February 2009

Being social

February 28, 2009

By nature I am an introvert. I don’t schmooze. I don’t “network”. Like Sartre, I am firmly in the “Hell is other people” camp. However, since social and collaborative computing is large part of what we work on at IBM, and we’ve recently signed deals with LinkedIn and Skype, I’ve decided to jump in with [...]

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Whither ODF?

February 25, 2009

Whether ODF will wither or weatherdepends on us as we work together. The question is where we should go: whither?The answer is clear at once.The question of “whither” is not so dense,and is easy to answer when we start with “whence?”. Of the topic todayI will no longer delay nor dither to saywhether we will [...]

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Looking for Good Ideas for ODF-Next

February 22, 2009

A typical team project, whether software, standards, bridge construction or what have you, has a slow start dominated by a planning and scheduling, a middle period of execution, and an finish with final frantic rush of activity to complete the project. Then everyone takes a few days off and we start again. One thing I [...]

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Strange corners of the Web

February 21, 2009

Back in the 1980′s, when I was a student, I was also an avid shortwave listener (SWL). This was in the days before the web, satellite TV or 24-hour international cable news coverage. I had an upper floor room in Cabot Hall, and each night I would surreptitiously dangle out the window a 40-foot wire [...]

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ODF 1.2 Committee Draft 01

February 17, 2009

It is not the end of the end, nor the end of the beginning, but more like the beginning of the end for the development of ODF 1.2. The Committee Draft 01 of ODF 1.2, Part 1 was approved by the OASIS ODF TC yesterday in a 9-2-2 vote. You can download it here. A [...]

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The Joy of Mathematics

February 9, 2009

The Wall Street Journal recently had an article on the best and worst jobs in the U.S., based on a mix of criteria including pay, stress level, work environment and employment outlook. Any guesses for the best jobs? The top 5 are: Mathematician Actuary Statistician Biologist Software Engineer The top three places reminds me of [...]

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Drowning in Data

February 9, 2009

Bob Congdon writes on something we’re all living through — the decline “hard media” (paper, LP’s, even CD’s, etc.) and the prevalence of digital media. From a green perspective, getting rid of all of this hard media is a good thing. Why print out documents when you can read them on your computer? Why should [...]

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The 21st ODF Toolkit Scenario

February 6, 2009

Back in 2006 I gave a short in talk at a KDE conference in Dublin on the topic of “A Standard ODF Object Model”, essentially laying out my thoughts on why we needed an “ODF Toolkit”. As part of that presentation I listed “20 Prototypical App Dev Scenarios”, my attempt to enumerate all the fundamental [...]