The ‘hiding’ call toolbar, your privacy and bypassing countries that try to block Skype. Over the years we’ve shown a lot of people, mostly travelers, how to get more from Skype. As well as our Skype Hidden Extras article, here’s a few more tips from the Skype coalface. The call
There’s one glaring omission from Skype that’s an embarrassment to Microsoft It’s been almost two years since Microsoft bought Skype, yet even the simple bits of integration with Microsoft Office haven’t appeared. The most basic mixing of Office and Skype is an Outlook social connector. This would let Skype contacts
There’s more to Skype than just free calls. Everyone knows that you can make free computer-to-computer calls via Skype, but there are plenty of other, hidden, Skype options. Some are free, others will save you money. There’s one free feature that Microsoft tries to trick you into paying for –
The name change to OneDrive has happened in Office 2013. As promised, Microsoft has changed the name of SkyDrive, their cloud storage service, to OneDrive. They did this after losing a legal battle with Rupert Murdoch’s Sky TV service over use of the ‘Sky’ name. Most references to SkyDrive have
Don’t get excited about an ‘Office for iPad’ until we see it. The online commentariat was alight with news about the coming Office for iPad. Not much news really, just a rumor that Office for iPad was still ‘coming’ and probably before a version of Office for Windows 8 touch
How to find your pictures to insert into an Office document. Even a simple thing like adding a picture to an Office document or email has subtleties and annoyances. When you choose Insert | Picture in recent versions of Office, it opens, by default, in the Picture Library. That seems
Making Windows Explorer’s Recent Places feature a whole lot better. Recent Places shows the folders you can recently visited in Windows Explorer. By default it’s in the Favorites section. Unfortunately the standard Recent Places view isn’t a lot of help: The Type and Size columns are irrelevant because they will
Get Outlook to show changes in Dropbox folders Dropbox has one excellent feature, the ‘Events’ view that lists files added, deleted or modified. You can use that feature to get custom Outlook alerts when certain things happen to your Dropbox account, like when a file is added to a shared
A fully updated book now available at the same low price. We’re delighted to say that we have a new, updated ebook Windows 8.1 for Microsoft Office users. The book has been fully revised for Windows 8.1 with these extras added: Updating to Windows 8.1 advice Setup for Office /
Better login security for some Office 365 users. Microsoft has expanded two factor authentication to more Office 365 users. Called ‘multi-factor authentication’ is now available for Office 365 Midsize Business, Enterprise plans, Academic plans, Nonprofit plans, and standalone Office 365 plans, including Exchange Online and SharePoint Online. There’s no extra
We hear from an Office 365 supporter. We’re received a good note from Office Watch reader Randy H … ” We need to keep in mind when discussing the ‘cost’ of Office 365 that the monthly subscription (rental) includes 5 complete, always current, sets of OfficePro. My Office 365 Enterprise
Amazon has an amazing deal … Windows 8 Pro upgrade for just $1.74 more than the standard upgrade. Who doesn’t like a nice, juicy pricing anomaly? Especially when it’ll save you money. The official upgrade prices for Windows 8 (for users of Windows 7, Vista or XP) start at $120.
Save money, you don’t always need to pay for the ‘Pro’ version of Windows. In Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8, Microsoft has ‘Business’, ‘Professional’ or ‘Ultimate’ versions which, among other features, can login to a Windows domain. This has the effect of forcing organizations to buy a more
Choosing and mixing cloud storage options for file send and sync. Office-Watch.com received some great feedback after our features on sharing files with Dropbox or Skydrive. Some readers pointed out other cloud storage services like BOX which offers 10GB free and has real-time updates on downloads etc. Strangely, no-one mentioned
How to share your Office licenses around to the family. Late last year, Office-Watch.com told you about then upcoming improvements to Office 365 subscriptions … now we can see how those changes really work. An Office 365 Home Premium subscription has always come with 5 licenses for Office desktop software
Moving from MS Office will be harder than politicians think. A Cabinet Minister in the UK government spoke openly this week about dropping Microsoft Office and switching to open source alternatives. Naturally, The Rt Hon Francis Maude MP was more discreet than that, in fact he said “It’s not about
Have some fun with calls from ‘Microsoft Support’ We’d hope that all Office-Watch.com readers know to ignore any unsolicited calls from ‘Microsoft Support’ saying you have viruses on your computer. They are a scam to get remote control of your computer. The best thing to do is hang up the
What it really means for Office 2003 users plus a better countdown to the ‘end’ of Office 2003 and Windows XP Microsoft has a countdown to the end of support for Office 2003 and Windows XP in months, days and hours. We could not resist making our own … Microsoft
Sync your OneDrive folders automatically The free Skydrive/OneDrive program is available for Windows and Mac. Windows 8.1 users don’t need OneDrive software because it’s ‘baked into’ the operating system itself. It will synchronize your cloud storage with local folders, saving you the hassle of manually uploading/downloading each file. All the
It’s not just Skydrive getting a rename … ZDNET is reporting a possible renaming of Microsoft Office’s cloud services to ‘Office Online’. In this scenario Office Web Apps would become Office Online comprising Word Online, Excel Online, PowerPoint Online, OneNoteOnline and Office Online templates. This makes sense because the word
Microsoft’s online storage service gets a court mandated name change. Last year, Microsoft lost a court case over the name ‘SkyDrive’ so now it’s being renamed ‘OneDrive‘. SkyDrive will be called OneDrive SkyDrive Pro becomes OneDrive for Business Hopefully the switchover will be seamless for users like those who save
Why is the word Kardashian in the Office 2013 dictionary? I could happily live without knowing anything about the various Kardashians. I’m informed they are ‘personalities’ of some sort and that I really don’t want to know anything more. But someone at Microsoft seems to think the Kardashians are more
Select the wrong part of a MS Word table and the word count is wrong Benjamin B. writes with an interesting bug in Word 2013 that’s apparently been in Word for a few versions without acknowledgement from Microsoft, let alone a fix. It involves tables and the word count feature.
Office continues to rake in cash for Microsoft Microsoft has released Office sales statistics as part of their latest financial disclosure with Office 365 having over 3.5 million subscribers. 3.5 million subscribers is up from 1 million in May 2013 and 2 million in October 2013. More than 15% of
