From the crazy bureaucracy department is the news that IBM has been granted a patent for Out of Office emails! That’s right, those automatic emails that go out when you’re poolside are now the property of IBM. From the patent application: “When the out of office agent is enabled, it
Last year we renewed one of our ongoing gripes with Outlook, the lack of an incoming email translation feature. See a ‘side-by-side’ translation of an email you’ve received. After many years, Microsoft has finally done something to fix this obvious gap, but they’ve done it in a typically self-serving way.
It’s not just politicians who get into trouble using public email services. They are just the headline-worthy tip of a much larger email problem. AOL has a way to secure a AOL mail account but too few people (and politicians <g>) use it. We’ve talked before about Two Factor Authentication
PowerPoint 2016 for Windows (Office 365 subscribers) is getting a new feature to help you make the basics of a presentation. QuickStarter is now available for PowerPoint for Windows Insider (Fast) build 16.0.7823.1000 and later. It will released to Slow ring Insiders then the public in the coming months. QuickStarter
Avecto’s analysis of Microsoft’s security lapses and patches shows a worrying increase in the number of security vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office when you’d hope to see fewer. Most of the coverage has been on the issue of Administrator access but we’re more worried about the security holes in Office. It’s
Avecto has released an analysis of Microsoft’s security lapses and patches over the last few years. It makes interesting reading even though the headline conclusion hasn’t been well understood. Administrator Rights problem Most media have focused on a quote from the report that says “94% of Critical Microsoft vulnerabilities would
It should be no surprise that Amazon is rumored to be working on an Office suite to rival Microsoft Office and Google Docs. The Information is reporting that Amazon wants Office programs to complement their very popular and flexible cloud service – Amazon Web Services AWS. At the moment, this
Office Picture Manager, the much loved and simple image editor was dropped by Microsoft, but it’s still available. Picture Manager has some features that aren’t in Windows 10 to this day. Here’s how to get it for free. There are two ways to get Office Picture Manager (OPM). Both involve
Microsoft has released Skype Lite, a new app that’s designed for smaller devices and low speed internet access. But it’s only available in India. Skype Lite allows voice and even limited video calls on slow 2G networks or unstable net connections. Skype text messages are also available. Source: Microsoft Images
The Google Docs apps have a useful option for making new documents, worksheets and presentations that are Microsoft Office compatible. JR Raphael at ComputerWorld pointed out the option in the Google Docs app for Android, we poked around to find the equivlalents in Google Sheets and Google Slides Under Settings there’s
CyberX Labs has identified Operation BugDrop, which uses Word document to attack targeted businesses and steal corporate information. They send emails to the business they want to raid that trick people into enabling macros. Opening the hacked document displays the Security Warning and ‘Enable Content’ button are real; created by
You’ve chosen an image, now you have to get it into your Office document. You’d hope there was a single way to do that but, as usual, there’s plenty of options. Outlook has its own special needs, different from Word, Excel and PowerPoint. There’s also privacy and image size issues
Office 2016 for Windows is being updated by Microsoft so our Office 2016: the real startup guide has a 2nd edition to include the latest new features. The work was done by Peter Deegan in Nepal. Some people go to Nepal for trekking in the Himalayas, others to enjoy the
Check out this video from SciShow which goes some way to explaining how an email gets from your computer to another. Emails get routed through a series of computers to reach it’s destination. It’s not a direct connection from your computer to another. That’s important to all email users because
The paid upgrade version of Outlook.com is now available with the usual, but enticing, opening offer. For an annual fee you get extras beyond the usual free offering: No Ads – on the browser interface version of your mailbox. Custom Domain – instead of using outlook.com, email addresses with your
The February update to Office for Android has one new feature, one overhyped change and a reannouncement of something they’ve already done! Office-Watch.com knows from twenty years’ experience that you have to carefully read Microsoft’s announcements. They are usually carefully worded to be true but sometimes misleading. In this case,
Here’s the complete list of non-security updates for Office 2016 for Windows and Office 2013 plus our notes on some bug fixes that caught our eye. As usual, these updates will be pushed to most Office computers automatically. No action is necessary. Unexpected Issues Microsoft is always using different words
WhatsApp, the popular messaging system, has added a new security feature that’s being called ‘Two Factor Authentication’ but it’s NOT. Really the new option is more annoying than helpful. We’re not the only ones critical of WhatsApp and it’s lip-service attitude to security. The company adds security features but too
It was only a matter of time, the first attack targeting Word for Mac has been released. It’s a simple, almost primitive hack, but it’s out there so beware. There even a ‘silver lining’ of sorts. The document is named U.S. Allies and Rivals Digest Trump's Victory - Carnegie Endowment
Would you like to try adding an Outlook appointment, just to see how it works? We’ve made a simple test .ics you can download: Add a test appointment It’s a normal .ics file that can be added to Outlook for Windows/Mac or any other compatible programs (most calendar programs do).
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is the latest gallery to put many of their images into the public domain. Now you can, legally, use them to decorate your PowerPoint presentations or Word documents. The Met has released about 375,000 images under Creative Commons Zero CC0 licence. That
Microsoft announced Touch Bar support with much fanfare back in October 2016. Over 3 months later and paying customers are still waiting. There’s been lot of talk about this feature including web sites with ‘tips’ on using Office with the Touch Bar without noting that it’s not got into ‘insider’
To many people the Oxford Comma is an obscure grammar issue but, boy!, can it get people excited. We’ve had lots of messages, pro and con, from readers. This all started because Microsoft dropped one of the options available for the Oxford Comma check. In Office 2016 (Windows or Mac)
LibreOffice, a free alternative to Microsoft Office, now has an optional ribbon interface. Version 5.3 is now available with many added features which will be familiar to Microsoft Office users. Write (equivalent of Word) now has Table Styles and a Go To box which have been in Word for some
