Description:
The Office Weblog
Contents:
The winds of change are blowing
I've had this phrase set on my various instant messaging clients for the past few days and it's prompted more than a few
curious inquiries about just what is up.
This will be my last post here at The Office Weblog. I've been
invited to contribute at ZDNet where I will be writing under the title "Office Evolution". Don't click just yet - I'll be back online sometime
in the next few days, once the wires get twisted together and the lights start blinking.
I've had an
incredible time writing here at Weblogs, Inc. I jumped when Jason Calacanis invited me to join a handful of other
bloggers. Back then, the promise of this network was just that - tons of potential and and a lot of big dreams. These
past two years I've had the great fortune to work with some fantastically talented people, make more than a few good
friends, and have had a chance to speak with, interview, and pick the brains of a number of scary smart people.
After almost two years, nearly 2500 posts, and more than 2 million words, I am really excited about this new
opportunity to explore the changing way we approach work:
- Office: Not just the obvious office software suite coverage but also Software as a Service, Web 2.0
online applications, and the changing nature of office and knowledge work (think time-shifting, virtual teams and
companies, telecommuters, and free agents).
- Productivity: I love
talking about techniques and tools to get more done. Whether it's Getting Things Done, a great new add-in for Outlook,
a compelling life hack, or even a Moleskine Journal, if it relates to reducing stress and creating more time to focus
on what's truly important, I'll be all over it.
- Mobile Computing:
From the Tablet PC to the Treo or Smartphone, we're getting cooler mobile toys every day. Not only do the latest mobile
platforms offer more computing power, better battery life, and greater usability than ever before, the variety of form
factors is increasing at an incredible pace. The recent introduction of the Nokia Internet Tablet and the refresh of
the OQO palmtop are good examples of net-gen mobility tools that continue to push the envelope on portability and
power. USB thumb drives with a complete suite of software are another trend I'm simply fascinated by and plan to
cover.
As you can probably tell, I'm just a little bit excited. ;^)
Check me out at the new
address and let me know what you think.
See you on the other side...Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
MindManager add-ins for SharePoint
 Mindjet continues to find interesting ways
to integrate MindManager into Microsoft's products. The latest addition is a set of add-ins that integrate mind maps into SharePoint, Microsoft's
collaboration server. Maps can be posted to a SharePoint space and checked out for local editing using MindManager 6.
Very nice.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
SnagIt 8 redefines "best" in screen capture
 I've been a huge SnagIt fan for a long time. It's a staple ingredient in my must-have
list of tools. and it's one of the first things I install on my system when I either rebuild or get a new toy.
TechSmith has just announced SnagIt 8 and the new features and shiny interface are a great example of an upgrade that
delivers solid value, improved usability, and a whole new set of "this is so cool!" ways to think about using
captured content. Here are a few of my favorites:
Copy Web Pages with Links: You can capture
a Web page with SnagIt and all of the links remain clickable.You can save the capture in a number of formats that
support embedded links: Web page with image (.mht), Adobe PDF, (.pdf) or Macromedia Flash (.swf). The links are
embedded in the capture and clickable.
Add Interactivity: SnagIt's new hotspot
feature makes adding interactivity easy. Use SnagIt's hotspot feature to specify parts of the image that can
display text or images when moused over or open a Web page when clicked. These interface features allow you to add
helpful hints, explanatory illustrations, or even create a functioning prototype of a Web page or application
interface.
Save as PDF: Self-explanatory. Save any screen capture as an Acrobat file - a
great addition to the wide range of file types SnagIt supports.
A comparison chart showing all of the
features in SnagIt 8 and earlier versions is here. A new
SnagIt 8 license can be yours for a very reasonable $39.95. If you are a current user, you can check your upgrade
availability from SnagIt itself on on the web - discounted upgrades are available for current customers. If you've yet
to try this indispensable tool, a 30-day trial version can be downloaded here.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Happy 250th Wolfgang
 Today is the 250th birthday of Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart. Google marks the occasion with a nice logo and search
results page. NPR has a slew of articles
and links.
I remember as a kid going with may parents to the Young People's Concerts at Lincoln Center in New
York. These concerts, performed by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra were first led by Leonard Bernstein and later by
Michael Tilson Thomas. I have fond memories of trips to the city to listen to some fabulous music followed by lunch
(usually crepes at The Magic Pan) and maybe a trip to F.A.O. Schwartz (if we didn't fidget too much during the
concert).
Mozart was one of my favorites because of the stories the great conductors told about him and the
awe they obviously held him in. My other favorite was Stravinsky. It wasn't until years later that I learned how
scandalous this was ;^)Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Claritude releases SpeedFiler for Outlook
 Claritude Software has officially released SpeedFiler. I've covered SpeedFiler during its beta phase (here and here) and have found it to be a
welcome addition to my Outlook environment. The two things this add-in does that have saved me enormous amounts of time
are:
- Filing new e-mails in a subject folder rather than dumping them into the Sent Items folder. I
don't always want to do this but when I do, it's a great time saver. You have the option of selecting any folder as the
default repository for new e-mails you send or, like me, can choose on an individual message basis when you want to
redirect where the message gets filed.
- Keeping my hands on the keyboard. I can file any message by
invoking the SpeedFiler hotkey (CTRL Shift V) and typing the first few letters of the destination folder's name. Much
faster than using the mouse. I tend to use the SpeedFiler toolbar wen I'm in pen mode on my Tablet PC which is also a
great time saver since SpeedFiler caches the most recently accessed folders in a handy drop-down menu.
A
single license costs $19.95 and a trial version is available.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Firefly Season 2 - help make it happen
 Shiny. The Firefly saga may not be over yet. A group of folks are trying to bring
back one of my all-time favorite sci-fi series are rallying the browncoats to demonstrate there is enough fan support
to warrant a new series. Alternative distribution is the key - they're thinking about pay-per-view, monthly DVD
mailings, and streaming episodes to your PC or Mac. You can create a profile to add to the demographic data they're
assembling to convince the production and distribution companies this can fly. Check it out, add your profile, and keep
your fingers crossed.
UPDATE: From the Season 2 page, it's clear this is an independent
effort:
"We are an independent production company and core group of Browncoats. We are not affiliated
with 20th Century Fox or Universal Pictures.
We are currently pursuing the rights to continue the series
from Fox and make it available to the fans, either directly or via another broadcaster.
The optional
information collected at this site is simply used to determine where and how the series should be marketed to
consumers. (that's you!)
This site is NOT a solicitation for funds. If anyone claiming to represent this
site, or any other site for that matter, asks you for money or sensitive personal information, you should report it
immediately."Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Hyperwords extension out of beta
 Hyperwords is a new Firefox extension that provides an incredible range
of actions you can perform on selected text on any page you can open in your browser. Options include search, reference
look up, mapping, tagging, blogging, and e-mailing. I love the power!
What I didn't love in the early beta
releases was Hyperwords popping its menu every time I selected some text. Simply stated, it got in my way. I mentiond
this to the developers and they assured me hat the official release would provide control over how the menu was
invoked. I'm happy to report that Hyperwords now provides a number of options to manage the menu's appearance (see
image below).
Every option in Hyperwords has a single letter shortcut key associated with it so you can
quickly invoke a particular operation by a series of letters to execute the command you wish to select. For example, if
I want to tag a page in del.icio.us, I simply tap g, p, d.
Hyperwords is free and currently works in Firefox 1.5 on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. An Internet Explorer version is
being considered.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Que jumps into eBooks - offers free Office 2003 guide
 Que Publishing has jumped into the eBook
business and is offering a free eBook guide to Office 2003 to introduce their new electronic versions of the 10-Minute
Guide series.
Que is offering a free download of
the 10-Minute Guide to Microsoft Office 2003 (PDF e-Book) for free to quickly learn how to use Office task panes,
customize your Office applications, use the Office web integration features, and migrate from your older version of
Microsoft Office to the 2003 edition. This PDF e-Book can be printed, saved, and e-mailed without limitations.
A
full line of 10 Minute Guides on all of the Microsoft Office 2003 applications are available in Secure Acrobat PDF
format (DRM restrictions apply on saving the file and printing) for $6.95 each. The current promotion knocks 10% off
that price. Registered members of the site get a 30% discount which brings the price per title to under five bucks.
Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
No more personalized menus - hooray!
 Jensen Harris reports some very welcome news on his Office
blog - Personalized Menus will no longer be switched on by default when Office is installed. Since the introduction of
this feature, the default preference in Microsoft Office has been to have the Personalized Menus feature - one of
Microsoft's most ill-advised attempts to be helpful IMO - turned on by default.
Personalized Menus truncate
every menu in Office applications in an attempt to make navigating easier. The theory was that, over time, Office would
learn which menu items you used most often and would present those options in the shortened menus. The very first thing
I do when I do a fresh install of Office is turn this feature off.
Now you might be thinking this isn't such
a big deal - what with the new Ribbon UI in Office 12. Yes and no. Many of the Office applications (the main Outlook
UI, Visio, Publisher, Project) are not getting the new interface in Office 12. There are a number of reasons why and
Jensen has written some great posts explaining the reasoning behind these decisions. The long and short of it is this -
beginning with the next build, Personalized Menus will only show up if you want them to.
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