZDNet Coverage:

Version 2.0 brings some significant new features, and Google has pledged to help distribute OpenOffice through a high-profile pact with Sun. But perhaps more significant, OpenOffice.org uses the standardized OpenDocument format that stands in stark contrast to Microsoft's proprietary formats.

Massachusetts has required support of OpenDocument, and Bob Sutor, IBM's vice president of standards and open source, has urged computer users to pressure software companies, governments and corporations to support OpenDocument.

Grokker goes web-based

Fri, 17 Jun 2005 09:48:02 -0700

A while back, I reviewed several desktop content search engines, as faculty on campus had desired something better to search all the research they had collected on their PC's. We recommended X1 for most users, and ISYS for advanced users. Since then, google of course released google desktop search as well.

One of the things that a faculty member suggested at the time of our investigation was perhaps a better way to search the internet from their desktops as well. So I included Grokker, which was sort of a new face on search. A fancy way to view results by visual categories. Categories are built in, or you can define your own. The only bummer was the technology was limited to Windows.

Now they have released a web based grokker which appears to be a Java applet with most of the same functionality as the desktop version (except of course indexing your desktop content). It uses the Yahoo! search engine.

Anyway if your looking for an interesting way to view search results, check it out.

Bootable Live Windows CD/DVD (BartPE)

Mon, 08 Nov 2004 17:24:33 -0800

I have been using Live CD's for various repair and recovery tasks for some time. In the old days, we would build custom DOS floppy disks to install, repair and recover our PC's. As network and other such drivers grew in size, it became increasingly difficult to squeeze in the needed tools. I remember having to make the most difficult choice between a edit.exe and a network driver, fearing the days of using edlin, or even worse "copy con" to create/edit config files. Ahem... now that I have thoroughly dated myself, I will get on to the point. When DOS went away (I mean really went away, NT not Win9x which we all know was still DOS with a new face), it became all but impossible to boot into a windows environment to repair/recover windows. Linux Live CD's have filled the gap, offering several powerful tools. I needed to resize a partition for a new os install, and didn't have access to Partition Magic, a dynamic partition manipulation tool who's original purpose was making room on Windows PC's for OS/2. I found SystemRescueCD, which has a completely free graphical parititioning tool named QTParted. A couple months ago, I had used a small 50MB Linux Live CD named austrumi to reset a lost administrator password on a Windows 2000 machine. Worked like a charm. Recently, however, I ran into another password recovery situation where austrumi wouldn't work. It probably could have with some work, but would have required some customization because the machine was configured with psueduo hardware raid 0 (High Point controller). I found out that High Point controllers are not really hardware raid in the true sense, they are bios assist, and do not present a single drive to the operating system. A driver is required for the operating to properly see the logical drive. Thanks to my friend, jeffgus, I found an amazingly useful tool. A Windows Live CD creator, named BartPE. The reason why Windows Live CD's have not existed is because it would be illigal to distribute windows software. Microsoft has a solution they call Windows Preinstallation Environment (Win PE), and some OEM vendors have licensed similar technology. The author of BartPE got around the problem by requiring the user to supply a licensed copy of windows and generating the Live CD themself. The added benefit is a build environment allowing customization of the environment through plugins, so that specific hardware drivers and or utility software could be added to the image. The end result is a copy of Windows 2K/XP/2003 that will run completely off a CD/DVD. Add the High Point driver and I should be able to gain access to the elusive raid volume, find the SAM and do the necessary dirty work. BartPE can be built with plenty of useful utilities such as TightVNC, Putty, Remote Desktop and many more. Anyway, it was a great find, so I thought I would pass it along.

The Three Little Pigs

Mon, 18 Oct 2004 14:21:01 -0700

Once upon a time, there was a little pig who built his house in the meadow out of straw. He did it because he had always built his house out of straw, and so did all the other little pigs in the meadow. Straw wasn't the best building material available, but it was good enough. It was easy to work with. And the labor costs associated with straw were low, because the meadow was filled with animals who were trained in the use of straw. But over time, Big Bad Wolves infiltrated the meadow, and began huffing and puffing and blowing the houses of straw down. Now, the little pig had a big brother, who'd built his house out of brick. The little pig's big brother urged the little pig to re-build his house out of brick, instead of straw. "Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin," said the little pig. "The only reason brick appears safer than straw is that so few pigs build their houses out of brick. Big Bad Wolves target straw houses because straw has a monopoly on the building materials market. If brick had the same market share, then the Big Bad Wolves would be huffing and puffing and blowing down brick houses." The little pig's big brother said, "Dude, you can't blow down a brick house. Brick is fundamentally more resistant to huffing and puffing." But the little pig was confident. "Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin. You're only saying that because you've been brainwashed by the FUD spread by straw community." The preceding has been a fairy tale with no bearing on the current state of Internet security. By Mitch Wagner Source: Security Pipeline | Trends

Desktop Search from Google

Fri, 15 Oct 2004 13:49:56 -0700

Today, I was talking to a friend, and he told me about this new Beta utility from Google, and I thought, wow, these guys come up with new cool stuff everyday! This one is called Google Desktop at http://desktop.google.com. Basically, it indexes your whole computer including your files, email, web history (including secure web content), and makes them available in a snap through a "localhost" website on your machine. I haven't had it on my laptop for too long yet, so not everything is indexed, but from what I've seen so far, you can search for ANYTHING on your computer in snap ... (literally).