Info: Spicebird Beta 0.7 Final Released

Reporting from Spicebird blog,

Spicebird is a collaboration client that provides integrated access to email, contacts, calendaring and instant messaging in a single application. It provides easy access to various web services while retaining all the advantages of a desktop application. The application is based on projects like Thunderbird, Lightning and Telepathy and adds more functionality and integration among its components.

This release of Spicebird adds the following functionality:

  • Chat with friends on services like Yahoo, Google Talk, AIM, ICQ and Jabber
  • Add iGoogle Gadgets to Spicebird
  • Disable the applications that are unused
  • Access Google calendar
  • Experimental support for managing blogs
  • Available in more than 10 languages
  • Basic set of add-ons
  • Import data from Thunderbird, Outlook and Outlook Express

For a detailed description of this release, see the release notes.

Get Spicebird!

See how to install Spicebird on Linux. I’ll review the latest release very soon 🙂

 

Info: Spicebird 0.7 Pre with Awesome Features

Spicebird is

your one platform for many collaboration needs. It provides e-mail, calendaring and instant messaging with intuitive integration and unlimited extensibility.

Spicebird beta 0.7 pre release is out now and can be downloaded in 10 languages from the i10n nightly build archive. For the latest nightly build of English version, check this English nightly build archive.

Some of the new features in version 0.7 are

  • Google Applets in Home Tab
    • You can add Google applets in the Home tab. For example: On home tab, click Add Applet -> Google Applet. Add a url to Google applet (e.g. Google Map Search). And you’ll have a nice Google map on your home page 🙂
    • Or add date & time applet ( this url )
    • Or from the thousands of applets available from Google 🙂

Google Applets in Spicebird

  • Auto Update Feature
    • Spicebird now checks for updates automatically 🙂

Spicebird Auto Update

  • Its way faster than the previous version. Thats my personal opinion. I was using Spicebird beta 0.4 since more than 6 months.

Check the official release announcement for more details.

How to install Spicebird for test usage

Download

Get the latest version of Spicebird from nighty build archive.

Extract and Move

Extract the Spicebird archive file as

[root@localhost ~]# tar -xjf spicebird-beta-0.7pre.en-US.linux-i686.tar.bz2 [ENTER]

Move the extracted directory to /opt/

[root@localhost ~]# mv spicebird-beta /opt/ [ENTER]

Create shortcut on Panel

Right click on Gnome panel and click “Add to Panel

Add Spicebird to Panel

Click on “Custom Application Launcher”

Spicebird Custom Application Launcher

Fill in appropriate details as shown in the following image

Spicebird Create Application Launcher

Choose an icon for Spicebird by clicking the “No Icon” button on the top left corner.

Spicebird Launcher Icon

Click Ok. And you are done. Now click the new icon that has just appeared on the panel. Rest of the configuration like account creation and settings is exactly same as Thunderbird or Evolution or any other mail client.

Reference : Spicebird Official Website

 

Review: Spicebird – A Collaboration Platform

Well, I happened to attend this workshop on “How to build business around open source tools” organized by Twincling Society and IIIT Hyderabad. There I came to know about Spicebird. Spicebird is a single platform for many collaboration needs. It provides e-mail, calendaring and instant messaging with intuitive integration and unlimited extensibility. Spicebird is being developed by a Hyderabad based Indian start-up named Synovel (All four founders are alumni of IIIT Hyderabad). Below we look at some features that Spicebird provides.

1. Tabbed Interface

The tabbed interface for different utilities like mail, calendar, contacts, tasks etc. looks pretty clean. The interface is not at all cluttered in any way and navigation to different utilities is straight forward. You don’t have to brainstorm before getting something done.

2. Familiar Interface & Crisp Icon Set

Spicebird has an interface similar to loads of mozilla based application out there. The settings, preferences and the way things have been managed are familiar. So people who are switching from other open source email clients will not face any problems at all. Spicebird uses icons from Tango Project. The icons used are really good looking.

3. Nice Home Tab

The way Home tab has been organized is really appealing. You can add applets which includes rss feeds from you favourite blogs, mail folder views, calendar, upcoming events and Date & Time. Geeks love rss feeds. And what can be better than having it on your home tab all the time along with your mails. Event applet comes handy to remind you of the upcoming meetings and deadlines. And its on home tab all the time 🙂 Date & Time is specially helpful when you collaborate with people in different timezones. So you can add their timezone on home tab and you know when is the right time to ping them.

Spicebird Home Tab

4. Email

Email experience is more or less like any other open source email client. But Spicebird provides some intitutive features like if it finds that the content of a mail is about a meeting, it’ll give an option for creating a calendar event for the same. This is a really good feature and this is just the begining. Spicebird is still beta.

SpiceBird Intutive Mail

5. Instant Messaging

This is a really cool feature from collaboration point of view and which makes Spicebird different from the masses. Spicebird is supporting IM via any jabber server. So if you are a startup, setup your own jabber server on Intranet and use it for collaboration. Mind blowing!! This also includes Gmail/GTalk. So you can just say bye bye to your messenger and start using it right away with GTalk. Plus this will import all your contacts to your local address book. Another real good feature which is not there in lot of other email clients.

SpiceBird Instant Message using Jabber, GTalk

6. Calendar & Task Management

Another good feature. Integrated calendar and task management. You can quickly add tasks and events. And you need not check your calendar for upcoming events, add upcoming event applet on home tab and you will have them all the time in front of your eyes 🙂

Spicebird Calendar and Task Manager

Conclusion

Whether you are a startup which is looking for tools to collaborate or a user who is excited about using open source tools, just go and download Spicebird from here and explore a new way of managing things at a single place 🙂

You can look at Spicebird Roadmap here and checkout the video demo of Spicebird here.