Miscellaneous Tidbits

Published on 12 May 2006 · Filed in Information · 228 words (estimated 2 minutes to read)

I have a variety of miscellaneous tidbits to mention, in case you haven’t already heard about them.

ODF for Microsoft Office: Now that OpenDocument format (ODF) has been approved as an ISO standard, the OpenDocument Foundation has announced a plug-in for ODF that allows Microsoft Office (as far back as Office 97) to open, render, and save files as ODF. This, in my opinion, is a great thing, as it allows those organizations that can’t use an alternate office suite to still take advantage of open file formats.
Vista’s Security Implications: While Microsoft touts the impressive security benefits of Windows Vista, others are disagreeing. A recently published report believes that the new security measures interfere so heavily with users that they’ll end up getting turned off. Furthermore, the new features and their administrative overhead will likely cause significant delays in the adoption of Vista.
Resource Manager Web Interface: Jason Conger has released the Web Interface for Resource Manager. If you use Citrix Resource Manager, this is a must-have add-on.
Virtual Security: Joining Reflex Security (which unveiled its Reflex VSA virtual appliance a while ago—I hope to be able to review/demo this product soon and will provide more details here when that happens), Astaro has announced the Astaro Security Gateway for VMware. The cool part is that users are encouraged to download a trial copy from Astaro’s web site.