Microsoft Office

From Inside Office Online blog: The October employment news was not good. Another 240,000 people lost their jobs. The unemployment rate reached a 14-year high of 6.5 percent, with 2.8 million more people unemployed than at this time last year. The double whammy of mortgage woes and unemployment is hitting home.

How can we help?

Over the next several months we’ll be rolling out to you as much timely information about job skills as we can. We’ll cover honing your skills so you excel at the job you already have or have in mind, as well as tips for finding and landing the job you want. We’ll serve up everything from resume templates and training courses to clever (sometimes even extreme) job search strategies—including ones we’ve used ourselves.

If you’re hiring, we’ll also provide or point you to resources that can help you make sure you hire the right people the first time.

It won’t all be grim–even in the midst of a job crunch we have to laugh (sometimes ruefully) and celebrate. So we’ll do what we can to keep it light, too.

This will be an ongoing project–one in which many of us here at Office Online will take part. We’ll ask for your feedback as we go, so we can tailor what we deliver to the situations you actually face. I.e., reality.

For starters, what, in your experience, is the most frustrating thing about looking for work?

From Inside Office Online Blog: If you are anything like me the Halloween pumpkins are still on the front porch, so the winter holidays seem a long way off. But somehow every year they creep up on me and I find myself in a frantic cyclone of cards, wrapping paper, and postage stamps. Each fall I vow that I’ll start preparing earlier so I’ll have the time to enjoy what’s really important, which is spending time with family and friends.

This year we have a holiday page dedicated to helping you get it all done, spend less money, and create meaningful cards and gifts at home. In this year’s economic conditions, holiday spending will be a priority for a lot of people. Be careful not to overspend by using our holiday budget planner.

You can also save money creating personalized handmade gifts, cards, and photo albums. Every year I like to make photo calendars for my family that include pictures of things we’ve done together over the course of the previous year. These calendars are inexpensive, easy to make, and a great way to capture family memories.

When all your gifts are ready to wrap, here are three ways to enhance your packages. Then use Outlook to ship your gifts with FedEx QuickShip. With FedEx QuickShip, you can create and track U.S. shipments, get rates, schedule pickups, and find the nearest staffed FedEx location all from your home!

Now kick back and enjoy the holiday season!

From MSN Money: Have a tightwad’s Christmas

Try these ideas for keeping holiday spending under control, finding alternative gifts and making your hard-earned dollars go farther this year.

Money’s tight, the credit cards are maxed and you’re not much of a hand at making crafts anyone would want to receive.

So how do you manage holiday gifts without raiding your 401(k)?

First, the obvious. Before you buy the first present, make a list of everyone you’d like to buy a gift for and set a limit of how much you want to spend on each. Total those figures, then add in what you expect to spend for decorating, holiday clothes, tips, entertaining and travel.

Trim down and try something new
If the grand total is overwhelming, start trimming your list. Some ideas:

Agree to exchange cards instead of gifts with friends.

Have a potluck instead of an elaborate feast that requires you do all the work (and grocery shopping).

Make do with last year’s decorations and clothes, or swap with friends.

Persuade your extended family to draw names rather than have everyone buy everyone else a gift.

Boot the adults and give gifts only to the kids.

Once you’ve got the list, consider the following ideas to help you get the most bang for your holiday bucks and skip the expensive, last-minute rush at the mall:

Cruise the deal sites. Web sites like Ben’s Bargains, Deals of America, My Bargain Buddy and SlickDeals.net can alert you to killer bargains around the Web, such an Amazon.com Baby Store sale where a leopard-print fleece infant jacket could be found for $3 and a Dr. Seuss sun hat for $2.60. Another deal: a well-made acoustic guitar for $40, half the usual price, plus free shipping from Musician.com.

Home and Office Computer Users
Training materials from Microsoft Learning will help you use the enhanced intuitive design and improved features of the 2007 Microsoft Office system to get more out of the programs that you use every day. Find the resources—Microsoft E-Learning, classroom training, and books and training kits from Microsoft Press—that will help you start taking advantage of the new functionality in the 2007 Office system.

Microsoft E-Learning
If you learn best independently, Microsoft E-Learning courses provide a simple and effective way for you to learn at your own pace and on your own schedule. Take Microsoft E-Learning courses to improve your skills, prepare for a project, or earn certifications.

• View a list of Microsoft E-Learning courses on 2007 Office system applications in the Microsoft Learning Catalog

Books from Microsoft Press
Some of the biggest work challenges you face today—information overload, knowledge management, collaboration limitations, and localization issues—are directly addressed by new features in the 2007 Microsoft Office system.

• Find books from Microsoft Press

• View a list of Microsoft Press books about the 2007 Office system in the Microsoft Learning Catalog

Classroom training
Microsoft Certified Partners for Learning Solutions deliver Microsoft Learning training in a classroom environment. The training is facilitated by expert Microsoft Certified Trainers (MCTs).

• Locate a Learning Solutions partner near you

Microsoft Business Certification program
The Microsoft Business Certification program validates your job skills in using the 2007 Microsoft Office system, Microsoft Office SharePoint portal sites, and Windows Vista. Whether you want to stand out in the job market, improve and simplify your organization’s hiring processes, or empower your students to enter the workforce; the Microsoft Business Certification credential demonstrates that you have proven expertise that businesses will depend on.

• Learn more about the Microsoft Business Certification program

Free self-paced training courses for Office programs

Courtesy of Lorian: From a technical standpoint, becoming an online entrepreneur is pretty easy these days. Low-cost and user-friendly tools such as Store Manager make it easy to list your products on the Web, provide customers with a shopping cart, handle sales transactions, and manage other details.

But I think online store owners understand that running an e-commerce operation takes more than friendly and affordable technology. Setting up your store is just the start. Succeeding in an online business requires doing a number of other things well. Or conversely, avoiding some common mistakes.

In that spirit, I offer my top 10 blunders every online entrepreneur should avoid (in no particular order).

1. Selling too many products. If you sell funny hats online, don’t add MP3 players to your product lineup just because you purchased a wholesale lot. It will muddle your business focus and confuse your customers.

2. Doing no marketing. The “If-I-build-it-they-will-come” thinking just doesn’t work. You need to promote your online store. For starters, investigate online marketing tools such adManager keyword advertising and E-Mail Marketing.

3. Poor product display. Try not to bunch too much information or too many products on your pages. Messy, cluttered pages look unprofessional. Simple goes a long way.

4. Using fuzzy photos. No photos are better than bad photos. Make sure your product shots are sharp and clear. Get creative with your digital camera or hire a professional photographer. If you just need photos for illustrative purposes, you can get them pretty cheap from online stock photography services for as little as a buck a piece.

5. Failing to refresh your site periodically. Shoppers will lose interest in your site if you don’t add new items or at least change around the ones you feature. Also, mix it up by featuring special promotions. Give them reasons to come back.

6. Showing out-of-stock items. If one of your products is no longer available, even temporarily, remove it from your site or note it on your site that it is currently not available. You don’t want to tease customers or look like you can’t manage your inventory.

7. Making it hard to ask questions. You probably have a Contact Us page. But don’t make people search through your site to ask product questions. Have a customer service phone number or e-mail address conveniently displayed on product pages.

8. Hiding shipping fees and return policies. Online shoppers want to know delivery charges and return policies before they commit to a purchase. If you make these fees and policies hard to find, they’ll head off to another store.

9. Downplaying security and privacy. Not only is it important that you use a secure payment service, it’s important that you draw attention to it on your site. Likewise, you should provide a prominent link to your privacy policy to assure customers that their personal information isn’t shared. Learn more about how to do this.

10. Selling the wrong product. Not everything sells well on the Web. Inexpensive items that you can easily snag in most local stores are particularly a bad idea — especially when you add on the shipping costs.

If you’re eager for more tips, check out the article “5 holiday marketing mistakes to avoid.” With the big shopping season nearly upon us, it offers some timely advice for folks selling online.

Publisher features templates that you can use to create a short catalog. Just choose a catalog template, and then replace the placeholder pictures with your own and type in the text that you want.

Your catalog merge template should have the same layout (page size and orientation) that you want for your final merged pages. Also, it should contain any text or graphics that you want to appear on each page of your final publication, for example, a background image or the name of your company.

If you plan to add your merged pages to the end of an existing publication, make sure that your catalog merge template matches the existing publication in the following ways:

Page size (height and width)
Page view (one-page spread or two-page spread)
Publication type (Web or print)
Page order (left-to-right or right-to-left)

Create the catalog merge template
On the File menu, click New.
In the New Publication task pane, click Blank Page Sizes, and then choose the size that you want..
Note If you plan to post your catalog to a Web site, click Web Sites under Blank Page Sizes, and then click the size that matches your target screen resolution.

Click Create.
On the File menu, click Page Setup.
In the Page Setup dialog box, make any changes to the margins that you want, and then click OK.
On the Tools menu, point to Mailings and Catalogs, and then click Catalog Merge.

Connect to your data source
After you format your catalog merge template page, use the Catalog Merge task pane to create or locate and connect to your data source. The option that you choose next depends on whether you already have a data source or whether you want to create a new list in Publisher.

In the Catalog Merge task pane, under Select Product List, do one of the following:
Click Use an existing list if you already have a data source that you want to use.
Click Select from Outlook Contacts if you want to create a directory of your contacts.
Select Type a new list if you need to create the data source for your merge.
Click Next: Create or connect to a product list.

Use an existing list
In the Select Data Source dialog box, locate and click the data source that you want.
By default, Publisher saves data sources in the My Data Sources folder. You may need to browse to the My Data Sources folder to locate your data source.

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Low-cost and no-cost survival tactics require a “business-as-usual mindset.”

According to Rieva Lesonsky, former editor of Entrepreneur and blogger for Microsoft Office Live Small Business (http://smallbusiness.officelive.com), entrepreneurs can use this time to cut back in certain areas and strategically invest in other areas, such as marketing. “It may seem counterintuitive, but increased marketing and sales activity can be an effective way to bolster your business and weather economic storms,” Lesonsky said. “In fact, marketing is a key component to your small business’ survival.”

So what should current and aspiring entrepreneurs do during these tough times? Lesonsky offers the following advice:

• Keep overhead low. Entrepreneurs should take a hard look at their expenses and scale back on nonessentials. Some big cost-cutting areas include business travel, labor and rent. For example: Entrepreneurs can try videoconferencing instead of traveling to a meeting; consider forgoing pricey office space and work from home instead; and re-examine their staffing plan to ensure they have the right amount of coverage for their current level of business, keeping overtime costs to a minimum.

• Make noise. In this economy, competitors are likely cutting back on marketing spending too. This provides an opportunity for entrepreneurs to get their marketing message out in a potentially less cluttered environment, and possibly at a better rate too. In addition to traditional forms of advertising, entrepreneurs can take advantage of low-cost digital marketing tactics, such as creating a blog, building an audience with Twitter, staying on top of their ratings through online review sites such as Yelp, and creating company pages on social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

• Have a strong online presence. Increasingly, consumers are using the Web to find businesses of all sizes, so it’s really crucial that small businesses be visible online in order to compete. Today, there are a number of low- or no-cost options to help entrepreneurs establish a professional Web presence without the expense of hiring a designer or Web master. Microsoft Office Live Small Business (http://smallbusiness.officelive.com) provides entrepreneurs with a free Web site and hosting, a custom domain name and business e-mail free for the first year, low-cost e-commerce and online marketing tools, and free business management tools.

• “Hire” customers. Entrepreneurs can turn satisfied customers into a word-of-mouth referral engine for their business. They can consider offering referral fees or free services to encourage customers to refer new clients. Entrepreneurs can also ask customers to provide testimonials that can be showcased on the company Web site and marketing materials.

• Always negotiate. Entrepreneurs should keep in mind that everything is negotiable. When other businesses are cutting back, entrepreneurs are in a better position to negotiate for lower rates, better ad placements, lower telephone rate plans or other discounts such as on office supplies.

These and other small-business tips from Lesonsky can be found on the Office Live Small Business blog at http://www.myofficelivecommunity.com.

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.

From the “Inside Office Online blog”: Our downward spiraling economy and the increasing number of failing businesses got me thinking about people who are out of work or facing potential layoffs. I’ve been in that position once or twice in my life, so I understand how overwhelming it can feel to have to drag out the resume yet again and go through interviews. One of the qualities Microsoft values in employees is the ability to deal with this sort of ambiguity - to adapt, to change, to do something you may never have done before. It’s the nature of our business - you experiment, you learn, you start something new. Repeat.

Which brings me back to all the people out there who may be in the process of reinventing themselves. It seems computers are ubiquitous in many jobs these days. I’m curious about a few things.

How many of you have enhanced your resume to claim computer skills you had to learn on the fly after you got the job?
What Office programs do you use the most and what tricks have you learned that make you more efficient?
Would it help to have a cheat sheet, for example, of the top 10 Excel skills you should know for almost any office job?
What are the most useful tips you’ve picked up in your job? (Anything counts -from using the sort feature in Excel to formatting a document.)
Did you learn on your own, or did someone you work with show you a special shortcut or trick that has made things easier for you?

Besides just downloading a template and updating your resume, where do you feel you could use some help polishing those skills that will help you move on and move up to the next best thing?

Here are the Top 7 Microsoft Employee Bungles using Microsoft Office

1. Opening dangerous attachments. Viruses like Melissa (”I love you!”) were a huge problem at Microsoft. The kicker about it is that everyone acted flabbergasted and incredulous. “What sort of idiot clicks on these things?!” It’s like Hootie and the Blowfish: the best-selling debut album of all time has no fans. Have you ever met a single person who admitted to owning Cracked Rear View? Same with Melissa.

2. Forgetting to include attachments. This is the evil twin of #1: in addition to clicking on harmful attachments, we forget to include useful attachments. So when you see an email with the subject “Foolproof Plan for World Peace — Part Deux,” don’t get too excited. As awesome as the plan probably is, it’s almost definitely not attached to the email.

3. Replying-all to huge mailing lists. Any email to a large alias inevitably results in someone (no doubt a proud Hootie CD owner) replying to everyone. The threads are always the same. Something rather mundane or obscure is sent to thousands of people. Then the fan mail starts pouring in:
“Why am I on this list?”
“Unsubscribe.”
“Please also remove me!”
“Please stop replying to everyone — there are thousands of people on this alias.”
“Me too!”
“SERIOUSLY — STOP REPLYING ALL!”
“Why are you shouting?”
“We never talk anymore.”

4. The most famous of these threads at Microsoft started on a mysterious distribution list called “Bedlam DL3.” 25,000 employees, 15.5 million e-mails, 195 GB of bandwidth, busted network. T-shirts were printed to commemorate the event.

5. Putting aliases in the “To:” field in order to see who’s in them. To see names on an alias, you can put the alias in the “To:” field of an email and double-click it … if you’re a complete idiot. A friend of mine (”Jimmy”) almost got fired by an executive for doing this. A product that this executive was in charge of was getting cancelled, but her team didn’t yet know it. When Jimmy heard the scoop, he wrote his boss an e-mail that essentially said, “Hey there, so-and-so’s team is getting canned. Here are the only three people worth keeping…” He then proceeded to add so-and-so’s entire team to the “To:” line in order to find out the names of the “only three people worth keeping.” The rest of what happened is left as an exercise to the reader.

6. Projecting a PowerPoint presentation. The amount of time wasted at Microsoft sitting in conference rooms waiting for the presenter to get the slides to work is mind-boggling. Does the projector handle your resolution? Press Fn-F5! Click the little icon in the lower left to resume your slide show. Not that icon! The other one! Oh, the screen saver’s kicked in. Your laptop’s suspending!
Getting instant messages (IMs) during presentations. Once the presentation is going, IM notifications inevitably pop up on the screen. This tends to happen most when you’re presenting in front of hundreds of people. “Yo! How did the [blind-date/colonoscopy/armed-robbery] go?” “Hi, [term of endearment]! I can’t wait to [verb] your [adjective][noun] [now/tonight/again/forever]!” I’m told that the latest version of Office fixes this. Let’s hope so.
Note From the Editor: In 2007 Office system, Desktop Alerts for incoming e-mail messages are turned off by default when you run a PowerPoint 2007 presentation. See Turn Desktop Alerts on or off for more info.

7. Using Excel to cover up Unreal Tournament. Well, I’ve only seen this once, but it’s so eponymous that it deserves to be celebrated. A few years ago, one of my team members frantically maximized Excel as I walked into his office. As I began discussing a technical issue with him, sounds of gunfire, grenades, and general human suffering erupted from his speakers. I had a difficult decision to make while recovering from my brief initial confusion: Do I acknowledge what was already mutually embarrassing and awkward, or do I ignore the obvious? I decided to conduct our technical discussion with the idyllic calm of a wartime correspondent. To his credit, I now know that should push come to shove, my team member could calmly discuss a spec during Armageddon without batting an eyelash.

As you can see, Microsoft employees are often just as befuddled as everyone else. It would blow your mind if you could hear how frequently basic Office tips are shared in my hallway at work. Spend a day here, and you’ll find it impossible to believe that we’re all Office mavens marching lockstep towards a streamlined plan for world dominion.

Then again, Office 2007 is far easier to use. I’m impressed by the many improvements in its user interface. So in a funny way, perhaps we’re no longer as harmless as we used to be. World dominion may be within our grasp after all.

If we could only remember to attach our plan in email…

Office Groove 2007 is a collaboration software program that helps teams work together dynamically and effectively, even if team members work for different organizations, work remotely, or work offline.

Working in Groove workspaces saves time, increases productivity, and strengthens the quality of team deliverables. Office Groove 2007 is just one example of how the 2007 Microsoft Office system helps teams and organizations collaborate more effectively.

Work together dynamically
Keep your team, tools, files, and information in one place.

Create a Groove workspace right on your computer with two clicks.
Invite your colleagues, partners, and customers without worrying about networks or servers.
Add tools to support your team’s evolving needs: file-sharing, discussions, meetings, business forms, and more.

Stay productive anywhere, online or offline
Update team information in the office, at a customer site, on the road, and from home.

All Groove workspaces, tools, and information are stored right on your computer.
Work productively anywhere you’ve got your laptop, whether you’re connected to a network or not.
Automatic synchronization keeps you and your team members up to date.

Streamline content creation
Share, revise, and publish files all from a single workspace.

Exchange document changes with your team members easily and efficiently.
Use integrated alerts and contextual communication tools to shorten review cycles.
Publish completed documents to SharePoint document libraries with one click for workflow, storage, and retrieval.

Out-of-the-box integration with other Microsoft Programs
Tap into Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007, and Microsoft Office Communicator to enhance team collaboration.

Synchronize an Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 document library with Office Groove 2007. Collaborate on files in Office Groove 2007 and publish to Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 when you’re done.
Import your InfoPath forms into Office Groove 2007. Collect and track structured data in your team workspace, and export or synchronize results with enterprise systems.
Make a phone call or start an instant messaging session from a Groove workspace using the 2005 or 2007 versions of Office Communicator.

How do you Groove?

Check out Living Without Meat”.