Microsoft Office

bThis is the first community prototype from Office Labs. Community prototypes are projects Microsoft employees work on in their spare time. Speed Launch’s goal is to let you get to the stuff you use faster and with less frustration.

Why do I need Speed Launch?
Work faster and with less frustration. Speed Launch gives you lightning quick access to all the documents, files, and websites you use often. In the past when you used something a lot you might have created a desktop shortcut, added it to your IE favorites, or placed it on your quick launch bar. Speed Launch allows you to create centralized shortcuts to all the stuff you need and allows you to access them effortlessly.

What is Speed Launch?
Speed Launch is an application launcher that extends the functionality and usability of Microsoft Windows. With Speed Launch, users can select their own words to open frequently used websites, documents, and applications. The most compelling feature of Speed launch is the use of a drag and drop interaction model to make this advanced functionality more intuitive to novice computer users.

How is it used? How does it work with Windows?
Speed Launch is a downloadable program available at www.officelabs.com. After you’ve download Speed Launch, simply drag the file, document, or website url onto the Speed Launch bull’s-eye to create a Speed Launch shortcut. From then on, any time you need to access that file, document, or website, just hit “Windows+C”, type the shortcut name, and what you need will immediately appear.

Is there a shortcut key to open the launcher?
Yes. Use “Windows+C”.

How do I use Speed Launch to open multiple things?
Drag the first item on to the bull’s-eye and give it a name. Next, drag the second item on to the bull’s-eye and give it the same name. When you do this, Speed Launch will give you the option to replace or merge the two items, choose merge. Now, hit “Windows+C” and type the name. Speed Launch will open both items.

Is there a limit to how many items a single Speed Launch shortcut can open?
Not that we know of

I notice that Speed Launch comes with some shortcuts that allow me to search websites. How do I use them?
Speed Launch comes preloaded with a few useful fucntions. For example, to search Wikipedia just type “Wikipedia Search” and hit enter. Next, type what you want to search for in the new window and hit enter. Speed Launch will open the related Wikipedia page.

Cool! Can I create my own “functions”?
Yes… but it’s a little tricky. You can watch the video below for a walk through (and some good music). In short, go to the results page (e.g., search for the information you are looking for) and, if the search term appears in the URL, you can drag it on to the bullseye to create a function. Name it with a period (e.g., “MySearch.”) which tells Speed Launch you want a function, and follow the prompts. We will make this easier in the future, but our current focus is in making the basics as easy as possible.

Today’s author, Scott Ruble, a Program Manager on the Excel team, is seeking feedback on a new prototype for building charts.

When Office 2007 was released, one of the strong pieces of feedback was Excel needs to do a better job guiding users in the proper selection of charts to effectively communicate their data. Though it wasn’t our intent, some of the new formatting options such as glow and legacy 3D charts can be used inappropriately, which obscure the meaning of a chart. Some people felt that these features contributed to creating more “chart junk.” In an effort to improve this situation, we have created a prototype called the Chart Advisor. The Chart Advisor intelligently suggests different chart types based on an analysis of your data in Excel 2007. Depending on the feedback we get on Chart Advisor, we may incorporate this as a native Excel feature in a future release. For a quick tour of Chart Advisor, please check out the video or read the steps below and give it a try.

Background
Chart Advisor was developed by Office Labs which is a new organization within Office that focuses on concept validation and incubation. Over the course of several months, we compiled a set of well defined heuristics such as when to use a line chart versus a column chart. These heuristics were incorporated into an advanced rules engine which scans your data and scores all of the relevant chart types. Top scoring charts are presented for previewing, tweaking, and inserting into your Excel worksheet. The rules used for scoring can be complex and we know that some rules are missing or need fine tuning. Given the breadth of possible chart types and data sets this will probably always be the case - even for a fully functional shipping version of Chart Advisor. To address this, the rules were separated from the rules engine into an XML file which can be modified by you to meet your individual business needs. Other notable features of the Chart Advisor are shown below.

Automatic pivoting to generate more useful charts
Hidden rows and columns are ignored in the spreadsheet
Totals for columns or rows are ignored in the charts so as not to skew the data plotted
Ability to quickly change the data displayed in the chart through the Modify chart pane
Ability to filter data
Intelligent mapping of data to the axes
Scoring of charts to show the best charts first
Chart formatting (legend on/off/location, chart style) is rules-based - e.g., no legend if only one value series
The vision for Chart Advisor was for it to address four different areas of recommendation:

Chart type (e.g., column, line, scatter, etc.)
Formatting (e.g., fill, color, effects, etc.)
Chart element (e.g., legend, trendline, error bars, etc.)
Aggregations and pivots
The Chart Advisor is a proof of concept. As such, it doesn’t address all aspects of our vision just yet. Currently it focuses on providing chart type suggestions and to a more limited extent formatting, chart element, aggregation, and pivot suggestions. However, I’d love to get your feedback on other ways you think the Chart Advisor could add value.

From Microsoft Outlook Team Blog: You’ve seen several posts on the Outlook Team Blog focused on ways to help you more effectively manage your incoming e-mails and appointments in Outlook. Office Labs has also been exploring some innovative methods to help people manage the vast amounts of information they receive on a daily basis.

To help alleviate this information overload, Microsoft Office Labs released Email Prioritizer last week on www.officelabs.com. The prototype – inspired by Microsoft Research’s “Priorities” project – is an add-in for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 that was built by the Office Labs development team here in Redmond. Email Prioritizer provides a “do not disturb” button that temporarily pauses new email arrival from ten minutes up to four hours. Email Prioritizer will also assign priority ratings of 0 to 3 stars to incoming mail to help users focus their attention on the most important email messages.

While we encourage you to test out our prototypes, they are unsupported concepts with no plans for inclusion in any products. Please direct any feedback you have on Email Prioritizer to Office Labs at emailpfb@microsoft.com.

Thanks!

* Email Prioritizer is a plug-in for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 (running on Exchange Server) that helps you manage email overload. This concept test provides a “do not disturb” button that temporarily pauses new email arrival, and prioritizes email with a 0-3 star rating system. We hope this prototype helps you focus on the emails that are most important to you.

Open, edit, and save documents, workbooks, and presentations in the file formats new to Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007.

Overview
Users of the Microsoft Office XP and 2003 programs Word, Excel, or PowerPoint—please install all High-Priority updates from Microsoft Update before downloading the Compatibility Pack.

By installing the Compatibility Pack in addition to Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003, you will be able to open, edit, and save files using the file formats new to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007. The Compatibility Pack can also be used in conjunction with the Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer 2003, and PowerPoint Viewer 2003 to view files saved in these new formats. For more information about the Compatibility Pack, see Knowledge Base article 924074.

Note: If you use Microsoft Word 2000 or Microsoft Word 2002 to read or write documents containing complex scripts, please see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925451 for information to enable Word 2007 documents to be displayed correctly in your version of Word.

Administrators: The administrative template for the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint converters contained within the Compatibility Pack is available for download.

System Requirements
Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000 Service Pack 4; Windows Server 2003; Windows Vista; Windows XP Service Pack 1; Windows XP Service Pack 2
Recommended Microsoft Office programs:

Microsoft Word 2000 with Service Pack 3, Microsoft Excel 2000 with Service Pack 3, and Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 with Service Pack 3

Microsoft Word 2002 with Service Pack 3, Microsoft Excel 2002 with Service Pack 3, and Microsoft PowerPoint 2002 with Service Pack 3

Microsoft Office Word 2003 with at least Service Pack 1, Microsoft Office Excel 2003 with at least Service Pack 1, and Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 with at least Service Pack 1

Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003

Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003

Microsoft Office PowerPoint Viewer 2003

Instructions
To install this download:

Ensure your system is up to date by installing all High-Priority/Required updates on Microsoft Update (required for Microsoft Office XP and 2003 users).

After installing all High-Priority/Required updates with Microsoft Update, download the Compatibility Pack by clicking the Download button above and saving the file to your hard disk.

Double-click the FileFormatConverters.exe program file on your hard disk to start the setup program.

Follow the instructions on the screen to complete the installation.

To remove this download:

On the Windows Start menu, click Control Panel.

Select Add/Remove Programs.

In the list of currently installed programs, select Compatibility Pack for the 2007 Office system and then click Remove or Add/Remove. If a dialog box appears, follow the instructions to remove the program.

Click Yes or OK to confirm that you want to remove the program.

Verdiem’s Edison is a free energy-monitoring application for eco-conscious consumers. You can use it to more actively control your PC’s energy consumption — and subsequently your household’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

Feature Summary

Made for Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Vista PC users, Verdiem’s Edison enhances the operating systems’ existing power settings with increased overall energy savings and provides a consumer-friendly user interface that makes it easy to set up and manage. Endorsed by Microsoft and Climate Savers, Verdiem’s Edison enables consumers to measure, monitor, and manage their PC energy efficiency in an effort to reduce carbon emissions.

Features include:

Scheduling. Identify work and non-work schedules to optimize power schemes based on when your PC is in use or on standby. Settings. Choose from among several options for power savings and settings. Estimated Savings Reports. Find information that shows how PC power settings correlate to money, kWh and CO2 savings. Intuitive User Interface. Drag easy-to-use sliding bars to choose settings and instantly see the power and monetary savings. Clearly marked tabs make the interface easy to navigate.

System Requirements

System requirements for Edison are Windows XP (Service Pack 2) or Windows Vista; 256 MB RAM; Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 or later; 7 MB free hard disk space. If .NET 2.0 is not already installed, 280 MB of additional disk space is required.

Edison was developed by Verdiem, a company that has helped enterprises the world over reduce energy waste from IT devices. Now Verdiem is bringing Edison into your home—at no cost whatsoever. Download Edison and start saving energy today!

5 great add-ons for Internet Explorer

Add-ons are programs that add features to a web browser or change the way it works. If you’ve ever wished Internet Explorer could do something new or differently, chances are there’s an add-on out there that will fulfill your wish.

Power users love IE7Pro

IE7Pro is a free add-on for Internet Explorer 7 that is indispensable to many in their day-to-day work. It adds a raft of new abilities to the web browser, including advanced management of tabbed browsing settings, a simple download manager, spelling checks of text you enter in web forms, autoscrolling of webpages, quick searching of page text, ad and Flash blocking, custom keyboard shortcuts, and much more.

One of the favorite features of this add-on is its ability to automatically refresh a tab at a specified interval. In my job as an IT coordinator. This feature is also quite useful for seeing the latest messages coming into your web-based e-mail inbox and for keeping track of online auctions and message boards.

Do you want to search the Internet for something you’re reading about on a particular webpage? Instead of copying and pasting the text into a search box, simply select the word or phrase, right-click it, then click Search With to search for the term using Google, Yahoo!, Live Search, or another search engine of your choice. The results appear in a new tab.

Have you ever closed a tab by mistake? No worries—click Tab History in the IE7Pro menu, and then click Reopen Last Closed Tab. Did Internet Explorer crash? IE7Pro will offer to restore the tabs that were open when the crash occurred.

Road warriors who frequently switch Internet connections will love IE7Pro’s proxy switcher. Instead of manually changing the proxy configuration each time you switch connections, you can quickly select previously used proxy servers from a menu.

Simple but effective: Find As You Type
To search for text on a webpage in Internet Explorer, normally you must press CTRL+F, type the search term into the Find window and then click Next. Find As You Type is an add-on that allows you to see all matches to your search term as it is typed. Matches are instantly highlighted on the page. If you type a combination of letters that does not appear on the page, an audio cue sounds and the Find box turns red.

Organize your downloads with LeechGet
An Internet connection can be unreliable, and far too often many have felt the frustration that comes from having a large download interrupted. Restarting the download in Internet Explorer is hit-or-miss; sometimes one does lose the partial download, and sometimes one doesn’t. One favorite is a product called LeechGet. It operates as a standalone program that integrates with Internet Explorer by managing downloads you click in the browser.

LeechGet allows you to manage multiple downloads, pause and resume, schedule downloads to occur at a particular time, and split your downloads into smaller “tasks.” You can also impose a “speed limit” on downloads that restricts how much bandwidth they can use, thus leaving you some bandwidth to browse the web. The program includes a download history and speed monitor.

LeechGet has two versions: a free version that limits you to one download at a time and does not include updates, and a paid version that removes those restrictions and includes technical support. To download it, go to the LeechGet website.

Make RSS shine with RikReader
Since the release of Internet Explorer 7 and its integrated RSS feed reader. You can subscribe to hundreds of different feeds (For more information about RSS feeds, see The wonderful world of RSS feeds).

The feed reader has a couple of glaring deficiencies. First, there is no way to mark all feeds as read. Second, there is no way to view all of my feeds at the same time. RikReader is one feed reader of choice. (Technically, RikReader is a program, rather than an add-on, but it integrates with the feed-subscription capabilities of Internet Explorer.)

RikReader displays the feeds you have subscribed to in Internet Explorer. It offers both a conventional two-pane view, with headlines on one side and article text on the other, and an impressive “newspaper” view that displays the full text of each article or blog post in a multicolumn layout. In either view, the text size can be easily reduced or enlarged via a slider. By typing a term in the search box, you can instantly filter a feed so that only articles containing that term are displayed.

Me.dium: An interaction revolution
Humans are inherently social creatures, and we love to interact with others online—hence the popularity of instant messaging, social networking sites, and online forums. In the end, though, web surfing has basically remained a solitary experience. We’ve always known that lots of other people are likely to be looking at the same page as we are, at the same time, but we couldn’t see or interact with them—until now.

Me.dium is an add-on that allows you to peek behind the curtain of the web. After you install it, a Me.dium “map” appears in the left pane of the browser. The map displays an icon representing you and the website you are viewing, along with icons of other Me.dium users who are visiting the same site. Users you’ve added to your Me.dium friends list show up as yellow, and others show up as blue. Surrounding your icon are icons representing related sites that you or other Me.dium users have visited. For example, if you’re at a news site, Me.dium will show you other news sites; if you are at a bank’s website it will suggest other banking and financial sites. You can click an icon to go directly to that site.

Check out Living Without Meat.

Do you have the latest Microsoft Security Updates for August? Click to get started.

How about Microsoft Accounting 2008? Use it for personal use or your small home business. What it’s about:

Office Accounting Express Overview
Microsoft® Office Accounting Express is an easy to use accounting package that works with other Office applications you already know.

Save time on everyday tasks
Get started in minutes with a step by step interview wizard
Create invoices, track time and expenses and bank online
Enter data once and share it seamlessly with other Microsoft Office system programs
Manage payroll and accept credit cards with affordable add-on services that save you time and money
Get a complete view of your business
See customer, vendor, employee and financial data in one place
Get business insights with customizable reports
Easily share your books with your accountant through Office Live
Grow your business onlineList items on eBay, manage sales and download transactions
Email invoices and get paid faster with PayPal
Process credit card payments directly in Office Accounting

Want to start a small home business? Start here on Microsoft Office Live for Small Business:

Everything you need to grow your business online

Get Online

Take your business online with a FREE Web site and e-mail, plus low-cost e-commerce
Attract Customers
Promote your business and generate sales with easy-to-use, affordable e-mail marketing and search marketing products
Manage Your Business
Manage sales opportunities, projects, documents, and more with FREE online business applications

Here’s a quite directly from the site:

“…Office Live Small Business gives the nation’s 25 million small businesses a chance to use the same online tools as the big boys. Nobody else offers a complete one-stop self-contained unified Internet toolkit for small businesses — especially not at these prices.” David Pogue, New York Times,
February 2008

Done with work? Browse Toy Bender and read about the Robocop toy.

Some people need to work on Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, or PowerPoint files from home and do not own their own copies of Microsoft Office. Well, thank goodness that OpenOffice is saving the day! OpenOffice is a free, alternative office suite that mimics each of the great Microsoft Office applications.

With a free download and install of the product (which works on all operating systems), you can not only open MS Office files, but you can save them as MS Office files,too! You can even save Word documents as Adobe Acrobat Reader (.pdf) portable document files.

I have used OpenOffice and I can tell you that it runs as great in Microsoft Windows as it does on Ubuntu Linux. I have used Linux at my jobs and no one can tell that my documents were created and distributed from a Linux operating system. Talk about freedom! Freedom to work on any operating system you wish - while being able to use Microsoft Office style applications is NICE! Download OpenOffice and give it a try today. Cheers!