Upload photos automatically from smartphones. One of the features of Skydrive/OneDrive is the ‘Camera Roll’ or ‘Camera Backup’, it’s a simple and automatic way to copy photos between some devices. Is it ‘Camera Roll’ or ‘Camera Backup’? Microsoft uses both terms, depending on where you look. Most commonly from your
Getting the free Dropbox software. The free Dropbox program is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. It will synchronize your cloud storage with local folders, saving you the hassle of manually uploading/downloading each file. All the file transfers happen in the background. Dropbox software is the best and easiest way
If you put a file up on Dropbox, how does anyone know it’s there? If you put a file up on Dropbox, how does anyone know it’s there? Obviously you can tell them, by email, phone or even face-to-face! Or they can check the shared folder for anything new. Happily
How to recover files deleted from Dropbox storage Dropbox retains deleted files for 30 days. You can see those files from the web site. Click on the ‘Show deleted files’ button top-right. Click on the ‘open’ trash can to hide deleted files. Click on a deleted file to see the
Use Dropbox for sharing Office documents and collaboration on editing, but it’s not ideal. Another use for Dropbox is sharing Office documents and collaboration on editing, but it’s not ideal. With Office 2013 you can do this better with Skydrive because Microsoft’s own cloud storage allows simultaneous collaboration – in
One of the best Dropbox features – Camera Upload One of the nice features of Dropbox is the ‘Camera Roll’, it’s a simple and automatic way to copy photos between devices. Most commonly from your smartphone (Apple, Android) to your computer. It works automatically and often takes only seconds from
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
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
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
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
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
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
How to copy an image from the web into an Office document. Getting an image from your web browser to a Word document is quite easy, though easier with some browsers than others. In your browser, right-click over the image you want and look at the options available. At the
Does Microsoft Office have planned obsolescence? What does that mean for Office subscriptions/rental. An item in The New York Times Why Apple wants to bust your iPhone talks about how there’s deliberate design elements in iPhones to encourage people to buy a new model. It’s a ‘carrot and stick’ approach. There’s the ‘stick’
Filtered.com is offering a week long trial of their online courses. In conjunction with Skilledup.com – you can get a 7 day free trial of the Word, Excel and PowerPoint courses offered by Filtered.com Details at skilledup.com – scroll down to the bottom of the article for the sign-up form.
Mixed signals about the core anti-virus protection in Windows. These days, most IT professionals will recommend Microsoft Security Essentials. MSE is the free anti-virus program that’s included with Windows 7 and Windows 8. It’s also available as a free download for Windows Vista and XP users. Security Essentials is all
How to use Office for Windows on the Mac. Sometimes Office for Mac isn’t enough, you need its big brother, Office for Windows to run on a Macintosh computer. That’s certainly possible in various ways. It’s done using virtual machines, in effect running Windows ‘inside’ Apple’s operating system. VM’s, as
Win 8 ‘not fit for purpose’? Today’s Financial Times has an interesting letter and sharp indictment of Windows 8 “….For anybody doing real work, Windows 8 has concrete design errors which should never have reached the business user. Leaving aside trying to work with spreadsheets, the start button, the right
Another way to have real Microsoft Office. Cloudon, makers of an app to bring MS Office to Apple and Android devices has now expanded to browsers as well. Now you can use Chrome or Safari browsers to open up a Cloudon window with Word, Excel or Powerpoint running. The base
Apple’s office compatible apps are now free. Buried in the new iPhone hype was some interesting news for anyone editing Office documents on iPhone or iPad. The ‘iWork’ apps are now free on new devices. That’s Pages (word-processing), Keynote (presentations) and Numbers (spreadsheet). Each app cost $9.99 in the past
What can Office for Mac users do instead of font embedding? Since Office for Mac won’t let you embed fonts, what can you do instead? We’ll look at the options that Office for Mac users can try when sharing a document with Office for Windows. Going the other way (Office
Microsoft makes Office for Mac compatibility harder by omitting an important feature. In the feature list of Office for Mac is one vital omission, one that Microsoft definitely doesn’t like talking about. It effects anyone trying to operate in a ‘mixed’ Office Windows/Mac environment. In theory, a document made on
Some reader suggestions for a renamed Skydrive. With the news that Microsoft’s Skydrive service will be renamed, came some suggestions from readers. Microsoft Cloud Storage 2013 Home and Student edition Office 365 Drive Bob Drive – time to give the ill-fated Microsoft Bob a new job. Universal Microsoft hasn’t used
Microsoft loses a court battle – Skydrive is no more. Microsoft has lost a court case regarding use of the term ‘Sky’ and is being forced to rename their ‘Skydrive’ cloud storage service to something else. While the case was held in the UK and only covered use of the
