After a lengthy phase of beta testing, Microsoft finally unleashed its long-awaited update to the Office 2007 desktop productivity suite.

Office 2010 includes a number of new features, among them a redesigned menu system, improved inline multimedia editing, real-time collaboration, improved security settings and — perhaps the biggest of them all — a cloud-based web apps component that aims to compete with Google Docs.

The online component of Office 2010 includes web-based versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote. They’re largely positioned as companion apps to their full desktop counterparts, making them arguably less powerful as standalone services than existing cloud champions Google Docs or Zoho.

Never one to sit idly by, Google has already launched the first volley in the coming Office Wars by suggesting Office 2007 users would be better served by “upgrading” to Google Docs instead. Still, with an enormous existing base of business Office users, Microsoft will undoubtedly benefit from its incumbent position in the marketplace. Nor have things been totally rosy for Google Docs uptake lately, with Yale University and UC Davis recently dumping the search giant’s cloud services over privacy and security concerns.

Nevertheless, a number of schools are embracing Google services in order to reap all the advantages that come with productivity in the cloud. Will the online component of Microsoft Office 2010 be enough to stave off the competition from Google, Zoho and others? It remains to be seen, but it’s certainly a sign of the times that the once staunchly desktop-chained Office suite has put its head firmly into the cloud.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/en/default…

Did you know that a simple upgrade like adding more memory to your computer can sometimes boost performance substantially?  With the operating systems of today and the applications we run like any word processing applications or spreadsheets are demanding more memory. If you don’t have at least 1gb of memory, your not fully utilizing the performance of your computer.

Windows 7 was officially released to the public on October 22, 2009. I’ve been fortunate to have been running it since its beta release back in February. Since then I have formed a personal and professional opinion about the new OS from Microsoft and I have to say that they seem to have finally gotten this one right. This is the OS to finally upgrade to.

If you are currently running Windows XP and have been afraid to upgrade to Vista, fear no more because this upgrade will be worth it. It is faster, runs smoother, boots up faster and shutsdown quicker as well. Its loaded with tons of great features that provide a really nice user experience.

I have been recommending Windows 7 to my friends, family, co-workers, peers and my clients. Even if you have older hardware, Windows 7 just may be the ticket to breathing new life into that old PC. Send us an email or give us a call if you would like to discuss Windows 7 for your computer.

As Apple gets ready to preview its new software developers’ kit and an updated iPhone operating system next week, there could be some changes to the company’s App Store too.

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For years I have been using a windows mobile device for my emails and web browsing. I started off initially with the AT&T 8125 which was a mobile device with a slide out keyboard. This phone I liked but then as technology progressed it was upgraded to the 8525 model which had a faster processor. Finally the last phone I just ended up was the tilt aka htc tytn ii. This phone was probably my favorite windows mobile phone to date, but I felt that something was missing.

At about the time I had moved to he tilt I had bought my wife the first generation iPhone. Now this is a person that is not tech savvy and felt like she wouldn’t have a use for such a phone, but she went along. After using her iPhone for about a couple of weeks she couldn’t believe how easy it was to use and how functional it was for her.

After experiencing this and noticing how responsive the user interface was, I decided to get one for myself and after two months of using it, I think I actually like it better than windows mobile. I think mostly because the interface is more responsive plus looks cleaner, and I love the on screen keyboard. In fact, I just wrote this whole post from my iPhone. Has anyone else had a similar or better experience moving from another mobile device to the iPhone? I’d like to hear about it!

I thought I would share a quick little favorite of mine that I always use. It’s called Google Browser Sync. If you are like me and have collected hundreds of bookmarks over the years, this is a perfect backup for your bookmarks. This little plug-in works using a Gmail account and backs up and saves all your bookmarks in Firefox as well as saves the tabs that you had open just before you close your browser. The next time you open your browser, Google Browser Sync asks you if you want to open the tabs from your prior session.

Another bonus is if you have multiple computers with Firefox installed and Google Browser Sync, your bookmarks and tabs follow you!

Here is a link to the site where you can download the plugin: http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/browsersync/

Check it out and let me know what you think.

• Disable AV software

  It seems that some antivirus (AV) software causes the SP3 install to
  hang, while the installer seems fine with others. Disable AV software
  before beginning the install process.

• Uninstall beta/RC versions of SP3

  It’s a good idea to get rid of these earlier versions. If
  you’re having problems removing them, try ininstalling previous
  versions through Safe Mode.

• Uninstall IE8

  SP3 won’t play nicely on systems that have IE8 installed.

• Update drivers

  Might help, especially if your system is running really old drivers.

• Disable unnecessary startup applications

  It’s not just AV software that can cause SP3 problems. If
  you’re having problems getting SP3 to install then disabling as
  many unnecessary startup applications as you can might help.

• Possible solution to endless reboots

  Windows blogger Jesper Johansson offers some advice for thiose suffering endless reboots when trying to install SP3.

After multiple attempts on installing XP3 on my system, the trick for my computer was to disable my antivirus software.

If you are getting any of the following errors then this page on the Microsoft KnowledgeBase site might help:

• Service Pack 3 Setup Error

  You do not have enough free disk space on %SystemDrive% to install Service Pack 3.

• Service Pack 3 Setup Error

  You do not have enough free disk space on %SystemDrive% to archive the uninstall files.

• Service Pack 3 setup error. Access is denied.
• Service Pack 3 setup error. Service Pack installation did not complete
• You do not have permission to update Windows XP. Please contact a system administrator.
• Digital Signature Not Found

  The Microsoft digital signature affirms that software has been tested
  with Windows and that the software has not been altered since it was
  tested.

  The software you are about to install does not contain a Microsoft
  digital signature. Therefore, there is no guarantee that this software
  works correctly with Windows.

  Name of software package

  If you want to search for Microsoft digitally signed software, visit
  the Windows Update Web site at http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com to
  see if one is available.

  Do you want to continue the installation?

• Microsoft Windows

  The signature on the software package you want to install is invalid. The software package is not signed properly.

• Name of Update Package

  The cryptographic operation failed due to a local security option setting.

• Name of Update Package

  Setup could not verify the integrity of the file Update.inf. Make sure the Cryptographic service is running on this computer.

• Failed to install catalog files.
• The software you are installing has not passed Windows Logo testing
  to verify its compatibility with Windows XP. (Tell me why this testing
  is important.)

  This software will not be installed. Contact your system administrator.

• The software you are installing has not passed Windows Logo testing
  to verify its compatibility with this version of Windows. (Tell me why
  this testing is important.)
• Service Pack 1 Setup could not verify the integrity of the file. Make sure the Cryptographic service is running on this computer
• The software has not passed Windows logo testing and will not be installed.
• Service Pack 3 installation did not complete
• An internal error occurred
• This Service Pack requires the machine to be on AC Power before setup starts.
• Service Pack 3 Setup has been canceled because Microsoft Shared
  Computer Toolkit for Windows XP is not compatible with this version of
  Windows. Before you can continue, you must: 1) Uninstall Microsoft
  Shared Computer Toolkit 2) (Optional) Install Windows SteadyState, the
  newer version of Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit. For more detailed
  information, go to the Shared Access page on the Microsoft Web site.
• Service Pack 3 Setup has been canceled because Windows XP SP3
  cannot be installed over RDP 6.0 MUI PACK (Update for Windows XP
  (KB925877)). Before you can continue, you must Uninstall KB925877.
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 cannot be applied
  to Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs (WinFLP). A unique SP3 update
  package for WinFLP will be made available at download.microsoft.com.
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 cannot be applied
  to Windows Embedded for Point of Service (WEPOS). A unique SP3 update
  package for WEPOS will be made available at download.microsoft.com.
• Setup cannot continue because one or more prerequisites required to
  install Service Pack 3 failed. For More details check the Log File
  Drive_Letter :\windows\svcpack.log.
• Setup has detected that another update is in progress. Please complete that installation or removal and try again.

Does anyone else have a different experience? We would like to hear from you.

I’m sure most people have a few websites that they visit on a weekly or even a daily basis only to find out that there is nothing new to read. Going from site to site, typing in each website address or clicking on your bookmarks or shortcuts. Instead of going out to 10 or even 100 different wesbites to see what is new and exciting, how about if you could see all your favorite websites all on one page and only one place to visit for all the updates on your favorite websites that you would normally be visiting manually?

Let me introduce to you a technology that you may have not heard of, its called Really Simple Syndication or RSS for short. Its everywhere, and most likely available on all your favorite sites.

Here’s how it works:

First get a RSS reader, this part is easy. Lets start of with some choices that are free and pretty effective. There is Google’s Reader application, Bloglines, and Yahoo. There are other free readers, many online versions and many that you install on your computer. I am only mentioning these three just to keep it simple and give you a general idea on how RSS works and how you can try it out without costing anything but a few minutes of your time. I already have a Google email account, so I mainly use Google’s Reader, its simple, quick and gets the job done. Plus I can view my RSS feeds via my Windows Mobile device, so I have it on the go if needed.

So you’ve picked one and signed up, now all you have to do is add your feeds to your reader or what the industry calls “subscribing”. You may have seen a logo like the ones below:

Click on an icon respective to the reader you have signed up for and your browser should ask you to login to your feed reader site. After which you can organize your feeds into categories or folders or anything that makes sense to you. Now when the web site author updates their web site with new information, that will automatically be displayed in your feed reader for your reading pleasure and all in one location.

Here is an pretty good video explanation on RSS feeds that I found a while back:

Toshiba this week said it plans before April to ship a 128 GB solid-state drive that will appear first in Toshiba notebooks sold in Japan. The drive, which has no moving parts, achieves the unusually high capacity at a lower cost than most SSDs through the use of multi-level cell NAND flash technology.

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Looks like all those rumors yesterday were true — Microsoft has just posted up the official standalone version of Vista SP1

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