Group calling returns to the Skype ‘free’ list. Good news for Skype lovers, group calling has returned to the list of free features. You can now add group calling to our list of Skype hidden extras Group calling is having three or more people on the same video/audio call. Microsoft
Court confirms that any US controlled cloud server is vulnerable to US government access. Here’s a story that got little coverage but deserves a lot more. A US district court has confirmed what has been known for the last decade, that US companies have to supply data to the US
OneDrive for Business customers get a 4,000% increase. Microsoft continues to push their cloud services with a big jump in available storage in OneDrive for Business from a default of 25GB to 1 Terabyte. It’s a whopping increase intended to put pressure on Google, Dropbox, Box etc to compete or
Some nice new tricks and a lot of secrets in the first update of Office for iPad. Right at the end of April 2014, we have the first update to the Office for iPad apps to version 1.0.1. The main change is AirPrint support that we’ve covered separately and our
Office for iPad apps get an update including printing … of a sort anyway. Right at the end of April 2014, we have the first update to the Office for iPad apps. The main change is printing support … well Airprint support anyway. Airprint is Apple’s proprietary printing system which
Why RE and FW are the best options for email subjects When you reply or forward a message your email program will add a prefix to the subject line. The question is – do you choose the standard ‘English’ prefixes RE: and FW: or your local equivalents? There’s plenty of
Outlook adds holidays from various countries but it’s not very clear or clever about it. Recently we’ve been looking at Outlooks Holiday support. We thought it would a simple matter of clicking ‘Add Holidays’ but instead we found an old-fashioned, unclear and poorly designed system that’s causes lots of hassles
Without a clear reason, Microsoft has started blocking paid OneDrive accounts. MyCE.com is reporting a disturbing new trend from Microsoft … locking customers out of their OneDrive accounts without notice or clear reason. According to the report, customers may get a message like this when they login to OneDrive Your
We asked Microsoft eight simple questions and got one response. To accompany our story about OneDrive for Business changing documents and files without notice or trace we asked Microsoft for answers to some questions. Alas the reply came too late for the Office Watch newsletter but here it is, in
Discounts available for buying Office 2013 We’ve said it for years, when it comes to buying Microsoft Office never, ever, pay retail. There’s always discounts available for the same software and license. Sadly and probably deliberately there’s few discounts available for buying Office 2013, as opposed to renting or ‘subscribing’
A better way to view your email in Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013 Outlook Conversation view is a different way to arrange your email. It groups messages with (usually) the same subject together making it easier to follow an email thread. Conversations also makes better use of valuable screen real
Why does OneDrive for Business change the Office documents and files you upload? MyCE.com has a worrying report on OneDrive for Business which appears to change the uploaded files. Microsoft seems to be adding information to customers uploaded files. We can’t find anywhere that discloses that and the reasons for
What makes a conversation in Outlook? In the Outlook world a conversation is a series of emails with the same subject line or conversation ID. It’s as simple as that. In the past these were called email ‘threads’. Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013 can group messages by conversation or thread.
Easyjet lets you leave your device on all the time – even takeoff and landing. European airline, Easyjet has introduced unrestricted handheld device use. You can use your phone, tablet, ebook reader anytime while on the plane, as long as it’s in ‘Flight Mode’ (i.e all wireless communications off; Wifi,
Should Outlook be adding marketing holidays as well as real ones? The US Holidays list in Outlook 2013 adds some unexpected and non-holiday items to your calendar – the full list is below. There were some surprising entries in the list supplied by Microsoft. Administrative Professionals Day There’s no doubt
As promised, there’s now a cheaper Office 365 option. Microsoft has now released Office 365 Personal, a lower cost rental option for Office software. The ‘Personal’ subscription/rental option costs US$6.99 per month (US$69.99 a year) plus any state taxes. For that you get: Use of the current Office software for
How to change the date format in Excel Online The default date format in Excel has always been a mystery to newcomers and its stranger in Excel Online (the new name for Excel Web Apps). To change the default date format for display and date entry for Excel Online, go
What’s new in Office Online for April 2014 Office Online – the new name for the Office Web Apps – has received an update. Here’s a quick look at some of the new features. All the updates should be available now or in the next few days as Microsoft global
How to delete ‘duplicate’ holidays in Outlook. When you add holidays to Outlook, sometimes you can end up with duplicate entries because Outlook isn’t smart enough to detect simple duplications in the calendar. Here’s an example of triplication of holiday items in the Outlook Calendar. It’s easy to do given
A smart move by Microsoft, but not a big deal. A clever move from Microsoft today, having their Office Online web sites added to the Google Chrome App Store. That’s led to excited headlines like “Microsoft Office hits Google’s Chrome Web Store” which will please Microsoft. Sure, you can now
Microsoft is keeping ‘good’ secrets from customers – why? There’s a few blog posts about the Windows 8.1 Update changes … but not all the changes. For reasons passing understanding, Microsoft won’t release a full list of the Windows 8.1 Update changes The Windows 8.1 Update is a curious beast.
What’s in Windows Phone 8.1? Windows Phone 8.1 is now being pushed out to compatible Windows Phones. Some changes of interest to Office users. Password protected documents are now supported in the Office apps – at last. S/MIME is available to secure and identify emails – again long overdue. Calendar
Microsoft’s gift to history Microsoft has released to the public domain the source code and documents for an early version of Word, Word 1.1a for Windows, as well as DOS 1.1 and 2.0. The Word for Windows has both C source code and some documentation. The documents are in original
Best to get the Service Pack now. Despite the ‘retirement’ of Office 2003 and Windows XP, both programs continue to work and all past updates will be available for download from Microsoft. However we suggest that you grab the major updates to Office 2003 now to save yourself hassle and
