This is a really, really good question, from iTWire:

Microsoft has born the brunt of criticism for its massive domination of the computer desktop since the release of Windows 95. For once, however, it is not Microsoft that has some explaining to do. Microsoft’s decision not to include the ability to save files to Adobe’s PDF format in its upcoming Office 2007 product, after arguments with Adobe, is bad news for users. Adobe really needs to explain to the world why it has forced Microsoft to do this.

At present, both Microsoft’s open source office suite rival, Open Office.org 2.0, as well as Apple’s Mac OSX operating system, provide the facility to save documents as PDF (Portable Document Format) files. The PDF has become a widely used defacto standard for publishing non editable paginated documents. An argument could be made that excluding the same facility from Office 2007 that is provided freely elsewhere is unfair discrimination.

Read on TechChrunch earlier today that Fold.com had….well…folded, and noticed that domain was up for sale at Sedo.com, so I put an offer in, apparently the first offer they had received. I guess given the response that I won’t be buying Fold.com anytime shortly 🙂

Tags: Fold.com

Reports coming in that Adbrite is sick, that sites serving Adbrite ads are taking for ever to load and even then aren’t showing ads. I’ve just stripped the Adbrite code here from duncanriley.com and the site is now loading nice and quickly, however being the Foundation Day public holiday here (and with the family at home) I’m not totally up to speed on the issue, but Darren does report that it’s affecting everyone using Adbrite, including Gawker Media Blogs. Anyone using Adbrite seeing the same thing??

Tags: Adbrite

Reading this post at Problogger, and click on the link to this blog, and I find Stuart Robinson, from Busselton, WA, about 30 minutes down the road. That makes 3 South West (WA) bloggers I know of! Maybe on day we can get to 10!

For those people who read my earlier post about Blogdesk and love it as much as I do (it’s the first time I’ve ever used a 3rd party blogging tool for longer than a day, and it’s been 6-8 weeks now!) I’ve done up a button you can put up at your site to help Johannes out in promoting the product:

There are some smaller buttons here as well on the BlogDesk site, but I was looking for something bigger, so I made it!

If you are running Windows, blogging, and haven’t given BlogDesk a spin yet, get it here. It’s by far the best blogging tool I’ve ever used, and until now I’ve pretty much disliked 3rd party blogging tools full stop. Image editing, Technorati Tags, spell check and much more. Trust me on this one, even people who don’t like me (Hi Martin!) have agreed with me that this is a bloody great tool! And yes, I’m NOT being paid for this, nor have I been asked to promote it. Honest to god truth, this tool saves me 30 minutes minimum every day by NOT having to use Photoshop to edit photos. Give it a try.

Tags: Blogdesk

One of my favourite games designers, Al Lowe, he of Leisure Suit Larry fame, a game that I spent many, many hours playing on my old XT with its EGA monitor and 10mb HD, is making a comeback, and in true Al Lowe style, its with a comedy offering.

Gamasutra has the interview here.

Tags: Al Lowe

Trevor Cook at Corporate Engagement reports on staff at the NAB fudging answers in a corporate survey so as to not upset management.

It’s nothing new. I previously worked briefly for a Australian financial services company (I won’t mention their name) that prided itself on being awarded a “Employer of Choice” award based on staff surveys that showed that their staff were all as happy as larry. The truth was quite the opposite. The staff were highly under paid (in market terms), were over worked, and generally, across its various branches, were nearly uniformly unhappy. I asked a number of people how it was that the company could promote itself as an employer of choice. The uniform response: the survey was taken online and they no one believed that it was anonymous. They believed if they didn’t respond positively they could find themselves in serious trouble. As it was, the branches were being asked to meet unrealistic targets (reaching targets resulted in a bonus, and given the pathetic pay rates everyone wanted bonus payments) and they believed they could be punished by their targets being increased, and also by receiving negative staff reviews. I got written some advice from the HR Department that these surveys were really anonymous, however I was pretty much tagged a trouble maker for daring to ask such a thing. I’m not sure to this day whether the staff believed my assurances (I was a manager at the time) that the survey was indeed anonymous, but I did notice the company now only promotes itself as being a previous winner of the award, as opposed to being a current winner, so maybe, eventually, the truth came out.

ACMA has released the new tool in the fight against spam: spam matters, but apparently it only matters if you use Microsoft software because it only supports Outlook and Outlook Express. As a Mozilla Thunderbird user, I’m apparently not wanted. Oh well, ACMA is an evil organisation that stifles free speech and helps protect the media barons in this country anyway….so up your ACMA.

I don’t use IceTV myself, because they don’t offer a regional WA guide, but this company is doing a great job in making programs like Windows MCE more usable by providing a EPG, something that you just cant get in Australia, despite the fact you can pretty much get free EPG’s everywhere else in the world.

From the SMH:

JAMES PACKER’S Nine Network has a bone to pick with fledgling electronic program guide IceTV and it is taking its grievances all the way to the Federal Court.

Subscribers to IceTV’s program guide can use it to record shows from their computer or mobile phone. They can also record two shows at once, automatically record their favourites, and pause and replay live television – and fast forward past the ads…Nine’s problem, as laid out in its statement of claim, is that it believes IceTV has breached its copyright by creating a program guide that looks like its own. It is seeking unspecified damages.

But perhaps the bigger gripe that Nine and the other commercial free-to-air networks have is that IceTV’s technology allows users to dodge the ads.

Bring on TiVo to Australia. In the mean time I’ll just have to live with a Windows MCE box without an EPG….grrr.

Tags: Ice TV, James Packer, Channel 9

This is hilarious!

From the SMH:

An Australian military commander has tried to ensure truth does not become a casualty of conflict in East Timor, but embarrassed a TV network in the process.

Australian commander in East Timor Brigadier Michael Slater appeared this morning in a live cross from Dili to the Nine Network’s Today show, with helmeted and heavily armed Australian soldiers standing behind him.

He was pressed by Today host Jessica Rowe about whether Dili really was as safe as the Australian military claimed, given the presence of armed soldiers at his shoulder.

Pausing briefly, Brig Slater replied: “Jessica I feel quite safe, yes, but not because I’ve got these armed soldiers behind me that were put there by your stage manager here to make it look good.

“I don’t need these guys here.