Martin Bekkelund

Friday the 28th of March 2008, Norway voted «YES» on OOXML becoming an ISO standard. This is nothing else than a scandal. Here’s why.
Some background information
In Norway, the Norwegian Standards Institute called «Standards Norway», shortened SN, is the organization that makes the decision on Norway’s official vote on what’s becoming an ISO standard. Within SN, […]

In a recent discussion with one of Microsoft’s lobbyists in my Norwegian web log, I presented some brief information on how much time is needed to implement ODF in an application.
The application I work with on a daily basis has support for importing and exporting ODF as text, ODT. I claimed that implementing ODF is […]

Up here in Norway, representatives from Microsoft keeps running around spreading the word that OOXML is implemented in several applications, among them several Apple products — or products for the Mac OS X platform — such as iWork ‘08, iPhone and NeoOffice. As an Apple user, I have an iWork ‘08 license, I have an […]

This morning, Norway voted no to ISO certification of OOXML. I can’t be more satisfied with the result. I’ve translated the important part of the press release:
Based on these facts, and according to ISO’s directives on how a conditional yes have to be expressed, Norway will have to vote «No, with comments».
I will come back […]

For the first time ever, I’m getting a Mac as my primary computer. A 17″ MacBook Pro, to be more specific. I’m really looking forward to it.
In the mean time, I’m looking for a nice cell phone and a collaboration application that fits the phone.

After seven years, time has come to do something different. From march 1st 2007, I have a new job as a Senior Solution Architect for a small web development agency in Oslo, Norway. My tasks will be project management, web standards and information architecture.

First of all, I’d like to thank you for stopping by and welcome you to Thoughts from up-north, Martin Bekkelund’s English weblog. I also run a Norwegian weblog, which can be located at www.bekkelund.net.
Who is Martin?
My full name is Martin Bekkelund, 28 at the moment, and I’m living a couple of miles west of Oslo, […]