Since I do not run MS Word, I cannot personally vouch for how these ODF converters compare. There are some reviews out there: some like Sun’s plugin, others the Sourceforge effort. (Let me know what you think!)

These projects may be found:

Sun ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office
formerly recommended as overall best option (see April 22, 2010 NOTE).
latest version is indicated in “Spotlight — ODF Plugin X.x for Microsoft Office Released” on this page:
http://www.sun.com/software/star/odf_plugin/
download link is on “Get It” tab.

Sourceforge OpenXML/ODF Translator Add-in for Office
http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/index.html
(N.B. This one requires some rigamarole where you have to save newly opened ODF as DOCX before you can resave it as ODF! Must be because MS is involved! This might be a reason to try the Sun plugin first?)

I encourage all Microsoft Word users to install one of these plugins, and use the ODF format for sharing files with other users. … Of course, if you don’t want to hassle with MS Office, just use OpenOffice.org, or another option!

NOTE: On April 28, 2009, Microsoft released service pack 2 for Microsoft Office 2007 (download link). This now includes support for ODF text documents and spreadsheets, featured prominently on the ‘Save As’ menu. One can also configure Office applications to use ODF as the default format for new documents. …

For Spreadsheets especially, there still are some big issues with MS’s implementation(1). There are also concerns for word processing documents (2), so you might want to use one of the above solutions for a while, until Microsoft catches up with the world. Given the alleged technical capacity of Microsoft engineers, compared with some of the others compared in the first article link, it almost seems deliberate! (A summary of the state of affairs, from Jeremy Allison, one of the lead developers on the Samba Team.)

updated May 20, 2009

NOTE: Oracle, after having acquired Sun, has perplexingly decided to charge for the Sun ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office that was my former recommendation. Yet they actually sell a version of Oracle Open Office (nee Star Office) for the same or less than the plugin?! (See Oracle’s ODF Plug-in Pricing: What’s up with That?) … It might be easiest to just use OpenOffice.org, or another suite that uses ODF.

updated April 22, 2010

ver. 4.1 corrects the problems below! The re-publishing trick still applies, though. Pages or Posts that are simply re-edited and saved will not generate a notifier email. To have an email sent, one must save as draft, and then re-publish.

Presently it seems that ver 4.0 of the plugin (in WP 2.3.1) sends a message with blanks for the TITLE and POST content when a page is edited. Subscribe2 works fine when publishing a new page, or when re-publishing an existing page.

• The trick then for editing a page is to save it as “draft,” then re-publish when all edits are completed!
• Unresolved issue: When creating or editing any page, it will generate an extra email with blanks – but at least a proper one will be sent in addition for a new or re-published page!

These fields also work fine when dealing with a new post. … Edits of existing posts, however, generate no email (even when timestamp is changed)!

BUT! … As with pages, one can employ the same trick: save the post as draft, then republish, and a notifier email will be sent!

N.B. For wordPress in general: “Private” Pages are equivalent to Drafts. “Private” Posts can be seen only by registered users who are logged in.

If you are using the Firefox web browser, look for the icon . You can usually find it in the address bar above, as well as in the side bar under Subscribe. (It may be a different color, but the design is usually quite similar.) Click on the icon, and it will give you the option to “Add Live Bookmark!”

I like to add my “live bookmarks” to the a folder in the main “Bookmarks Toolbar Folder.” Then I can just click on that folder and slide my pointer down over the desired feed (“live bookmark”). The feed will then expand to show all the lastest posts on that blog or RSS-enabled site. I can click on any “headline” and go right to the posting!

There are other special programs that can collect your RSS feeds, but I like the convenience of reading them right from my Firefox browser.

Though by no means an exhaustive list of distro possibilites, this article mentions a few distributions and how they might help educational organizations save.

Steve Hargadon, of the National Educational Computing Conference is quoted at the conclusion: “Ultimately, open source will win, because it provides a more compelling model for how we share information — and it will have a huge impact on education.

Links of particular interest:

• K12LTSP – K12 Linux Terminal Server Project: http://www.k12ltsp.org/ … see also general LTSP
• Edubuntu (Linux for Young Human Beings): http://www.edubuntu.org/
• OpenSuse Educator, in openSUSE for Schools: http://en.opensuse.org/Education#openSUSE_for_Schools