I have just watched this lecture from the local TV. The speakers were the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, and the Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (henceforth SBY).

SBY did not particularly said lots of things, he was mainly concerned about how technology can help Indonesia to face the current trend of globalization. There was really nothing much to know.

Mr. Gates then talked about the massive growth of IT technology with reference to the Moore's Law (which says that processor capabilities doubles every set amount of years). Then he advertised the current Microsoft research focus such as Microsoft Surface (if I am not mistaken, it enables mobile devices to talk to tables that they are over them and synchronize everything without intervention). Gates also previewed another Microsoft plaything on astronomy which looks very much like Google Earth but it is for the outer space, not for the Earth. Furthermore, he mentioned how IT boosts a lot of other sectors important to humans such as medicine. MIT OpenCourseWare were also given as an example of the profound effects of the internet (although the name was not mentioned explicitly). Read more »

Software source codes should be freely accessible because they are a formulation of science; it is like a scientific formula that anybody can use. Imagine if we are charged for every use of the Pythagorean theorem and that is what Microsoft is doing now for every use of Windows. Read more »

OpenOffice.org has become more and more suited for replacing Microsoft Office. Sadly, porting lots of Microsoft Office documents to OpenOffice format (aka OpenDocument Format) is not easy. If you have only one, five, or ten files you could just open them one by one and resave in OpenOffice.org, but how about hundreds or thousands of multi-megabyte documents in a corporate environment?

This little program batch / mass convert Microsoft Office documents (*.doc, *.xls, and .ppt) to their OpenOffice equivalent (.odt, *.ods, and *.odp (aka OpenDocument Format)). The nice thing about this script is that it converts all documents specified in the input, including subdirectories. The result can be put in another directory, and it retains its original directory structure (the script takes care of keeping the relative path). Use it at your own risk! Read more »