Practical Useful

Friday 25th – Saturday 26th April 2008

The basic problems with traveling to the other side of the globe are of course manifold. Firstly there is the inhuman time one must get out of bed when getting a plane from Edinburgh airport that departs at 6am – for a check-in sometime after 4am but before 05:40 at the latest you need to jump out of bed, shiny and fit, at around 3 and be on the road half an hour later. There are advantages, though they are few, this is the only time of day when one may get along the Clydeside Roller Coaster (the stretch of road formerly known as the Clydeside Express Way) and the M8 in a spanky quick time – it is much easier to get through the neck of this bottle when there is nothing else in the way. Care must be taken not to be so relaxed, however, that one falls asleep at the wheel – this would be a poor start to one’s holiday.
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The ISO approved ISO 29500, otherwise known as Microsoft OOXML the other day. This is of course a travesty as the ISO fast track process has been soundly hijacked and the format is not ready for the big time as it is currently unimplementable by anyone other than Microsoft and maybe Novel.

I have therefore taken the liberty of summarising the situation and emailing all of Scotland’s MEPs on the subject in the hope that the reported EU investigation might gain some insight and momentum.

Do read on to find out not only what’s been going on, if you haven’t been following too carefully, but also why this is important to all our digital futures. And if you feel it is important, feel free to use it to construct your own letter to you appropriate representative.

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