Skip to Content

Submit your nominations for the Luxist Awards' Best in Decor
AOL Tech

Filed under: IBM

Filed under: News, Office, IBM

IBM gives workers ten days to switch from Microsoft Office to Lotus Symphony - OR ELSE!

There's word today today that IBM has finally ordered its staff to abandon Microsoft Office immediately and switch to their own Lotus Symphony suite.

Symphony has been around since 2008, and apparently IBM is now confident enough in its office work kung fu that it's going to take over full time duties.

The move makes perfect sense. It's hard to imagine any company using someone else's software to do the chores that their own app is designed to tackle. Why ask your customers do something you can't even ask your own staff to do?

Symphony, of course, is based on OpenOffice.org and recently gained support for Office 2007. The announcement means 360,000 IBM employees now have 10 days to bid MSO a fond farewell before kissing it goodbye forever.

Sure, it's kind of a big hit for Microsft -- but how long did people really expect IBM not to use their own product?

We speculate that users who refuse to switch will have this image blown up and plastered all over their cubicle, where it will remain until they submit.

[via Linux Magazine]

Filed under: Business, Utilities, Office, Google, IBM

Google makes it easier to ditch Lotus Notes


If your company uses Lotus Notes, and has been considering switching to Google Apps, you're in luck. Google has just launched an easy migration tool that allows you to bring all of your Notes data over to the equivalent Google Apps. In a blog post, Google explains that the migration tool is simple and complete enough for enterprise use, and that a 30,000-person company has already used it to switch over.

The tool is a Lotus Notes database, which means IT pros who are used to notes shouldn't have much trouble with it. It migrates everything from Notes to Google Apps: email, calendars, and contacts. This is welcome news to folks who are still stuck with the quirky interface and sometimes-frustrating incompatibility of Notes, but will it get companies to switch? The success of Google Apps in the enterprise market might not be about how easy it is to switch, but about how comfortable businesses are with moving their data to the cloud.

Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Office, IBM, Freeware

IBM's free, cross-platform Lotus Symphony now MS Office 2007 compatible

You may not have read much about Lotus Symphony - OpenOffice.Org casts a pretty big shadow over other free Office competitors. Like OpenOffice, IBM's cross-platform office suite is based on the Open Document format and is a very capable alternative to Micorosoft Office.

Symphony doesn't provide the same number of tools as Office or OpenOffice, but it does handle word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation tasks. The latest release adds a much needed piece of functionality to Symphony - the ability to open files created using Microsoft Office 2007 (though files can only be saved in 2003 or 2000 formats). A Flash-based presentation of Symphony's features is available for viewing, and there's also a transcript available if you would rather read them yourself.

One I particularly like is the tabbed interface. As with the tabs in my browser, it keeps my workspace just as tidy whether I've got a single document or dozens open at the same time.

The suite is roughly a 200Mb download for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and is available from the IBM web site. There's also a large, online library of clipart for you to utilize in your documents.

Filed under: Games, E-mail, IBM

XForce report - spam (and Turkey)

SpamIn our last installment the XForce was busy keeping you safe on the Internet. In this episode it's XForce versus the evil spam.

Spam, as we all know, is a pain in the rear. The XForce report covers a lot of ground on spam and phishing.

Some of the things the report covers (that I won't):
  • What happened to image-based spam?
  • How much spam is phishing?
  • How much spam is PDF spam?
  • Where are the web pages contained in spam messages hosted?
So, here are the interesting spam nuggets from the report. The XForce reports that Russia sends 11% of spam, Turkey sends 8% and the US sends 7% of worldwide spam. Can you believe that Turkey is beating us in spam?

The XForce report also lists the most common subject lines for spam and surprisingly, there is not a mention of Viagra in any of them. The most popular spam subject line, at .67% of the world's spam is - Replica Watches. I know, boring, isn't it? The second and third most popular subject lines are about more risque topics.

If all this talk of spam has that lovely Monty Python song stuck in your head, go try the spam-a-lot game. But if you're at work you might want to turn your speakers down (or off)!

Filed under: Security, IBM

XForce report on computer threats and vulnerabilities

analog hackingThe XForce won't save you from a burning building but, they just might make your surfing safer. The XForce is IBM's team of Internet Security Systems researchers and they've just released the midyear report for 2008, listing all kinds of facts and figures on internet security. If you're really into data, go read the report for yourself. It might also be good for insomnia. I'll give you the quick highlights here.

The first part of the report is about computer threats and vulnerabilities. Top five companies with vulnerability disclosures (when they publish information about a security problem) in 2008 so far?
  • Apple
  • Joomla!
  • Microsoft
  • IBM
  • Sun
And a surprise at the bottom of the list, Wordpress, which is new on the list this year.

The most exploited vendors so far in 2008? Apple, HP and Microsoft. Not surprising targets since that's what most of us use in our daily life.

More worrisome is the increase in web application vulnerabilities. There has been a 51% increase since 2006. That means we, the people who are online all day, are being targeted more often. Some of these threats come from malicious websites which most of us have learned to stay away from. But some also come from web facing applications, like WordPress

Read more →

Filed under: Windows, Linux, Office, IBM, Freeware

IBM updates free office suite, launches Lotus Symphony 1

Lotus Symphony 1
IBM has put the finishing touches on Lotus Symphony, a free Microsoft Office competitor based on OpenOffice.org. The company pushed out version 1.0 of the office suite which has been available as a public beta since last year.

Unlike OpenOffice.org, Lotus Symphony is not open source software. While IBM is providing it for free, Lotus Symphony is based on OpenOffice.org 1.1.4, which is the last version of OpenOffice.org that had a license allowing developers to modify the code and keep the changes private.

According to Linux.com, IBM hopes to target the enterprise market with this software. The goal is to provide Lotus Symphony as a free alternative to Microsoft Office, while charging $25,000 per year for support. Of course, if you know how to use word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation applications, you probably won't need to spend the money. But you also might not find much in Lotus Symphony that isn't already available in its open source cousin, OpenOffice.org.

So what's new in Lotus Symphony 1? Here are a few highlights:
  • Critical crash and freezing issues have been fixed
  • Improved performance when creating new documents, spell checking presentations of spreadsheets, redrawing a presentation page, saving PPT files, and performing other actions
  • Improved interoperability with Microsoft Office, OpenOffice.org, and SmartSuite documents
  • Added support for 4 more languages, bringing the total to 28
Lotus Symphony is available for Windows and Linux. While the only supported Linux platforms are SUSE Enterprise Desktop 10 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, you can install Lotus Symphony on other distributions. You just might run into a few errors here and there.

thanks Hessel Olijve!

Filed under: Office, IBM, OpenOffice.org, Beta

IBM releases updated beta of Lotus Symphony office suite

Lotus Symphony beta 2
Remember Lotus Symphony? A few months ago IBM launched its open source MS Office competitor based on OpenOffice.org code. We downloaded it, installed it, weren't particularly impressed, unloaded it and forgot about it.

Now IBM is back with a second beta release of Lotus Symphony. The application still runs pretty slow on our Windows Vista test system. There are versions available for Windows XP, Vista, and Linux. A Mac release is scheduled for next year.

Computer World reports that IBM plans to release updates every 6 to 8 weeks. The next version will include support for 23 languages. Right now, Lotus Symphony is only available in English.

As for major changes in Lotus Symphony Beta 2, we didn't notice much in the way of new features. So we're guessing most of the tweaks are under the hood bug fixes.

[via Computer World]

Filed under: Windows, Linux, Office, IBM, Open Source

Download IBM Lotus Symphony without registering

IBM Lotus Symphony
One of the main complaints we're hearing from readers about IBM's new office suite is that you have to register in order to download it. IBM released Lotus Symphony yesterday. The suite includes a word processor, spreadsheet application and PowerPoint clone. It's built on OpenOffice.org, but it has a look and feel all its own. And it's free, but you have to give away a lot of personal information in order to download Lotus Symphony from IBM's site.

Fortunately, it turns out that there are a few ways to download the program without first signing up. No, we're not talking about downloading it from a gray market BitTorrent tracker, although we're pretty sure that's another possibility.
If anyone has a good direct download link for the Linux version, let us know in the comments.
[via Cybernet]

Filed under: Office, IBM, Open Source

IBM takes on Microsoft with free office software

Lotus Symphony
A week after IBM announced that it would join the OpenOffice.org developer community, the company has launched its own standalone office application suite. Like OpenOffice.org, IBM Lotus Symphony includes a word processor, spreadsheet application, and presentation software. That shouldn't be surprising, as the software was developed using technology from the open source OpenOffice.org.

Lotus Symphony, which is currently in beta is available as a free download. This strikes yet another blow to Microsoft Office's dominance on the office space. Not only are Excel, Word, and PowerPoint facing competition from downloadable programs like OpenOffice.org and Lotus Symphony, but there's increasing pressure from online software like Google Docs & Spreadsheets and Zoho.

Update: After playing with Lotus Symphony for a few minutes, here's what we can tell you. It loads a bit slower than OpenOffice.org, but has a very attractive user interface. There's a tabbed view that lets you open multiple documents without opening multiple instances of the application, which we like. As with any new application, it takes a few moments to acclimate yourself with the toolbars and menus, but overall Lotus Symphony is powerful and pretty intuitive for anyone who's ever used Microsoft Office or OpenOffice.org.

[via The New York Times]

Filed under: Office, IBM, OpenOffice.org, Open Source

IBM joins OpenOffice.org developer community

OpenOffice.orgIBM has announced that it is joining the OpenOffice.org community. The company will contribute code already developed for Lotus Notes and will assist development in an ongoing basis. From a user perspective, there's no word on what tangible changes we'll see in OpenOffice.org in the near future. But open source development has never been a case of "too many cooks spoil the broth," so we're going to take this as good news.

While OpenOffice.org is open source, the software is based on StarOffice, which was developed by Sun. So IBM is hardly the first major corporation to get involved in developing the Microsoft Office alternative.

The partnership is not one way. While OpenOffice.org applications will likely benefit from IBM's expertise, the open document format is gaining wide acceptance as a standard. The more companies that partner with OpenOffice.org, the better support there will be for ODF in other applications.

[via Once More Unto the Breach]

Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services, IBM

Latest Google acquisition: ImageAmerica

Google Katrina imageryGoogle has acquired a company that makes high resolution cameras for capturing aerial images. ImageAmerica supplied Google with up to date images of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

The move will allow Google to update the imagery in Google Maps and Google Earth.

No word on how much Google paid for this latest acquisition or how long we'll have to wait before we see the new images start to appear. Product Manager Stephen Chau says Google is still in the research and development phase, so it could be a while.

In the meantime, voyeurs looking for up close and personal views of city streets will have to bide their time with Google's recently announced and somewhat creepy Street View feature.

Filed under: Business, Productivity, IBM

IBM's hosted apps land in India

india hospitalHospitals are willing to upgrade systems and spend revenue on software applications and Big Blue is never too shy to come to the rescue.

Mid-size hospitals in India are now seeing new IT initiatives as a way to gain a competitive advantage against the larger more well known facilities. It's suggested that there was a $300 million untapped hospital service market available for the taking when IBM jumped in and offered up their hardware, middleware and services. The applications that IBM will provide the hospitals are revenue management applications, hospital enterprise resource planning, learning management, health insurance claims processing and performance management applications.

There are only a few hospitals in India that have successfully implemented IT solutions. There are supposedly issues surrounding choice, as well as not much understanding at evaluating different options available.


[via infoworld]

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, IBM

IBM working on web browser for the visually impaired

A-PlayerIBM is working on a new web browser designed for blind and visually impaired users. For now, the program bears the obvious codename of "Accessibility Browser," or A-Browser for short.

You'd think that all the new multimedia content on the web would make the internet more useful for the blind. But it turns out that programs designed to read web pages usually don't know how to deal with audio and video content embedded on a web page, especially if that multimedia file begins to play as soon as you load the page. In those situations, you might be stuck listening to music at the same time as the computer is trying to read the text on a page to you.

The new program makes it easier for users to control multimedia playback with predefined keyboard shortcuts, rather than having to move the mouse to an on-screen play/pause button.

[via Engadget]

Filed under: Hardware, Apple, IBM

The 10 worst PCs of all time


Software is only as good as the hardware you run it on and, this hardware is the absolute worst. PC World takes a crack at listing the 10 worst PCs of all time. Overpriced, underpowered and totally useless as soon as they came out of the box.

It speaks volumes to the quality of modern PC hardware that the most recent pile of junk on the list is from 2003.Other notables include relics like the IBM PS/1 (I shudder even to think about this long gone machine) and the infamous eMachines tower which started the ultra-cheap PC revolution.

Filed under: Developer, News, IBM, Retrocomputing

Fortran father John Backus, dead at 82

John Backus made software back when no one called it software. As the project leader of the IBM team which created the venerable Fortran language, Backus helped define the "hacker ethic". Leading a small team to do great things quickly, and leverage their own mistakes in order to learn, Backus shattered the paradigm of 1950s corporate IBM and, developed a language that is only now beginning to fade into history.

The NYT examines how Backus defined what may have been the Alpha test version of the dot-com years, "Mr. Backus, colleagues said, managed the research team with a light hand. The hours were long but informal. Snowball fights relieved lengthy days of work in winter. I.B.M. had a system of rigid yearly performance reviews, which Mr. Backus deemed ill-suited for his programmers, so he ignored it."

Sounds like a boss you'd love to have. The Times article includes a beautiful quote from Backus which defines one of software development's philosophical keystones elegantly, "You need the willingness to fail all the time," he said. "You have to generate many ideas and then you have to work very hard only to discover that they don't work. And you keep doing that over and over until you find one that does work."

[via O'Reilly Radar]

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Microsoft Security Essentials
Chromium Pre-Alpha on CrunchBang Linux
Safari 4 Beta
10 Firefox themes that don't suck
IE8 RC1
Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party
Download Squad at the Crunchies
WordPress 2.7
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Windows 7 Hands On
Comodo Internet Security
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff
Adobe Lightroom 1.1

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

More Tech Coverage

AOL Radio