MS anti-Trojan shield fails to protect older Offices
,----[ Quote ]
| The technology works by converting Office 2003 binary format files to
| Open XML format using Microsoft Office 2007 system converters.
| Microsoft claims three possible failsafe outcomes: successful
| conversion, failure to covert, or the converter (though not the
| underlying OS) crashes.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/06/ms_anti-trojan_defence/
This is terrible. Yet another route to lockin and breaking of existing
(however loose) compatibility.
No surprise here either:
Microsoft, Yahoo! and Google snub debate on freedom
,----[ Quote ]
| The event is being held to discuss how free debate is being
| quashed by oppressive regimes.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/06/corporate_chinese_collusion/
Related:
[OOXML] Math markup marked down
,----[ Quote ]
| It appears that Science, the journal of the America Association for the
| Advancement of Science (AAAS), itself the largest scientific society in the
| world, has updated its authoring guidelines to include advice for Office
| 2007 users. The news is not good.
|
| [...]
|
| Uh oh. Not only cannot you not submit files in OOXML format, but
| you can't even use Office 2007 and save in the old binary formats.
| The choice to invent a new "Open Math Markup Language" rather
| then use the well-established existing standard, MathML, appears
| to be a serious flaw.
`----
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/04/math-markup-marked-down.html
In case you were wondering how big 6000 pages is: OpenXML/OOXML/whatever
,----[ Quote ]
| Take a look at this photo from an OOXML workshop. (Read the blog entry
| too.) [Photo of a pile of 6,000+ pages]
|
| I don't know what your job is, but imagine your boss came to you and
| said "read this, fully understand it, implement it perfectly, and make
| sure that it fully interoperates with the software being produced by
| anyone else doing the same." Translate this statement to your own job
| and stare again at that photo. What do you conclude?
|
| * You'll have lifetime employment trying to implement the spec.
| * Your boss comes from another wacko parallel universe.
| * This is a joke if not a travesty.
| * Your job evaluation will not be very good next year.
| * There is no way you can fully do the job without
| reimplementing significant portions of Microsoft's product
| portfolio and therefore you will run into intellectual
| property problems. (Don?t think that's a problem?)
| * Microsoft is trying to change the rules on what is a standard
| and who can implement it.
`----
http://www.sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=1634
Microsoft's Mo' Ice
,----[ Quote ]
| Something stinks in Redmond, and it's yesterday's Microsoft Security
| Advisory #937696. I hate when Microsoft uses--or appears to--security
| as an excuse to accomplish some other objective.
|
| [...]
|
| Sorry, but I see MOICE and so-called security concerns about Office
| binary files as a Trojan Horse for OOXML, which its own Trojan Horse.
| As I explained on Thursday, OOXML is much more than a file format.
| Microsoft has platform ambitions for OOXML, as the company seeks to
| advance business intelligence and other initiatives.
`----
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/business_applications/microsofts_mo_ice.html?kc=MWRSS02129TX1K0000535
http://tinyurl.com/28tjeq
Microsoft imposes Vista tax on Mac and Linux virtualization
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft says that it originally considered banning Vista on
| virtualization systems because of concerns it has about security.
| Apparently AMD and Intel have built virtualization hooks into
| their CPUS. While the aim of this was to allow virtualization to
| work better, Microsoft claims that it created a security flaw.
`----
http://vista.blorge.com/2007/02/24/microsoft-imposes-vista-tax-on-mac-and-linux-virtualization/
|
|
