TriedIT - Software and Hardware News and Reviews

Google rocks. I use Gmail, and the Google Homepage (er iGoogle) and Gcal all the time these days. But over at lifehack.org there’s a great list of the things Google needs to get. I agree wholeheartedly with the list and I feel that Google probably will implement some of the suggestions contained therein. I would like a bit more offline access, even though I’m always online when I’m at a computer. You never know when you need to get that important message or event information and your internet is down.

I see Google has been working even more on integrating their service with cell phones. My new Nokia N75 (review coming soon) gives me the ability to access Google’s services wherever I am. Even if they don’t have a mobile version of an application out. The phone’s browser and internet access speed are good enough for me to use even the full versions of Google’s applications.

A new release of one of the oldest window managers in existence has come out, AfterStep 2.2.5. Check out their announcement for the download link.

Also, Wine 0.9.36 has been released. Check out Wine’s 0.9.36 announcement for more details and a download link as well.

Version 2.0 of Mozilla Thunderbird has been released and I’m going to be trying it out later today. Thunderbird has been my graphical, multi-platform, email application of choice for awhile now (a couple years?). I love its simple and clean interface, as well as the search capabilities of it. I use the filtering system to handle marked spam messages that my mail server tags. Since I use IMAP, anywhere I setup Thunderbird, from Mac OS X, to Windows, to all the numerous Linux distributions I have tried, at home and at work, it has worked great for me. I’m slowly migrating most of my personal email use to my Gmail account, but still use Thunderbird exclusively for my work email.

In any case I’m sure the new release has improved on a good thing, so download it and check it out.

Everyone’s favorite (ok maybe not everyone’s) open-source image editing and manipulation program has come out with a new release. 2.2.14 was released today. Plenty of bugs have been fixed. I use GIMP a lot in the making and editing of the screen shots of this site.

From tuaw.com (and confirmed on Apple’s Hot News) comes word that Apple is delaying the release of Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) to October because of moving developers from Leopard to the iPhone to keep the iPhone release date on track.

All I have to say is… WTF. Ok, seriously, the iPhone is causing Leopard to be delayed? The day Steve Jobs announced the iPhone I guarantee I would have bought one that very day. I would have left work early and bought it right then because I was taken hold by the Steve Job’s reality distortion field. $500? Sure… take my money! But after having plenty of time to think about it I really don’t want an iPhone anymore. $500? Hell no! Besides, we all know that the first generation Apple product always performs sub-par compared to later offerings. And no 3G! Sure barely any of Cingular’s customers have it, but that is sure to change very soon. Where I live (Washington D.C. / Baltimore area) is completely 3G and being a power user I would use the 3G-ness constantly.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Apple’s products. I love my iPod nano (thanks Nancy!), I love my MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo (and before that my iBook), and I love Mac OS X. But I’m not gonna shell out $500 for a non-3G phone that is the first release.

Instead I am waiting for the constantly-delayed Nokia N75 to become available (yes, I use Cingular). I don’t need a touch-screen and this phone will have all the proven features that I want in my next generation phone. AND it has 3G.

I’m not convinced Apple will hit a home run with the iPhone… yet. It could happen. People underestimated the iPod’s success. And I could eventually get one. But it will not be my next phone. Nokia N75 please come out soon! Cingular and whoever is causing this phone to be delayed (since December!) need to stop this non-sense and get this phone out before it is obsolete. Otherwise I will not be spending my money on that either.

In any case, delaying Leopard for a cell phone seems lame to me. I can’t wait to upgrade to Leopard. But the iPhone can wait.

Read story here.

Due to legal issues with AOL over the Gaim name, after a lot of secret talks with AOL, the name of the project has been changed to Pidgin. This is definitely going to take some getting used to as Gaim has pretty much become universal in my vocabulary. Many of my non-Linux using friends also use Gaim… er Pidgin. In any case, it is good to see the legal issues finally resolved even though it resulted in a name change.

PC World takes a look back at the revolutionary technology products that have changed the way we live today. I have to agree with most of the choices, although their ordering is a bit more controversial. Nevertheless it is a nostalgic look back at what technology products brought us to where we are today. Check out the article.

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.

Here’s a cool step-by-step guide on how to run Windows XP under Linux using only free virtualization software and not VMware.

I have used QEMU myself to test different Linux distributions on several times. I have never tried installing Windows XP in it. I might have to try this out soon and see how well it works. If anyone has tried it, let us know.