Open XML links for 01-25-2008

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TechDays 2008. TechDays 2008 is coming soon to Ghent, and Gill Cleeren has the details. I enjoyed presenting there last year, and this year Chad Hower will be doing a session on Open XML. It's a great event in a beautiful city, so register now.

DAISY translator V1 available. Reed Shaffner has all the details. Congratulations to Reed and the team on getting this going so quickly!

Decoding the FUD. Oliver Bell has an interesting overview of some of the latest lobbying efforts going on around Open XML in anticipation of the Ballot Resolution Meeting next month. He takes a historical perspective, starting with Gene Amdahl and ending with Stephen McGibbon.

Talking vs. Doing. On a related note, Gray Knowlton has a post today that takes a look at how IBM's public rhetoric on document formats compares to their business decisions and actions. A fun read, and I believe it's the first use of the word "whoopsie" in an Open XML post to date.

Password Hashing. Brian Jones and Eric White have some interesting information about how password hashing has been addressed in one of the proposed dispositions for DIS 29500. Brian covers the details of what's been proposed, and Eric notes some of the differences between Open XML and ODF's approach to this topic.

New Open XML bloggers. Almost every day lately, I'm seeing links to and from new Open XML bloggers, or established bloggers who are starting to cover Open XML topics more often. Jim White and Stephanie Krieger are two authors who make their living simplifying complex topics, and they've both been covering the basics of Open XML for those who are new to the topic. A couple more blogs to add to your Open XML RSS feeds.

2008: the year of the binary format? Bob Sutor's While you're waiting, don't save in OOXML format, offers this advice: "Saving your documents in OOXML format right now is probably about the riskiest thing you can do ... by all means use the traditional binary formats." Nick Carr posted a comment that sums up the situation nicely, I thought:

It took me a while to recover from the shock of realizing that for decades the world has misunderstood the value of standardized markup. However after accepting the safety of binary formats and the dangers of XML, I am now wondering whether it is safe to continue using HTML. I heard it was changing and since it is sort of like XML, is it just as dangerous?

Please, just give it to me straight - spare me the marketing.