On Sun February 12 2006 23:56, + Fratello, Natasha wrote: > [ MODERATED ] ******************** > Dear Open Office: > I found your site today by visiting > http://www.masternewmedia.org/2004/04/14/powerpoint_to_flash_conversion_too >ls.htm > > Your projects look to be exciting and useful, and the philosophy of access > for all platforms underlying the projects is certainly one I can embrace. > > My question to you is whether your Open Office download is useful for a > specific purpose: I am converting my power point based lectures (also > keynote) to Flash, and wish sound and captioning to run with the files. Is > your product able to provide that for a Mac OSX user? > > I need to provide as much access as possible for all of my community > college students--some of whom have disabilities and others simply have > slow, dial-up Internet connections. Clearly, the .swf files are the best > for these purposes (Java and QuickTime load too slowly for the dial-up > connections). Sound and captioning are crucial as is interactivity: being > able to allow students to control navigation, playback speed, hyperlinks, > etc. I am already familiar with other products including Flash MX2004 > itself, Keynote (converting the sound files to play in Flash for individual > slides is cumbersome), and the Windows compatible products--I want to use > my Mac solely, if possible. > > Clearly, if I were to join your community, my contributions would be at the > end-user side of the spectrum :-) > > I look forward to your response, and thank you for your consideration.
As you are not subscribed you may not have seen that: On Mon February 13 2006 15:58, Derick Centeno wrote: > You might want to consider using NeoOffice which essentially is > OpenOffice without the reliance upon using X11. When I use OS X, it is > always with Neo. Here's the link to learn more: > > http://www.neooffice.org/ > > Also if you want help regarding using Flash MX, here's a site which > could be useful: > > http://www.flashkit.com/index.shtml > > Your institution and community are going to have to become more aware of > a few facts: > > 1: Tools like Flash, Java and so on require an enormous amount of > processing power and speed. You may be able to do decent development on > a G3, but you are really discussing using completed applications which > should run from a dedicated server. You will need a server to run these > tools from so that they are useful and available to your students or > anyone else with appropriate access to your efforts, from the web. In > that sense, staying "Mac only" cuts your capacity for service because > more complete server and other associated developer packages (to do what > you wish to do) exist for Linux, Unix, Windows but running on Intel and > compatibles. This daunting fact is one of the reasons Apple switched to > Intel. If you stay "Mac only" on the developer side, you will have to > consider Apple's Xserve tools and packages which are not cheap. > However, purchasing Apple's server can save you hours of development > time as all the tools are already there. > > Just because your server is chosen and operational with the proper high > bandwidth connections a few T3s or higher if possible, depending on your > institution's financial support, there is the problem of what the > student's hardware is and what bandwidth is used at that student's home. > Although it can be possible to develop a server of reasonable financial > cost, you have to consider development/programming skills. The skills > necessary for programming servers are not the same as the skills > necessary for programming home based computers known as clients. If > your or another's skill level are up to that task ... your intended > project will have less difficulty. If not, I'm sure your institution's > Computer Science Department can send students to assist on this project. > > You are probably aware of the above, I mentioned them only as a means of > assistance for your consideration of what may have been omitted. > > Products like Flash MX and others require decent servers from which to > work and serve data to multiple calls from multiple ports; from the > client side these applications are optimized to work best and most > efficiently from Intel based computers. > > 2: From the client side, student's accessing your work (existing on a > server), the operating system and CPU they use will matter. For > instance, a G3 if it is too old cannot run OS X; it and many other PPC > based Macs will have to remain using the what Apple calls the Classic OS > -- which really means OS 9 and earlier. Those Operating Systems are > very limited and will become more limited in what they can relate with > on the web. The way the life of these machines can be extended > functionally is for their Operating Systems to be switched for a form of > Linux distribution which will run on that PPC. This helps, but just > barely. Unfortunately Macromedia does not support any version of their > products so that it runs on a PPC version of Linux. Yes, this can > change; it is also possible that humanity will achieve world peace. > > There are hackers out there who are working on a modifying Macromedia's > products so that they do work on the PPC within the Linux platform. The > problem will be reliability and consistency of function at the same > level of performance as though Macromedia itself produced it. I think > you can see the legal problems here, for you as institution to even > consider using such an item, even if it does work. > > There did exist a petition to Macromedia (a long time ago, available at > Macromedia's website) requesting that Macromedia support PPC for Linux > with a working version of their products. Macromedia did accept and > consider requests of this kind. It hasn't moved on anything significant > as a solution because the numbers of persons requesting such support is > not large enough to refocus attention from other projects to one like > this. Adobe however, has absorbed/bought Macromedia; it is very > doubtful that Adobe's management will consider any diversions from their > established plans. > > Here is the link listing which Operating Macromedia -- now Adobe -- does > support: > > http://www.macromedia.com/software/flashplayer/productinfo/systemreqs/flash >player7/ > http://www.macromedia.com/software/flashplayer/productinfo/systemreqs/ > > Remember also that products (software) for servers are usually sold; the > client products are usually free. A lot of things are Open Source, but > not everything. > > The other solution is for students to switch to Linux based on the Intel > platform; which Macromedia and other companies DO support. Any item > imagined exists within the Intel and compatible based Linux universe > when compared with Linux on a PPC. There is a noted speed increase by > users of Linux both on Intel or PPC. > > Assuming the student switches to Linux for Intel, the next issue is > bandwidth. A student should be able to get Linux for free or purchase > it on CDs between $10-50 depending on vendor, taxes, etc. The Comp. > Sci. Dept. could be very useful in addressing these concerns. > > The problem remains regarding bandwidth which is available at the > student's home. However, if the student uses Linux on Intel to access > your efforts the overall cost to the phone bill should be very small as > Linux is more efficient than Windows. Prices regarding bandwidth are > changing, and fiberoptics are becoming available; eventually dial-up > will disappear. Some cellphones do transmit data, and some vendors do > offer data transmission rates. That possibility is hampered by the fact > that dial-up currently is actually faster when compared against that > media. This however is a temporary advantage, which may last a shorter > time than the Pony Express did against the Telegraph. > > I sincerely hope your project can move forward. My concern was that > these all these other aspects of your project should be considered in > your evaluations as well. > Please reply to [email protected] only. -- CPH : openoffice.org contributor Maybe your question has been answered already? http://user-faq.openoffice.org/#FAQ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
