June | 2014 | Steve Woods

Costa Rica’s UCR to launch advanced digital signature extension for LibreOffice

13/06/2014 Steve WoodsOpen Source, Open Standards, Tech

The Computing Centre of the University of Costa Rica (UCR) will be launching an advanced digital signature extension for LibreOffice on 19th June, Costa Rica’s El Pais reports.

The launch, which will take place in the auditorium of the Economic Science Faculty of UCR’s main Rodrigo Facio site, aims to explain and publicise the working of the extension added to the LibreOffice office suite.

It will enable a document to be validated with a timestamp. This is the first time that such a free extension of this kind has been implemented in Costa Rica.

It should be pointed out that UCR’s Computing Centre is the first organisation within Costa Rica to develop an open source digital signature component. It will enable Open Document files to be signed in the advanced XADES X-4 format.

As Juan Carlos Romero, the extension’s developer, explained “open code libraries were used to develop this extension, along with the reuse of code from Belgium, a country which has a very robust free digital signature platform; based on this code we started to develop the 100% free software component for LibreOffice”.

Finally, according to information provided by UCR’s Information Centre, which has spent more than 40 years developing and managing technology projects for education, it is presumed that the extension will be adapted within months to be compatible with all versions of LibreOffice.
Dorchester Crown Court: Crapita found in breach

10/06/2014 Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics, Social Media, Tech

Earlier today barrister Charles MacLean Cochand tweeted the following from Dorchester Crown Court:

@Barristerblog – Dorchester crown day two no interpreter. Judge finds Capita in breach. Awaiting court fd interpreter. Arrive 1400

— Chas MacLean Cochand (@ChasCochand) June 10, 2014

It is understood that the replacement Portuguese interpreter booked via Crapita is travelling to Dorchester from Nottingham, a round trip of over 400 miles. This interpreter is due to arrive at 2.00 pm, according to Mr Cochand.
Juvenile errors

10/06/2014 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Politics

Today’s online version of the Bristol Post carried a piece with a real howler of a typo in its headline, as shown by the following screenshot.

After reading the headline, I was uncertain as to whether our councillors are below the minimum age or ‘earn’ less than the minimum wage for their services.

The typographical error in the headline has since been corrected.

By equating the councillor’s allowance with a wage or salary, the Post is making yet another juvenile error. Elected members of the City Council receive allowances in recognition of the time, work and costs involved in allegedly representing the people of Bristol; a wage is defined by Collins English Dictionary as a “payment in return for work or services, esp[ecially] that made to workmen on a daily, hourly, weekly, or piece-work basis.”

Furthermore, yesterday the Post lifted this story from The Guardian about probable nuclear targets in the UK in the 1970s and completely misinterpreted the map (PDF) produced by The Guardian to accompany the piece, which clearly shows Bristol as a probable nuclear target, one of 106 around the UK. Instead the Post confidently proclaimed in its story that “Bristol was not thought to be important enough to be a target for Soviet missiles, according to government papers made public yesterday”.

Fellow local blogger Stockwood Pete commented this was “Horribly inaccurate reporting even by the Post’s low standards.”

One has to wonder if quality control is beyond the abilities of the Bristol Post.
Crapita makes one L of a mistake

07/06/2014 Steve WoodsLanguage

Capita Translation & Interpreting has made yet another linguistic cock-up, landing the taxpayer with a bill for £3,000 when asked to supply interpreters for a Lithuanian accused of stealing two bags for life worth 20p, according to Thursday’s Yorkshire Post.

Tadas Tarkutis was accused of stealing these low value items from Sainsbury’s in Scarborough and arrested. A Lithuanian interpreter was arranged to attend the police station, making a 120 miles round trip from Harrogate.

However, when Tarkutis appeared in Scarborough Magistrates Court the following morning the same interpreter was unavailable and Capita T&I arranged for a substitute – a Latvian interpreter who made a wasted 320 miles round trip from Rugby. Tarkutis was then remanded in custody overnight while a replacement interpreter was sought for the next day.

This time Capita T&I were able to supply a Lithuanian interpreter, Tarkutis admitted the crime and was jailed for 6 weeks breach of a suspended sentence.

One court source is reported by the Post as saying: “It was as if someone somewhere had just picked out a country that begins with ‘L’. It was ridiculous.”

Quite.

Capita describe as a company “you can rely on”. One can definitely rely on Capita to cock things up.

The Yorkshire Post’s reporter refers throughout the piece to the linguists involved as translators. He or she – should they happen to visit this blog – definitely needs to read my illustrated guide to the difference between the two.
LibreOffice command line magic

05/06/2014 Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Tech
One of the delights about using Linux is the command line interface (CLI), where the user issues program commands by typing in successive lines of text.

Even programs which rely on a graphical user interface (GUI) can be controlled from the command line, including the LibreOffice office suite.

One of the great features of LibreOffice is the integral PDF converter and this can even be controlled by command line using the command below without launching the program in a GUI.
```
$ libreoffice --headless --convert-to pdf name_of_file.odt
```
Just replace name_of_file.odt above with the actual file name you wish to convert, hit enter and the job’s done!
Environment Agency to release flood of open data

04/06/2014 Steve WoodsOpen Data, Tech
The Environment Agency has announced that it is releasing a whole raft of information as open data.

Environment Agency datasets that are already available as open data include:
- Flood Alert Areas;
- Flood Warning Areas;
- Flood Warnings (Live Feed);
- Real-time and Near Real-time River Levels (Live Feed);
- Real-time and Near Real-time Air Temperature (Live feed);
- 3 day Flood Forecast (Live Feed);
- Water Framework Directive (WFD) River Waterbodies;
- Water Framework Directive (WFD) Groundwater Classification Status and Objectives; and
- Water Framework Directive (WFD) Measures.
The Agency is now increasing its commitment and will soon public as much of its data as possible, including flood data, as open data. This means that over time more EA data will be made freely available to developers, technology companies and individuals.

To assist the release of open data, the Agency is setting up a user group to advise it on which data it is most important to concentrate on making open.

The group will be made up of external parties with an interest in EA data, its current data customers and people with an open data background; the group will also receive input from the Agency and Defra. Anyone interested in joining this group should email OpenData@environment-agency.gov.uk.
Under a week to St Werburgh’s Users Forum

04/06/2014 Steve WoodsBristol

I’m very proud to be Chair of St Werburgh’s Community Association, a post which I’ve held for the past couple of years.

We’re an organisation that’s very much led by its users – both individuals and groups – and we hold a forum for users annually where we ask them what things should be going on at St Werburgh’s Community Centre, what could be improved and so on.

This year’s forum takes place on Tuesday next week from 3.30 pm and the customary invitation email has been circulated to users. It says:

Our Users Forum is an afternoon full of fun for everybody of all ages. It is a chance to see what goes on at the community centre, join in our free demonstration classes and talk to other users. It is also an opportunity to tell us what you love about us and what you’d like to see improved. We will have plenty of fun activities – including a Children’s Challenge activity with prizes, a bouncy castle, games, ‘Bear Grills’ BBQ and stalls. If you have never been, it is a great opportunity to have a look around the Centre and meet the staff, users and other visitors.

It will also be the last day at work for Centre Manager Goska Ong before she goes on maternity leave, so come along and wish her farewell.
Ossmeter to reduce open source evaluation costs

02/06/2014 Steve WoodsOpen Source, Politics, Tech
Q: what has the EU ever done for us?

A: helped promote free and open source software!

Several universities and companies are working collaboratively in the Ossmeter research project on a platform for evaluating and comparing open source software. The European Union is funding Ossmeter’s development to the tune of €2.6 mn. (out of total project costs of €3.4 mn. Ed.) and the software that is ultimately developed will be made available online as a free service and released as free software so it can also be deployed as an in-house quality management tool.

The aim of the project is to reduce the costs of evaluating open source software. Collecting information from associated communication channels such as newsgroups, forums and mailing lists to identify whether user questions are answered in a timely and satisfactory manner, and to estimate the number of experts and users of the software are equally as important as the researchers’ objective, as is a comparison of several open source projects with regard to usage. The platform’s capability will be tested in three use cases.

Ossmeter is being developed by nine European research and industry organisations:
- The Open Group (UK);
- University of York (UK);
- University of Manchester (UK);
- Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (The Netherlands);
- University of L’Aquila (Italy);
- Tecnalia (Spain);
- Softeam (France);
- Uninova (Instituto de Desenvolvimento de Novas Tecnologias, Portugal); and
- Unparallel Innovation (Portugal).
The Open Group is the over-all coordinator and the University of York provides the technical coordination.

For more information on Ossmeter, read Joinup’s original post.
Greenwash: Bristol City Council’s favourite paint

01/06/2014 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Politics

2015 sees the city of Bristol wearing the crown of European Green Capital.

This award of European Green Capital is allegedly bestowed in recognition of the important role that local authorities play in improving the environment and their high level of commitment to genuine progress.

However, is it deserved in the case of Bristol City Council?

I have my doubts.

Earlier today I discovered tree felling, thinning and scrub clearance had been going on within the last few days at Lawrence Hill roundabout.

This is the middle of the main bird nesting season in the British Isles.

As regards protecting breeding birds and mitigating harm during the breeding season, Natural England’s advice (PDF, p. 4) is as follows:

The main mitigation route to reduce the likelihood of harm to breeding birds is to undertake clearance or destruction of any vegetation or structure which may be used as a breeding site outside the bird breeding season when breeding birds are unlikely to be present (based upon habitat features) or where survey work has confirmed their absence. Avoidance of such features is best achieved through timing of work (see below) but may also be possible by temporarily preventing birds from using these features, before they start doing so. Examples include physical exclusion (preventing access to potential nest sites) or use of visual or audible deterrents. Such measures should only be undertaken following the advice of a suitably experienced ecologist, taking account of relevant legislation and welfare considerations.

The bird breeding season will be dependent upon weather conditions and will vary from year to year, but in general is the period between early March and late August.

Natural England is the government’s advisor on the natural environment, providing practical advice, grounded in science, on how best to safeguard England’s natural wealth for the benefit of everyone.

Furthermore, a quick search of the city council’s website for scrub clearance bird nesting season returns 29,400 hits, with the first page seeming to consist of the council pontificating that no such works should be undertaken when birds are on the nest.

However, it is clear from the pictures above that Bristol City Council’s clear modus operandi is “do as I say, not as I do“.

The English language has a term for such an attitude: hypocrisy.

There’s also a splendid fairly new English word specifically for a superficial or insincere display of concern for the environment shown by organisations: greenwash.

Next year, Bristolians can bet their city will be coated in greenwash, liberally applied with big brushes and rollers by the city council, given its apparent hypocrisy when it comes to nature conservation.

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