Wictor Wilen

If so, then you have the chance of winning a grand prize by Microsoft. Microsoft has announced a Windows Media Center - Ultimate Install Contest in which they are looking for the best (finest and most creative) installation of Windows Vista Ultimate Media Center. If it is you, then send in your submission before November 1st, 2007 (for where to send the stuff, look at the link above). The winner will be announced at Electronic House (EH) Expo Fall 2007.

Finally Microsoft has released Silverlight 1.0 - Microsofts new streaming media platform which aims to compete with Adobe Flash. Silverlight is a cross-platform and cross-browser plugin with focus on delivering high performing graphical web interfaces, with support for Windows and Mac OS. Download the final release here. The download page still says Silverlight 1.0 RC , but the RC will automatically update to the final version. For Linux there is a project under the Mono umbrella called Moonlight which will provide a Linux implementation of Silverlight.

ECMA Office Open XML (ISO/IEC DIS 29500) will not get an approval from ISO, as of now. This is what almost everyone expected after the last week of turbulence. Now we can hopefully look forward to some constructive work on all the recieved comments on the specification from ECMA and Microsoft. This will in the end make a better OOXML specification and I hope it will be approved in february of 2008.

Yes, you read it right! Microsoft now offers a royalty-free file format program for the Microsoft Office Binary File Format (the old .doc, .xls and .ppt used in previous versions of Microsoft Office). Microsoft Office 2007 is built-upon the Office Open XML file format which is an ECMA International standard, and an ISO proposal (you have all read about it). But some of us still have application and/or customers that heavily rely on the old binary format. Until now it has been a mess doing something with these documents (for example in the SharePoint event handlers) or producing them without expensive 3rd party applications. We have solved it in some cases by making compressed HTML files (.mht) and renamed them to .doc (it actually works smooth). But if you still have to dig in to the old binary formats you can recieve the binary file formats specifications, which covers the latest versions as well as earlier ones, you can send an e-mail to Microsoft and request an agreement which you have to sign. I have not read up on all the legal issues, but you can read the agreement here.

When I was installing a new Windows SharePoint Services 3 site today I stumpled upon an error I’ve never seen in SharePoint before. It was when I was trying to add new users in the People and Groups administration. It was not a “normal” error page but instead a HTTP 403 Forbidden message was thrown when going to the /_layouts/aclinv.aspx page. This was on a brand new server instance, with everything patched and up to date.

It is now confirmed that Sweden will abstain from voting for the ECMA Open Office XML specification (DIS 29500). After the annullation of the result taken on monday the working group could not agree on having a new meeting before the ISO voting procedure. Some of the members did not like to have a new vote - guess who? So this is the end of the SIS vote for this time. Now, almost everyone have something to say in this matter, except Sweden.

I just recieved new information (in Swedish) that Sweden will not vote Yes for DIS29500 Office Open XML, which I previously reported on. Sweden will instead abstain from voting in the ISO vote on September 2nd. The SIS board had a meeting this afternoon and annulled the previous result due to that one of the commitee members had participated with more than one vote. I do not know which member, but I figure we all soon will know it…

The NiXPS guys has done it again, they have created an XPS viewer for the Mac platform. Read all about it on their blog. The XPS viewer is a part of their upcoming version of the NiXPS platform, which is a cross-platform application for inspecting and manipulating XPS files. It is currently in beta but I think that this new version with the improved XPS previewing abilities will really boost the application.

Today was the meeting when the Swedish standardisation organisation, SIS, was to vote on the Office Open XML standard. I have observed this procedure, but not actively participated in it since the first working group meeting a few months ago. At that time it felt pretty comfortable and the Yes vote was in reach. When this day approached both camps, the pro Office Open XML team and the no-sayers both gathered their forces for the final battle. We all entered the meeting at the last possible minute and we all was signed in to the meeting.