Open XML links for 09-06-2007

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While my colleagues are all attending the company meeting today (or so their OOF messages say :-)), I'm getting caught up at the office before leaving town for a week. In my overflowing inbox I found a few Open XML links worth sharing ...

Open XML spreadsheet component for .NET developers. GemBox Software has released version 2.0 of their GemBox.Spreadsheet, which allows developers to read and write spreadsheets in CSV, XLS, and XLSX formats. In addition to XLSX support, the new version works with Mono in Linux/Unix environments.

I had never heard of this company before today, but their list of reasons not to use the Excel object model reads like a slide from my presentation on the packaging API. (Well, it's Kevin's presentation, actually, but I've shown it so many times now that people think I created it.) A free trial version is limited to 150 rows or up to 5 worksheets per workbook; the full professional version is $375 USD.

Oliver Bell's blog. I see via Jason that Oliver Bell has started blogging. Oliver works out of Microsoft's Singapore office, and his blog will be one to watch, both for the insights he has gleaned in many years of work with technology and the public sector, and also for his blunt British wit. I took Oliver to Elephant & Castle in Seattle when he was in town this summer, and he told me "this is like taking an American visitor to TGI Friday's in London." Ouch. that does it, next time, we're going to Ivar's.

Can a headline be accurate and effective? After Rick Jelliffe's post about headline writing, I was pleased to see Yusseri's "Speculation on our abstention" on the Open Malaysia blog. If only all speculation were so clearly labeled. And so entertaining; from magic spells and rent boys to the Chewbacca defense, I loved seeing some humor in this debate for a change.

In praise of obnoxious CEOs. Finally, in honor of the company meeting I'm watching via webcast, I'd like to quote something I came across in InfoWorld's open-source archives:

... it's good that we still have somewhat obnoxious CEOs in the tech world. We'll know when we've finally reached commoditization when the Larry Ellisons, Steve Ballmers, etc. are all retired and all new CEOs come from Harvard Business School. What a boring world that will be.

I must be getting old, because I sure agree with that. Dance, Steve, Dance!