Drew's blog

Four free LibreOffice Online services

Advertising based free commercial cloud hosts

OffiDocs ( LibreOffice Online [LO 6.1.1.2] ?? gig document storage, Chrome Ext. & Firefox Addon w/ Google Drive integration )

Offidocs offers a collection of desktop software running under Linux using a remote desktop displayed back to you in a web browser, such as GIMP and Apache OpenOffice.

The site also offers free of charge, if you don't mind Google ads following along, the most current, of the four reviewed here, use of LibreOffice OnLine in your browser. 

OffiDocs is the only of the four hosting sites reviewed which currently supports templates, though a very limited number of simple files, all in Microsoft Office file formats. 

OffiDoc defaults to OOXML file format for documents created at the site. If you want to get an ODF format file you will need to save as ODF with the file open in the Libreoffice editor.

 

GMX.com 

GMX is one of Germany's earliest free email services starting in 1997. Along with free, advertisement based, email services the site also offers standard calendar and contact list management features.

The service just recently added GMX OnLine Office which includes an additional 2 GB of free, additional space available for a fee, document storage space and an instance of a GMX branded version of LibreOffice online.  GMX removed the About box function from the binary so can't say for sure but it appears to be LibreOffice 6.0. 

GMX, like OffiDoc, defaults to OOXML file format for documents created at the site.

Free (no fees or advertisements) commercial cloud hosts

• hostiso.hosting (requires signup via NextCloud , includes nextcloud/collabora online [LO 6.0], 3GB document storage)
• webo.hosting (requires signup via NextCloud, includes nextcloud/collabora online [LO 6.0], 5GB document storage)

Both hostiso and webo offer full hosting services, managed or shared servers, vps and cloud along with the free arrangement through NextCloud.

For the free offering a basic fully managed NextCloud server with calendar, contact and task management features and a limited user instance of Collabora Online is included.  Both include a few additions such as drawing.io for diagrams. 

Fourth of July 2011 - LibreOffice Promo video

Well the video finished up, not for release on the 4th - but with the 4th part ot it... finsihed the final voice over render at 00:21 July 5th = close, but no cigar... :-/

Naturally, I see numerous glitches...hey focusing on something for 84 hours straight tends to do that...but looking at it after some sleep - I like it..

 

While we are at it - LibO Retro - New Years Promo 2011 - not only did one not know what the branding was to be, even the icons where un-done, but some folks, such as myself, didn't quite have the right pronunciation for the name yet ;-)... anyway, I'm getting better with the a/v editors, me thinks.

 

2011 - July 4th - Making a video..72 hours from start to finish...24 to go

The other day, Canada Day 2011, off to the LibreOffice US marketing mail list an email of such subject did I send - Happy Canada Day.

Italo, one of the Document Foundation founders and our current marketing lead reminded folks that TDF had even celebrated by releasing version

 3.4.1 of LibreOffice.

He also thought out loud that it would be nice to have something to release for July 4th - being Independence Day in the 'States. At first I thought - well, could at least write a blog entry for the day - then thought a bit more - wandering to the idea of a promo video. 

I have been playing with video editors recently, producing a number of user story, feedback videos.

So off I went to get a few graphics. There is a good set of material to choose from now, for LibreOffice. It's all accumulating up on the wiki. Among other pages. a small, but growing, collection of wallpaper images. Now icnlduing a desktop background suitable, wallpaper graphic from the LibreOffice Community July 4th video, which will wrapped up for release tomorrow ...cobbled together on my Ubuntu Studio system - thanks OpenShot  (and a cast of FOSS enthusiasts in the video) 

See you all on telly then... //drew

LibreOffice users at SELF2011

 

Had a chance to video a few LibreOffice users at this years SouthEast Linfux Festival.

The first 6 user stories are up on the LibreOfficeVols YouTube channel.

It was a great weekend and enjoyed speaking with Nicole, Kevin, Ken..Robert and everyone else in Sparatanburg.

 

A little Geography - thank you.

Looking for an eBirthdayPresent - in this case a link to a music video - I stumbled upon, or adroitly scoured the available offerings for (either description is fine with me) one, Geographer...very nice.

Listening to a few of their other offerings on youtube I found myself quite taken with the Cello's contributions.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum - Part 1

In this case the forum is a web based user support site: http://user.services.openoffice.org

June 2nd - little update here, the page is up and active, for a couple weeks now.

The funny part for me is the walkabout which has been this time spent with the folks forming the Document Foundation. Though the first steps began 6 years before, with it's progenitor OpenOffice.org.

'Forums' - I would never of thought it could be such a contentious subject?

In the end this story is simply about opening, adding, a page to a web site running a simple bulletin board style help system, that's all.

In practice it wound it's way through hundreds of emails, IMs and other asundry communications channels, electronic and otherwise.

Meanwhile - just finished reading this arctile, highlighting the uncertainty of the situation(s) with OO.o, Novell, ODF. Parts of this article, statements about TDF's ability to hire developers for instance, I find personally amusing given that only a few weeks ago I was reading emails/blogs on the virtues of creating this legal foundation in a locale where, once filed, changes to the basic structure could not be made! - then again that, filing, that hasn't happened yet has it?

Moving along - This above article, after a few clicks get's one to the on the ground report from Provo UT. A town with which I have no small experience.

It is also hard to not miss the contrast between the employment laws of Germany and the USA - in Provo out, means bye. So I read this later story to mean primarily that the active parts of Novell are going to be Suse and that means a shift of engineering out of the US..oh well.

Part 2 ( The walkabout ) - Next...

LibreOfficeBox - The well tempered office suite distribution

The LibreOffice team working on the LIbreOffice DVD project made their first (perhaps most recent) iso file available for the full group to download and check out, so I thought why not take a look also. (actually the contents of the DVD have been available on-line for a few months, but it always feels differnt on your own media doesn't it?)

Currently only a German language version is ready to go, but the team is actively gearing up to support work on packaging in multiple languages.

The iso, a basic static web site, with an auto start feature for Microsoft Windows users. It includes information about the LibreOffice application suite, of course the program binaries, development kit, along with a good bit of documentation, clip art gallery add-ins , extensions, collection of useful templates and assorted complimentary FOSS applications.

The package released under a Creative Commons 3 license, with included binaries and third party content covered under various FOSS licenses.

The iso file distributed contains an early Beta copy of the LibreOffice suite and is not ready for general availability, but looks like it will be ready when the code is, available to German-speaking users quite quickly after its release

The total package content is well laid out and offers the user all the essential tools needed to be up and running on a new office system from a single disc.

ODFAuthors - the move from application to file format

Today, Jean Hollis-Weber of ODFAuthors.org, announced opening of their new site.

This is both a name change for the old OOoAuthors organization, an independent group of technical writers producing user documentation for the OpenOffice.org community, and a change in hosting sponsors.

The name change, replacement of OOo with ODF, reflects changes happening within the organization. While continuing their function of producing OpenOffice.org documentation the organization will offer the same service to the, still forming, Document Foundation for its office suite offering, LibreOffice.

Meanwhile, and if that was not enough, the old OooAuthors site, hosted by the good folks at EnThouhgt had been showing its age for a while, so along with the name change then, comes a move to new servers at ooodev.org. OooDev.org being the independent organization most notable for their long time sponsorship of Prooo-Box.org, while recently being the primary organization involved with creation of the Document Foundation.

The ODFAuthors.org site looks like a nice improvement over the older, still using the Pootle CMS but updated and reinvigorated.

 

LibreOffice 3.3 New Features

The Docment Foundaton released the first release candidate build of the LibreOffice application suite today for public download.

This release candidate build is ready for acceptance testing* in production environments. *Release notes at bottom of page

For installation help and other questions a user support mailing list is avialble here. 

General Feature List (partial)

• Added the LibreColors to the palette.
• fdo#30559: Added new tab page 'Compatibility' in the Options dialog.
• Ctrl-Shift-D launchs selection list in LibreOffice.
• Remove the "insert new sheet" tab when the document is in read-only mode.
• Fix fake small caps resizing factor i1526
• Quickstarter for unix builds
• PPTX chart import featur updated
• UNO APIs for size and moveProtect of notes
• added 1/2, 3/4 and 1/4 symbols to af-ZA, de, en-ZA, mn and pl
• Add Libertine G and Linux Biolinum G fonts to Linux distribution
• AutoCorrections support for case sensitive replace function. issuezilla bug #i2838
• Default to printing only the formula itself in math
• fdo#30472 implement import of alpha channel for RGBA .tiffs
• i108049 add Lithuanian autocorrect dictionary
• i112421 make Presenter Screen default to the laptop, not projector
• i113141 show all appropiate formats by default on save as
• i113400 Maths brackets misformed in presentation mode
• turn off NumberRecognition in writer
• use radio buttons for mutually excusive menu options
• Dotted - dashed borders in Calc
• RTF export (GSoc)
• i112597 add display properties to control shapes
• Added Croatian dictionaries i96705
• Port of Lotus Word Pro filter
• Added icons for toggling sheet grids in Calc.
• Added new image file used in the "insert new sheet" button
• Remove datapilot autoformat feature
• Better performance on Excel doc import.
• Croatian autocorrection file i96706
• name order for Hungarian on the UI, i110287
• Replace the "Help Support" menu item by the "License Information" one
• load and save documents in flat xml
• Remove datapilot autoformat feature
• Improve randomisation in 'dissolve' transition

Language Support

• Support for Kabyle
• Russian (ru) translation update
• Uyghur (ug) translation
• Norwegian Bokmål translation
• Updated pt-BR translation
• Updated Swedish translation
• Italian (it) translation update
• Asturian (ast) language translation
• French translation
• Japanese (ja) translation
• Ukrainian (uk) translation
• Bengali translation update
• Updated Khmer (km) translation

Productivity Enhancements

• New Custom Properties Handling
• Embedding of Standard PDF Fonts
• New Narrow Font Family
• Increased Document Protection in Writer and Calc
• Automatic Decimals Digits for "General" format in Calc
• 1 Million Rows in a Spreadsheet
• New Options for CSV (Comma Separated Value) Import in Calc
• Insert_Drawing_Objects_in_Charts
• Hierarchical_Axis_Labels_for_Charts
• Improved Slide Layout Handling in Impress
• Manual Setting for Primary Key Support for Databases
• Support of Read-Only Database Registrations
•   ew Math Command 'nospace'

Usability and Interface

• Common Search Toolbar
• New Easier to Use Print Interface
• More Options for Changing Case
• Redesign of Thesaurus
• Resetting Text to the Default Language in Writer
• Text Rendering of Form Controls in Writer
• Changed Defaults for Charts
• Colored Sheet Tabs in Calc
• Adapt to Marked Selection for Filter Area in Calc
• Sort Dialog for DataPilot in Calc
• Display Custom Names for DataPilot Fields, Items and Totals in Calc

Developer Features and Extensibility

• Grid Control Enhancements
• New MetaData Node for Database
• Extending Database Drivers Using Extensions

Release Notes

This release candidate is not intended for production use!

There are a number of known issues being worked on:

• The Windows build is an International build - you can choose the user interface language that is suitable for you. The help content is not included. We are working on the online version. Alternatively, it will be possible to install it separately.
• The Linux and MacOSX builds are English builds with the possibility to install language packs. Please browse the archives to get the language pack you need for your platform.
• The LibreOffice branding and renaming is new and work in progress. You may still see old graphics, icons or websites. So please bear with us. This also applies to the BrOffice.org branding - applicable in Brazil.
• Filters for the legacy StarOffice binary formats may be missing.

Ohio LinuxFest 2010 - pre flight

Getting ready for this years linux festival in Columbus, Ohio. This will be only the second year, consecutive, I've attended.

Quite stoked to finally have the chance to meet up with a few individuals I've known, now for over half a decade - to date however, only via electronic transmission.

Also quite stocked by the Open Source Medical Software trak at the fest and will be attending in total.

 

 

Friday Sept 10, 2010
11:00-11:40 Ruth Suehle, from Red Hat and opensource.com/life. OS Medical Interventions Around the World
11:45-12:30 Lunch on your own - food court conveniently located right down the hall!
12:30-2:30 Susan Rose MSN RN-BC, The Electronic Medical Revolution
2:45-5:00 Dr.David Chan - Workshop - OSCAR (Number one open source medical app in Canada.)

Saturday Sept 11, 2010
10:00-11:00 Dr. David Chan
11:00-12:00 Fred Trotter - Comparing OS Medical Records
12:00-1:00 Mike Magee (by video) - What is Your Lifetime Heath Records Plan?
1:00-1:45pm Lunch
1:45-2:30 Amy Andres- Health Information Exchange
2:30- 3:30 Dr. Robert Budman - Choosing the Right Electronic Medical Record
3:30-4:30 Dr. Andrew Barbash- Virtual Medicine
4:30 -5:00 What is "Meaningful Use"? - A Panel Discussion

Joyce and I will be hitting the pavement at Oh-Dark hour sometime tomorrow for the 420 KM trip - with a littel luck and no traffic snaffus should be there with a bit more than, a wee bit of, time to spare.

Had a nice chat with Eric Bachard from the EducOO.org group about OOoLight - will have the latest OOo4Kids and OOoLight applications on a pair or mobile devices for anyone that wants to play wth either, or a quick demo

- ok a netbook and a laptop...but those aren't exactly luggables...maybe the laptop a bit. So if you see me, and I have a computing device in tow, please stop and take a look.

I've also signed up for the Diversity Workshop on Sunday and hope to see many folks from last year. I'll have some of the latest OpenOffice.org extensions for accessibility and a few utilites on the laptop, if anyone would again like to have some time checking it out or a quick demo - just find me...

More from the trip - as we go..

//Drew