PowerPoint is a staple of the Microsoft Office suite. While PowerPoint is just one of many presentation software options, it has ascended to the ranks of Coke, Kleenex, Band-Aids, and Google as the de facto leader in its field. The word “PowerPoint” is used in a generic sense to refer to presentations and presentation software in general.
Microsoft recently unveiled the new Microsoft Office suite--Office 2013--and with it PowerPoint 2013. Having played with the new PowerPoint for a couple weeks now, here are some of my first impressions.
PowerPoint 2013 starts by presenting a variety of themes and templates to choose from.There are still plenty of people using Office 2007, Office 2003, or even Office XP or Office 97 because it takes care of their basic needs. The challenge for Microsoft when it develops a new version of its software is to add value without simply bloating the software with frivolous features to justify calling it a new version. It hasn’t always succeeded.
Are you in the market for a new smartphone? Have patience. If you get a smartphone now, you may very well regret it in a few months.
Why? Well, the smartphone landscape will most likely be quite different by October or November as Apple and Microsoft are expected to launch their next generation smartphones.
The rumor mill is in high gear speculating about the next generation iPhone.There are--as always--a wide variety of iPhone rumors floating around. It will be bigger--longer, but not Samsung Galaxy Note or even Samsung Galaxy SIII bigger. It will be 4G / LTE. It will have NFC. It will use a smaller connector for charging and syncing. It will be called the “New iPhone” instead of the “iPhone 5”.
Office 2013 will soon be here, along with a new and improved version of the cloud-based Office 365. If you’re looking to upgrade, you have to decide whether the traditional desktop version of Office is the way to go, or if Office 365 is a better fit for your needs.
There are a few compelling arguments in favor of Office 365. Let’s take a look at three reasons Office 365 might be the right choice:
Office 2013 is impressive, but Office 365 is a better value in most cases.1. Cost
Microsoft revealed the date this week when it plans to start collecting on its bets. As of October 26--the official release date for Windows 8--all the cards will be on the table, and we will see if the gamble will pay off or not.
What gamble? Microsoft has a lot riding on Windows 8.
A successful Windows 8 could lead to a resurgence of Internet Explorer.Internet Explorer 9 only works with Windows Vista and Windows 7. Its successor--Internet Explorer 10--will only work with Windows 7 and Windows 8. The next generation of the Microsoft Office productivity suite is also limited to Windows 7 and Windows 8. PCs that aren’t running Windows 7 or Windows 8 are being left in the dust by Microsoft.
A few months ago Facebook rolled out a new feature called Interest Lists. On top of enabling users to follow specific topics on Facebook, Interest Lists also provide you with a means of promoting yourself and driving traffic to your own Facebook page or profile.
The basic concept of the Interest List is similar to creating lists in Twitter, or Circles in Google+. You can organize related profiles and pages together in an Interest List. Sure, you can also simply friend, or subscribe to each of the pages and profiles from the list individually, but the Interest List has two advantages over that system.
If you build a worthy Interest List, Facebook users will flock to it.First, Interest Lists make it easier to follow topic-specific content without cluttering up your main Facebook newsfeed. The top posts from your Interest Lists will appear in your feed, but most will not. You can view the complete catalog of posts by selecting a specific list from the Interests section in the left pane of the Facebook home page.
Microsoft launched a consumer preview of the new Microsoft Office suite this week. Traditionally, the core Microsoft Office elements have been Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, but OneNote has developed into a fourth pillar of the Microsoft productivity suite. In fact, Microsoft has put OneNote front and center as the poster child of the new mobile, touch-friendly Office.
First--in case you’re coming late to the party--let’s try to define what OneNote is. We all know Word is for word processing, Excel is a spreadsheet program, and PowerPoint makes slideshow presentations. OneNote, however, is a bit more difficult to label so succinctly.
OneNote is one of the shining stars of the new Microsoft Office 2013.The shortest answer is “It’s a digital notebook,” but that just leads to the question, “And why would I want a digital notebook?” The better answer is that it’s a powerful, versatile tool for organizing just about anything. It’s the application you turn to for jotting down to-do lists, capturing notes during a presentation, or recording the random ideas that run through your head so you can refer to them later after your brain has erased all traces of the original thought. You can store, organize, and search text, audio, video, photos, and handwriting.
The preview of Office 2013 was launched today, but I’ve had a few days to work with the new software. Here are my first impressions of Outlook 2013--the new e-mail, calendar, and contact hub of Microsoft Office.
Uncluttered and Quick
When I fired up Outlook 2013 for the first time, the first thing I noticed is that it’s cleaner. Outlook 2010 has four panes in the e-mail view--a navigation pane on the left, the Inbox pane, a reading or preview pane that displays the current message, and a pane on the right with a calendar and task list. In Outlook 2013 Microsoft has narrowed it down to just two--the Inbox pane and reading pane--and reduced the left pane to a small menu bar with icons.
