The wonder that is the Microsoft Office system : Technology bits

Office takes over MSN UK

SteveMarsh — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 19:46:13 GMT

This was really cool when they did it a few weeks ago. Have a look at the UK MSN page tomorrow to see the effect of 'Live Preview' and other things 2007 Microsoft Office flavoured.

News, Music, Movies, Money, Cars, Travel, Games and more from MSN UK

20 of the Fantastic 40

SteveMarsh — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 16:57:09 GMT

They're here!!! (Well some of them are anyway.)

A number of partners have been asking me recently about when the new SharePoint 3.0 templates will be available. The ggod news is that 20 of the fantastic 40 are available for download now!

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/sharepoint/wssapps/templates/default.mspx

Forget the iPhone, this is the interesting announcement from Macworld Expo

SteveMarsh — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:29:55 GMT

Ok, so maybe the title is a little unfair. The iPhone does look quite cool and sounds like (no pun intended) it has some cool features such as the 'Pinch' feature that you can use to zoom into a webpage. One concern is how thin the device appears to be and therefore potentially fragile although I'm guessing that Apple will have learnt from the issues that it had with the original Nano.

Anyway back to the good bit. Microsoft Office 2008 for Macintosh! See links for details of the announcement from Macworld Expo.

Link to Mac Users To Get New Office Suite For Intel Macs - News by InformationWeek

CIOs take note - Unified Messaging saves cash

SteveMarsh — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 14:02:00 GMT

I stumbled across an interesting article on how VoIP saves companies money. One of the paragraphs on page 3 specifically calls out unified messaging- the ability to manage voices, email and fax messages from one location. It also goes on to talk about our upcoming foray into this area with the release of Office Communications Server 2007, Office Communicator 2007 and our line of VoIP devices. According to the article there is a a down side to the potential savings, namely the cost of the initial implementation or the length of time to fix problems if the system goes down. If we're looking to potentially ustilise existing network infrastructure, end-user devices and existing server hardware all backed up by MOM then I wonder how much we'll be affected by the normal downsides?

Vista RC1 Almost here!!!

SteveMarsh — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 19:00:00 GMT

The news is out. Vista RC1 will be soon be available for beta testers (See article here). I've been going build mad recently installing various new builds on my machine and, as you may already know I have been playing around with Vista, ne 'Longhorn', for quite some time and although my experience has in the main been very positive especially compared to some other colleagues experiences, things are really becoming what I can only describe as 'a little bit special'. I can't wait to get out and about on the road in the very near future to show what E.V.O. (Vista, the 2007 Microsoft Office system and Exchange Server 2007) can do for our customers and partners. I've said it before and I'll say it many times in future; face facts -Vista is cool!

And the Oscar for Best Short Film on a Technology Subject goes to...

SteveMarsh — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 22:35:00 GMT

There’s nothing like a bit of self promotion so here goes...

As you may or may not know, the UK PTS team have been trying a few new approaches to spreading the Microsoft word to as many of our partners and customers as possible. One of the vehicles that we have been using is PTS-TV. Our team lead, Steve Clayton, has gone a bit rapid-fire with releasing the latest round of videos (I think he is trying to use up our stockpile so that we have to shoot a new set of videos using his new video camera ) and we have recently seen the ‘Big Man for Small Business’ talking about Vista, there is also Chris Parkes talking about BI and a couple of episodes of the Dave Sayers show featuring guest interviewer Andy Clark.

Oh yes and there’s also a video by me. Apparently if you listen to it at x1.4 speed then that is what I really sound like as I have obviously put on my slower, posh-ish television voice for the video.

Vista Rocks!

SteveMarsh — Fri, 19 May 2006 15:01:00 GMT

I just thought I share my initial views on some of the latest builds of Windows Vista. To put it simply, Vista rocks! We all know that it looks different form XP and that is of course the first thing that adds to its ‘rockness’, it is an eye-catching and pleasurable experience to use Vista, I love the changes that we have made to Alt-Tab and the Taskbar pop-ups and of course 3D Flip or whatever we are calling it now (if you’ve seen it then you’ll know what I mean!). I also like the way that programs etc are displayed in the Start menu; no more menus cascading right across your screen! Work within one area of the display! That is of course if you still find it necessary to access your programs in this old fashioned way. You may have read/heard that Search is everywhere in Vista and perhaps you may have thought ‘big deal’ but the amount of time that I save by using the Search in the start menu to find and launch programs is amazing. It’s so convenient!

And don’t try to tell me that you could just put shortcuts on the desktop to prevent having to open up the ‘All Programs’ menus. Yes I know that you could but that would get in the way of all the funky gadgets and clean Windows Vista Aero lines of the OS if you clutter up your desktop with shortcuts.

Ciao for now.