Office
IBM Lotus Symphony alternative to Microsoft Office
I have often mentioned Open Office as a free alternative to Microsoft Office but there is another good alternative from IBM. It is called Lotus Symphony and is now in version 3. It is in fact built on the Open Office code but has an IBM look. Larry Dignan discusses the new release of Lotus [...]
Updated version of OpenOffice
If you want an office suite but don’t want to pay Microsoft prices, OpenOffice is a free alternative that I have mentioned before. It is more than adequate for most home PC users. The main complaint against it is that it can be slow. A new version 3.2 is out that is supposed to load [...]
The illusion of progress
PCs keep getting faster but how much improvement do you notice in the speed of what you actually do on the PC? Software keeps getting bigger and more complex. Programmers get less careful in writing software. So all the added hardware speed often doesn’t result in actual better performance. When all is said and done, [...]
A complete compendium of Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts
The Windows Club has made available for download a free PDF file with a “complete” set of Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts. I put “complete” in quotes because there may be thousands of possible keyboard shortcuts in Windows; this ebook has just over 200. In any event, this is a useful reference work. The download [...]
Search commands in Microsoft Office
Microsoft completely rearranged the menus in Office 2007 and it meant relearning where everything is. After several years, people are still complaining that they can’t find where the commands and menus are located. Microsoft Office Labs has developed an add-on called Search Commands to help you find things:
You know there’s a button for it, but [...]
Quick way to change text case in Microsoft Word
I’m no Microsoft Word expert but every now and then I like to pass on a Word tip that I find useful. If you highlight some text in a Word document, you can cycle through all upper case, all lower case, and title case with the keyboard combination “Shift + F3″. Repeat the action to [...]
Open Office as an alternative
One of the examples of the grip that Microsoft has on home computing is the large number of people who pay for Microsoft Office when they don’t need it. Sometimes, they do this inadvertently since many PCs now come with a trial version of Microsoft Office and people are inveigled into purchasing it when the [...]
Scrap files scrapped
Windows is a complicated operating system and has many properties and features that most PC users are unaware of. One of the odder and lesser known features in Windows 98/XP was something called a scrap file. I wrote about scrap files some years ago in connection with their use by virus writers. I visit the [...]
Microsoft patches patched
Some of the Microsoft security patches from the October patch Tuesday were buggy. Microsoft issued some fixes yesterday. So you may need to check Microsoft Update. Details at InfoWorld.
Microsoft Works to be replaced
The venerable Microsoft Works has long been an option for those who did not need all the many features or the big price that came with Microsoft Office. Now Microsoft is abandoning Works and will be replacing it with a stripped-down version of Office 2010. The new edition will contain advertising and will be available [...]
Microsoft Office on your phone
The mobile platform just keeps getting more like a small computer. At CNET, Ina Fried reports:
Microsoft is expected on Wednesday to announce a partnership with European mobile giant Nokia to help get its Office software onto that company’s mobile phones, CNET News has learned.
With the next version of Office, Microsoft is trying to expand [...]
