Is it Time to Take Your (Android) Tablets?

However much I dislike Apple's obsession with control - the very antithesis of openness - I have to admit that its iPad is an important artefact. I think the tablet is on its way to becoming an important adjunct to other kinds of computing - ideal for sofa-top consumption, say. It will also be perfect for many business and industrial uses (I'm sure it won't be long until we see rugged versions of the form factor.)

On Open Enterprise blog.

MPs Plot Against Transparency - and Lose the Plot

They just don't get it, do they?

Parliament is planning to block the future release of expenses receipts after the humiliation endured by MPs this week, The Times has learnt.

Senior MPs have drawn up plans to replace the publication of every receipt with a spreadsheet detailing individual claims.

The changes would make less information available for public scrutiny, despite the anger caused this week by the way in which details were blacked out from the official files.

Look chaps, open means open, as in o-p-e-n: we're not going to settle for less. Get used to it, because we're going to keep coming back and coming back until we get audit trail clarity from our money in your pockets to every last expense.

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Wouldn't It Be Wonderful to Have....ODS?

The Guardian continues to do its bit for open data:

The Guardian has pulled together a collection of datasets drawn from the US

Rather cleverly, it is using Spreadly, aka Google Spreadsheets to offer various formats:

Simon Rogers gathered this information and shared the raw data via Google Spreadsheets for anyone to use. This means that people can grab the data in whatever format is most desirable including text, .csv, .xls, and .pdf.

That's great, but why is .odf - also available from Spreadly - omitted? Anything personal? Lack of space? Not enough electrons...?

Google's Writely and Spreadly Get it Together

I'm a big fan of Google's Writely online word processor - I now do most of my writing with it. I can't say the same about Spreadly, I mean the online spreadsheet, because it lacks basic features like charts (as far as I can tell). But Google are steadily making improvements - for example, by integrating the Writely and Spreadly file spaces.

Google Spreadsheets - Nearly There

I find that my way of working is becoming increasingly Webified: I use Gmail, Writely and (just occasionally) the odd bit of Firefox. One of the key apps still missing from that line-up is the spreadsheet. Google's online Spreadsheets wasn't a serious option, because it didn't offer ODF suport - until now. If they could just get the charts sorted out, I would be too. (Via Tecosystems.)

Update: Google Spreadsheets is known as "Spreadly" among Googlers, apparently. I like it.

Shock! Horror! Macro Viruses for OSS

This explains why macros are generally a bad thing to use in word processors or spreadsheets (yes, I know they can be useful, too). It is also a warning to OSS activists not to hit the "OSS is immune to viruses" button: it may be true now, but it sure won't be in the future as OSS enters the mainstream. (Via LWN.net).