OpenOffice.org 3.0 Developer Preview

http://www.openoffice.org/ - Although we're on the advent of the OpenOffice.org 2.4 release, there's no harm in looking towards the future. Version 3.0 is not due until September, but the OpenOffice.org 3.0 Developer Preview is available for download from the OO mirrors in the Developer folder for all your office needs.

New in version 3.0 is native support for Mac OS X. You'll now be able to use a native client, rather than a third party port such as NeoOffice, which remains a few releases behind the original. The first thing you'll notice when starting out OpenOffice.org 3.0 is a new welcome screen where you can choose what type of document you want to create. Novel themes and colours for formatting are available across the office apps, allowing you to make prettier documents and stay competitive with those Microsoft Office 2007 users. Although still in in a early release, this version seems to load much faster than the current version.

New in Writer is multiple-page view. Like Microsoft Word 2007, the zoom feature has been moved to the bottom-right hand corner. Here is also where you toggle between single, multiple, and book page view. Calc also has several new and important additions, such as error bars in graphs and the ability to show equations for regressions. Furthermore, multiple users can work on the same spreadsheet document simultaneously. Impress now has table support. A presenter screen remains missing but it is still in the planned features for the 3.0 release.

Version 3.0 will also be the first to support the Microsoft Office 2007 xml file extensions (such as docx, pptx, and xlsx). I had little trouble opening these files in 3.0, but it is still a little buggy. At the moment, the 3.0 handles these files moderately well. Formatting and page layouts seems to work fine, but OpenOffice.org did not show embedded images from docx files.

A feature that I would like to see in a new OpenOffice release is grammar check. Although spellcheck has been there since the beginning, grammar check is an important component found in commercial alternatives such as Microsoft Office.

Of course, this developer preview is still full of bugs, as the final release is still months away. Despite this fact, this version I feel is somewhat usable. The new additions seem promising and practical. It will be a very competitive and free alternative to Microsoft's office suite. I look forward to downloading the final version in September.

via http://www.oooninja.com

Digsby Public Beta: Better that Pidgin?

http://www.digsby.com - So you've got 20 windows open on your desktop: Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc; all cluttering your desktop space. Now comes Digsby, of which the public beta came out yesterday, March 20.

Digsby is an application that combines instant messaging, email, and social networks into one application. The features are useful, allowing updates from various email clients and networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter. In addition to IM-ing your contacts from AIM to Google Talk, you can update your Facebook status, check your friends' news feeds, and post to Twitter all in the same program. The integration between different services is seamless. However, other widely used social networks (Flickr, Orkut, Pownce, etc.) are still missing at the moment. Additionally, you can't add multiple contacts into the same conversation window and make a chat room with your contacts. Digsby, however, does support audio/video chatting capabilities (powered by TokBox), a feature missing from other IM aggregate clients such as Pidgin. Keep in mind that Pidgin also doesn't support social network integration within their application.

It's still in beta, but the interface seems a tad bit messy. The best way to describe is that it feels very yahoomessenger-ish (sorrry Yahoo). You know, kind of that cluttered, unintegrated feel, which seems weird to me because the Digsby homepage is very clean and well designed. I was expecting something along the same line. The application does allow you to switch between built-in themes, but the included designs are no better nor cleaner than the default skin. After making the jump from Pidgin, which has one of the cleanest interface for any IM client I've seen, Digsby falls short in the visuals department.

At any rate, I'm impressed with Digsby's overall performance and its ability to consolidate different services into one client. I surely recommend this application for anyone who wants the social dynamics of their internet self to be conducted from a single, easy-to-use, service. Mac and Linux users? Sorry, it's Windows only right now, but there are talks of porting it to other OSs.