548. A lot has been happening with Kingsoft WPS

Seems like they have been making progress.

I wrote my original post about wps (also see this post) for version 8.1.0.3724, and on this site they are currently at 9.1.0.4244 -- Alpha 12, patch 3. Judging from all the bugs that have been fixed it seems that the devs have been quite busy. The short interval between different alpha version also indicates that the development is very active. Good stuff.

Basically, WPS is the only reasonable (subjective) solution for reading .docx files on linux that I've encountered.

Either way,if you have a previous version of wps installed, remove it

sudo apt-get autoremove wps-office:i386

Then get on with it:

mkdir ~/tmp
cd ~/tmp
sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt-get update
wget http://wdl.cache.ijinshan.com/wps/download/Linux/unstable/kingsoft-office_9.1.0.4244~a12p3_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i kingsoft-office_9.1.0.4244~a12p3_i386.deb
sudo apt-get install -f

Missing fonts. Clicking on the link takes you indirectly to bbs.wpn.cn, which is in Chinese.

To sort out the fonts issue above you can join bbs.wpn.cn as shown in this post, then download the wps_symbol_fonts.zip file from this post. Install the fonts by doing

cp ~/Downloads/wps_symbol_fonts.zip ~/.fonts
cd ~/.fonts
unzip wps_symbol_fonts.zip

And start WPS. The 'symbol' issue should be solved. Either way, the look of WPS has been updated, and now it can handle my test file which even MS offerings are struggling with:

See here for a post where I compare different office suites using that file (older post): http://verahill.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/313-which-office-for-linux-users.html

To sort out mime types/file associations do

sudo update-desktop-database /usr/local/share/applications/
sudo update-mime-database /usr/share/mime/

457. Very Briefly: Microsoft has a Tor exit node?

Whenever I play around with Tor I use ipchicken.com or whatsmyip.org to make sure that I'm indeed using a proxy. I also normally do a whois on the IP address, so see who's running the exit node.

Today I ended up with the IP address 168.61.8.22.

whois 168.61.8.22

NetRange:       168.61.0.0 - 168.63.255.255
CIDR:           168.62.0.0/15, 168.61.0.0/16
OriginAS:       
NetName:        MSFT-EP
NetHandle:      NET-168-61-0-0-1
Parent:         NET-168-0-0-0-0
NetType:        Direct Assignment
RegDate:        2011-06-22
Updated:        2012-10-16
Ref:            http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-168-61-0-0-1


OrgName:        Microsoft Corp
OrgId:          MSFT-Z
Address:        One Microsoft Way
City:           Redmond
StateProv:      WA
PostalCode:     98052
Country:        US
RegDate:        2011-06-22
Updated:        2013-04-12
Ref:            http://whois.arin.net/rest/org/MSFT-Z

OrgTechHandle: MSFTP-ARIN
OrgTechName:   MSFT-POC
OrgTechPhone:  +1-425-882-8080 
OrgTechEmail:  iprrms@microsoft.com
OrgTechRef:    http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/MSFTP-ARIN

OrgAbuseHandle: HOTMA-ARIN
OrgAbuseName:   Hotmail Abuse
OrgAbusePhone:  +1-425-882-8080 
OrgAbuseEmail:  abuse@hotmail.com
OrgAbuseRef:    http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/HOTMA-ARIN

OrgAbuseHandle: MSNAB-ARIN
OrgAbuseName:   MSN ABUSE
OrgAbusePhone:  +1-425-882-8080 
OrgAbuseEmail:  abuse@msn.com
OrgAbuseRef:    http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/MSNAB-ARIN

OrgNOCHandle: ZM23-ARIN
OrgNOCName:   Microsoft Corporation
OrgNOCPhone:  +1-425-882-8080 
OrgNOCEmail:  noc@microsoft.com
OrgNOCRef:    http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/ZM23-ARIN

OrgAbuseHandle: ABUSE231-ARIN
OrgAbuseName:   Abuse
OrgAbusePhone:  +1-425-882-8080 
OrgAbuseEmail:  abuse@microsoft.com
OrgAbuseRef:    http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/ABUSE231-ARIN

That Microsoft is listed as the organisation doesn't necessarily mean that they are running the node (could be a hosting company) but it still seems that this might actually be MS running this one. Maybe it's just for research purposes, but it still seemed a bit surprising.

Microsoft as a company isn't exactly known for doing things out of the goodness of their hearts. Oh well.