The latest minor-point update to OpenOffice brings users faster launch speeds and better support for Microsoft Office 2007-formatted files. OpenOffice 3.2 for Windows, Mac, and Linux also sees the debut of comments in Impress, encryption support for Office 2007-formatted files, and smoother sort, merge, and copy and paste functions in Calc.

Highlighting has also been tweaked to stand out more visually, with a new blue background and edging. The full list of changes can be read here. Be warned, it's a very tech-speak-heavy chart and is not easy to navigate.

The performance improvement is immediately noticeable, although when restarting OpenOffice after the upgrade the QuickStarter app was disabled. It can be restarted without rebooting via the Start menu either in the OpenOffice folder or the Startup folder. Even without the QuickStarter app running in the background, though, Writer launches much faster than it did before, and the spreadsheet component Calc is practically blazing compared with the previous version.

Still lacking, at least in the Windows version of OpenOffice, is support for Windows 7 features such as jump lists and Aero Peek previews.

Opera moves its latest browser build out of alpha development and into beta and claims that Opera 10.50 beta is the fastest browser currently available. It's not clear at the moment whether it's faster than Google Chrome's development builds, or merely as fast as, but there's no doubt that this new beta should draw a lot of attention for its performance.

For users who didn't take a look at the pre-alpha builds released in December 2009 and January 2010, Opera 10.50 has been fully optimized for Windows 7, sporting a new interface, full Windows taskbar integration, and, most notably, a new JavaScript engine that Opera claims makes it faster than Google Chrome.

The new Carakan JavaScript engine is the most important improvement, and the reason behind the browser's faster performance. In empirical tests performed last month on an HP desktop running an Intel Core 2 Q6600 at 2.66GHz with 4GB of RAM and Windows 7 32-bit, the Opera 10.50 pre-alpha scored 435.6 milliseconds in the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark. By contrast, Google Chrome 4.0.266.0, the most recent development build at the time, notched 510.4 ms. Opera 10.10, the current stable build, was more than 7.5 times slower, at 3284.4 ms.

Opera's new interface has been optimized for Windows 7 or Vista. The tabs are now on top, the menu bar has been minimized behind a drop-down on the left nav, and the integration with Windows 7 is robust. Jump lists have Opera Speed Dial support and can start a private browsing tab, while the taskbar gets Aero Peek tab preview windows. These have been so well integrated at this point that the fact that Chrome doesn't have all of them and that Firefox doesn't have them turned on by default at this point stands out.

Several features that weren't in the pre-alpha have now shown up in the beta. One of these is a smart recycle bin icon near the minimize and close window buttons in the upper right of the program window. Click it and you get a list of closed tabs, and a list of blocked pop-ups. The CTRL+Tab hot key look has changed, too. Instead of displaying all the open tabs, pressing the combo will open a preview of the tab on the right, with the Web site's meta-tag name on the left.

Other changes include introducing the same style of predictive smart searching in the address bar that Firefox and Chrome have, keeping track of search history in both the address bar and the search bar, and deleting specific items from those histories. Opera 10.50 also includes improvements to the Presto layout engine, a new graphics library called Vega, and support for HTML 5 and CSS 3.

Throughout several hours of use on a Windows 7 computer, the beta didn't crash, nor display any obvious signs of bugginess. In general, Opera 10.50 beta is surprisingly stable and innovative. Mac and Linux users will have to console themselves with the Opera 10.50 pre-alpha for now, although Opera says an update is imminent.

Google released a new version of Chrome for Mac OS X on Thursday that restores a key feature, extensions, that had been missing for weeks.

"With this new version, you'll be able to install any of over 2,200 extensions (and counting!) currently available in Chrome's extensions gallery," said Chrome programmer Mark Mentovai in a blog post Thursday. Extensions are a key asset for one big rival browser, Firefox.

Curiously, the beta version--5.0.307.2 for Mac OS X and Linux as well--made it to beta status earlier than the Windows version, which is still a more raw developer-preview incarnation. Google plans to bring the Mac, Linux, and Windows versions to feature parity with version 5, said spokesman Eitan Bencuya. "If we brought [the Mac and Linux versions] to beta on 4, then to stable on 4, then the Windows version would be speeding ahead on 5.0," he said.

The new version (download here) also catches the Mac version up with Windows by adding support for bookmark synchronization and management interfaces for bookmarks, cookies, and tasks, according to Chrome program manager Mark Larson in a separate blog post.

Also new are some stability improvements with Adobe Systems' Flash and some new multitouch support, Google said.

Originally posted at Deep Tech

Updated: February 11, 2010 at 12:15 p.m. PT to share a new rollout that Google implemented to better manage (and block) contacts. Also added a note about profile privacy.

My colleague Molly Wood called it a privacy nightmare, but to many, Google's new social-networking tool Buzz is at its root an unwanted, unasked for pest. The way some of us see it, we didn't opt in to some newfangled Twitter system and we don't particularly want to see updates from contacts we never asked to follow creep up in our Buzz in-box. Call us what you will, but for curmudgeonly types like us, Buzz isn't so much social networking as it is socially awkward networking. We tried it, we didn't like it, and now it has to go.

Here's how we silenced Buzz from the desktop:

Step 0: Don't disable Buzz--yet

The automatic reaction is to scroll to the very bottom of Gmail and click the words "turn off buzz." But all this does is remove active links, leaving your profile still publicly available, along with any public buzzes you might have made while trying Buzz out. In fact, you're still technically following people, and they're following you. Not OK.

Step 1: Purge your profile

One way to find your profile is to go to http://www.google.com/profiles and search on your name. Next, permanently delete buzzes in the public timeline by clicking the "Delete" tag. Then get to work unfollowing those that Google has "helped" you automatically follow.

However, it's as if the Buzz team never envisioned anyone would want to completely opt out. You'll need to unfollow individuals one by one, which takes some time if Google subscribed you to a long list of followers. Despite what it said in our profile, we had to keep loading pages to unfollow a big chunk of friends.

Also take a moment to make sure that your profile isn't broadcasting anything you don't want it to. Click the "Edit Profile" link to the right of "Contacts" and "About me" to give your profile a once-over.

Note: If your profile was never public (and if you never experimented with Buzz), you'll have fewer privacy concerns. However, if you are getting rid of Buzz, it's a good idea to scan your profile to make sure you're not exposed on anyone's automatic list of followers.

Step 2: Block your followers

If you're serious about removing traces of yourself from Buzz's public record, you'll need to make sure you're invisible to others as well. Go back to Buzz in Gmail (if you already disabled it, you can turn Buzz back on at the bottom of the page to complete this step.) In the absence of an obvious "block all" button, we manually blocked each individual by clicking their picture from the list of followers and then selecting "Block."

At noon PT on Thursday, we noticed that Google rolled out a better interface that includes some management tools you can use to more easily block users. Prior to that, we noticed a few leftovers that were still visible in our public profile because we weren't previously able to access their profile tab. Thanks to Google's tweak, we unblocked them in a hurry.

Blocking someone won't alert them and you can always unblock them later if you change your mind about Buzz.

Step 3: Disable Buzz in Gmail

Now it's safe to disable Buzz in Gmail, thus removing the offending links and updates from your eyes.

This worked for us, but leave your own tips and travails in the comments.

Related stories:
Rafe and Josh debate Google's Buzz
Google Buzz: Privacy nightmare
Google's social side hopes to catch some Buzz

Originally posted at Webware

Remember the old days, when dialing a phone number meant tapping out 10 digits on your iPhone screen? Talk about a time-suck!

Camera Dialer makes phone dialing as easy as pointing your iPhone's camera at a phone number.

When you tap the app, it fires up your camera and overlays a small green box in the viewer. Just frame the number inside the box and presto: your iPhone immediately dials it.

Is this really faster and/or easier than just dialing a number manually? Yes and no. In my tests (with an iPhone 3GS), Camera Dialer was quick and accurate with black numbers on white backgrounds, when the lighting was good.

However, it failed to recognize white numbers printed on dark backgrounds, meaning it wouldn't work with many of the ads and flyers I tried. And there were times when the app seemed unable to focus the camera properly until I exited and restarted.

Bottom line: Camera Dialer is a neat idea, and potentially handy for those times when it's easier to tap one icon than 10 numbers, but it needs a little tweaking. Still, if the idea appeals to you, 99 cents is certainly a fair price.

If this sounds a bit familiar, it's because there are many other apps that leverage the iPhone's camera for non-photography purposes:

• Barcode Reader app compares prices on the fly
• iPhone app tracks your food intake by scanning bar codes
• iPhone app turns business cards into contacts
• Three free iPhone apps that make shopping easier

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

Microsoft is tying a ribbon around the next version of Office for Mac.

Due out later this year, Office for Mac 2011 will sport a version of the "ribbon" user interface that has adorned the PC version since Office 2007, Microsoft said Thursday. The new Office will also add support for Microsoft's new browser-based Office Web Apps as well as the first Mac OS X version of Outlook.

Microsoft had said last year that it was working on a new Mac version that would bring Outlook back to the Mac. The company says that version should indeed arrive by this year's holiday shopping season and added that Office for Mac 2011 will allow for importing of .PST files from the Windows version of Office.

"You've told us that working together across platforms is a priority to you and that's why we are making Office for Mac 2011 the best, most compatible productivity suite on the Mac," Microsoft Mac Business Unit general manager Eric Wilfrid said in a statement.

Prior to Mac OS X, the Office for Mac product had included an Exchange-compatible Outlook program for e-mail and calendar. With Mac OS X, though, Microsoft switched to a Mac-only program called Entourage that initially offered almost no connection to Outlook or Exchange. Over time, Entourage gained a fair bit of Exchange connectivity, but still lacked full compatibility.

In addition to Outlook, Office for Mac 2011 will add a ribbon user interface as well as support for co-authoring and other features that have been making their way into the PC version of Office. A new Windows version of Office--Office 2010--has reached the near-final "release candidate" stage and is due out in June.

Microsoft workers said they were not worried that the addition of the browser-based Office Web Apps would hurt sales of the Mac version of Office.

"It still does not provide you that offline capability, that's one of the big key things," said Mike Tedesco, a senior product manager in the MacBU. Colleague Amanda Lefebvre noted that some Mac users might only use the Web apps, but added that "they probably never would have bought Office."

Lefebvre remained circumspect as to whether Microsoft has any plans to bring Office to Apple's other platform--the iPhone OS.

"Obviously it's a platform that's popular and we have to be considering it," she said.

As for Office for Mac, Lefebvre said the company is currently testing Office for Mac 2011 inside its walls, with plans to start a limited closed beta soon.

Originally posted at Beyond Binary