Direct From TechProGuild

This is yet a better setup. I like your innovation - Wenn, Dar

With Office 2007 on the horizon and the introduction of the
new Open XML file format for saving files, a lot of news and noise has been
generated about the need for a truly open standard for opening and saving
files. One of the most popular alternative and ?open? file formats is the Open
Document standard. Although it sounds great in theory to have one open standard
for files, but when you look at the implementations, OpenDoc is pretty lousy
standard.

The need for an open file standard is pretty evident.
Microsoft has dominated the office suite market for over 10 years now. By
changing the file format with every revision of Office, it used to force-march
the market forward into upgrading to the latest version. The file formats (.DOC
for Word, XLS for Excel, and PPT for PowerPoint) have been relatively stable
since Office 2000 appeared, but prior to that, every new version of Office
introduced a default file format that was incompatible with the last. Sure, you
could change the default to the old formats, or at least Save As in the old
formats, but often users just wouldn?t or didn?t know how. If you exchanged
documents with people in other organizations who were using a different
version, then there was a problem opening those documents.

The Open Document standard was created to solve such
problems. It was created with the thought that by having a body other than a
single vendor control and issue a standard for document exchange, that anyone
could use any program and be able to view and modify documents from whatever
the source. Organizations such as the State of Massachusetts and others quickly
hopped on the bandwagon.

It all sounds great in theory. The problem is this: it
doesn?t work. Take for example the ODT format for saving documents.
Theoretically, I can create a document in Open Office, save it in ODT, and then
open it in any word processor and it will view fine, with all of the formatting
and content in place.

But wait: Microsoft
doesn?t support the format. So that quickly eliminates 95% of the market. But
at least it will open correctly in the remaining 5% right? Nope.

Take the following screen shots for example. These show the
exact same document opened in Open Office 2.0.3 in Linux, KWord in Linux, and
Writely under Firefox also on Linux. All
of these programs should display the document exactly the same way, but they
don?t. The KWord version clearly has
formatting issues, and Writely doesn?t even select the right font, let alone
get the spacing correct.

A Guild Note in
OpenOffice.

The same Guild Note in
KWord.

The same Guild Note in
Writely.

What kind of standard is it that doesn?t create a standard
display? Not much of one if you ask me

Fortunately, there is a ?standard? in place today. A couple of them actually. First, for
documents, there?s the old RTF format. Just about every Word processor since
DisplayWrite 4.0 supports RTF. It preserves most formatting and is a universal
format. Another universal standard is the good old Word DOC standard. It?s the
defacto standard for saving documents as it is. Although some formatting may be
lost when you go from word processor to word processor, it?s at least as good
as the OpenDoc standard I just showed you.

Plus, even though Microsoft ?controls? the DOC and other Office standards,
there?s not much they can do about it. Because it?s been in place since Office
2000, Microsoft can?t suddenly change it and hope to get any traction. As it
is, Microsoft is concerned that Open XML will die a slow painful death because
of the ubiquity of the old Office formats.

The point is, there?s no reason to have a ?standard? just
for standard?s sake. Often the market will dictate what a given standard is and
when it does, the power of the market will often remove the ability of the
original maker from being able to control the standard. The ISA/PS2 bus fiasco
IBM found itself in in the 90?s is a perfect example of this.

Microsoft created the standard and now is held hostage to it
because of its success. Any vendor can
read and write Microsoft file formats and beyond grumbling and gnashing of
teeth, there?s little Microsoft can do about it. The Open Document ?standard?
shows how ineffective governmental and quasi-governmental entities are when
compared to the power of the marketplace.

Intel has recently taken the Inel Interchangeability Initiative and atleast 3 ODMs Asus, Compal and Quanta provided barebones and Verified by Intel (VBI) notebooks emerged.

But Intel distis atleast in this region namely TechData, Logicom, Mindware and EMPA are proving to be useless by not keeping stocks of VBI hard disks not even a single of 16 models approved and tested by Intel and also the memory modules.  These Intel distis even don't have stock of Intel processors to go with these barebones.

The barebone stockist claims having 15,000 units for which there are no processors, hard disks and memory.  I had written to Intel USA, Intel UK and other manufacturers explaining this situation but nothing happend over the past 5 months since the Initiative was announced in this region/country.

Can we highlight this problem to the world please?  Is it a time for someone else to step in to this frustrating scenario where we are losing money, businessx and time day by day.

Should Intel continue to rely on such USELESS distis in the region?  Why can't they appoint some new ones who may do better justice to the market in stocking proper items.

Any comments, please forward them to xpresspc@omantel.net.om

John

As a result,

I got to this page by clicking on:

Get er done

Insert comment text here

This is not an article on what makes a fast CPU fast!

Generally I use a selection system that starts with what tasks a system is to be used for now, and what it is likely to be used for in the near future. I then look at what is needed to satisfy those requirements and add a bit for longevity and contingencies. The last part of the process is CPU/motherboard choices.

While I agree the plethora of processor types, speeds, features can get murky at times, having a wide selection can be advantageous - but only for an informed customer. Generally it leads to people buying more processing power than they'll ever use (which of course is the case most times anyway).

I do think Intel has exacerbated the problem of constomer choice by going to a numbering scheme that is basically incomprehensible to the consumer, most retailers and many distributors/vars. Granted you can go to their web site and research the different processor numbers but it makes the process more complex than it should be.

As for Dell and HP helping, I don't consider a vendor who limits my choices to what they think I need as helping. Frankly it's one reason our company does not buy from such firms and more often than not custom builds our own systems with the exception of notebook/laptops.

The processor has not been the bottleneck for 10+ years. The hard drive however has experienced great change over the past decade, maybe more so than processors. Disk storage is getting cheaper while processors continue to bring what they did 10-15 years ago.

Marketing and competition are the differences between storage and processing. When will the IBM PC architecture of the 80's be completely revamped? Have we exceeded the functionality of this design? The Dell "Be direct, buy direct" philosophy has played out and driven the cost of PC's to record lows. Value Added Resellers (VAR) were case aside for the Dell model. With low or almost non-existent margins, vendors (HP, IBM) have gone back to the channel (VAR) to move units while only marginally increasing profits or margins.

So having 13 choices of processors to choose from, is money in the bank for vendors. You wouldn't want to purchase just enough would you; why not purchase the fastest available choice? Only to be reminded that disk drives are the Achilles heel of the 80's IBM PC architecture. The marketing ploy by Microsoft and Intel has stifled the industry. When HP, Dell, IBM and former Compaq could only sell computers with Windows operating systems with Intel processors due to licensing agreements, we find ourselves at a slow impasse.

Down with the PC; let's create something for the 21st. century. 

Blah

Ahh the "good old days".  Thanks, your article brought back a flood of memories, most of them good, about the days of DOS and Win 3.1.   You're right, the old stuff did boot faster back then.  (less bloated code I guess)  I was quite content with 3.1 and DOS.   I used to love this one program called "X-Tree Gold" too.   It is good to remember where one has been.  Thanks again.

It's good to re-visit the past sometimes. I don't long for the days of PC Carousel (IBM) and the 20 MB, 80286 AT sytems. I worked for a ComputerLand Store in the early '80s and tried out Windows 1.0 on a 2-floppy drive system. The worst part was swapping a scratch disk and program disk back and forth on the B: drive to print a notepad document using the Print SPOOL.

Gee, I clicked on a link to tell me What makes a fast CPU fast? and I get to here.

I think you guys need to verify your linking prior to releasing an article

looks nice, is it any easier to find what i'm looking for?

after ME, 2000 had some redeeming virtues.

Should we be looking forward (or backward to VISTA) for personal use ??