TriedIT - Software and Hardware News and Reviews

News.com.com.com is reporting that the release date for the Apple iPhone has been set for June 11. Replies to their story are contradicting this information, however. No official announcement has been made and until we hear something official I’m going to remain skeptical of the exact date.

In any case, I think I want to wait on the next version of the iPhone. I have a fully working iPod nano so I wouldn’t use the iPod functionality of the iPhone anyway. I just want a nice PDA phone. Since I’m already using Cingular it would be an easy switch, especially since my contract is already up and the whole reason I haven’t gotten a new phone yet is to wait for the iPhone. Unfortunately my 2 year old phone, a Motorola V551, just got a crack on the hinge of the flip ear piece. I think its days are numbered and certainly it will not last until a 3G version of the iPhone is released. If I want a phone discount I have to renew my contract and that pretty much means no iPhone for another 2 years. Decisions… decisions…

It looks like Office 2008 for Mac is coming along quite nicely. APC talks with some of Microsoft’s developers and gives us a few (albeit small) screen shots of what the new Office 2008 interface is going to look like. Also discussed are some new features that Office 2008 will have.

Some of the most impressive touches are Mac-only treats like Word’s Publishing Layout View with its DTP-style page layout capabilities. Images can be dragged out of iPhoto and placed directly onto the page with automatic text run-around, while excess copy on any page is automatically spilled into a linked text box that can be drawn elsewhere on that page or on the next page.

I’m looking forward to being able to try this application out. It looks like the changes are quite impressive. Check out the entire article at APC.

One of the sites I check out regularly has an article about installing Knoppix on a USB key. They call it a lazy guide, but if you’re really lazy you might not be able to read through the entire blog post. In any case, Knoppix is one of the great live distros currently out there (though the competition is increasing on an almost daily basis), and having it on a USB key is certainly quite useful. For the details, check out this article on tuxmachines.org.

I have been neglecting the BSD line of operating systems lately, but a new release of DragonFly BSD has come out and I figured this would be a good opportunity to try it out. I have never used DragonFly, but I used to use FreeBSD extensively (I still have it running a few servers) and I’ve also used OpenBSD and NetBSD in the day.

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NVIDIA is finally getting a reasonably priced motherboard out there for the Core 2 Duo chipset that hits the price/performance sweet spot based on the HotHardware review.

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Linux distributions meant to be used as systems administrator utilities often have a special place in the heart of those who have been saved by their usefulness. In my line of work I have found them useful from time to time myself. On my SystemRescueCd review, a reader named Dave recommended checking out Trinity Rescue Kit. So, I decided to give it a try.

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You download an archive to your Apple computer, maybe it’s a .zip file or a .tar.gz or .sit. You double-click on it to open it up and the built-in helper app opens up and extracts the files to a folder, usually your desktop. Or, in the case of a .sit file, if you have StuffIt installed that will open.

If you’re like me, you wish it handled .sit archives so you didn’t have to use the pretty lame StuffIt expander application. I call it lame because it’s not included by default, and why should anyone in 2007 have to sign up to download an unarchiving application?

Cue The Unarchiver, a free open source application for Mac OS X that is a much improved utility for unarchiving that replaces the built-in OS X helper application. I have installed it on my MacBook Pro and it is definitely an improvement over the included utility. Check it out.

I haven’t had the chance to get a hold of the latest Ubuntu beta yet, but this guy gives the latest Feisty beta 7.04 for a ride. I like Ubuntu a lot but since trying out Sabayon I’ve been using that for my primary Linux OS lately. However the latest from Ubuntu looks quite promising and I will definitely give it a go when it is released.

Here’s an interesting tidbit I found on digg about Compiz and Beryl merging. The two projects originally started together as Compiz but a fork called Beryl was created last September.

I feel that this is in the best interests of the Linux community that these two advanced projects should once again work together to help create the best 3D desktop experience out there. Hopefully the merge can go smooth and this will greatly benefit Linux users.

Turning away from the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink distributions for a moment I now turn my attention to a light-weight distribution aimed at being as simple as possible while still being up-to-date. CRUX 2.3, released on March 20, 2007, attempts to fulfill such a role.

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