Puffbox

Having used OpenOffice happily for years now, I was naturally interested to try out IBM’s revived Symphony office suite, which uses the same code base. My advice if you’re similarly inclined: don’t. It’s prettier than OpenOffice, and seems to include a few innovations which the base product should really adopt (eg a single tabbed instance in the taskbar), but it’s noticeably slower than OOo. But these are just side issues compared to the two things IBM have done completely wrong.

First off, they make it incredibly difficult to actually install. The download server clearly isn’t coping with the demand; and they make you go through so many registration hoops before you even get to a download page. Why make me register beforehand? Why not just throw it open to the world, and allow P2P download for everyone’s mutual benefit? If registration is an issue, how about after installation… or even better, after the beta phase?

But that’s nothing compared to the fact that it automatically snatched all the relevant file associations away from my OpenOffice installation. For me, with a product that is so clearly in beta, and only of interest to the sort of early-adopters who will already be running OpenOffice, this is utterly unforgivable. How dare they do this?

I’m now spending time I don’t have, trying to restore my file associations. I’m genuinely angry. If this is IBM’s attempt to endear itself to people like me, providing an improved version of a trusted open-source tool, they just got it badly, badly wrong.

The new Reuters video search tool is one of the more impressive things I’ve seen in a while. Working with facial recognition specialists Viewdle, they’ve done a remarkably good job of indexing 600-odd hours of footage for beta-testing purposes. Type in a person’s name, and they’ll link you directly to recent Reuters footage featuring that individual. Not only that, but it’ll link you directly to that person’s first appearance in the relevant clip; and give you ‘bookmarks’ to jump to other appearances in the same video. Simple idea… but it actually works.

I really like the ‘search suggestions’ auto-completion function; type in a few letters of your search query, and not only will it show you any matching names it recognises, but it also shows you a thumbnail image of the person’s face. By far the most useful example of ‘autocomplete’ I’ve seen so far.

Might be worth watching, or at least Sky-plussing tonight’s Panorama. Formerly anonymous police blogger Pc David Copperfield reveals all about the life of a modern bobby, including his own name. Probably more about police than blogging, but you won’t see too many stories about public sector blogs, transparency and confidentiality in prime-time. It’s on BBC1 at 8.30pm.

I’m not usually one for passing on internet jokes, but this works on so many levels.

Found on xkcd – thanks to Ian at the Telegraph for the introduction. I’m not touching quantum computing, though. I was up until 3am this morning hacking WordPress; that was just about on my limit.

I’m delighted to see someone has found a way to make Microsoft’s excellent multi-platform blogging app, Windows Live Writer into a portable run-it-from-USB program. If I read the instructions correctly, it’s a shame you have to actually install it properly first, before you go portable – but maybe that’s something that can be ironed out?

As regular readers will have noted, there’s a growing trend in my work (and indeed, others’) for using blog tools to do basic (or indeed, medium) content management. And whilst the blog platforms’ web interfaces are usually OK, there are times I’m sure it would be easier to give people a desktop application which looks, feels and works like Word. Easier to post with, and no admin options to get in the way.

But all too often, these jobs are ‘stealth’ projects, because the IT department can’t/won’t play ball… so they’re hardly likely to approve the installation of blogging software on otherwise locked-down machines. This might be a way round such headaches.

(If any readers know of a different/better solution, a ‘portable’ desktop blogging client which doesn’t require proper installation on Windows, and works with Typepad and WordPress… leave us a comment, would you?)

Keep an eye on Messy Media, the new London-based publishing startup from Lloyd Shepherd (ex Yahoo, ex Guardian, and ex Yahoo again) and Andrew Levy (ex Yahoo), formally unveiled yesterday on Lloyd’s blog. I met up with Lloyd to talk about this a while back, and he’s got some exciting plans for it all.

It’s a simple premise, and indeed, it isn’t a particularly unique premise: decent journalism done through the medium of blogging. Nick Denton has done it with Gawker; closer to home, Shiny Media have been doing it for almost three years (starting off with little more than a bunch of Typepad accounts!). And of course, in the meantime, proper journalism has started to get its head around blogging.

But Lloyd clearly has some strong ideas about editorial, and his passion is infective. ‘We believe there’s a clear opportunity in Britain,’ he declares, ‘to use the blogging format to do proper journalism – to entertain and inform. Proper design, professional editorial development and a serious commercial proposition are all part of that.’ Bring it on.