The editor of the Open Document Format (ODF) standard has written a letter that strongly supports recognizing Microsoft’s Open Office XML (OOXML) file format as a standard, arguing that if it fails, ODF will suffer.

Members of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) are considering whether to recognize OOXML as a standard. Critics of the specification have said it is too proprietary to be rightly considered a standard. The cutoff date for participating countries to vote on the standard is March 29.

Planning to move to Windows Vista now that Service Pack 1 is out? Several challenges can arise when you try to move your applications from an operating system like Windows XP to one like Windows Vista because the underlying code for Vista is so completely different from the one for XP.

When you do begin to test your applications on Vista, you’ll find three major categories of compatibility concern.

Hi, David here again. Yesterday, I made a shameless plea for readers to buy Where Have All The Emails Gone? and help move it from #26 on Amazon’s list of best-selling books on the Executive Branch to #25.

Well, you rock! I woke up this morning to find it had moved to #20! You’ve put the book into the Top 20 and that’s just really cool! Of course, Amazon recalculates sales constantly, so I don’t know how long it’ll stay at #20, but still, this definitely gives me bragging rights for the radio interview I’m doing Wednesday morning (details to follow later today when I find out myself).

This is a big Thank You to everyone! And now, I return you to James and our normal news coverage.

Older White House computer hard drives have been destroyed, the White House disclosed to a federal court Friday in a controversy over millions of possibly missing emails from 2003 to 2005. The White House revealed new information about how it handles its computers in an effort to persuade a federal magistrate it would be fruitless to undertake an email recovery plan that the court proposed.

It has been the goal of a White House Office of Administration "refresh program" to replace one-third of its workstations every year in the Executive Office of the President, according to the declaration. Some, but not necessarily all, of the data on old hard drives is moved to new computer hard drives, the declaration added.

Avidian Technologies announced the launch of Prophet 5, the newest version of its Outlook-based contact management and CRM solution. Prophet 5 includes improved usability and more advanced contact management features fully integrated with Outlook, eliminating the need to shift back and forth between multiple applications.

Unlike traditional big iron CRM or sales management software, Prophet is built into Outlook, eliminating the need to manage multiple contact databases or toggle between separate applications. Built on the .NET 2.0 platform, Prophet works entirely inside Outlook and easily integrates with other critical business capabilities. As a result, Prophet turns Outlook data into the building blocks of an effective sales management solution.

Microsoft has confirmed reports of a vulnerability in Word that allows an attacker to exploit a system via the Microsoft Jet Database Engine, which shares data with Access, Visual Basic and third party applications.

Microsoft in its advisory said the potential for attack is "very limited." Reports of the Word flaw were highlighted by Panda and Symantec in the last two weeks. On March 3, Panda researcher Ismael Briones stumbled on the new exploit. On Thursday, Symantec also noted the Jet vulnerability.

Hi everyone. David here with a shameless little plea. My book, Where Have All The Emails Gone? about the White House email controversy has made it to #26 on Amazon’s list of best-selling books on the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government.

Only a few more sales would push it to #25 — and that’d just make my day. So if you’ve been thinking about buying the book, could you do so today? Then, maybe, just maybe, Where HaveAll The Emails Gone? would be a Top 25 book! Thanks!

As you may have noticed, there aren’t a whole lot of options in Outlook for customizing how reminders display. If you want to make sure you notice your reminders, there are really two available approaches you could take. In this article, David Gewirtz explores those options.

Read this OutlookPower article.

Microsoft’s Office suite could have a plausible challenger on the desktop for the first time since Lotus gave up trying to take on Redmond a decade ago. With developers struggling to get OpenOffice 2.4 out the door, details are emerging of the features users have to look forward to in the upcoming bullet point release, version 3.0.

A sneak peek on a developer blog OpenOffice Ninja shows a new and easier-to-understand start screen featuring the main applications, and overhauls of the Writer application to better compete with Microsoft’s Word. That application can now display pages side by side, allows notes to be added in the margins of copy a la Word, while the Calc spreadsheet also features a large number of small tweaks to improve usability.

The suite will be able to cope seamlessly with Office 2007’s XML-based file formats, though the blogger notes that the current development skeleton manages this with mediocre results.

These days, it seems everyone has an opinion about how to deal with information overload, especially when it comes to email management. There are numerous methodologies, best practices, tips, and tutorials available, but are any of them really effective? This article on Read Write Web explores that question, delving into the top five email management methodologies.