Screen reader software now available for Office 2010 and Office 2013 users. Microsoft has done a deal with GW Micro to make their Window-Eyes software available free to licensed users of Office 2010 or Office 2013. Details of the offer are at http://www.windoweyesforoffice.com/ Window-Eyes is screen reader software for the
Microsoft doesn’t have to justify Office software renewals – just pretend to. With the first anniversary of Office 365 coming up, CITEworld has managed to get under Microsoft’s skin with their article titled Microsoft hasn’t given consumers much reason to renew Office 365 . The piece by Nancy Gohring suggests
See a word translated across a map of Europe You have to hand it to The Guardian newspaper, they have an impressive Data Store section with both raw data and interesting presentations of it. Their latest is a clever use of the Google Translate API to present a map of
Can you call a Translation service to return results in Excel? After checking out the clever European word translator, we started wondering about loading translations into Excel. It should be simple to have some code to call a web server and return a translation of a word. Office 2010 and
Reactivating Office 2013 isn’t as easy as you’d expect. If you have an Office 2013 subscription, the software might start with an ‘Unlicenced Product’ message across the top and only few functions available. Assuming you have a valid Office 365 subscription (the Manage Account button will open a browser window
How the Clinton ‘Saints and Sinners’ spreadsheet might look. Excel has many uses and an upcoming book talks about one of them. Apparently Bill and Hillary Clinton used Excel to maintain a list of those they like and dislike. We could not help wonder what the Clinton worksheet would look
Epson’s new label maker is a far cry from the old ‘Dymo’ labeler. We’d all but forgotten about label makers but the new Epson LW-600P made us think again. This is a laser printer for labels that’s battery powered with apps for both Android and iOS devices to link via
An industrial dispute involving CAPS has ended. One of the most interesting industrial disputes of 2013 has now ended with a new agreement between staff and management of the Melbourne Fire Brigade in Australia. Being an emergency service, the administrative staff didn’t feel that a full ‘stop work’ strike was
A new patch for a major security lapse in Microsoft’s user account system. Among the December 2013 patches is one that deserves more attention and concern than it’s got so far. The problem is headlined by Microsoft as “Vulnerability in Microsoft Office Could Allow Information Disclosure” and categorized as ‘Important’
What wins in a conflict between custom and exclusion dictionaries? In Office-Watch.com we’ve talked about the custom dictionary (which lets you add words to the Office dictionary) and the exclusion dictionary (which removes words that would otherwise be considered OK. But what happens if a word is in both the
Among the December 2013 patches is a fix for the latest TIFF image bug. The most recent ‘zero day’ exploit for TIFF images has now been patched by Microsoft. The security lapse is the latest in a long line of problems with the Windows system for handling images. There seems
A quick look at Apple Pages vs Microsoft Word The New York Times has a fairly glowing review of Apple’s word processor, Pages in comparison with Microsoft Word. The review notes that Pages has a less cluttered interface which may suit some people with basic editing needs. But some features
Microsoft announces updates for Office 2013, SharePoint 2013 and Exchange 2013 Mark your calendar for ‘early 2014’ ‘coz that’s when Microsoft will release Service Packs for Office 2013, SharePoint 2013 and Exchange 2013. The service pack will apply to anyone using the ‘download then install’ version of Office as opposed
Examine US public health data in Excel. One of the great things about the recent Internet is the availability of previously hidden data. Large blocks of information have been collected, checked and published online. Combine that with a tool like Excel and you can do your own analysis! Here’s just
Checking the Google ‘bad’ word list in Microsoft Word. The latest release of Google’s Android has a list of blocked words that won’t show up as suggested autocomplete as you type. Back in July 2013 we told you about the ‘kill list‘ of words on Apple iOS devices. It’s a
Another Office promotion under the microscope Down in Australia there’s some special offers for Office 2013. Alas, when you look at the details it’s not such a great deal. The Get Modern offers for small businesses are summarized by Microsoft like this: 15% off The headline says “15% off Office
Is the latest offer for Office 2013 such a great deal? Down in Australia there’s some special offers for Office 2013. Alas, when you look at the details it’s not such a great deal. The Get Modern offers for small businesses are summarized by Microsoft like this: Let’s look at the
An example of web scraping from BestBuy.com into Excel. We’ve already talked about getting prices from the Amazon.com web site into Excel with automatic updates. Now let’s look at how to do it for BestBuy.com prices.Excel has had a method of web scraping for many versions you can find it
How to check Amazon product prices automatically in Excel. With Black Friday coming in the USA, it’s time to carefully check prices and look out for bargains. Ideally get those prices automatically and put them into Excel for comparison. To do that for Amazon means ‘scraping’ or trying to grab
Is your net access better or worse, cheap or costly compared to other countries? BBC Online has an interesting – though hardly scientific – look at Internet access around the world. Think you’ve got it bad — try a ‘gold’ package with just 4GB for £75 a month (US$119) in
Some improvements to Office 365 subscriptions Office 365 Home Premium subscription currently lets you install Office software on up to five computers in a household as well as get some ‘bonuses’ like an hour of Skype calling time and 20GB of Skydrive space. However control of those installs and the
Collaboration features now in Office Web Apps plus other changes Microsoft has rolled out an update to Office Web Apps – the browser based version of Office available via Skydrive and Office 365. These changes are now available free from Office.com for all comers (‘free’ users and those with paid
An email pretending to be ‘Outlook settings’ will actually lock up your data until you pay a fee – aka ransom. The tricks to separate you from your money and computer files continue to get more elaborate and this latest brazen effort from Russian scammers shows. For the last few
Another arrow is thrust right into Microsoft Office. Google continues its moves against Microsoft Office with the announcement that the next version of Android will include their direct rival for Office. Android 4.4 aka ‘KitKat’ will include QuickOffice which lets you create and edit Microsoft Office documents directly (Word, Excel and
