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OPENOFFICE.ORG NEWSLETTER Volume 07 - Issue 22 - 04/2009 Please send news clippings to: d...@marketing.openoffice.org ######################################################################### Contents ######################################################################### 1. Announcements ================ * OpenOffice.org 3.1 available for download ! * OpenOffice.org 3.1 New Features * OpenOffice.org Native MySQL Driver: Alpha Build available * Create a "living" postcard - Send us your OO.o video * OpenOffice.org Bloggers 2. Success Stories ================== * Gribskov: Municipality uses OO.o and saves a million DKK per year * Amsterdam to make OpenOffice and Firefox default on city desktops * Travel Republic - Online travel agent 3. Featured News ================ * ZDNet: Interesting times for OpenOffice * Scrippsnews: Compute: Microsoft fights for its life on the desktop * GullFOSS: OpenOffice.org User Survey 2009: Performance Findings * GullFOSS: Achievements for a better start up performance 4. Tips & Tricks ================ * Mavenspire: Creating an Interactive PDF Form with OpenOffice * Linuxjournal: Creating Reports in OpenOffice.org Base * Dmitri Popov: Automating tasks in OpenOffice * Computeractive: One-click macros * Beginner's Guide to OpenOffice Impress * Having more than one OpenOffice.org installed on your windows-system * Solveig Haugland: Using HLOOKUP and RANDBETWEEN to create random sets of things from two or more sets in OpenOffice.org Calc spreadsheets 5. ODF News =========== * Washingtonpost: Microsoft Updates Office 2007 With SP 2 (ODF Support) * PR Newswire: Microsoft Responds to Growing Demand for ODF ######################################################################### Want to help OpenOffice.org? Find out hot to contribute or see our To Do List!! http://contributing.openoffice.org/index.html http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/To-Dos/index.html ######################################################################### Announcements ######################################################################### OpenOffice.org 3.1 available for download ! ========================================= http://www.prweb.com/releases/OOo/31/prweb2388264.htm OpenOffice.org 3.1 New Features =============================================================== http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/3.1/ OpenOffice.org Native MySQL Driver: Alpha Build available ========================================================= If you're familiar with MySQL, the term “native driver” might confuse you, as on the MySQL side, “native” means that a driver implements the MySQL Client Server Protocol. This isn't true for the driver we talk about here (see below), so the MySQL people will refer to it as Connector/OOo. http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/openoffice_org_native_mysql_driver Create "living" postcard - Send us your OO.o video ================================================== Get in front of the camera and tell why OOo is special and how to get involved. Send your video to ooo.postc...@googlemail.com http://ooomarketing.blogspot.com/2009/03/videos-get-involved.html OpenOffice.org Bloggers ======================= A Planet is a web page which consolidates posts by a number of bloggers. There are a number of OpenOffice.org Planets: the OpenOffice.org Planet is the widest collection, with people blogging on a wide variety of OpenOffice.org topics. http://www.openoffice.org/editorial/blogs.html Success Stories ######################################################################### Gribskov: Municipality uses OpenOffice and saves a million DKK per year ================================================================== The Danish municipality of Gribskov has saved two million DKK, about 270,000 euro, over the past two years by switching the public administration and schools to OpenOffice, Michel van den Linden, responsible for IT in the municipality says in an interview with the Danish IT news site Computerworld. http://www.osor.eu/news/dk-municipality-uses-openoffice-and-saves-a-million-dkk-per-year Amsterdam to make OpenOffice and Firefox default on city desktops ================================================================= The city council of the city of Amsterdam on Wednesday decided that OpenOffice and Firefox should become default applications on all 15.000 desktops in use by the administration. http://www.osor.eu/news/nl-amsterdam-to-make-openoffice-and-firefox-default-on-city-desktops Travel Republic - Online travel agent ================================================================ "We chose it because of cost," says Chris Waite, the IT director of Travel Republic, a large online travel agent based in England. Listed as the fastest-growing private company in 2007, Travel Republic installed OpenOffice through necessity. It now runs it on all 120 desktops. "The cost of the Microsoft Office suite is prohibitive, so we chose OpenOffice and it does everything we need," Mr Waite says. "It's saved us about 18,000 ($A38,000). I just wish we'd deployed more open source software from the outset." http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/biztech/a-guide-to-freeloading/2009/03/31/1238261576355.html Featured News ######################################################################### ZDNet: Interesting times for OpenOffice ============================================================ In troubled economic times the attractions of free software become increasingly obvious, and even for die-hard users of Microsoft Office, the prospect of upgrading to Office 2010 in Q1 next year may prove too much to contemplate. http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10012640o-2000331760b,00.htm Scrippsnews: Compute: Microsoft fights for its life on the desktop =========================================================== Windows remains important and the release, maybe even this fall, of Windows 7 is critically important. But what is more important is the continuation of Office, the hugely popular collection of office tools like word-processing, spreadsheet and presentation software. http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/42641 GullFOSS: OpenOffice.org User Survey 2009: Performance Findings =============================================================== Currently more than 64K users have started the survey and more than 44K finally submitted their votes. http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/date/20090403 GullFOSS: Achievements for a better start up performance ======================================================== The cold start up performance analysis revealed that loading all necessary shared libraries makes up 52%. Loading data files and access to the file system makes up 28%. That means that about 80% of the whole cold start up time is used up by file I/O. http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/achievements_for_a_better_start Tips & Tricks ######################################################################### Mavenspire: Creating an Interactive PDF Form with OpenOffice ===================================================================== The first step for creating a PDF form in OpenOffice Writer is to get the Form toolbar. Go to View—Toolbars and check Form Controls, if it isn't already checked. Stick the toolbar somewhere convenient for you or let it happily float. http://www.mavenspire.com/blog/26-corporate-blog/151-creating-an-interactive-pdf-form-with-openoffice.html Linuxjournal: Creating Reports in OpenOffice.org Base ====================================================== Let's face it, databases are only minimally human-readable. Or, at least, that's the case in OpenOffice.org Base, regardless of whether you view a database's tables directly or filter them through a query or form. In fact, to anybody who's not an accountant or a computer geek, reading databases can be downright intimidating. http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/creating-reports-openofficeorg-base Dmitri Popov: Automating tasks in OpenOffice ============================================ OpenOffice.org comes with its own Basic-based programming language. Although OOo Basic is not the most difficult programming language, it still requires some time and effort, especially if you are not a programmer. http://www.linux-magazine.com/issues/2008/96/macro_meal Computeractive: One-click macros ================================ Q I have started to use Openoffice Calc instead of Excel, but I cannot work out how to create and add icons for macros to a toolbar http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://www.computeractive.co.uk/computeractive/q-and-a/2239694/click-macros&ct=ga&cd=ygVVk1L_8iY&usg=AFQjCNHmYPw9SghgmxOWuVEPvqCC3AxyQQ Beginner's Guide to OpenOffice Impress ====================================== OpenOffice Impress is a presentation software program that is part of a suite of programs offered as a free download from OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice Impress is a great tool for presentations in business, classrooms, and personal use. http://presentationsoft.about.com/od/openofficeimpress/tp/071021openoffice_beginguide.htm Having more than one OpenOffice.org installed on your windows-system ==================================================================== With "normal" setup installation it is currently not possible to have more than 1 OpenOffice.org installed on the same windows system in parallel. But for testing purposes it is really necessary to have more than 1 installation available to e.g. check for regressions. http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/having_more_than_one_openoffice Solveig Haugland: Using HLOOKUP and RANDBETWEEN to create random sets of things from two or more sets in OpenOffice.org Calc spreadsheets =============================================================================== Say you're trying to spice up your wardrobe and not just wear the same old outfits. You've got tops, pants, and shoes. You can put together a spreadsheet that randomly chooses one item from a list of tops, another random item from your list of pants, and maybe (depending on how adventurous you are) you get a new outfit you never would have thought of. http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2009/04/using-hlookup-and-randbetween-to-create-random-sets-of-things-in-openofficeorg-calc-spreadsheets.html ODF News ######################################################################### Washingtonpost: Microsoft Updates Office 2007 With SP 2 (ODF Support) =================================================================== This week brought a major update to Microsoft Office 2007 -- Service Pack 2, a free download that fixes bugs, improves performance and adds a few new features in the company's bundle of productivity applications (see my review). http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2009/04/microsoft_office_2007_sp2.html?hpid=sec-tech PR Newswire: Microsoft Responds to Growing Demand for ODF ================================================================ ODF Alliance Cautions Governments to Evaluate the New Software to Ensure Sufficient Interoperability http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-28-2009/0005014709&EDATE= Unsubscribe ######################################################################## To unsubscribe send an e-mail: announce-unsubscr...@openoffice.org Newsletter Archive ######################################################################### Past issues of the OpenOffice.org Newsletter can be found in the archive of the announce mailing list: http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/SummarizeList?listName=announce Contact Information (regarding this newsletter) ######################################################################### d...@marketing.openoffice.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: announce-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: announce-h...@openoffice.org
