Jun 132013
 

Article from Tcat Houser editor-in-chief of TRCBNews.com that recently ignited some fire with 2 articles:
OpenOffice versus LibreOffice versus The World and The Biggest Failure in Open Source Is…

Some of the Linux faithful will look at this and say: “There he goes again, bashing open-source. He’s just a Microsoft shill.” They will use the fact I am an MCSE as ‘proof’ of their opinion.

Version 4.0 of LOO still suffers from the issue of cross file compatibility to Microsoft Office. However, the good news is the pain is less than ever before and we now get the ability to open Visio and Publisher files! Personally, I have not used either of these Microsoft programs in years so I cannot attest to how well they are handled.

Beyond my own daily use of LOO I have read in depth every review I could find on the Internet. My honest summary is they are far more negative than my feelings. Yes I must agree with everyone else that the most lacking area is complex documents not playing nice with MS Office. The second most cited shortcoming is the relatively confusing menus. I cannot really disagree there either. And there is always two sides to the coin. LOO’s brightside is shinier than ever. Less noticed is how much this version has pulled away to lead over Apache Open Office (AOO) formally known as Open Office Organization (OOO).
More about that later.
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Jun 092013
 

PDFtk or The PDF Toolkit is an open source cross-platform tool for manipulating PDF documents. pdftk is basically a front end to the iText library (compiled to Native code using GCJ), capable of splitting, merging, encrypting, decrypting, uncompressing, recompressing, and repairing PDFs.

If pdf is electronic paper, then pdftk is an electronic stapler-remover, hole-punch, binder, secret-decoder-ring, and x-ray-glasses.
pdftk is a simple tool for doing everyday things with pdf documents. keep one in the top drawer of your desktop and use it to:

  • merge pdf documents
  • split pdf pages into a new document
  • decrypt input as necessary (password required)
  • encrypt output as desired
  • fill pdf forms with fdf data and/or flatten forms
  • apply a background watermark
  • report pdf on metrics, including metadata and bookmarks
  • update pdf metadata
  • attach files to pdf pages or the pdf document
  • unpack pdf attachments
  • burst a pdf document into single pages
  • uncompress and re-compress page streams
  • repair corrupted pdf (where possible)

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May 302013
 

Today I propose you an interesting topic based on an article by   first published on https://citizenweb.is/

Over the past few years, a handful of different encrypted messaging systems have cropped up and gained prominence, notably Cryptocat and the OTR specification. Now a newcomer to the scene proposes a different way of thinking about encrypted communication, one that borrows from its more well-known older brother, BitCoin.

A project has been started that intends to recreate BitCoin’s decentralized P2P model for seamless message encryption and transmission.
BitMessage was started by Jonathan Warr en late last year and has now made it up to version 0.2.4. One of the most prominent strengths of the BitMessage system is how it enforces anonymity. Similar to how BitCoin allows one to send money to anonymous recipients without advertising metadata to others, BitMessage communicates via simple addresses generated from public keys, which need not be tied to a specific user’s identity.

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5 Comic Book Viewers for Linux

A comic book is a magazine which consists of narrative artwork in the form of sequential images with text that represent individual scenes. Comics are used to tell a story, and are published in a number of different formats including comic strips, comic books, webcomics, Manga, and graphic novels. The equivalent for computers are the [...]

Happy April Fools’ Day 2013, for you a collection of April Fool !!

Like 1 year ago today I prefer to post a collection of the best April Fools that I’ve found around, some about Gnu/Linux and open source in general, but also on online service such as Twitter and youtube. YouTube is shutting down. YouTube Contest Submissions Closing Tomorrow at Midnight To our incredible YouTube community, When [...]