Office
Never pay full price for Microsoft applications
That’s the message of a post by Rafe Needleman at CNET. He begins:
I don’t know why Microsoft attaches retail prices to it mainstream software products, Windows and Office. You have to be a loser to pay them.
Needleman then discusses various ways to pay less for Windows and Office.
Microsoft admits it can’t stop Office hacks
Microsoft can’t defend Office files against all the security vulnerabilities so the next edition of Office will be “sandboxed” to try to isolate any security problems. Computerworld reports:
Microsoft’s plan to “sandbox” Office documents in the next version of its application suite is an admission that the company can’t keep hackers from exploiting file format bugs, [...]
Next version of Microsoft Office
I still haven’t gotten used to Office 2007 but the next version, denoted Office 2010, is coming soon. The big news here is that Microsoft is making this version of office available for Web use. MarketWatch reports:
Microsoft Corp. on Monday made the latest edition of its Office software suite available for testing and plans [...]
PowerPoint patches
Today, Microsoft issued critical security updates for PowerPoint. If you use PowerPoint, be sure to install them. The update package is available here.
Combining Microsoft Office documents
Although I have been using one version or the other of Microsoft Word for years, I know very little about the application. It has far more features than I ever have need for. So I usually refrain from giving Word tips. Recently, however, I wanted to combine some documents and I learned something that seems [...]
New security issues- Adobe Flash, Excel
Security issues just keep coming, Adobe Flash again and Microsoft Excel. Microsoft acknowledges the problem in Excel but no fix yet. Adobe has a patch at this link. More details by Gregg Keizer at Computerworld. Also, see the information about Flash problems at Security Garden and also at ZDNet.
A faster Open Office version
In the previous post, I mentioned Open Office 3.0 (OO). One complaint that has been lodged against OO is that it is bloated and slow. For more speed, there is a variant of OO called Go-oo. Here is a report from Lifehacker:
Free application Go-oo is a fork of the popular Microsoft Office alternative OpenOffice.org with [...]
Make slide shows without PowerPoint
Microsoft Office component PowerPoint is dominant in slide show software but not everyone wants to have to fork out to buy Microsoft Office. A free alternative is Open Office (OO), which is now in version 3.0 and has received good reviews. OO contains slide show capability that is compatible with PowerPoint. For online presentations there [...]
Fast way to open a recently used Word document
I have been using Microsoft Word in one version or the other since Word 95. However, Word is a far more powerful program than I need and I probably am unaware of 95% of its features. For that reason, I don’t give many Word tips but now and then I come across one that I [...]
Using the “Spike” feature of Microsoft Word
I use Word quite a bit. In fact, I have been using some version of Word since Office 95. Still, even after all those years, most of the features of Word remain unknown and unused by me. Generally, it is because I have no need for all the power of Word. Now and then, however, [...]
OpenOffice versus Microsoft Office
The ZDNet blogger Paul Murphy recently polled readers about how they rated the free program OpenOffice compared to Microsoft Office. He reports:
On balance I came away from the discussion with the impression that the differences in functionality are of minor importance for most people most of the time; that those who spoke against OpenOffice generally [...]
