Daily Archives: Monday, February 23, 2015

  • LibreOffice and OpenOffice now available as web services on Firefox OS

    Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Open Standards, Tech

    The Mozilla blog has announced that rollApp, a US cloud provider, is making the free and open source LibreOffice and OpenOffice office packages available as web services on smartphones running Firefox OS. Apps for Android devices will follow.

    As regards LibreOffice, the packages available for Firefox OS and able to run in a web browser are Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheet), Impress (presentation) and Draw (drawing).

    OpenOffice screenshot

    The programs themselves run on the rollApp server as web services. Apps for Android smartphones and tablets should follow shortly. Dropbox, Google Drive und Microsoft’s OneDrive can be used as storasge locations. Along with OpenOffice and LibreOffice, 18 other programs can be run under Firefox OS using the rollApp service, which costs about $7 per month after a free trial period of 14 days has expired.

    In addition to the applications for Firefox OS, rollApp offers a wide range of other open source packages, including graphics packages such as Gimp and Inkscape, plus games.

  • Coracle!

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities

    I’ve been in London for the weekend and one of the joys of visiting is a chance to see my niece Katherine.

    She’s currently in the middle of a project and is building a coracle in her flat in Bermondsey.

    coracle on living room floor
    Picture courtesy of Katherine Midgley

    Like other vessels covered by a membrane stretched over a frame, coracles are an ancient form of water craft. The use of coracles in Britain was noted by Julius Caesar on the occasion of his invasion of Britain in 55 BCE.

    The etymology of coracle is from the Welsh corwgl, which is in turn related to Irish curach, meaning a boat.

    Although an ancient form of craft, coracles have still found working uses up to the present day. For instance, for many years until 1979, Shrewsbury coracle maker Fred Davies achieved some notability amongst football fans; he would sit in his coracle during Shrewsbury Town FC home matches at their old riverside ground of Gay Meadow and retrieve stray balls from the River Severn. His coracle was last heard of in the National Football Museum.

    Coracles are difficult to manoeuvre as they are unstable due to their sitting “on” that water. In addition, coracles can easily be carried by currents and the wind. Nevertheless, let’s hope the maiden voyage is recorded for posterity.