OfficeMonkey

Did you know that 85 percent of all comments on blog posts around the world are spam? That’s right, 85 percent. You may not believe it, but that number is certainly true for this blog as well.

So far we have received over 30 comments since this site started back in April 2010, and only one of those comments have been legitimate. The rest were all spam and have been permanently deleted from our database.

We have further taken steps to reduce the amount of spam comments and trackbacks we receive on the posts and pages on this site. Through the use of a service called Akismet, we hope to completely eliminate the spam we receive and hope to create a safer environment for those who want to post legitimate comments.

If you have something legitimate that you’d like to add to one of our posts or pages, please don’t hesitate to do so. We welcome this kind of feedback, in fact we need it to stay alive and to keep the OfficeMonkey project running. However, if you are a spammer we would rather you leave our site immediately – your kind ain’t welcome here anymore.

Looking on the brighter side of things, though, we are very close to releasing OfficeMonkey 2.0. Stay tuned for updates on this release as the date looms nearer and nearer!

A few of our users have reported a bug they encounter while trying to install OfficeMonkey, and because the bug is quite significant we thought we’d take a post to tell you about it.

This bug happens to be occuring while users are trying to install the Microsoft .NET Framework on machines that don’t already have it installed. .NET Framework is one of the requirements for running OfficeMonkey, and as such the installer automatically attempts to download and install it for you if it sees that you don’t have it on your machine.

The specific issue here is during the actual installation of the framework. After downloading the required files from the OfficeMonkey server, the installer produces an error similar to this one:

Microsoft .NET Framework could not be installed.

Please use Windows Update to install this software.

OfficeMonkey Setup cannot continue.

As you can see, no specific error code or description is given here, so it’s a bit difficult for us to identify the reason why the .NET Framework is failing to install. Therefore, we recommend that you follow the instructions in the error message to resolve this bug. You can download a copy of the .NET Framework by clicking here, and then after it’s been installed you can proceed with OfficeMonkey installation as normal. This should resolve the problem, as the installer won’t have to install the framework anymore.

On a good note, we are using an earlier version of the .NET Framework for the OfficeMonkey 2.0 beta series so you shouldn’t have this problem anymore when you install any 2.0 series releases.

Thanks to those who reported the bug, and we look forward from hearing from everyone with their comments, bugs, and suggestions for our software!

I just implemented a new download management system to make it easier for us to manage the OfficeMonkey files that are up for public download. As such, I’ve also updated the downloads page (see menu at the top) to reflect this new environment. It now offers a much easier way to download the version of OFficeMonkey you want, and lists available versions in the order of lowest version to highest (newest) version.

Happy downloading!

OK, so I logged on to our site’s admin area a few days ago and noticed that there were about 5 comments (if I remember correctly) that were waiting for approval. Normal, right? I mean, this is what you’d expect from a [flourishing?] blog about a [popular?] open source software project, right? Wrong.

You would expect us to receive an e-mail every time a new comment comes in so that we can quickly moderate, approve, and, if needed, reject the incoming comment. But, unfortunately, this is not the case. It seems that we are not getting e-mails when someone posts a new comment like we’re supposed to be, as a quick sweep of my inbox revealed that I had received no messages regarding the 5 or so comments on the site.

Anyway, all this to say that we would like to apologize in advance if we don’t approve your comment right away, or even within a few hours. Until we figure out why we’re not getting e-mail alerts when a new comment comes in, we’ll have to log in to our admin area to view and moderate comments. While we try to sign in and check on / update the site as much as possible, this means that we may not get to your comment as fast as you might expect, or as fast as we want to.

That’s all I wanted to say, I guess. I just thought I’d tell our readers about this odd phenomenon; I’ve never seen this happen on any other sites I’ve set up that use the software that powers the OfficeMonkey site. I’ve always gotten an e-mail when a new comment comes in, but I guess that’s not the case today.

By the way, I bet you’re wondering what happened to those 5 comments I found a few days ago. Well, it turns out that all of them were spam (thanks a lot people!) and so, like any good human being, I marked them as such and sent them packing.

We believe that feedback is one of the most important things that keeps an open source software project alive. Therefore, we have made it even easier for you to give your feedback about the OfficeMonkey project by creating a simple form you can fill out in about 30 seconds.

The form basically asks for your name, e-mail address, the version of OfficeMonkey you are running (if indeed you are using the software, which we hope you are) and what you want to tell us. Once you submit the form, it’s sent right to our development team and we’ll then respond to you if we think it’s necessary.

We hope this new form will streamline our efforts to collect feedback and testimonials regarding OfficeMonkey. Keep in mind though that you can use the form for more than just feedback. You can use it to ask questions, send suggestions, or even place blame on us for something we did wrong with OfficeMonkey. Whatever you want to tell us can now be said using our nifty form.

Now that we’ve talked about the form enough, allow us to present to you…the OfficeMonkey contact form! Oh, wait…I forgot…it’s not on this page. You’ll have to go to the contact page to fill it out.

Happy form filling, and we look forward to hearing from you!

Exciting news! We are now focusing all of our efforts on the long road that leads to the OfficeMonkey 2.0 beta series. While we have started developing the first version of the 2.0 series, developments on this release are minimal and we still have a long way to go before we can release 2.0.0.

As always, we are unable to continue to make great software and give back to the open source community without feedback and support from people like you. As we move toward the OfficeMonkey beta series, we encourage you (we really do!) to try out the current alpha release of the software (1.1.1) if you haven’t already done so and then to tell us what you think of the program. We are looking to fix as many bugs for the 2.0.0 beta release as we possibly can, and we are also looking to add a couple major new features as well. While I won’t give away all the cool things we’re going to be putting in the first beta release, I will say that we want to hear from you about what features you think we should include.

We are working on a form that you can fill out to send us your suggestions, feature requests, bug reports, comments, questions, etc. but for now you can always leave a comment to this post or send us an e-mail.

Finally, we’d like to take a sec to let you know that we are re-constructing the developer area for the software so that we can make it more admin and user-friendly. We plan on adding such features as bug tracking, source code downloads, up-to-date documentation, and more, and we also plan on making the developer area both public and private. This will allow our admins and developer team members to update content and source code while visitors (like you) check out what we’ve done and comment on our code and projects.

We look forward to hearing from you about this new release, and we’ll be sure to keep you updated on new developments on the beta. Thank you for your support of this project and of open source software!

The OfficeMonkey development team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of OfficeMonkey 1.1.1 Alpha!

In this release, codenamed “Mekion,” we focused on fixing several bugs that were found by some of our users. As a result, the cut, copy, and paste functions are now working properly, and the Web browser’s home page setting is working properly now too.

We were originally going to roll out this release a few days after the release of version 1.1.0, but held back a bit so we could include an automatic updater into the software. That’s right, OfficeMonkey now sports an awesome little program that automatically updates you to the latest version of the software. This means that you won’t have to download and install new versions manually. All you’ll need to do is use the “Check for Updates” item on the “Program” menu and, if an update is available, it’ll be automatically downloaded and applied for you.

Another neat thing we did in this release of the software was build the Microsoft .NET Framework right into the installer. This means that now you won’t have to download it separately; it will be installed for you if you don’t already have it (it’s required to run OfficeMonkey).

Well, that’s it for this release announcement. We encourage you to give version 1.1.1 a try and then to let us know what you think of the software by commenting on this post. If you’ve found a bug, let us know about it; if you think we should include a certain feature that’s not there now, hammer us about it so we can put it in; if you really like this release, tell us about it so we can continue to make great software. Whatever your feedback is, we welcome it wholeheartedly, and we thank you for your continued support of the OfficeMonkey project.

Several additional notes on this release:

• It is recommended that you remain connected to the Internet while you run the installer. If any of the prerequisites (such as the .NET Framework) need to be installed on your computer, they will be downloaded from the OFficeMonkey server.
• The installer is not accessible with Microsoft Narrator. It works just fine with JAWS for Windows though.
• The automatic update program is not accessible with Microsoft Narrator, but is accessible with JAWS.
• To read all of the dialogs in the installer and in the automatic updater correctly when using JAWS, press JAWS-KEY+B, where JAWS-KEY represents the key you have set to be the JAWS hotkey, such as the INSERT key on your keyboard.
• No version number is placed in the text of the desktop or Start menu shortcuts as this version now includes an automatic updater. To check and see which version of OfficeMonkey you have running, open the program and look at the title bar, or open the “About” window from the “Help” menu.

The Type-A-Lot Software Development Group is proud to announce the immediate availability of OfficeMonkey 1.1.0! This is a major new alpha release that includes some really awesome features and improvements to the software.

Click here to get your free copy now, or read on for a list of features and changes in this version.

• New welcome screen
• New, built-in, fully-functional Web browser
• Keyboard shortcuts on all menu items and commands
• Improved document editing functions
• Improved installer with a reduced file size

These are just a few of the new features we’ve introduced. We’ll be posting a complete list on the Downloads page later so check that out to see what else is new, and enjoy this latest version!

We know you’ve been waiting a long time (about 6 months, right?) for the next release of OfficeMonkey, but now you won’t have to wait much longer! The OfficeMonkey development team is pleased to announce the upcoming availability of version 1.1.0 Alpha of our open source office suite. This version is a major improvement over the previous version, 1.0.4, and includes such new features as a welcome screen, automatic updater, and other excellent additions that we won’t detail here because we want you to check them out for yourself.

Be sure to check back here often to see if the release is available yet. We hope to have it ready to download by the end of the week!

Welcome to and thank you for visiting the oficial Website of the OfficeMonkey software project. This project aims to provide an open source ofice suite to the online community that provides tools ad functions for writing documents, sending e-mails, managing contacts, planning events, and surfing the ‘Net.

This site allows you to learn more about the project as well as download new releases and contribute to the development of the software. We encourage you to look around the site and check out the software that our small development team has to offer.