Talk about being behind the times. Google is reportedly about to release an SMS Replacement called Chat. Chat is an attempt to modernize SMS beyond simple text messaging. It will have group texts, videos and images, typing indicators and read receipts. Chat isn’t an app, it’s part of the Android
In the UK there’s been a lot of laughs and some red faces about a money raising letter ‘signed’ by the Conservative Prime Minister to a ” Mr Youmustbe F*ckingjoking ” and sent to a pensioner. It’s easy to laugh but anyone who has done large mailings knows that it’s
Will Dormann in exposing the half-measure Outlook patch also shows that more complex passwords with mixed-case letters plus digits and symbols is better than a simple long password. The highest length of time to crack an 8 character password from NTLMv2 hash with a mere single mid-range GPU. Longer passwords are
Will R. an Office-Watch.com reminded us of a trap when dealing with .doc and .docx files. “I opened a command prompt and did a del *.doc. Imagine my surprise when it deleted both .doc and .docx files (I have backups). ” Firstly, a teacher’s gold star plus wise owl stamp to Will
Last Friday, Office 365 customers in Europe and especially the UK had to stop working as the Microsoft hosting servers stopped working. When trying to use email online, users only saw an ‘AADSTS90033’ error, and the message: “Service is temporarily unavailable. Please retry later.” As usual, Microsoft’s communications were mixed.
Remember that court case where Microsoft sued the US government over a warrant to collect someone’s cloud data? Well, it’s over and the result isn’t good for anyone who likes to keep their documents, databases, photos or emails private. The case was about data saved on Microsoft’s cloud service in
Should you even bother bulk converting old documents (.doc .xls .ppt) into the newer Office formats (.docx .xlsx .pptx etc.)? It’s tempting to look at your older documents (doc etc) and think about converting them into the newer Office formats. There’s some advantages to conversion but it’s more difficult than
If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a thousand times … ignore or delete any .DOC .XLS .PPT files you get via email or shared. The main carrier of virus infection is Microsoft Office documents, a fact that Microsoft doesn’t like to talk about. What Microsoft doesn’t say is
What should you do when Microsoft asks to see one of your documents? Submit the files or not? There’s no easy answer when Microsoft asks to see a file from your computer for their anti-virus system, Windows Defender. Do you send the files or not? This can happen with Defender
Microsoft is updating the rules which govern use of their services including Office 365, OneDrive, SharePoint, Cortana and Xbox. Despite what you might have heard, there’s nothing really new or changed, just some clickbait headlines. There are reasons to be concerned about the Microsoft Terms and Conditions, but they are
A recent New York Times article about Microsoft Word has good information but the headline is quite wrong. The article is called “How to Format Documents While Barely Lifting a Finger” so we expected a piece about how to reformat a document using themes or styles. Instead it’s about dictation
It’s been a busy few weeks for Richard Appiah Akoto the Ghanaian teacher who taught Microsoft Word with only a blackboard. Mr Akoto was flown to Singapore for a Microsoft Education conference where he received a standing ovation. Quite something for his first trip outside Ghana. “I wanted to teach
You’ve all heard about “The Cloud” as if everyone knows what it is. It’s clear from recent reader messages that not everyone knows about The Cloud. Or they think they know. Or they don’t realize how much the cloud can and will do. Office-Watch.com explains the cloud and how it
Timeline was a new feature in Windows 10. It was a way to see which documents and files you’ve opened across all your devices. What you won’t hear is that Office already has a similar feature. The Office team has already synchronized the Open / Recent Documents lists across Word,
Libraries is a great Windows feature that Microsoft introduced and promoted in Windows 7 but now regrets and hides in Windows 10. We’ll explain why they’ve changed their mind and why you should still use Libraries to manage your Office documents. A Library bring together the contents of many folders
A follow up on our story about the Corel patent case and the more confusing case of a developers licence to use the MS Office ribbon interface. As we noted, the Microsoft page that explained the rules for using the Office interface were ‘retired’ even though they are still relevant.
An Office-Watch.com reader asks about the emails promoting Outlook.com that are heading his way. All of a sudden, I’m getting emails asking me to sign up for “Outlook.com”. Do you know what that is all about? I already subscribe to “Office 365” following the purchase and update information that you
Amazon US has a deal bundling current US Tax software with Office 365 Home or Personal. It’s just an example of how Office 365 bundle offers should be checked closely. Office Watch has always been wary of any deals combining Office software with other products. Too often the combined price
A rare factual error in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver that, amazingly, is related to Microsoft Word. In an item about The White House Calligrapher, Oliver said the job was easy because there’s already a font with the job title in Microsoft Word. And he shows a Word for
Last week we got a peek at the current White House notepaper and could not resist trying to make our own in Microsoft Word. White House notepaper in the President’s hands – 21 Feb 2018 It’s a simple, classic look that anyone can use and adapt to their needs. We’re
Here’s a manual method of replacing text with filler or anonymous words in Microsoft Word Use this when you need help with a Word document formatting problem but can’t share the troublesome .docx because it contains confidential information. Our head honcho, Peter Deegan, had this problem himself. A friend asked
A follow up on the story of the Ghanian teacher who has to draw Microsoft Word on his blackboard to teach the program. He’s Richard Appiah Akoto a 33 year old teacher at Betenase M/A Junior High School in the town of Sekyedomase in central Ghana. A place so obscure,
Microsoft has an unstated policy of degrading perpetual licence Office in favor of the annual payments for Office 365. This is happening in lots of little steps. Nothing major to alienate customers but enough incremental changes to shift the balance in favor of annual Office 365 payments. It’s a form
Think learning Office is hard? Spare a thought for this teacher in Ghana who teaches Word without a computer. He draws Word on a blackboard to teach the program. Source: Ghafla.com It’s an amazing piece of work. Yes, it’s pre-ribbon Microsoft Office, Office 2003 or before. The whole story would
