microsoft

Attention all MS Office users -- Frustrated by MS Word? Excel just doesn't seem to add up? Feel powerless using PowerPoint and MS Outlook? Enough already! Learn MS Office: The Easy Way Our very own Carol Bratt has done it again -- and just in time ... for the holiday season! Whether you're an MS Office veteran or just beginning to learn the ropes, Carol's new Tips and Tricks eBook series on MS Office 2007 is just for you! If you've ever used the cumbersome help menu in any of the MS Office suites, then you know just how frustrating it can be when you can't find what you're searching for, or the ... (view more)

Somewhat contrary to a report from eweek.com regarding the Microsoft Trustworthy Computing Team's claim that Microsoft Vista is far more secure than Windows XP, Linux and Mac OS X, Microsoft has released a 47-page microsoft.com detailing Vista ... Service Pack 1 (SP1) which describes more than 300 hot fixes covering everything from data protection to video performance. (Source: informationweek.com ) Microsoft says the 47-page document is not exhaustive since they plan to add more fixes and patches to the final version of Vista SP1 before it's released to the public early next year. Among the ... (view more)

Microsoft acquired Multimap on Wednesday, a leading provider of location-based services in Europe. The privately-owned British company is one of the United Kingdom's top 100 technology firms, and was an early pioneer in online mapping for the island ... country. According to the Times of London, the deal is worth $50 million dollars, half of which will go to Multimap's founder Sean Phelan. (Source: timesonline.co.uk ) The website is the second most popular online destination in its class in the UK, trailing Google Maps and leading Microsoft's Live Search Maps (which came in fifth). This is the ... (view more)

Microsoft has announced they will soon be testing Windows XP on the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) "$100 laptop". It's all part of a project to produce computers so cheaply that it can be donated to children in the developing world. Despite the ... nickname, the machine currently costs $188 to produce. Known as the XO, it's designed to be sturdy enough to work under a variety of conditions such as in extremely warm or cold countries. (Source: laptopgiving.org ) James Utzschneider of Microsoft says he'll be meeting the team behind the XO this week. He says reports that Windows already works ... (view more)

Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox browser, have dismissed a Microsoft study claiming Internet Explorer has fewer security problems. The study was produced by Jeff Jones, a Microsoft security researcher. He compared the publicly-announced ... problems of both new and old versions of both browsers. His figures say that in the past three years, Internet Explorer has had 87 'vulnerabilities' (potential security problems that need fixing), while Firefox has had 199. He also found that Microsoft was improving security at a quicker pace; looking at vulnerabilities for each version of a browser in ... (view more)

A question-and-answer period held during a recent Microsoft shareholders meeting resulted in executives being asked to address recent stock sales by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, board member Jon Shirley, and other executives following a sharp ... increase in the stock a few weeks ago. (Source: Seattle PI ) One shareholder, Peter Schroeder of Seattle, said the talk out of Wall Street is that this showed a certain lack of confidence in the future of where the company is going, also noting that the stock has been slipping in recent days. Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer retorted that there' ... (view more)

Microsoft has announced a Word plug-in to make it easier for visually impaired users to use its program. The plug-in will read Word 2003 and 2007 files out loud, and will also convert files from Open XML (the standard format used to save Word 2007 ... files) into DAISY, a format which is easier to use for producing digital audio files. DAISY (Digital Accessible Information Service) is a not-for-profit group based in Zurich, Switzerland. Formed by "talking books libraries," DAISY promotes open standards to make it easier to produce digital files. (Source: Guardian.co.uk ) Reed Shaffner, ... (view more)

It's been another happy week for Microsoft, as the company celebrates the fifth anniversary of Xbox Live, the online service that connects millions of consoles around the world. Unfortunately, not everyone is so ecstatic for Redmond; in fact, a ... class action lawsuit has now been revealed, slamming Microsoft and Live for renewing subscriptions without permission. The lawsuit is being led by Georgia resident Francisco Garcia, father of an underage gamer who first purchased a subscription with his debit card. That initial charge was $49.99 in October of 2005, enough to provide the kid with ... (view more)

Microsoft's blog site dedicated to Internet Explorer (IE) indicates that the company is planning to ditch the 'Click to Activate' control setting on future versions of IE. This concludes a long standing patent dispute between Microsoft Corporation ... and Eolas Technologies Inc, which has caused a lot of disruption for website developers over the past 4 years. (Source: msdn.com ) An undisclosed licensing agreement will allow Microsoft to remove a go-around measure it implemented in IE 7.0 which prompted users to select the 'Click to Activate' function rather than automatically loading up ActiveX ... (view more)

On Friday, Microsoft announced a new program to help put more second-hand computers pre-loaded with Windows in the hands of consumers. Building on the success of its 'Community Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher' program, which helps deliver used PCs ... with authorized copies of Windows to charities, educational institutions, and nonprofits, the software giant announced a similar program for commercial businesses that resell computers. Prior to this announcement most PCs that entered the 'used' market were shipped without an operating system, because Microsoft required the units to have both their ... (view more)