RIM's BlackBerry smartphone users can now access IBM's Lotus Symphony word processing documents, with the eventual capability to use presentations and spreadsheets from Symphony, built on the Open Document Format, as an alternative to Microsoft Office. Lotus Symphony document viewing will be available in the second quarter of this year.

IBM's Lotus Symphony fully supports ODF.

In today’s throat cut competition anything below excellence is rejected by the viewer. Hence, a web development company has to look into the quality aspect of various web modules ranging from e-commerce business development, web design, and web content development to client-side/server-side scripting, and web server configuration etc. Usually the term ‘web development’ is perceived to be limited to only the non-design aspects of building websites, e.g. writing a markup language and coding however, this is not the fact. Development of a single web page includes various complexities and when it comes to web based Internet applications the scope of web development broadens even more.

The latest trend of online marketing, which means marketing of products or services over the Internet, is facilitating big and small businesses all over the globe. Gone are the days when ‘one for all’ use to be a regular as well as successful practice. Businesses today are very specific and strategic. This is where a web development company plays a significant role as they fulfill the requirements of an attractive web presence, which eventually asks for customized applications based on the nature of business, and needs of the user. Online marketing makes possible the distribution of information to a global audience through lower costs and at the same time helps to automate the work flow.

Web development platforms are many but to obtain the most stable and to benefit from it is what is known as the work area of a web development company. Web development is a strategically process which requires professional services and expertise to make its mark in the mesh of competitors. We can see new websites emerging on daily basis and vanishing soon. The reason for this is easy availability of the web development platforms but the unprofessional completion of the web development tasks.

Users are able to interact with applications from many locations and are no longer tied to a specific workstation for their application environment. Online auction sites, interactive education portals, sale-purchase of good and services over Internet are handy examples of web development techniques. This requires qualified and experience services from a professional and a dedicated web development company such as IT Chimes.

Security Issues

Many things are taken into account before trusting and handing over the important task of web development. Even the smallest malicious practice, committed whether intentionally or by mistake can prove harmful, especially in cases of passwords and protected content like credit card numbers. Therefore a trust worthy web developer and a stringent testing of web applications before public release is encouraged to prevent such exploits from occurring.

In any kind of trade, we can observe that there are many players but only those exist whose quality of work itself speak about their capabilities. When it comes to choosing a web development company the choices available in the market are immense. Certain companies like IT Chimes who is an experienced player in the market is one of the selected names, which is committed to providing clients maximum satisfaction with their affordable and expert services.

For more information on <a href="http://www.itchimes.com/">Web Development Company </a> visit <a href="http://www.itchimes.com/">IT Chimes</a> or email moc.semihcti|ofni#moc.semihcti|ofni

http://www.itchimes.com

German Government Announcement: IT-Rat der Bundesregierung eröffnet den Einsatz offener Dokumentenformate (ODF)

www.watch movie.co.in

Diesel power is on the decline. After the feisty Fast and Furious, the action hero fails to connect and kick up a storm in this futuristic film that projects him as a modern day Joseph to a mystery girl (Melanie Thierry) who has the immaculate conception.

It’s a remixed biblical story that is neither here nor there, even though it takes place in the not-so-distant future, when a mean-faced Charlotte Rampling wants to start a new religion with the help of her daughter who is the potential mother of the new age messiah.

Naturally, the whole world wants to lay its evil hands on this virgin who needs a bodyguard to carry her from dangerous Russia where she lives in a convent to a not-so-dangerous New York. No prizes for guessing who is the bodyguard, specially when there is a bloated, tattooed Vin Diesel in the precincts.

He fights bombs, bullets, missiles and crosses treacherous glaciers to deliver her to safety, with some collateral damage, which includes the friendly nun, Michelle Yeoh. Amen!Tacky.

www.watchmovie.co.in

ODF has come of age in 2008. Since the first ODF workshop in Berlin in October 2007, governments have moved from policy adoption and are now down the road to implementation.

The event will take place 9.-10 Oct 2008 at

Science & Technology (DST) Building
(Building no. 53 - CSIR South Gate Entrance)
627 Meiring Naude Road, Brummeria 0001 (Pretoria)

Speakers include government representatives, and representatives of ODF backing companies.

• Website of the organisers

MAMPU Press Release

Malaysian Government launches new initiatives for increased Open Source and OpenOffice.org deployment in public sector and schools

Chief Minister of Terengganu launches state wide pilot of OpenOffice.org deployment in schools in conjuction with OSS Accelerated Adoption Seminars. Awards given for best case studies of successful government Open Source projects.

Kuala Terengganu, MALAYSIA. (May 27th 2008) — Coinciding with the fourth regional OSS Accelerated Adoption Seminar this year, Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU), the Ministry of Education and the State Government of Terengganu are launching initiatives for increased adoption of Open Source Software in government and schools.

The OSS Accelerated Adoption Seminars is a national initiative to promote increased awareness and adoption of OSS by government agencies. To encourage knowledge sharing of successful deployments, MAMPU has been providing awards to the best case studies that have been shared from each region. They are provided for categories of IT infrastructure, business applications and desktop applications. To date they have highlighted successful implementations such as the Meterology Department regional network, the desktop implementation for Melaka and statewide deployment of OpenOffice.org in Kedah. For the East Coast states over a dozen case studies have shown successful Open Source software implementations of e-government applications from Pahang and Terengganu.

OpenOffice.org in Schools Pilot lauched today by the Chief Minister of Terengganu supports the increased adoption of OSS and deployment for the upcoming generation of Malaysians. OpenOffie.org is an Open Source software alternative for office productivity software. The pilot phase in the state involves deployment to over 100 schools since January 2008.

From January 2009, all 467 schools will start using OpenOffice.org in the state. It is planned that this will be expanded nationally to over 300,000 PCs in schools. The savings in licensing costs, support for open standards and platform neutrality and increased security from threat of document viruses of this software will provide better delivery of education services by students and teachers.

Seminars highlight accelerated adoption of OSS in public sector

The proven success of Phase I of the governments' Open Source Master Plan has shown that the the adoption of OSS in the government sector in several pilot projects are cost effective and provide better service delivery.

Now in Phase II, the OSS Accelerated Adoption Seminars are an initiative of MAMPU to promote and highlight increased adoption of OSS throughout the public sector. This seminar with over 500 attendees, the final of the year for regional seminars is held in Kuala Terengganu for the states of Pahang, Kelantan and Terengganu. To date over 281 agencies have already adopted OSS for the provision of IT services. This represents a ten-fold increase since original launch of the Master Plan in 2003.

Adoption of the open source office suite, OpenOffice.org for state government agencies is now official in the states of Melaka, Kedah, Pahang and Sabah. States like Melaka and Kedah have been deploying OpenOffice.org and OSS since 2003. Most recently Pahang State Government has issued a circular on the states intention for all state agencies to migrate to Openoffice.org. Combined they have saved millions in ringgit for licensing fees, expenditure now spent locally to provide better public services in their respective states.

In conjunction with the seminars, awards are given to recognise the best case studies of OSS implementations for each region. Highlights for the East Coast include Terengganu State Government Data Centre and e-Government projects all fully utilising open source software. The Terengganu State government has also setup a community training centre that has trained over 20,000 state citizens with IT skills using open source software on 585 Linux desktops.

In Pahang, an online information system for Vetrinary Services developed locally using OSS software has won national awards for innovation. A common finding for the case studies was increased security as OSS deployments of OpenOffice.org and Desktops were not affected by viruses.

The case studies also highlighted that staff were able to build their skills and knowledge due to the wealth of free information and tutorials associated with the OSS technologies available on the Internet. Furthermore with OSS, these initiatives can be deployed and developed and shared with other agencies without expensive licensing costs further providing avenues for cost savings, skills and knowledge sharing nationally within the public sector.

MOE launches pilot project of OpenOffice.org deployment in schools

The Ministry of Education with the support of MAMPU and the state government of Terengganu, also launched the pilot project for the deployment of OpenOffice.org in schools. The pilot starts with the deployment of OpenOffice.org in over 100 schools in the State of Terengganu. These include both urban and rural schools.

To date most school administrators and staff in the state have already been trained on the use of OpenOffice.org. Over the next 2 years, the Ministry of Education plans to build on this initiative and deploy OpenOffice.org in over 300,000 PCs in schools throughout the country.

The project is being implemented with the support of the Terenganu State Education Department with commitment and financial support from the State Government of Terengganu through the Implementation Committee chaired by B. En. Ahmad Razif bin Abdul Rahman the director for the Science, Technology and Human Resources Committee for the State of Terengganu. The implementaiton of this project hopes to achieve increased knowledge sharing and innovation for computer users with the optimum license and minimal cost.

About OSCC, MAMPU

Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit MAMPU's Open Source Competency Centre is first and single point of reference for support and guidance in the implementation of Open Source Software in the Public Sector. OSS Initiative is a cabinet decision. The Malaysian Administrative Modernization and Management Planning Unit, (MAMPU) was directed to study the feasibility of implementing OSS in the Malaysian Government Agencies.

In response to the directive, MAMPU has prepared a Memorandum entitled "Proposal on OSS Implementation in the Public Sector of Malaysia". The proposal recommendations were tabled by MAMPU and endorsed by the Malaysian Government on 19 June 2002. OSS implementation in the Public Sector will be carried out concurrently with the building of necessary infrastructure such as technical support and human resource reskilling and development. However, changes will be introduced in stages to ensure that there is least disruption to the services offered by the Public Sector and that change is managed well.

About Ministry of Education

The Malaysian Ministry of Education objective is to develop a world-class quality education system which will realise the full potential of the individual and fulfill the aspiration of the Malaysian nation. It oversees all primary and high school education in Malaysia.

http://www.moe.gov.my/tayang.php?laman=utama&unit=utama&bhs=en

About Terengganu State Government

The Terengganu State Government is comprised of the Chief Minister and elected State Assembly which governs the state of Terengganu.

Terengganu is a sultanate and constitutive state of federal Malaysia. The state is also known by its Arabic honorific, Darul Iman ("Abode of Faith"). The coastal city of Kuala Terengganu which stands at the mouth of the broad Terengganu River is both the state and royal capital as well as the largest city in Terengganu.

http://www.terengganu.gov.my/

About OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org provides everything most people need in an office productivity suite. It is stable, reliable, and robust, built up over twenty years' development. It is actively developed, with several releases every year. The main components of the OpenOffice.org Suite are the Writer wordprocessor; the Calc spreadsheet; Impress for presentations; Draw for graphics; and the Base database.

OpenOffice.org uses the OpenDocument Format OASIS Standard (ISO/IEC 26300) as well as supporting legacy file formats such as Microsoft Office, and is available on major computing platforms in over 80 languages. OpenOffice.org software is provided under the GNU Lesser General Public Licence (LGPL) and may be used free of charge for any purpose, private or commercial.

http://marketing.openoffice.org/press_kit.html

Additional Resources

Open Source Case Study Awards
http://www.oscc.org.my/content/view/194/128/

Open Source Case Studies on OSCC Knowledge Bank
http://knowledge.oscc.org.my/case-studies/malaysian-case-studies

Malaysian OpenOffice.org adoption wiki
http://knowledge.oscc.org.my/solution-areas/desktop/OpenOffice.org/openoffice-adoption

Media Contact

OSCC MAMPU
contact [21@] oscc . org . my
Ph: 603 8319 1200
Fax: 603 8319 3206

Malaysia's schools get OpenOffice.org
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,62045435,00.htm

Archive

http://blog.harisfazillah.info/2008/08/malaysian-government-launches-new.html

Qt’s text module turns into a one stop document generation API where you can use QTextCursor to create your document via a nice API and you can then export the created QTextDocument to ODF ready to be opened by any opendocument implementation. Naturally exporting to plain text and html are still supported, as is printing to PDF.

The Qt toolkit is used by many software development companies to develop desktop software and is famous for the quality of its documentation and design. The KDE project which provides a Desktop Environment for Linux is the most recognisable Qt-based software. But Skype, Opera and Adobe products also make use of the toolkit. Zander observes a growing demand for OpenDocument support.

So, for end users the biggest advantage of the uptake of ODF is that more and more applications will standardize on this one format and thus applications will be much more interoperable.

When a first class toolkit as Qt adds support we can expect much more applications with ODF support to come. Zander also makes some predictions for the future of OpenDocument:

Longer term I expect to see email applications to send ODF as well as html in their emails. Just so they can use the much broader ODF set of features.

Time will tell.

3.1 Usage of OpenOffice.org is encouraged for all civil servants who use ICT devices supplied by the State Government in all offices of the State of Pahang

3.2 All Head of Departments are required to ensure that the implementation of the usage of OpenOffice.org suite occurs smoothly and all computers in departments should be prevented from using any form of software that does not have a valid license. The State Government will not be responsible in the event that an audit finds software in use without a valid license.

http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/08/the-entire-stat.html

For Microsoft Office the agency recommends the SUN Microsystems plugin

• IBM 'advises' staff to opt for a Microsoft Office-free world

Cappato's question

Parliamentary questions
15 April 2008
E-2110/08
WRITTEN QUESTION by Marco Cappato (ALDE) to the Commission
Subject: Deployment of ISO 26300:2006
What steps will the Commission undertake to make its IT infrastructure fully compliant for the reception and propagation of ISO 26300:2006 documents?

Is any action planned to promote this standard in the European institutions?

Answer by Commissioner Kallas

E-2110/08EN
Answer given by Mr Kallas
on behalf of the Commission
(26.5.2008)

The Commission is currently able to accept and generate documents in the ISO 26300:2006 format (otherwise referred to and commonly known as the ODF format). The Commission wishes to be able to accept and generate documents compliant with different standardised formats (for example ISO standards PDF, ODF) as well as, whenever appropriate, in other widely used formats (ISO standards or not) currently used by citizens, businesses and public administrations.

The Commission has already presented to other European Institutions its technical approach to accept and generate documents in ODF formats.

Furthermore, within the framework of the Commission's IDABC programme, the Commission works with representatives of the Member States to promote and facilitate Open Document Exchange Formats (ODEF).

For more information, please see the reference site:
http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/3439/5585

In other words, the Commission already supports Open Document format and recommends other European Institutions to follow.

odt2txt is …

* small
* supports multiple output encodings
* adopts to your locale
* able to substitute common characters which the output charset does not contain with ascii look-a-likes
* written in C, has few dependencies
* portable (runs on Linux, *BSD, Solaris, HP-UX, Windows, Cygwin)
* licensed under GPL, version 2

• Website of the Project
• Ubuntu users find the package in the universe repository.

Often these OpenOffice switch threads are just used to get better procurement conditions from Microsoft. Then the news demonstrates the value of choice between applications and the benefits of overcoming lock-in effects for the larger market, even when finally the company dissuade the public sector to switch to OpenOffice.

Computerworld NZ: NSW education downgrades Microsoft deal

The following English report gets into details:

On the afternoon of last Tuesday (08/04), the final translated version of the ISO/IEC 26300 was approved by members of the ABNT’s committee responsible for that activity.
According to the Brazilian laws, a National Standard needs to be written on our native language (Brazilian Portuguese) and this is why we need to translate and approve the translated text of any International Standard that is adopted as a Brazilian Standard (called here NBR). ABNT is the Brazilian National Body (NB) and handles all standardization efforts in Brazil.

Bristol City Council's switch to StarOffice in 2005 has led to a major reduction of IT costs, says Gavin Beckett, the council's ICT Strategy manager. … In 2006 Bristol took the further step of adopting the ISO-approved Open Document Format (ODF). Speaking at a conference on ODF in the Netherlands last month, Beckett said that implementing StarOffice for 5,500 desktops in Bristol saved 1.1 million GBP (1.4 million euro) in comparison to the total cost of implementing Microsoft Office. "The licences for StarOffice cost us 186,000 GBP (243,000 euro), in comparison to 1.4 million GBP (1.8 million euro) for MS Office."

http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/7409

Bristol acknowledges that its pioneer switch needs to be followed by a market learning process. Bristol needs to interoperate with less advanced Cities that use another format.

Since the migration, OpenOffice.org is the primary office suite for 8,500 persons, with Microsoft Office still used for 1500 persons. All Windows XP workstations of the ministry and its administrative sector are installed with OpenOffice.org version 2.

The migration decision was based on office software evaluation in 2005 and an extensive OpenOffice.org pilot project in 2006. The main results of the office software study are presented in the report including the various migration options considered during the evaluation. In the pilot project, the functionality and compatibility of OpenOffice.org was tested in daily office use. In addition, the evaluation of training and support requirements, workstation installations and configurations were among the tasks of the pilot project. The results of the pilot project are presented in the report. The report also gives information on the current status of the OpenOffice.org migration process.

• resources/Finnish Ministry of Justice ODEF migration.pdf

We don't pay Windows or MS-Office licenses any more, we don't get viruses or trojans, and over several years of migrating non-technical staff from MS-Word and Excell to OpenOffice, not a single person complained that they could not switch.

For me, the real benefit - apart from saving a lot of money - is knowing that my company's precious documents - contracts, invoices, etc. - are now safe in a format that won't break when some vendor decides to make an arbitrary upgrade, as Microsoft have done so often. We keep these documents for ever. It's just not acceptable to be dependent on specific versions of one firms' software! Also, it's really comforting to know that the chance of sending a virus-infected document to a client is zero. With MS Office documents you just never know.