Last week had more news stories about email accounts being hacked and contents made public but don’t feel sorry for the victims, they only have themselves to blame. Colin Powell uses Gmail – which was hacked. The US Democratic Committee had their Microsoft Exchange mail server hacked releasing 19,252 emails with 8,034 attachments (documents, worksheets. […]
Outlook.com will soon get the ability to attach photos from Facebook into your messages. A slap in the face for paying Office for Windows customers. Also coming are links to Google Drive (links to OneDrive, Dropbox and Box are already available) but what sticks in our craw is the Facebook connection. Back for Outlook 2010, […]
Microsoft has opened data centers in Germany which have significant advantages over their server farms in other countries. The data centers in Frankfurt and Magdeburg (near Berlin) are being called the ‘Microsoft German Cloud’. What’s different about these data centers compared to Microsoft’s other locations in US, UK, Australia, Asia and around the world? The […]
The battle between printer makers and third-party ink/toner makers continues with news that Hewlett-Packard has added blocks to stop non-HP ink being used in their printers. Here’s how to avoid paying more than you need to. This has been going on for years. Printer manufacturers now make most of their money from sales of consumables […]
Coming in the next few days to Android and iPhone is Google’s entry into the world of online messaging – Google Allo. Allo has some interesting ideas but lacks two important features that disqualifies it from use for us and most Microsoft Office users. Security Allo disappoints in terms of security. Standard conversations are not […]
It’s possible to add footnotes to a photo in Word. The trick is similar to adding Footnotes to a Word table. Use Endnotes, instead of Footnotes (assuming you don’t use Endnotes elsewhere in the document). Add a Continuous Section Break and change the Endnotes settings to put them at the end of the section. Here’s […]
Microsoft Word has footnotes and endnotes features but it’s surprisingly clumsy when it come to the common need for footnotes immediately after a table. Normally, Word puts Footnotes at the bottom of the page but for tables (and occasionally pictures or diagrams) you want them immediately after the table like this: Doing that is possible […]
Organizations should watch out for a Microsoft sale technique where a licence ‘audit’ is just a way to gather customer data and try to upsell to Office 365 TechRepublic reports on some forum threads that report MS salespeople trying to get a ‘voluntary’ audit of software licences by making various thinly veiled threats about noncompliance, […]
Office for Apple devices adds more cloud storage options plus a unique feature for PowerPoint. Edmodo and Tencent cloud storage is now supported. Tencent is a very large Chinese Internet company. It has a cloud storage service called Weiyun (in Chinese). Edmodo is an educational collaboration service based in California. Word for iOS gets the […]
Office 365 Groups, workplace collaboration system and Microsoft’s answer to Slack, will now accept guest users with some conditions. Until now only registered users, part of an organization, could be part of an Office 365 Group. Now outside contractors, partners etc can be invited to join the conversation. Source: Microsoft For the moment, guest access […]
OpenOffice, a free MS Office alternative, may stop improving in the near future. Developers seem reluctant to contribute the time necessary to keep the project alive. In the words of volunteer Vice President Dennis E. Hamilton, OpenOffice “has limited capacity for sustaining the project in an energetic manner.” Even if you don’t use OpenOffice, it would […]
In addition to the security fixes for Office, the same update has many other changes and fixes. Some of these ‘Nonsecurity-related fixes and improvements’ caught our eye: The expansion of the programming interface into Office continues with the addition of DialogAPI 1.1 and Mailbox 1.4 in Office 2013 programs VBA macros are no longer automatically […]
September 2016 has the usual collection of patches for security lapses in Microsoft products. There’s the standard collection of Windows and browser fixes including Internet Explorer and the new Edge browser. For Office customers there’s only one patch. Yet again, hackers have found a way to hack an Office document to gain access to a […]
Microsoft’s customers in the United Kingdom can now choose their own country as the place for data to be stored. Microsoft has announced that they’ve opened UK data centres in London, Durham and Cardiff which can store Office 365, Azure, OneDrive and other Microsoft hosted data. These ‘local’ data centres are intended to settle concerns […]
From 1 Nov 2016, only a few weeks away, Microsoft will stop updating their junk email filter in Outlook for Windows and Mac. What does that mean for you and your Outlook Junk Email settings? What’s happening? Microsoft won’t be updating their email spam ‘Smartscreen’ technology any more. That’s the Junk Email part of Outlook […]
Microsoft has announced that they’ll stop updating the Outlook spam filter (“Smartscreen”) at the end of this month – on 1st Nov 2016. This might be a worry, but not a disaster, for most Outlook users and we’ll explain why. We did mix up the dates with incorrect mentions of ‘2017’. Peter takes responsibility and […]
Mercedes has announced a new project ‘In Car Office’ which will put your calendar, contacts etc on your car dashboard, starting in 2017. This is interesting because there’s some specifics and a date. Usually these car related tech announcements are long on catch phrases (‘strategic alliance’, ‘future’, ‘vision’) and short on reality. While there’s no […]
Microsoft has been getting serious about drawing features in Office so we thought it was time to look at what’s available and possible across the Office applications. Once upon a time, drawing onto a Word document or Excel worksheet was only possible with a specialist drawing tablet (Wacom etc) or digital pen. But now touch […]
Microsoft has released details of a new way Office documents can be used to infect your computer. The documents can contain disguised OLE objects which are the real danger. We’ve often said that ‘new’ Office documents (.docx .xlsx etc) are safer than their .doc etc predecessors. That’s because the new ‘.???x’ files won’t run VBA […]
Microsoft is gradually adding to Office some interesting new Ink related features; Replay and Math. Rewind and Replay Until now drawings or ‘ink’ in Office documents has been static and fixed, much like real ink. OneNote Mobile for Windows 10 is the first Office app to make ink additions animated. Office remembers how you’ve drawn […]
Microsoft is expanding their public testing program for Office Insiders and adding options to accept changes quickly or slowly. Microsoft ‘Insiders’ programs let the public become testers of upcoming software with the risks that come with using somewhat untested programs. Strange as it may seem to many, there are people who are prepared to spend […]
A quick look at importing data into Excel. Excel has sooo many ways to import information into a worksheet. Go to Data | Get External Data to see the selection. There are options to grab information from other databases, cloud services, web page tables etc in a variety of ways. The import can be ‘once […]
When typing or importing data into Excel, the program tries to set the cell type (number, date etc) based on simple rules. This is the default ‘General’ cell format at work. But Excel’s guesses aren’t always right. We humans insist on typing or importing data that doesn’t comply with Microsoft’s expectations. To put it another […]
A new report shows that Excel is causing errors to creep into genetic studies because of data conversion problems. Excel tries to figure out the type of information you are typing or importing into a worksheet. Those rules work most of the time, but not always. If Excel converts a cell wrongly, it changes the […]
Sometimes we wonder what happens in Microsoft development meetings because the software we get from those discussions seems so out of touch with reality or even sense. Today’s example comes from Outlook for Windows and it’s curious ‘one way’ translation feature. Office for Windows has good language translation options, though Microsoft continues to ignore the […]
Outlook.com users might strike a problem connecting with Outlook for Windows or Mac which looks like a password problem but isn’t. Outlook.com may put a security block on your account. Most likely this happens if you login from a different location or country. To protect you, Outlook.com will restore the account only when a one-time […]
Microsoft has released a 30 second ad to promote the Surface 4 computer and denigrate the iPad. The video makes some good points about Surface’s ability to run full Office for Windows and the important external ports for USB and video. It boasts that the Surface has a keyboard just as the iPad Pro now […]
Microsoft has bought the Genee calendar system and promptly announced that it was being killed off. Genee customers have only until 1st September to move. Genee has some clever technology for setting up meetings with many people. It can check each calendar and suggest a time and place that works for all involved. Microsoft has […]
Microsoft has now released new ‘all in one’ Authenticator apps for both iOS and Android devices. In our Windows 10, Office 2016 and Windows 8.1 books we have chapters on ‘Two factor authentication’ and its importance for Windows and Office users. The new app combines the authentication needs of Microsoft accounts for individuals plus Azure […]
Quick Steps is an Outlook for Windows (not Mac) feature that lets you combine common or oft-repeated actions into a single clickable icon. It can be a time saver. There’s no programming involved so you don’t have to worry about VBA or the Developer tab. The Quick Steps are very prominent, right in the middle […]
The OneDrive app for Apple iOS devices now lets you create Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents directly. A small change but handy if you’re in the OneDrive app already. Tap the + icon at top left, then choose the type of document you want to make. The appropriate app will open with a blank document. […]
If you’ve ever felt an overwhelming urge to scribble on your iPhone, Microsoft has updated their Office for iPhone apps just for you. After a strangely long delay, Office for iPhone apps now have the Draw options that are already available in the Office for Android apps. Tap on the Draw icon along the top […]
Congratulations to all the young people at the 15th annual Microsoft Office Specialist World Championships held earlier this month in Orlando, FL. The event pits 13- to 22-year-olds from around the world to test their skills in Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. This years winners are: Lai Tin Ming, age 16, Hong Kong, Word 2013 Georgi […]
Microsoft has, too slowly, admitted that they allowed their supposedly ‘Secure Boot’ system to be bypassed with a special ‘golden key’ built into their system. Secure Boot is sold as a way to stop computers being compromised by hackers before Windows starts. It’s an important part of securing your computer from attack. Amazingly, Microsoft developers […]
BleepingComputer has detailed a nasty little virus that copies all your Office documents and more to a hacker. It’s a clever little nastie which disguises itself as a Chrome browser add-on then goes to work sending to the hackers details like: Your name Computer name List of installed programs Version of Windows and service pack […]
Here’s some suggestions for making a Word, Excel or Powerpoint document smaller. Also useful for emails. We’ve had readers occasionally asking how they can ‘shrink’ a document so it’s under some arbitrary size limit. Why even worry about the file size of documents? Much of the time, the file size isn’t a concern. Modern Office […]
Windows 8.1 is a perfectly good Windows release once you get rid of that silly full screen Start Menu*. Many people have decided to stay with Windows 8.1 and not switch to Windows 10. Despite all of Microsoft’s hype, that’s a perfectly reasonable choice. We’ve just released a Third Edition of Windows 8.1 for Microsoft […]
Office 2016 for Mac users with Office 365 subscriptions have some new features heading towards them. They are now available for ‘slow ring’ insiders and will eventually be released publicly. Many of the innovations are similar to features recently added to other Office products. Office 2016 for Mac version v15.25 (160806) is available now to […]
A worrying number of wireless keyboards from major companies can be hacked to grab passwords and other info from you. Keyboards from companies like Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba, Kensington and GE are vulnerable and there could be many others not tested. The broad problem is that the wireless connection is ‘in the clear’ or unencrypted so anyone […]
Microsoft has released their Excel REST API, a way for developers to use Excel functions within their programs. This might not seem like a big deal to most people but it open up the possibility of very interesting programs and apps in the future. It’s possible for a app to link with Microsoft servers to […]
