Office
There are 53 entries for the tag
Office
I wanted to write a blog post to document how I do some day-to-day things. It helps me to keep track of my work habits, refine them and perhaps help some others who are looking for some solutions. My current rig is a Apple MacBook Pro 13” unibody. It has the 250Gb drive with 4Gb memory. I am running the latest version of OS X Leopard. I am really enjoying the 13” form factor. It is a little smaller and lighter than the previous 15” unibody which, to me, just felt heavy. I also don't notice the lost...
Microsoft is accepting submissions for the waitlist for the Office 2010 Technical Preview. This is an especially great opportunity if you are already running Exchange 2010 in the lab and want to see how using Outlook 2010 will enhance the experience with things like mail tips, conversation view and universal inbox. The preview is slated to kick off in July. If you attended TechEd 2009 this year, you get priority seeding in to the preview. Sign up in one click at the TechEd event site with your login...
I am sitting in the auditorium waiting for the keynote to start. I am curious to see if there are any surprise announcements or if it is just a re-hash of all the recent public announcements. Rumor has it they may announce VS2010 beta 1. I am sure they will highlight Office 2010 and Exchange 2010 – but to what degree I am not sure. My hotel was a big disappointment – but I picked it and was tricked by the flashy website so I have no one to blame but myself. I feel like I am staying at a Moroccan...
As soon as I got my mitts on the M3 build of Windows7 at the PDC last year, the first thing I tried was to run it in Fusion on my 15 inch MacBook Pro. It ran just fine sans one little thing – I could never get it to recognize the Marvell Ethernet adapter. Wireless worked fine, but for what I do at work wireless means a constant VPN connection and that was a pain. I did some searching, found one person that had it working on an older MacBook with a different Ethernet chipset. Once the new beta 1 build...
My apologies for being tardy with the follow up post on my Nokia E71 experiences. Its amazing how work tends to take over your life at points and keep you from the things you truly love – spending time with your family or writing blog posts. Thanks for the reminder emails some sent me that I promised to pen this. Before I get started, there has been some other follow-on Nokia news. First Nokia is rumored to be working on the E75, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard version of the E71. It offers a 2.4” screen...
I just got a 30-day demo of the new Palm Treo Pro with Windows Mobile Professional 6.1 to test out. I will add this to my current pending reviews in the next couple of days. Any questions? Specs: Unlocked GSM device – not available from a carrier at the moment Platform Microsoft® Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional Edition Processor Qualcomm® MSM7201 400MHz Display 320x320 transflective color TFT flush touchscreen Radio HSDPA/UMTS/EDGE/GPRS/GSM radio Tri-band UMTS – 850MHz, 1900MHz, 2100MHz Quad-band...
Everyone is streaming in trying to find the optimal seat. After four hours of waiting in line, I don’t care where I sit just as long as I am sitting. There are large plasmas all over the place which is good – from my vantage point, Jobs is going to be a dot. Huge applause – Al Gore is here in the audience. From my seat: More cheesy pre-show music … 10:01 AM PST Still waiting, people still streaming in. Whomever was in charge of the herd\logistics should be shot. Microsoft owns them in this regard...
I hate to script. There I said it. I am a GUI-lover. That being said, I also know the power of scripting and automation can be a tremendous time-saver. That's why I try to script whenever I can. And here are some killer resources for the scripting IT Pro. Script Center All-in-One Script Center All-in-One features over 160 scripting-related articles collected in a single .CHM file. This collection features all of the Tales From the Script, Office Space, and Scripting Clinics columns, plus much, much...
I am in a training class all this week in Toronto at the EMC office in Burlington, ON for EmailXtender. Usually I am a well prepared traveler having consulted for many years. For some reason though I forgot my power adapter for my laptop on this trip. I sought out the local Best Buy to see what a universal charger (like the model from Kennsington) would set me back - Yikes! $125.00 CAD. I have my Blackberry so I thought I could make it through still having email and internet access from the device....
From InformationWeek: “Tahiti places a small toolbar icon labeled "Work with Me" in the toolbars of Office applications that when clicked, launches Tahiti. In the current version, when a Word document is being worked on collaboratively, changes are tracked in real time and each change is marked with the name of the user who made the change. This update tracking capability doesn't appear to carry over to other apps like Excel and Powerpoint. However, the program also uses what Microsoft calls "personal...
In the world of RSS and newsreaders there is a war of preferences going around over how people prefer to read their feeds. Categorized by feed, type of feed, or as a “river of news.” In other words first in, first displayed, in a long list and you simply scan top-to-bottom. I have tried both and IMO both have merit. River of news lets you see everything in an instant, and I find it useful for quickly locating important event. Then I read the “normal” stuff later on. When I am ready to consume all...
Download the Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 public beta here. Includes the Standard and Enterprise Editions as well as the Office Communicator 2007 client
As Eileen pointed out, registration is open for the public beta of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007. I am looking forward to getting my paws on this beta as I think this new version is going to rock. I haven't seen a lot of information; and that should change soon as the beta goes public and the RTM date nears. Stay tuned. Technorati tags: OCS, Office Communication Server...
The Exchange team blog posted a great article on the features available with different versions of Outlook when coupled with different versions of Exchange on the back end. One of the cool features when using Outlook and Exchange 2007 is enhanced Out of Office Assistant. You have the option to customize and turn off or on Out of Office messages for those inside your organization and those outside your organization. Very nice. You also have a number of rich text formatting options available so you...
Please join the Southern Ohio Exchange Users Group on March 7, 2007 for a night of presentations highlighting Exchange 2007 and Windows Vista. We will be presenting several technical demonstrations on Exchange 2007 including deployment, operational efficiency and Unified Communications. We will also have some fun and informative Windows Vista technical demonstrations as well. Please register here so we have an accurate head count for food and drinks. The meeting will begin promptly at 6:30pm and...
The You Had Me at EHLO blog is dishing the scoop on the forthcoming service pack 1. Look for an April release timeframe. What I am looking forward to: OWA - personal distribution lists, rules and deleted items recovery. OWA - viewing Office file formats as HTML. EMC - public folder configuration (I know they're going but it is going to take a while) EMC - SendAs permission configuration Move mailbox to include import\export to a .pst. Can I also blow by the 2gb limit? :)...
Microsoft is now offering free e-learning clinics for Office Communications Server 2007. The following clinics are offered in the bundle and the content is good for one year! Collection 5125: Introducing Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 Clinic 5126: Introducing Enterprise Instant Messaging Using Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 (Beta) Clinic 5127: Introducing On-Premise Conferencing Using Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 Clinic 5128: Introducing Enterprise Telephony...
Not too long ago there was only one blogging tool that I felt great about – BlogJet. I used it for a long time and was very happy. There wasn’t anything I was especially displeased with. Then some more blogging tools made their way on to my radar. From Microsoft. Generally, I will give any product from Microsoft a shot. I use a Microsoft OS. I am a (largely) Microsoft-centric systems engineer and technical manager. The first was during the beta testing of the Microsoft Office System 2007. My favorite...
I didn't want to announce this previously as I wasn't sure if it was intended to be publicly unleashed yet. However, seeing as how it is advertised in the latest TechNet Flash email newsletter I am sure I can share now! Here is the blurb from the newsletter: Are you interested in knowing what your peers are saying about Microsoft Office 2007? Do you want to see the feedback on the new Windows Vista license changes? Or maybe you have a new script you'd like to share with a larger group of IT pros....
Exchange Server 2007: A Quick Hands-on Overview in an Online Virtual Lab Express In this 30-minute Virtual Lab Express, you will familiarize yourself with the Exchange Management Console and Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access, and work with compliance and records management rules
I have finally returned from Hong Kong after another not-so-fun fifteen hour flight. At least I had a window seat this time but as bad as I thought Delta was at times, I was being spoiled in comparison to what you get on a United flight. A couple of tiny bags of snacks a tiny little cup of a drink - not even a whole can of soda or mini-bottle of water! They open a big bottle and pour out of it. The screens for the movies during the flight (what else do you have to do - there are no power adapter...
Since the technical refresh to Beta 2 was released thousands have downloaded the new bits. I was a bit disappointed that the link the beta team posted brought me to the public site where Microsoft tried to charge me $4.50 to download the updates. I am also disappointed that the people who have been beta testing this for over a year and a half don't get some advanced lead on downloading the updates, but rather have to wait in quite the crowded queue with the general public. Thanks for the appreciation...
I installed Windows Vista build 5536 on Friday and I have been blown away. I know everyone's experience, like mileage, varies. However - having installed all the previous builds this is the first one that has me thinking they may make their projected ship date. Here is a report after kicking the tires for four days: The speed is very nice. I have not yet had an instance of Vista just "taking a break" and spinning its wheels for a couple of minutes. Everything I have thrown at it has executed crisply...
An update to the Windows Desktop Search has just been released and I am happy to say it has a lot of welcome fixes. Dubbed version 3.0 beta 2 it is available here. Since beta testing Office 2007, I was forced to install an interim update to Windows Desktop Search so it would work with Office and also index Outlook and OneNote 2007. One of the undesirable side-effects was that it removed the GUI interface from the desktop or task bar that allowed me to search for files. I could only do it from within...
Some screen shots have been posted of tweaks made to the UI of Office 2007 as well as the addition of a “silver” theme to the current roster of “black” and “blue.” The changes are expected to be finalized over the next week. Read more about it here and here. Personally I like the changes. I like the move to the rounded borders originally – they were fresh and new – but once I saw the UI with the traditional squared off corners we know and love in a...
I noticed this little gem over at the IW Center; a Microsoft blog for the information worker focusing on Office 2007 information. If you work in OneNote 2007 a lot like I do, then you almost always have it in front of you. In a meeting and need to do a little on-the-fly calculation? You could pull up Windows Calculator or even Excel, but instead just type the math in to OneNote 2007 and let it spit out the answer for you! For example I simply typed in 24+59*78= and then hit ENTER and viola! The answer...
I am a big fan of screencasts – The Blogcast Repository, and other sites like it provide a rich learning experience for IT Professionals and the curious alike. And I have found that a demonstration is so much more powerful and aides dramatically in the retention of the subject matter. So as Microsoft has been embracing screencasting and adding more and more content, I have been very happy indeed! Here is an excellent series on Microsoft Office Development – a topic which IMO lends itself...
Okay, I am a lot less concerned about Windows Vista after seeing this build than I was with build 5308. The “fit and finish” of this build is way beyond what 5308 was. All of my device drivers for a Thinkpad R52 were automagically detected and installed. I haven't had a chance to see if the Thinkpad-specific software works yet or not; I hope to try that tomorrow. The widgets work nicely. LUA still blows; and I am not going to re-hash the arguments. However, it presents itself in a much...
Microsoft® Office Live Communications Server 2005 - Implementing, Managing, and Troubleshooting Beta MCP exam is looking for a few more testers. Available at Vue and Prometric from today until may 10th. There are limited seats left. Use promotional code TS262. See James’ blog for more information
Day one at Office Dev Con 2006 was full of information. On the non-technical side, the people are great, the wifi is pervasive, the food is decent and plentiful and the fabled Microsoft coolers full of pop, juice and other beverages are always magically full. Perhaps they employ gnomes or house elfs? If I had one complaint is was distributing the Office 2007 beta 1 refresh to us via BetaPlace. We are on day two and we still don’t have our welcome emails so we can access the builds. For me,...
I am packing up for Office Dev Con and I wanted to send out a last broadcast for a geek dinner Monday or Tuesday night. Andrew Connell is also interested and I have had some emails of interest as well. Post a comment if you would like the information once it is set up. See you all there...
I recently blogged about problems I was having getting Office Communicator installed in the latest build of Vista. After a couple more things went south on me ( a lot in part to trying to get the Cisco VPN Client to work) I went back to Windows XP SP2. If you can believe it (I have never seen this happen before) installing Virtual PC SP1 totally hosed my wireless networking adapter. I tried everything including removing the device, re-detecting it, re-installing the driver, etc. Finally I decided...
I’d like to think I can solve any problem. However, getting Office Communicator to install on the February CTP of Vista has got me quite perplexed! It will get all the way to the end of the install, then say it encountered an “error” and roll back. You know, that installation progress bar in reverse we all hate to see? I even tried to run the .msi in verbose logging mode, but the User-Mode protection in Vista wont let me create the log file. A plain ‘ol text file! Come on!...
Microsoft and Cisco announce that around September they may have some tools to unify and integrate Microsoft’s LCS, Office Communicator and Live Meeting applications with Cisco’s Unified Communications. This seems like a natural match and I can only wonder why it took this long. Clearly, Microsoft has been making more inroads in to what have traditionally been telephony-only environments. With more and more communications moving to pure IP networks, both Cisco and Microsoft have an interest...
I would love to see Tech-Ed offer an install-fest for Windows Vista, with the latest build available at the time of the show. Perhaps Office 2007 as well
I am beta testing Office Live and my site has gone active. I have done absolutely nothing to it yet, so you can check out the default package if you are curious. I signed up for the Live Essentials offering. You also get free domain name registration with the service as well. You can see my site at: http://chrishaaker.net
Branch Office Chat - What Lies Ahead – Monday, February 13th at 10:00 am PST We will talk about technology that is coming in Longhorn and will expose some of the inner working of the development cycle, from requirements gathering and how you could influence it to the road that leads to the release of beta1. On the day of the chat enter here: www.microsoft.com/technet/c...
ISA Server 2004 SP2 has been released for both Standard and Enterprise editions. Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2004 SP2 provides the latest updates to ISA Server 2004 Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition, with increased security, reliability and stability. Microsoft strongly encourages customers to install SP2 on all computers running ISA Server 2004. ISA Server 2004 SP2 can be installed directly on computers running ISA Server 2004 Standard Edition or Enterprise Edition, and...
After two days with the Treo 700w I am a very happy camper. The complaints are minor and mostly stem from my lack of familiarity with the device and not a device shortcoming itself. One minor nit: for $400 cant you throw in a case to carry this around in? Despite my initial disappointment in hearing the screen was 240 x 240, it looks gorgeous and I don't find it overly cluttered. The screen on my Samsung i730 was a lot bigger, but then again, so was the device itself. I use the Treo for phone calls...
There is an upcoming chat on Active Directory in a Branch Office configuration tomorrow. Title: Live Branch Chat: Administering and Maintaining the Branch Office Technologies Begin: 12/16/2005 10:00 AM End: 12/16/2005 11:00 AM Description: This chat will focus on the day to day operations that administrators will go through after the solution is deployed. We will discuss configuration, delegation, determining the state of replication, monitoring and best practices that will help administrators keep...
Woo-hoo! It is finally here. Microsoft Office Communicator Web Access has been released. Download it here. Learn how Communicator Web Access can help you extend the reach of Live Communications Server 2005 to a broader range of information workers. Discover the benefits of its universal connection, familiar and easy-to-use interface, and simple, integrated deployment...
I blogged previously about all the cool new features in Office 12. Now that I have finally gotten to install the technical beta and kick the tires, here is a shot of the new To-Do Bar from Outlook. One of the better new additions to Outlook
This is a great Office 2003 live demo utilizing Citrix’s Presentation Server. Even if you have\run Office 2003 it is a slick little piece of technology to check out. Why don't you give public access to the Office 12 beta in this fashion
Some people at Microsoft have been blogging this and I all hyped up on it. The possibilities are unreal. Data can now flow from mobile device to PC through the same program. I am drooling … Here is a quote from one blog: But where OneNote Mobile really shines is when you combine it with our efforts to merge the Analog and Digital worlds. Now you can take pictures of business cards, printed PowerPoint handouts, whiteboards, receipts, name tags, product spec sheets, etc. and all these photos...
During the MS Heartland Region’s quarterly Tech Night Live, I saw some of the cool new Office 12 features demonstrated. There are some really great new things added and\or exposed in a way they never were before. As the person giving the demo explained, a lot of the things have always been in Office, we just made them easier to get to and use. More exposed. In the “ribbon” which is the current term for the new toolbar paradigm, you can hover over buttons or options and see them...
This is nice. I am glad to finally see some SLA\Scorecard metrics for various Microsoft platform packages being rolled out with MOM as the foundation. Who better to report on the health of your Exchange or SQL server over time? Download here. Overview The Microsoft® Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 SLA Scorecard for Exchange provides you with an executive dashboard to measure and trend service availability and workloads across multiple server roles in an Exchange Server messaging environment. This...
From Eileen Brown’s excellent blog: Real Time Collaboration Webcasts for November TechNet Webcast: Enabling Microsoft Office Live Communications Server and Office Communicator for Telephony (Level 200)Tuesday, November 1, 2005 - 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM Pacific TimeTodd Eby, Director of Solutions Engineering, GenesysIs your company's implementation of Microsoft Office Live Communications Server and Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 integrated with your phone systems? Genesys Enterprise Telephony...
Chris Pratley’s blog is reporting that One Note 12 (and all Office 12 apps for that matter) will support “Save As” PDF functionality. Publisher will even support the ability to CMYK separations to PDF for pre-press work
I am both honoured and humbled to announce (especially since I don't think it will be announced anywhere else) that I have been named the Microsoft Heartland District Demo Champion. The HLD (Heartland District) SMS&P team recently held a competition where partners were invited to do a technical demo on a Microsoft technology at that quarters “Tech Night Live.” Each city in the region could have up to three partners demo, for a total of 18 demos overall. Each city would have a local...
Office 2003 Service Pack 2 was released on Monday. The update, along with additional information, can be found here. Another feature to note is that when used in conjunction with the latest Outlook Junk Mail Filter update and new anti-phishing feature is turned on by default. Here is the text from the website: Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003 Phishing Protection and Junk E-mail FilterSP2 contains a new Phishing Protection feature to be used with the Outlook Junk Email Filter. Phishing is the luring...
Here is a screenshot of Word in Office 12. The new interface is quite nice. The screenshot is from here, which has more to say. Neowin also has some shots as well.
So when is Google going to unveil their office suite and operating system? Google Talk
Microsoft has a BOIS Link detailing their Branch Office Infrastructure Strategy (BOIS). This is a set of guides for architecting a remote office infrastructure. The guides include strategies and which Microsoft technologies best leverage those ideas. Like the branch office-friendly options built in to the new R2 version of Windows Server 2003 and ISA Server 2004. There is also a write up of it on John Howard’s excellent blog which I highly recommend subscribing to if you are an IT Pro...