An article from BBC
Office users will get more options for the way they save filesUsers could be in for less frustration as Microsoft makes flagship programs handle rival ways of saving documents, spreadsheets and presentations.
The initiative covers the Word, Excel and PowerPoint programs from the Office software suite.
The prototype of the first tool to translate between formats will be made available as a free download on 6 July. Microsoft said it started building the software tools in response to requests from government customers.
File style
Every PC user knows how careful they have to be when moving important files around because of the incompatibilities between different programs, such as word processors, that do the same job. Saving a file in a format in one program can make it difficult to open in another, without sacrificing some of the way that the information in the file is laid out or formatted
Both Microsoft and the broader technology industry have been working to remove some of these problems by standardising the ways information is saved so it appears the same when opened by different programs.
This tool promises to be a very significant development in the trend towards practical open document standards Andrew Hopkirk, National Computing Centre, UK
Before now, Microsoft and the technology world have chosen to go their own ways.
The new initiative ends some of this diversity and will make it possible for anyone using programs in the Office software suite to save files in more so-called "open" formats.
Specifically, the tools will make it possible to save and work with files using the Open Document format - a specification developed by the open source community as an alternative to the proprietary formats used by large software firms.
Microsoft has been working towards a more open way of formatting documents based around the Extensible Markup Language (XML). This helps preserve the structure of data in a document, such as a spreadsheet, so that relationships between figures are preserved as they are opened in different programs or used for other purposes.
"This tool promises to be a very significant development in the trend towards practical open document standards and, critically, customer-friendly means to move between them," said Andrew Hopkirk, director of the UK's National Computing Centre's e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF) programme, in a Microsoft statement.
Some of the free tools will be add-ins for older versions of the programs in the Office suite, said Microsoft. Prototypes of the translation tools will be made available via the SourceForge website which allows anyone to participate in the software development process.
The Microsoft-led project is being carried out with three other companies - French firm Clever Age, Aztecsoft in India and Dialogika in Germany.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Monday, July 03, 2006
'HIV stigma' drives India suicide
An article from BBC
A 15-year-old Indian boy whose parents had HIV was driven to suicide by the stigma associated with the virus, police say.
Santosh Baniya died of burn injuries after setting himself on fire in the western city of Ahmedabad last week. Both his parents were diagnosed with HIV two years ago. They are among more than five million people infected with the virus in India.
Before he died the boy had expressed fears about surviving his parents.
'Mentally tormented' Investigations suggested Santosh Baniya feared being ostracised once it became public knowledge that both his parents, who were vegetable sellers, were HIV positive, police said.
More than 5m people in India have HIV"He was mentally tormented as he could not face the humiliation owing to both his parents being HIV-positive," a police spokesman told the Press Trust of India news agency.
The boy, who had three siblings, had stopped attending school regularly after his parents were diagnosed with HIV, AFP news agency reported. A United Nations report in May estimated India had overtaken South Africa as the country with most people with HIV, the virus that causes Aids. But Indian authorities dispute the UN figure of 5.7 million sufferers, saying only 5.2 million have the virus.
People with HIV and Aids in India can face discrimination, including being ostracised and denied access to schools and hospitals.
My Views
People around the world, especially in India (that includes me) should realize that young kids like Santosh Baniya die everyday. Their aims, goals, etc everything goes in vain. What harm did these kids do to this community? Is this the reward that they get for being innocent?
When we start thinking about this, the main root cause for all this is ignorance. The kid died because of his parents ignorance. There are so many kids in world who die for no harm of theirs. This is completely insane and ridiculous.
Even though one doesn't kill these kids physically but mentally they are murdered and I personally feel that everyone of us are some how or the other involved in commiting this sin. The reason why I say this is because most of the individuals are involved in their own interests which is why people who know things are not able to (or rather don't spend time) in sharing information to people who are ignorant.
We have to wake up now and try to put some assertive thoughts in innocent people or rather people who are ignorant and make them realize certain things, the way it is supposed to be.
A 15-year-old Indian boy whose parents had HIV was driven to suicide by the stigma associated with the virus, police say.
Santosh Baniya died of burn injuries after setting himself on fire in the western city of Ahmedabad last week. Both his parents were diagnosed with HIV two years ago. They are among more than five million people infected with the virus in India.
Before he died the boy had expressed fears about surviving his parents.
'Mentally tormented' Investigations suggested Santosh Baniya feared being ostracised once it became public knowledge that both his parents, who were vegetable sellers, were HIV positive, police said.
More than 5m people in India have HIV"He was mentally tormented as he could not face the humiliation owing to both his parents being HIV-positive," a police spokesman told the Press Trust of India news agency.
The boy, who had three siblings, had stopped attending school regularly after his parents were diagnosed with HIV, AFP news agency reported. A United Nations report in May estimated India had overtaken South Africa as the country with most people with HIV, the virus that causes Aids. But Indian authorities dispute the UN figure of 5.7 million sufferers, saying only 5.2 million have the virus.
People with HIV and Aids in India can face discrimination, including being ostracised and denied access to schools and hospitals.
My Views
People around the world, especially in India (that includes me) should realize that young kids like Santosh Baniya die everyday. Their aims, goals, etc everything goes in vain. What harm did these kids do to this community? Is this the reward that they get for being innocent?
When we start thinking about this, the main root cause for all this is ignorance. The kid died because of his parents ignorance. There are so many kids in world who die for no harm of theirs. This is completely insane and ridiculous.
Even though one doesn't kill these kids physically but mentally they are murdered and I personally feel that everyone of us are some how or the other involved in commiting this sin. The reason why I say this is because most of the individuals are involved in their own interests which is why people who know things are not able to (or rather don't spend time) in sharing information to people who are ignorant.
We have to wake up now and try to put some assertive thoughts in innocent people or rather people who are ignorant and make them realize certain things, the way it is supposed to be.
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