Banks like to trumpet the speed of their online banking services. Ha! Electronic transfers takes 3-4 working days, unless you pay extra to stop the bank from holding onto your money. Continue reading “International bank transfers and the speed of light”
Requirements of Japanese Text Layout
The W3C Japanese Layout Task Force (JLTF) has a working draft of “Requirements of Japanese Text Layout” available at http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-jlreq-20081015/.
It is an impressive body of work that the JLTF has been working on for a while. This is the current iteration of the document for which I went to a meeting in Tokyo last September, and I went to the W3C Technical Plenary in Mandelieu this week specifically for the JLTF meeting reviewing the working draft.
The task force is looking for feedback (to www-i18n-comments@w3.org) by 15 November 2008.
Impressed by Letterpress
It was interesting to learn about letterpress printing at the National Print Museum workshop by printing a letterhead based on the letterhead I produce on the computer. I had fun; doing the 36pt “Menteith” was a doddle; the instructor, Con, was great, and very helpful when it came to letterspacing “CONSULTING”; but, boy, 8pt text takes a long time when done by hand, especially when you don’t know the layout of letters in the case. Continue reading “Impressed by Letterpress”
xmlroff 0.6.1
xmlroff 0.6.1 is at http://xmlroff.org/download/xmlroff-0.6.1.tar.gz.
xmlroff 0.6.1 features SVG external graphics rendered as vectors in the Cairo backend and table column order respecting writing mode.
Thanks go to lode leroy for the Cairo fix.
xmlroff is discussed on the xmlroff-list@xmlroff.org mailing list (subscription required) and on the #xmlroff channel at oftc.net.
National Print Museum
I was at the National Print Museum in Dublin for their open day last weekend, and I’ll be back there next weekend for a workshop on letterpress printing.
Xubuntu 8.04 on Fujitsu P1120
It took two upgrade cycles — from 7.04 to 7.10 then from 7.10 to 7.04 — to upgrade the P1120 to Xubuntu 8.04. Neither went smoothly Continue reading “Xubuntu 8.04 on Fujitsu P1120”
xmlroff on Ohloh
xmlroff is listed on Ohloh at http://www.ohloh.net/projects/xmlroff. IMO, the project cost is overstated and the user count is understated. If you are registered with Ohloh (or if you’re willing to register), consider clicking on the image below and adding xmlroff to your Ohloh stack. Continue reading “xmlroff on Ohloh”
xmlroff 0.6.0
xmlroff 0.6.0 is at http://xmlroff.org/download/xmlroff-0.6.0.tar.gz.
xmlroff 0.6.0 features a BSD license without a restriction against use in a nuclear facility, an xmlroff.1 man page, and graphics rendering in the Cairo backend.
Thanks go to Jon Bosak and Mike Anastasio of Sun Microsystems for Sun’s re-release of its xmlroff source code under the no-restrictions BSD license and to lode leroy for graphics in the Cairo backend.
xmlroff is discussed on the xmlroff-list@xmlroff.org mailing list (subscription required) and on the #xmlroff channel at oftc.net.
XSL 2.0 Requirements and survey
The W3C XSL FO subgroup is working towards XSL-FO 2.0. The first public working draft of the XSL-FO 2.0 Requirements document was published at http://www.w3.org/TR/xslfo20-req/ back in March. The best way for the Requirements document, and an eventual XSL-FO 2.0, to reflect peoples’ needs is for people to read the document and provide feedback.
Two of the best ways for you to provide feedback about XSL-FO and the requirements for XSL-FO 2.0 are:
- Indicate which areas of XSL-FO are important to you by completing the survey at http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/1/xslfo20requirements/
- Provide feedback on individual requirements using the W3C public Bugzilla system
xmlroff in Ubuntu 8.04
xmlroff is available prepackaged for Ubuntu 8.04! Instead of my reciting the list of packages that you need to build xmlroff, I just need to tell you to install it from the ‘universe’ repository using the Synaptics package manager.
Thanks must go to W. Martin Borgert and others of the Debian XML/SGML Group for doing the packaging work so that Ubuntu could pick it up as well as to the Ubuntu folks for including it.