office

Mac users get a better work experience with NeoOffice

Whether they are "switchers" or longtime Mac users, one of the first downloads many people look for when firing up a new Mac are office programs. With Microsoft Office as the most commonly used office program in the workplace, people understandably want their home computers to be able to work with the same types of documents. The problem is, the retail version of Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac is $399 (from Microsoft's Web site).

Fortunately, a group of developers started OpenOffice.org to create an open-source solution with the mission of providing a free alternative to Microsoft Office. If you've tried looking for free office alternatives before, you've undoubtedly run across OpenOffice, but if you're a Mac user, there's something else that might be even better.… Read more

Chinese software company to tailor OpenOffice

RedFlag Chinese 2000 Software will work with Sun Microsystems to improve the OpenOffice.org software in the Chinese market, the companies said Wednesday.

RedFlag will work on integrating features for the Chinese market, adding about 50 engineers to the project, and Sun will help train the company's engineers, a Sun representative said. No money is changing hands as part of the partnership.

RedFlag produces a Chinese variation of OpenOffice.org called RedOffice. The company is a subsidiary of the Chinese Academy of Science.

Box.net rolls out Microsoft Office Web storage plug-in

Box.net is beta testing a new plug-in for Microsoft Office that lets users save Office files to their Box.net storage folders. The plug-in works for both Office 2003 and 2007 on Windows XP and Vista, provides users a new "Save to Box.net" button, and gives visual notification when the file is uploading and then successfully sent. Users can then access that file anytime on their Box.net Web storage folder.

The new plug-in was built using Box.net's developer API, which the Box.net team says can be used to add this functionality to … Read more

Microsoft Tahiti gets new name, goes open beta

Microsoft's Tahiti project (not to be confused with the forthcoming Fiji update for Vista), has been given a new name this morning. Now known as SharedView, the 3MB download is available to anyone who wants it, assuming they've got a Windows Live ID, a Windows PC, and collaborators willing to install it.

It's a little early for a hands-on with SharedView, but it feels polished for a work in progress. Here are my impressions so far:

Sending invites to join SharedView is fairly simple, although Microsoft assumes you're using their services, including Windows Live Hotmail and … Read more

Microsoft to acquire OfficeWriter

Since posting this, we learned that SoftArtisans no longer offers the OfficeWriter for Java product. Office Writer is an ASP/ASP.NET reporting tool currently only available for Windows.

Microsoft plans to acquire OfficeWriter, a business intelligence tool produced by SoftArtisans, the company said Wednesday.

Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division, is scheduled to make the announcement at the first Microsoft Business Intelligence Conference opening Wednesday in Seattle.

OfficeWriter is a ASP/ASP.NET reporting tool that enables people to generate Microsoft Office documents from any data source through a Web browser. It can manage reports from within … Read more

'The Office' creator deepens Microsoft ties

Microsoft is hoping the creator of Ugly Betty can make MSN a little more beautiful.

The software maker announced Tuesday that Ben Silverman's Reveille will create two more Internet video shows for its MSN Video site. One, called "Driving School," is being sponsored by Volvo and will feature cast members from The Office. The other, dubbed "This is the Life," is a travel and leisure show being sponsored by Chivas.

Microsoft first announced its deal with Reveille at last year's ad summit. Reveille has so far delivered two programs through MSN: The Big Debate … Read more

Microsoft fixes nineteen flaws in seven patches; all are considered critical updates

Microsoft has released its May 2007 security bulletin, which includes seven updates: All are listed as Critical. Two of the patches affect Microsoft Windows, with one critical patch specific to Internet Explorer. Three of the patches affects Microsoft Office, and include Office for Mac 2004 uses. To keep your Windows XP SP1 system secure, update to Windows XP SP2 today. All Microsoft security patches for Windows and Office software are available via Microsoft Update or via the individual bulletins detailed below.

MS07-023: Critical

Entitled "Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Excel Could Allow Remote Code Execution (934233)" this bulletin affects users … Read more

Pimp my office building...with tubes

In a couple of years, when I've taken over the world, I'm going to build myself an office building. And it's going to have one of these built into it: a giant metal tube-shaped slide for easy access from the upper stories to the ground floor, like these ones found at the Tate Modern Art Gallery in London. Think about it. It'll save energy, because fewer people will be using the elevator. And it's just plain awesome. In fact, I think I'll install four or five of them, so that it's extra easy … Read more

Sun to help create native OpenOffice for Mac OS X

Mac users waiting for a native version of OpenOffice.org might see it sooner than they might have thought, now that Sun has thrown its support behind the project.

Sun's Philipp Lohmann announced on his blog this morning that Sun will help with the port of OpenOffice--the open-source version of Sun's StarOffice productivity suite--to Aqua, the Mac user interface. This has been an ongoing project for almost five years, ever since Sun released a beta version of OpenOffice for Mac users.

That version, however, required the installation of additional software since it wasn't built using Apple's … Read more