• LibreOffice 5.1 released

    Steve WoodsOpen Source, Open Standards, Tech

    The Document Foundation has announced the release today of LibreOffice 5.1, a full featured open source office suite with superior interoperability features, for all major platforms – Linux, Mac OSX and Windows.

    Compared with previous releases, LibreOffice 5.1 offers a completely overhauled user interface and several improved features targeted at enterprise deployments, e.g. better support for ODF 1.2, interoperability with proprietary document formats and file management on remote servers.

    LibreOffice has been downloaded 120 million times since its launch in January 2011 and is now being deployed by large organisations around the world, the latest addition being for Italian defence staff with over 100,000 desktops (posts passim).

    LibreOffice 5.1 Highlights

    User Interface: LibreOffice 5.1’s user interface has been completely reorganised to provide faster, more convenient access to its most used features. A new menu has been added to each of the applications: Style (Writer), Sheet (Calc) and Slide (Impress and Draw). In addition, several icons and menu commands have been repositioned based on user preferences.

    Interoperability: Compatibility with proprietary document formats – principally MS Office formats – has been improved as a part of continuing efforts for better interoperability with other office packages. The latest interoperability changes include the addition of filters for Apple Keynote 6, Microsoft Write and Gnumeric files.

    Spreadsheet Functions: Calc’s formula engine has been improved with features addressing restrictions in table structured references and sticky column/row anchors, interoperability with OOXML spreadsheets and compatibility with ODF 1.2

    File Access on Remote Servers: Files stored in the cloud on remote servers such as Sharepoint, Google Drive and Alfresco can now be accessed from the File menu, with read and write options and without the need of a dialog window.

    The LibreOffice website has a complete list of the most significant new features of LibreOffice 5.1.

    LibreOffice 5.1 has also been improved “under the hood,” thanks to the work of hundreds of volunteers. Their work has produced an open source office suite that’s easier to develop, maintain and debug. Although this is not visible to users, it is extremely important for enterprise deployments.

    “LibreOffice 5.1 is another step forward to fulfilling our vision of an office suite tailored on user needs and preferences”, says Bjoern Michaelsen, a Director at The Document Foundation (TDF) and a leading LibreOffice developer. “Since 2010, we have gone through different development cycles to clean up the code and make it more responsive. We are now at a stage where we are close to providing a better user interface.”

    Availability and enterprise deployments

    LibreOffice 5.1 represents the bleeding edge in term of features for open source office suites and is targeted at technology enthusiasts, early adopters and power users.

    For enterprise class deployments, TDF maintains the more mature 5.0.x branch (soon at 5.0.5). In any case, TDF suggests deploying or migrating to LibreOffice with the backing of certified professionals providing Level 3 support, migration consultancy or trainings according to recognized best practices (http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional-support/).

    LibreOffice 5.1 is available for immediate download. LibreOffice users, free software advocates and all community members can also support The Document Foundation with a donation.

  • France: 10 words whose spelling will change at the start of the school year

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

    upper and lower case a with circumflexSince 1990 the spelling reform approved by the Académie Française has never really been pursued. “Oignon” without an “i“, the removal of some circumflex accents: at the start of the next academic year, teachers should finally implement this reform, TF1 reports. A total of 2,400 words are going to be changed; here are 10 examples.

    The word “nénuphar” will henceforth be able to be written as “nénufar“. The spelling reform of 6th December 1990 that was approved by the Académie Française is finally going to be applied at the start of the next school year by the publishers of school textbooks and thus by teachers.

    One of the new features is that circumflex accents are going to disappear gradually. The verb “s’entraîner” will therefore be able to be spelt with a simple “i” and thus minus the circumflex accent. This part of the reform should make learning spelling easier for children.

    Special National Education Official Bulletin no. 11 of 26 Novembre 2015 gives a reminder that the spelling reform to be applied to the schooling of a child is that of 1990. Spelling and grammar textbooks will therefore carry the wording “New spelling” from the start of the next academic year.

    Another brain-teaser

    Only 45% of French people were proficient in the rules of spelling in 2015. What will happen when students have to learn to spell the same word in two different ways? Teachers are already reticent about this question.

    The change in French spelling has not been accepted by the world of work and business for 26 years. The 2,400 words involved in this reform could therefore be regarded as errors by prospective employers although the 2 spellings will be accepted.

    10 words which will change at the start of the school year

    Oignon to ognon (onion)
    Nénuphar to nénufar (water lilly)
    S’entraîner to s’entrainer (to train oneself)
    Maîtresse to maitresse (mistress)
    Coût to cout (cost)
    Paraître to paraitre (to appear)
    Week-end to weekend
    Mille-pattes to millepattes (millipede)
    Porte-monnaie to portemonnaie (purse)
    Des après-midi to des après-midis (afternoons)

    Online opposition

    However, The Guardian reports that the changes to French spelling have not met with universal approval. There have been complaints that the Socialist government is dumbing down the language of Molière.

    On Twitter, opposition to the reform gave rise a #JeSuisCirconflexe campaign, along the lines of the #JeSuisCharlie hashtag in the wake of the atrocity at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo (posts passim).

  • Unicef promotes open source in fight against poverty

    Steve WoodsOpen Source, Tech

    Unicef logoUNICEF, the United Nations’ Children’s Fund, has launched a US $9 mn. fund to promote technology start-ups.

    The conditions for the programme include the following:

    • The project must be able to improve the living conditions of young people;
    • There must must a working prototype of the technology available;
    • Everything must be made available under an open source licence.

    In addition, the start-ups must be registered in a country with an active UNICEF programme. This therefore excludes start-ups based in developed economies in North America and Europe.

    The sponsorship is being targeted from the outset solely at smaller companies and the maximum capital injection will usually amount to a maximum US $100,000 per company. UNICEF has no intention of taking a stake in the successful start-ups in return for its funding; the fact that the technology will be open source will be sufficient reward for UNICEF. Networking possibilities and technical support are also promised in addition to funding.

    The projects should focus on new possibilities for training and social participation, optimising management by making real-time data available or improving infrastructure in the fields of transport, network access or finance. Everything is possible from blockchain applications to drone hardware via 3D printing. Candidates for funding must apply by 26th February.

    See UNICEF’s website for more details of the Innovation Fund.

    First posted on Bristol Wireless.

  • Worcester cannabis farm case adjourned for lack of interpreter

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

    Cannabis sativaPolish is one of the most common foreign languages for which interpreters are required in UK courts, yet it seems that Capita Translation & Interpreting, which holds the contract for supplying interpreters in courts and tribunals, still seems to be experiencing difficulties in providing Polish interpreters, nearly four years after the incompetent outsourcing giant got its hands on the contract.

    Yesterday’s Worcester News reports that a case against 3 Polish nationals accused of producing 105 cannabis plants in Worcester had to be adjourned yesterday.

    Marcin Pobiegly, Lukasz Kloch and Andrzey Ratowski appeared before magistrates in Worcester on Friday concerning a cannabis grow in the city’s Vauxhall Street.

    However, the case had to be adjourned due lack of court time as magistrates waited in vain for a Polish interpreter to arrive.

    It will now be heard on Monday, always providing that a Capita interpreter bothers to turn up.

    Update 02/02/16: An interpreter did turn up on Monday and that day’s Worcester News states that the case has now been referred to Crown Court.

  • Joint effort to produce first 100% open source, enterprise-grade cloud office suite

    Steve WoodsOpen Source, Open Standards, Tech, Uncategorized

    Kolab Systems, creators of Kolab, the leading open source groupware and collaboration framework, today announced a partnership with Collabora Productivity, the architects behind LibreOffice Online, the cloud-based office productivity suite.

    The first version of Kolab with integrated CloudSuite functionality is due to appear around the middle of 2016.

    Collabora’s CloudSuite web-based document product will be available as an integrated component in Kolab. The integration of CloudSuite into Kolab will allow users to work on documents simultaneously using a fully-featured online office suite from within the Kolab collaboration suite. Users will be able to create text documents, fill in spreadsheets and design presentations together, even when they are in different locations. Documents can later be saved in popular formats, including Open Document Format (ODF) and MS-compatible formats. The CloudSuite offering also comes with Collabora Office, a professional LibreOffice distribution, for offline use on the desktop.

    CloudSuite complements Kolab’s integrated editor, which is also gaining collaborative editing capabilities. Users will be able to collaborate in real-time composing emails, setting agendas for meetings or adding contacts to distribution lists before sharing their work with colleagues and clients.

    LibreOffice Online graphic

    “For too long, closed and insecure solutions have been the industry standard for office and groupware productivity,” said Kolab System’s CEO, Georg Greve. “With this partnership Collabora and Kolab are taking the lead, not only with bleeding edge technological innovation and an office stack with full, user-friendly and comprehensive collaborative features, but also with a product that respects users’ freedoms, protects their privacy, and guarantees their work will not be locked away in proprietary formats.”

    “Collabora Productivity is delighted to provide a key building block in Kolab’s comprehensive, new offering,” said Michael Meeks, General Manager at Collabora Productivity. “Kolab Systems have been a leading light in open source for many years and we look forward to supporting their ambitious growth plans in the enterprise sector and beyond.”

  • Gloucestershire PCC defends linguists

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

    Gloucestershire PCC Martin SurlA couple of days ago, the Tory Police & Crime Commissioner candidate for Gloucestershire, Will Windsor-Clive criticised the £100,000 or so the Gloucestershire constabulary spends annually on interpreters (posts passim) in an early campaign effort to deploy bigotry and xenophobia.

    Today, the Western Daily Press reports that the current Police and Crime Commissioner, independent Martin Surl, has defended his force’s expenditure on linguists.

    He is reported to have said the following:

    Translators [sic] are highly qualified professionals who provide a fundamental service.

    Victims must be protected and the law administered without fear or favour and effective communication is essential to the process of justice.

    It is also a legal requirement that if a case comes to court, all sides must be understood and be able to understand the proceedings.

    Well said, Mr Surl, although you need to see my handy illustrated guide to appreciate the difference between translators and interpreters. 🙂

  • PCC candidate queries paltry interpreting bill

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

    This May sees a whole slew of elections to local councils, the Welsh Assembly, Scottish Parliament and last but not least, 41 local Police & Crime Commissioners (PCCs).

    Will Windsor-Clive looking dapperAs regards the election of the PCC for Gloucestershire, Will Windsor-Clive, the Conservative candidate, has decided to play the bigotry and xenophobia card early. He’s doing so by questioning the £100,000 the force spends annually on interpreters, having filed a Freedom of Information Act request on the subject, the Western Daily Press reports.

    The paper reports the overall costs have remained around £100,000 a year over the three years between 2011 and 2014.

    In a quote for the paper, Mr Windsor-Clive is reported to have commented: “This is an unseen cost of high levels of immigration. Taxpayers quite rightly want their money spent on keeping their community safe, not on providing translating services. I’m determined to find ways of cutting back-office costs to spend on frontline policing and this is one area that needs investigating.”

    Here are a number of questions electors (and others) should ask Mr Windsor-Clive.

    1. Is it right to whip up bigotry and xenophobia for electoral gain?

    2. Does Mr Windsor-Clive regard the rule of law and the administration of justice as priceless commodities in a civilised society?

    3. If the answer to 2. above is yes, wouldn’t any reasonable person regard £100,000 a reasonable price to pay to enable the full participation of both victims and accused persons who don’t speak English proficiently in the enforcement of the rule of law and the administration of justice?

    4. If Mr Windsor-Clive were to fall foul of the police in a foreign country whose language he did not speak, would he be content to forego the services of an interpreter, as he obviously wants to do in Gloucestershire?

  • Is Cabot Circus employing Smurfs?

    Steve WoodsBristol, Oddities, Tech

    The modern mobile phone is a sophisticated and very useful item: mine is a miniature marvel – a Linux-based computer that fits comfortably in the hand, plays music, acts as a radio, takes video and still images and also allows me to make telephone calls.

    Venturing into central Bristol, one notices that nearly everyone one passes has one and entering the Cabot Circus shopping centre – that latter day monument to retail therapy – is no exception to this general observation.

    Having noticed a couple of years ago that visitors to Cabot Circus have their progress around that Temple of Mammon tracked by means of their mobile phone signal (posts passim), it has been my practice ever since to turn my mobile phone off before entering; and I don’t turn it back on until I’m well clear.

    Cabot Circus mobile phone recharging cabinetIt’s bad enough being tracked from shop to shop, but there’s another threat to the privacy and security of mobile phones and their users in Cabot Circus… but you’ll only discover it if you happen to use the mobile phone charging points (shown left) kindly provided by the centre’s management.

    On the face of it, these charging points – 3 in number – are a boon to visitors. After all, who hasn’t been in a situation where one’s battery is running low. It does seem benevolent of the managers of Cabot Circus to provide half an hour’s gratis battery top-up, doesn’t it?

    Now, you remember me saying about turning my phone off before entering? Good! With my device switched well and truly OFF I have now placed my phone in the recharging facility whilst paying a call of nature. Upon return a few minutes later, I have in each instance retrieved by phone from the locker – and found it to be switched ON!

    Needless to say out of consideration for my security and privacy, I shall not be using one of these charging points again.

    As regards using the mobile phone charging points, the Cabot Circus website states the following:

    Because we want our visitors to have a stress free [sic] shopping experience within our centre, Cabot Circus has now installed three ChargeBox phone charging stations, ideal for when your battery goes flat at the most inconvenient times.

    Easy to use in three simple steps, connect your phone, lock, take the key and relax. The ChargeBox stations allow you to charge your phones for free and enjoy 30 minutes extra shopping time!

    The ChargeBox stations at Cabot Circus are located:

    – Level 1 outside Costa
    – Upper Ground at the Information Desk
    – Ground floor toilet lobby

    Curiously, there’s nothing in the above text that I can see about the points’ ability to turn on a mobile phone that’s been switched off.

    However, let’s be generous and assume that specific piece of information was omitted by mistake. 🙂

    When I charge my turned-off phone elsewhere, either by using a USB cable connected to a PC/laptop or the adapter that came with it, it definitely stays off. That being so, I began thinking how could the lovely folk at Cabot Circus generously providing me with free electricity be turning my phone back on when I’d left it firmly switched off.

    A quick internet search reveals no logical or plausible benign explanation as to why a switched-off phone is turned on by the charging station.

    The only tools of which your correspondent is aware for doing such things to a mobile phone is the Smurf suite of tools used by the British State’s snoopers at GCHQ, as revealed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. In this suite of tools, one called “Dreamy Smurf” can allegedly turn a phone on or off, whilst another called “Nosey Smurf” can activate a phone’s microphone to use it for audio surveillance. “Tracker Smurf” is a geo-location tool that Snowden says offers a more accurate method of locating a phone and its carrier than using triangulation. Another Smurf can operate a smartphone’s camera, while “Paranoid Smurf” does its best to hide the activities of the other Smurfs.

    One therefore has to wonder whether that the operators of Cabot Circus, by turning visitors’ phones on, are infringing their privacy and presenting a security threat to their mobile devices.

    Care to come clean, Cabot Circus, on whether you’re employing Smurfs or using something analagous?

  • Tidy BS5 at the Mayor’s Question Time

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    George Ferguson looking trustworthyOn Wednesday evening Bristolians had an opportunity to question the city’s elected mayor, George Ferguson, at the City Academy on Russell Town Avenue.

    Your ‘umble scribe attended, hoping to ask George a question on the city council’s dreadful record on keeping on top of fly-tipping, litter and other environmental crimes within the city as a whole and east Bristol in particular.

    The session was chaired by BS5 resident and freelance journalist Pamela Parkes, who did an excellent job.

    Your correspondent was successful in putting his question to the mayor, which read as follows:

    This year Stoke-on-Trent City Council managed to find £750K of additional funding to tackle environmental crimes such as fly-tipping. What additional budget allocations will the mayor be making this year to emulate the Potteries?

    Needless to say, the mayor ducked answering the additional funding bit (from which one can infer that no additional resources will be made available in Mr Ferguson’s forthcoming budget. Ed.) and laid great emphasis on £80m cuts imposed by central govt. on Bristol and how much Bristol City Council was actually spending on waste management in Bristol. I thought most of his answer was emollient waffle, blustering about the establishment of Bristol Waste, early days for them etc. However, facilitator Pamela Parkes pointed out that despite all the campaigning by residents, both informally and formally under the banner of Tidy BS5, the situation locally hasn’t improved at all. To be fair to George Ferguson, he did make a good point about the need to promote the repair and reuse of consumer goods, to reduce the amount going to landfill.

    George then handed over to the head of Bristol Waste whose name I cannot remember. She made the point that fly-tipping had remained constant in Bristol over recent years. When challenged about the level of fly-tipping – four times that in neighbouring local authorities, back came the defeatist line that fly-tipping is always higher in cities.

    So overall it looks like there will be little change in the council’s competence or motivation in tackling fly-tipping in the city

    Besides my question, others tackled the mayor on education, housing and homelessness, the treatment of BME communities (following the cancelling of this year’s St Paul’s Carnival and current management problems at the Malcolm X Centre) and transport.

    At the end there was a lively open session, during which there was a lot of hostility to the mayor from the public on various matters – the previously mentioned carnival and Malcolm X woes, growing Islamophobia, declining community cohesion and the total waste of Green Capital (which GF characterised as the most successful Green Capital year yet. Ed.), to mention but a few.

    George placed great emphasis on his listening skills, stating he’d listen to anybody. However, he has past form in his post-listening dismissals of members of the public. This was not lost on his audience on Wednesday, one of whom queried along the lines of: “You may be listening George, but are you hearing what they’re saying to you?”

    T-shirt slogan I've listened now f**ck off
    A T-shirt design produced after George’s dismissal of a member of the public in 2013. Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

    In the end the session overran and City Academy staff were heartily thanked for sacrificing their time so generously.

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