Obsolete Technology: 40 Big Losers - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership: "Okay, maybe not. But you never know. With technology evolving at breakneck speed, no one can say for sure what's around the next corner--to say nothing of the one after that. The circle of life, however, remains constant: When a new high-tech creation is born, something else may die as a result. Sometimes, the loss is a good thing--who wants busy signals or staticky TV?--but at other times, the departure stirs bittersweet feelings (remember saying farewell to your trusty old C:\ prompt?)."
Make Office Better: Two Microsoft employees looking to collect customer ideas on how to improve Microsoft Office. If you've got a new feature idea or an idea on how to improve Microsoft Office, please share it on their site and vote on other ideas you agree with. Through the magic of crowd-sourcing the best ideas should rise to the top.
Social networking theorists like to debate whether and how much cultural differences impact the way people respond to and interact with social networks. Some, for example, argue that networks such as Facebook mainly reflect and accommodate values and norms prevalent in Anglo-Saxon cultures (U.S., UK, Canada, etc.) — which explains why they’re much less successful elsewhere. The theoretical discussion turns starkly practical when multinational enterprises develop intranets or other social networking tools for internal use. Differences are real and sometimes critical, as learned while helping an Asian-based company with offices in Canada, the U.S., Korea and Japan deploy a global ThoughtFarmer intranet."
Office 2010 targets at making everyday work easier, whether you work in the office, at home, mobile, online or offline.
Some general added features to Office:
The ribbon has been added to all applications
Co-authoring of Word documents
A new version of Groove (called WorkSpace)
Easier print and file sharing
"backstage" provides a way to see all the information and actions available for documents in one convenient place
Enjoy the video's!
Office 2010 introduction
Microsoft Word 2010
Some highlights: more sophisticated effects and smart art, document map: document outline in which you can rearrange your document, search for terms higlights the terms in the document, multiple users can work on a document at the same time and easily communicate with eachother, backstage view:see all the information and actions available for documents in one convenient place (e.g. e-mail, save as pdf, etc.), better print preview.
Microsoft Outlook 2010
Some highlights: better mail overview (conversation view displays conversations as one single item that can be expanded), mailtips: e.g. warning when an e-mail is addressed to an external user, quicksteps: custom actions that can be user defined, e.g. on an agenda item, a preview of your agenda in a meeting request when multiple meetings risk being planned at the same time.
Microsoft PowerPoint 2010
Some highlights: broadcasting your presentations in SharePoint, improved photo editting, immediately seeing the results, more slide transitions, copy and paste animation attributes to multiple objects, simple video editing and embedding, compress presentations for e-mail (backstage view), define presentation sections.
Microsoft Excel 2010
Some highlights: Excel sheet templates, slicer: intuitively drill down and analyze data, spotlights: one-cell visualisation of trends, backstage view: for sharing sheets, distribution, setting permissions and version management, preview and print, publish sheets to SharePoint sites where you can review and change.
Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010
Formerly known as Groove. Some highlights: to be filled in tomorrow ;)
Microsoft Publisher 2010
Some highlights: to be filled in tomorrow ;)
Microsoft OneNote 2010
Some highlights: to be filled in tomorrow ;)
Microsoft Access 2010
Some highlights: to be filled in tomorrow ;)
Microsoft Office Mobile 2010
Office where ever you go. Some highlights: to be filled in tomorrow ;)
Microsoft and Nokia Form Global Alliance to Design, Develop and Market Mobile Productivity Solutions
Microsoft and Nokia Form Global Alliance to Design, Develop and Market Mobile Productivity Solutions: Companies will collaborate to bring Microsoft Office Mobile and related communications and collaboration software and services to Nokia smartphones.: "The worldwide leader in software and the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer have entered into an alliance that is set to deliver a groundbreaking, enterprise-grade solution for mobile productivity. Yesterday, Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop and Nokia’s Executive Vice President for Devices Kai Öistämö announced the agreement, outlining a shared vision for the future of mobile productivity. This is the first time that either company has embarked on an alliance of this scope and nature. Under the terms of the agreement, the two companies will begin collaborating immediately on the design, development and marketing of productivity solutions for the mobile professional, bringing Microsoft Office Mobile and Microsoft business communications, collaboration and device management software to Nokia’s Symbian devices. These solutions will be available for a broad range of Nokia smartphones starting with the company’s business-optimized range, Nokia Eseries. The two companies will also market these solutions to businesses, carriers and individuals."
Gray Matter : great resources you can use to learn more about Office 2010
Gray Knowlton leads the product managment team for Office Developers. He recommends some great Office 2010 resources:
Videos and discussion on Office 2010: http://www.microsoft.com/office2010
The Awesome movie trailers: http://www.office2010themovie.com
SharePoint 2010 Preview site: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/2010/sneak_peek/Pages/default.aspx John Durant is a long-time Office coder and Office expert: http://blogs.msdn.com/johnrdurant/
Paul Andrew is a SharePoint guru and is leading the charge for SharePoint developers: http://blogs.msdn.com/pandrew/
Steve Fox is an Office developer evangelist without peer: http://blogs.msdn.com/steve_fox/
Index the resulting pages and compute how reputable those pages are.
Rank and return the most relevant pages for users' queries as quickly as possible.
For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google's web search. It's the first step in a process that will let Google push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions. The new infrastructure sits 'under the hood' of Google's search engine, which means that most users won't notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences, so Google is opening up a web developer preview to collect feedback.
Some parts of this system aren't completely finished yet, so Google welcomes feedback on any issues you see. Google invites you to visit the web developer preview of Google's new infrastructure at http://www2.sandbox.google.com and try searches there."
Common Sense: The Liquid Network: What it is and why it matters: "The Liquid Network: What it is and why it matters Water has amazing properties. It is in continuous movement. When it is “organized”, it can move together with tremendous force. But it can also evaporate, condense and fall down as precipitation. If you try to pick it up, it simply slides out of your hand. In many respects, water decides what water wants to do. It appears to be predictable in its patterns, but it can surprise you at anytime. Same for customers online."
Common Sense: The Top Myths to Avoid Change in Social Media & the Role of “Antibodies” in Today’s Corporation: "It is easy to embrace the idea of change, but very hard, in practice, to make it happen. You know that. In your company today, you are probably filled with ideas and simultaneously struggling with how to get the larger team to understand the need to change now….not next year…now. Most of the myths that have been created to avoid change have been heard often. Not surprisingly. When you work in a field that is innovative and transformative, like social media, it’s life. Myths have been part of human nature since the time we started telling stories a few millennia ago. We perpetuate myths as a way to establish or reinforce a certain type of behavior, regardless of whether or not it is accurate. Truth rarely gets in the way of a good myth."
Microsoft Enterprise Search Blog : improving the search experience
Microsoft Enterprise Search Blog: "Attention in search is finally shifting from a focus on low-level features and relevancy models to looking at the whole user experience for information access. Of all the enterprise technologies out there, few are planted so squarely at the interface of humans and machine as search. And yet, for many users, the search input box and a list of blue links is still the pinnacle of a search user experience – a user interface model that hasn’t changed appreciably in over 10 years. There is room for improvement."
Dashes.com : Will Google Wave be popular? Perhaps not!
Anil Dash: "Google Wave is an impressive set of technologies, the kind of stunningly slick application that literally makes developers stand up and cheer. I've played with the Google Wave test sandbox a bit, and while it's definitely too complex to live up to the 'this will replace email!' hype that greeted its launch, it certainly has some cool features. So the big question is whether Wave will succeed as overall in becoming a popular standard for communications on the web, because Google has made an admirable investment in documenting the underlying platform and making it open enough for others to build on and extend. I think the answer is no, and the reason is because the Wave way is not compatible with the Web way."
Microsoft Research - Researchers Ride the Twitter Wave
Researchers Ride the Twitter Wave - Microsoft Research: "No fewer than a half-dozen Microsoft Research interns are pursuing various Twitter-related projects this summer, five of them based at Microsoft Research New England. That makes sense, because that facility includes one of the world’s foremost social-media experts, danah boyd. And, as she notes, Twitter provides an enticing opportunity for researchers, not for its technological advances, but because of how people use it."
NUzakelijk : Microsoft starts Apple-like store chain
Microsoft starts its own store chain. It is not known how many shops will be started, but Microsoft has hired David Porter (former DreamWorks manager) to make it a success. Apple already has many stores and runs them succesfully. Microsoft now has, ofcourse, their own shop on the Redmond campus.
Zooie's blog : a comparison of open source search engines
A Comparison of Open Source Search Engines « zooie's blog will be presented later this month on Open Search at SIGIR. It’ll basically focus on how to use open source software and cloud services for building and quickly prototyping advanced search applications. Open Search isn’t just about building a Google-like search box on a free technology stack, but encouraging the community to extend and embrace search technology to improve the relevance of any application."
CIO.com : Chinese Microsoft Office rival launching on web soon
Chinese Microsoft Office Rival Launching on Web Soon - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership: "IDG News Service — A Chinese company that offers a rival suite to Microsoft Office is following industry trends by turning its software into a Web-based service. Evermore Software, based in the eastern Chinese city of Wuxi, has for years offered a software suite that looks very similar to Microsoft Office but costs less. Now the company sees its rivals moving online, and it is designing a Web version of its suite to compete with the likes of Google Docs and Microsoft's upcoming Office Web apps."
eWeek review: Google Wave doesn't make much of a Wave, yet
According to early hands-on experience, Google Wave doesn't make much of a Wave. But that might change when thousands of enthusiastic software developers get their hands on it.
Google Wave doesn't make much of a Wave, yet: "In its current, developer preview form, Google Wave doesn't live up to the hype that has surrounded it since its announcement. But, based on eWEEK Labs' tests, the collaboration platform could be leveraged by inventive developers to provide a new level of Web 2.0 engagement."
Microsoft Opens Windows 7 RTM for Downloading: "Microsoft has released Windows 7 RTM for downloading by volume license customers, a day after it made its new operating system available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers. After reporting dismal quarterly revenues in July, Microsoft is looking for a hit in Windows 7 in order to boost its bottom line and compel an industry-wide tech refresh. A recent report by Deutsche Bank suggests that the take-up for Windows 7 could exceed that of both Windows XP and Vista."
LABS GALLERY: Google Wave Developer Preview Shows Platform's Potential: "In the short time since it has been announced, Google Wave has been called by some pundits a whole new take on collaboration and the next major platform for Web development. In its present, developer preview form, Google Wave is more modest in scope, and there is little here that hasn’t been seen before in other Web 2.0 collaboration systems. Still, while the developer preview of Google Wave is raw, it definitely shows the platform's potential, both as a system for group collaboration and as a way to extend Websites with collaboration and new applications."
Nielsen Norman Group study : Facebook Generation Carries Social Software in the Enterprise
Facebook Generation Carries Social Software in the Enterprise: "Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, along with blogs, wikis, RSS feeds and other messaging and collaboration tools, are finding their way into the workplace as enterprise applications. Analysts from Nielsen Norman, IDC and Gilbane say front-line workers are leading the charge, forcing senior management to go with the flow or stem the tide. The Facebook Generation wants to network with colleagues to communicate and collaborate. Despite hype surrounding the use of wikis, blogs, social networks and other tools in the workplace, social software in businesses is still more of a grassroots effort led by frontline users than it is a company-wide collaboration practice, according to a new Nielsen Norman Group study."
Do you consider cloud computing? Better think first!
Five Lessons from the Dark Side of Cloud Computing - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership: "Five Lessons from the Dark Side of Cloud Computing Companies tapping into virtual infrastructure through cloud computing should take another look at their security plans, say experts at the Black Hat Security Conference. From legal protection to phishing, here are five cloud security issues to consider."
Microsoft Watch: "A few weeks ago, Microsoft launched a contest in which it asked the community to submit Bing jingles to the Bing YouTube site. Whoever came out on top would receive a $500 American Express gift check, with the possibility dangling out there that the jingle itself could be used as the basis for some sort of Microsoft ad campaign. On Aug. 5, Microsoft announced the winner: Jonathan Mann, whose jingle 'Bing Goes the Internet' is accompanied by a video of the dude himself, backed by a troupe of white silhouettes, dancing in front of a giant blowup of the Bing search screen."
10:23 AM, connecting to Twitter: "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage"
"Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage"
This problem can be caused by a variety of issues, including:
•Internet connectivity has been lost. •The website is temporarily unavailable. •The Domain Name Server (DNS) is not reachable. •The Domain Name Server (DNS) does not have a listing for the website's domain. •There might be a typing error in the address. •If this is an HTTPS (secure) address, click Tools, click Internet Options, click Advanced, and check to be sure the SSL and TLS protocols are enabled under the security section. •Twitter might be experiencing another attack
pubsubhubbub - Project Hosting on Google Code: "A simple, open, server-to-server web-hook-based pubsub (publish/subscribe) protocol as an extension to Atom (and RSS). Parties (servers) speaking the PubSubHubbub protocol can get near-instant notifications (via webhook callbacks) when a topic (feed URL) they're interested in is updated."
Twitter and Facebook DDoS Attacks Targeted One Man: "A blogger in the Republic of Georgia with the username Cyxymu was the victim, according to Facebook’s chief security officer Max Kelly. The claims cement earlier reports that social networking sites have been dragged into the Georgia-Russia crisis, leading to the first simultaneous attack on the largest social media sites. Kelly told CNet::"
WSJ.com: For Companies, a Tweet in Time Can Avert PR Mess
A growing number of companies use social software to monitor and influence the market. Now, also Twitter is getting attention...
For Companies, a Tweet in Time Can Avert PR Mess - WSJ.com: "A growing number of businesses are tracking social-media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter to gauge consumer sentiment and avert potential public-relations problems. Ford Motor Co., PepsiCo Inc. and Southwest Airlines Co., among others, are deploying software and assigning employees to monitor Internet postings and blogs. They're also assigning senior leaders to craft corporate strategies for social media."
The New York Times have published an article about Media Cloud, that will let researchers track the movement of ideas through the mediasphere and blogosphere.
Media Cloud: "Media Cloud is a system that lets you see the flow of the media. The Internet is fundamentally altering the way that news is produced and distributed, but there are few comprehensive approaches to understanding the nature of these changes. Media Cloud automatically builds an archive of news stories and blog posts from the web, applies language processing, and gives you ways to analyze and visualize the data. The system is still in early development, but we invite you to explore our current data and suggest research ideas."
Learning to Text: Don’t LOL at Death, and Other Tips
Learning to Text: Don’t LOL at Death, and Other Tips - WSJ.com: "As text-messaging shorthand becomes increasingly widespread in emails, text messages and Tweets, people like Ms. Washburn are scrambling to decode it. In many offices, a working knowledge of text-speak is becoming de rigueur. And at home, parents need to know the lingo in order to keep up with—and sometimes police—their children."
Spigit Blog: "Gartner maintains a series of well-followed reports, called Hype Cycles. The Social Software Hype Cycle highlights the most important technologies that support rich social interactions."
Micro Persuasion: Why Text Remains King of the Web: "Still, think about just how much of what you consume and share online remains text-based. Twitter - it's all text. Friendfeed - mostly text, but augmented by images. Facebook - a mix but certainly a ton of text. Even what makes YouTube hot is the metadata and commentary around the vids. So I don't see any big threat to King Text."
Social Media Optimization: 16 Rules Revisited - Online Marketing Blog: "Guidelines for marketing with social media aren’t all that new. In 2006 five members of the digital marketing community collaborated on 16 rules for “social media optimization”. Fast forward to nearly 2010 and social media has begun to take a more significant role in the marketing mix."
4 ways to take control of your e-mail Inbox: "Do you have an effective way to process and organize your e-mail so that you can get to an empty Inbox on a routine basis? If you have lots of e-mail in your Inbox—we know people with as many as 7,000 messages—you might want to rethink your processing methods. Really, it is possible to empty your Inbox. The key is to evaluate how you are processing and organizing your e-mail and make some changes."
5 tips to communicate better from home: "Even when you've got the right tools and ways to meet, communicating with co-workers from home is still different from working in the office. Use these five tips to improve how you communicate with co-workers from home."
IT Management: Bill Gates Urges India Toward High-End Research and Development
IT Management - RSS Feeds: "Bill Gates suggested during a visit to New Delhi that India needs to change its focus from low-end manufacturing to high-end research and development, the better to sustain the IT end of its economy and compete with China."
Microsoft Watch: Is Microsoft Office Threatened by Google Apps?
Microsoft Watch: "You'd certainly think so, based on some of the features in the upcoming Office 2010. By making a stripped-down version of the productivity suite available via the cloud, and free to Microsoft Live subscribers, Microsoft seemed to be taking Google Apps head-on."
CODE Magazine - Article: Accelerators in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2: "The browser is becoming more than just a place to read content on the Web. Increasingly, users are interacting with Web content in several different ways. Examples include pasting selected text in a blog post, mapping out an address, or checking the definition of a word. With Accelerators, users can reach beyond the page to various services for these common tasks. Accelerators are easy to create for Web developers and can be written to plug in to existing applications. They are great ways to attract users to your website through a single click!"
Make Microsoft Outlook More Social: "Even though Microsoft hasn’t officially added support for social media to the next version of the app, you can customize Outlook 2007 and add social features yourself. Here is a quick overview of some add-ins that can help you make Outlook more social."
HansR works as an ICT consultant in a multi national company in consulting, technology, outsourcing, and local professional services. In the past 25 years he played many roles in technology and management and gained a holistic view on ICT and organisations. Currently he focusses on Information Workplace architecture and technology, mainly Microsoft.
HansR regularily shares his thoughts in presentations, workshops and hands on labs.
In this weblog, HansR shares his personal thoughts on ICT with the rest of the world.
