So I’ve been dealing this week with the new Microsoft Office 2007.  The interface is the most usable interface I’ve ever dealt with.  It needs to be implemented horizontally across all of vista.  Apple seems to be able to manage this task, microsoft should too.

The problem I’ve been having with office is docx conversions.  Docx conversion to word 2003 doc or to rtf does not work as well as it should.  Instead of removing any features that don’t exist, it butchers features that do exist.  For example, tables are all completely malformed.  To be fair, this may be partially an issue with open office’s way of parsing Office 2007’s “office 2003 doc” type.

Microsoft’s document specification, OOXML is about to be ratified by ISO, and I’m not sure that this fact is good.  My insecurity is not borne of reasons mentioned above, but on fears of future inability for other programs to implement OOXML parsers.  Essentially, we need a standard doc type that can be parsed by any document parser.  Additions to the document should be extensions, and parsers should be able to parse the base document and output them without the extensions.

 Canonical is running an Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex Theme Competition on DeviantArt.  This idea came from the digg-esque site brainstorm.  The original idea called for a general theme competition, however, they’ve decided to limit the scope of the competition to just wallpapers.  A wallpaper competition is an interesting idea, but there’s a huge interest in creating new themes for Ubuntu.  A lot of good ideas were made for Hardy Heron.

I posted a new idea to brainstorm, refuting their change in the old idea.

If I had to design the competition, the rules would be something like this:

• Users submit a part of the look and feel of ubuntu, any part.
• Mockups are encouraged, ranging from highly prototypical, to mockup themes, to fleshed out themes to wallpapers
  In other words, this should be a mockup competition, setting the plans of Canonica’s Ubuntu look and feel.
• Allow Multiple kinds of winning: You could win for innovative ideas that aren’t implementable with current software, and you could win for an idea that will make it into the next ubuntu.

Many mockups wouldn’t make it into Ibex, but would potentially set a path to a more competative OS look and feel with other operating systems.