Office Tweaks

Get the BList

There’s lots of different list-generators out there… lots of different ways to control your to do lists. They’re not as easy to share though, and you can’t embed anything into those lists. But, what if there was a product that let you do just that? Embed a Word document or a photo right next to a name in a spreadsheet, or add a whole table of extra info into one single row?

With blist, you can do just that! blist is a free online database and spreadsheet application designed for easy information sharing and collaboration online.

blist might look like a spreadsheet, but it has the smarts of a standalone database application because it allows you to create “lenses” to display only the data matching certain conditions, such as “Canada” in an address field. I am not at all a database geek, but even I know that a “lens” is what I’ve always called a “query”, or sometimes a filter.

There’s three ways you can create a blist - by searching through the database of current lists (even if you make your list private, the headers and format can still be seen), starting from scratch and creating your own, or by uploading an existing Excel XLS file (the Excel 2007 XLSX format isn’t supported), or a CSV file exported from Excel.

This is so easy, I’m thinking I might lean further into this rather than using a Google spreadsheets. We’ll see…

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By Colleen Coplick -- 4 comments

SlideShare comes to PowerPoint, Keynote

SlideShare, the online community for presentations, noticed that in order to upload your PowerPoint presentations to the site, you had to take several steps. Save, compress, log in, upload etc etc… something that takes that many steps is something I’m not likely to do if I’m in the middle of a hectic day.

To combat that, SlideShare has created a Ribbon for PowerPoint 2007 to make uploading your presentation a one-click “Publish” feature.

Not only can you upload your presentations quickly and easily, you can also download other’s presentations and edit them, directly in PowerPoint. I don’t know about you guys, but I get a lot of inspiration from other slides.

But that’s not all. You see, this nifty little feature only works for Office 2007’s PowerPoint. So what about Keynote? This was one of SlideShare’s most requested features, ever. We clamored for it, they built it. There’s one extra step for Keynote users to upload their presentations, and that’s to compress as .zip, something that you likely do anyways.

Much like PowerPoint 2007, you can also download slides into Keynote and edit them, or simply browse to get inspiration.

I’m a huge fan of anything that makes me more efficient, more productive and includes little tweaks like this one. It’s actually rather brilliant.

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By Colleen Coplick -- 0 comments

Microsoft’s Stranglehold on Office Suites

Despite what I said yesterday about only 1% of users actually using Google Docs, it seems that this isn’t really a deterrent to other pundits thinking that perhaps Microsoft has something to worry about.

The fact that Microsoft has been talking about releasing the next version of Office for oh so long, it’s not like we don’t have options anymore. We used to need Office in order to be productive, but not so much anymore with suites like Open Office, Zoho, and Google Docs available.

Now, I love Google Docs, and I have to admit, I’m not using it nearly as much as I should be considering how much I adore it. I suspect it’s that ‘old habits die hard’ axiom.

Don Reisinger has introduced me to a new suite that I wasn’t aware of yet - ThinkFree Office Online.  It sounds fantastic, and I actually can’t wait to check it out.  What impressed me about ThinkFree Office Online is the praise Don heaped on it:

ThinkFree Online offers all the “must-have” features available in Microsoft Office like a rich toolbar, a ruler bar, and an interface that offers simplicity and delivers the same feel as Word, Excel, or Powerpoint. Creating a document is simple and working with spreadsheets is a treat thanks to the tens of thousands of rows it provides, along with just about any formula that comes to mind. [source]

I’m thinking at this point, it might be time to switch. I’m pretty sure Microsoft Office has something to be concerned about with all the online, open source and free options out there. Maybe Google Docs has something to worry about in ThinkFree as well….

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By Colleen Coplick -- 2 comments

Q&A with Office Tweaks

I took over this site officially on November 17th, and I’m still finding my way around the news sites and places I can find information to blog about on this site.

I’ve gone through some of the archives, and checked out as many of the keywords that I could access to see what is bringing people here. I’ve got a couple of things percolating, but I want to know what is bringing you to this site? What are you looking for, and are you finding it? Do you have questions I’m not answering?

Please let me know in the comments or by emailing me (contact info is over on the right), and let me know what you want to know about. What are you wondering, needing, looking for?

I look forward to hearing from you guys!

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By Colleen Coplick -- 1 comment

Only 1% of people are using Google Docs

I’ve spent a lot of time poking around for interesting tips and tidbits to share with you here, and some of it makes me roll my eyes and exclaim at my computer that something “isn’t news!!” but this little statistic made me sit up and take notice.

Now, I love google docs. I’ve got manuscripts living there, the ability to work on them offline as well as when I’m on, and the spreadsheets generally rock my world, not to mention that watching someone else edit the document you’re editing at the same time can make me lose hours at a time!

Because of this, I was surprised to find out that the survey completed recently by market research firm, Clickstream Technologies found out that not only is Google Docs useage low compared to other suites, of the 2,400 standing panel of US internet users who did use Google Docs also used Microsoft Office at the same time.

I never really thought about it, and I don’t have Office installed on this computer, but I did put Open Office in when I needed to open a word document. I am trying to figure out if that’s because old habits die hard and I forget that I can do all that work I would normally do in Office, I can do in Google Docs, or that it just doesn’t occur to me (which actually seems kinda like the same thing).

So, are you a Google Docs user? Do you still use a locally based office suite as well?

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By Colleen Coplick -- 2 comments

Office online - you’re gonna have to chill

If you’re waiting to get your hands on office online, you’re going to have to just keep on waiting. Turns out that less than 1,000 Microsoft employees are currently using office online as part of a test that’s slated to go through till February, at least.  Consumers will get the opportunity to check the Office online out sometime in 2009, when however, remains to be seen.

Not much has been said about when Office Online will be ready, or, for that matter, even when consumers will actually be able to start playing with it. Ideally,  consumers will get a peek at office online when Office 14 finally comes out, but who knows when that will be.

End result? If you’re waiting for Office Online, you should probably not hold your breath.

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By Colleen Coplick -- 0 comments

Zoho Goes to the Cloud

Cloud computing is the latest ‘thing’. It’s hot shit at the moment, and I think it’s probably the way of the future. The web company I work with for all of my projects, Redwerks, used cloud computing for the Eckert Tolle/Oprah event. The Oprah site crashed, Eckhert’s site stayed up. Cloud is the way of the future.

And now, Zoho has opened themselves up to an SQL database. You can now:

• Use SQL to interact with your business data stored across Zoho services
• Use any major SQL dialect (ANSI, Oracle, SQL Server, IBM DB2, MySQL and more)
• Support for JDBC and ODBC drivers for transparent and easy connectivity
• Implement in both traditional in house software and hosted/SaaS (Software as a Service) applications

Essentially, you can now access your business data stored on the zoho cloud through an SQL database, which means that your data will rarely be unreachable and Zoho shouldn’t go down. Shouldn’t.

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By Colleen Coplick -- 1 comment

Monitoring Out-of-Office Messages

I will be the first one to admit it when I think I’m missing the point entirely, and that’s the case now.  I’m confused…. maybe you guys can shed some light?

I get the Microsoft Tips & Tricks daily tips email. Sometimes, like today, it provides me with  sometimes helpful little tidbits that I can turn into much like this one. And today’s.

Today, the Tips and Tricks says that you can monitor out-of-office messages using Outlook. The theory is that the  first time you send an e-mail message to someone who has turned on his or her out-of-office notification, you’ll receive an automated e-mail message to inform you. But…. here’s the think. Wouldn’t you *know* that someone has turned on their out of office notifications? Do you seriously need to “monitor” them?

The main point of this email is that you can create a rule that triggers a desktop alert so you can spot an out-of-office notification right away. Here’s the thing though, I generally have the little notification desktop thing running anyways - the one that floats the subject message and the first few lines of the message on the screen - and so if it was urgent, and I saw the out of office come in right away…. I’d know. Do I really need a rule to create yet another desktop alert?

Is this actually useful or overkill? Would this be something you’d actually use?

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By Colleen Coplick -- 0 comments

Turn Any 2-D Shape into a 3-D Object

PowerPoint 2007  is a pretty sweet little program. There’s lots of things that you can do with it, but the tip I just found that made me go “cool!” was how to turn a 2-D flat shape into a 3-D object.

Here’s how:

1. With the slide open, click the Insert tab, and then select any shape from the Shapes ribbon, or select a shape you have created yourself.
2. Click the slide’s surface to add the shape to the slide.
3. Right-click the shape, and then click Format Shape.
4. Select a solid or gradient fill. This step is not required but will enhance the 3-D look of your object.
5. Transform your shape into a 3-D object. You can add depth, bevel, contour, and surface type via the 3-D Format tab.
6. Give perspective to your 3-D shape by rotating the object via the 3-D Rotation tab.

Et voila! You’ve now got a 3-D object in your slide!

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By Colleen Coplick -- 0 comments

Google Gears

In an effort to be productive, even when I can’t find internet access, I’ve installed Google Gears in order to give me that extra added little boost.

So what is Gears and where can you get it to work? It’s this fantastic little plug in that Google created, which serves up offline content or provide you with content based on your geographical location. I use Gears primarily for offline use of  Google docs and Google Reader (the most recent 2,000 items). Gears was designed to be used on both Google and non-Google sites. Remember the Milk and the Zoho Office Suite have been using Gears since it’s launch. Personally, I don’t think I could live without Gears now, it’s simply just far too useful.

Installing and using Gears is super fast and easy.  You’ll have to be connected to the internet when you do this of course, because it does require a download. You can get Gears here, and then simply save the file somewhere you’ll remember it. Then, open the file and install it like you would any program.  You’ll need to restart your browser for Gears to activate.

Once you’ve got the plug in installed, you’ll see a little green down arrow like this:

That indicates that you’ve got Gears installed, and when you click on it, you’ll start the download of offline content. I’m actually going through this for Google Reader, but Gears is a pretty intuitive plug in. When you use a site that plays nicely with Gears, you’ll be asked if you want to allow the site to use Gears. If you’d like to enable Gears for the site, check ‘I trust this site. Allow it to use Gears,’ and click the Allow button.

So, if you’re in Google Reader, and you ask the site to go offline, you get this box.

Wait for the download to finish, and Presto! You’re offline. (Ok, I totally stole that from Boingo, but that made me giggle yesterday when the box popped up and told me that Presto! I was online!).

Once you’ve got all the sites you want set up for offline use, simply open your browser and go to the site to use. Gears will serve up your offline information and you’re good to go.

One note of caution: when you’re using Google Docs (and I’m guessing it’s the same for Zoho) offline, you won’t be able to create new documents. You’ll only be able to edit and work on the documents you created when you were online.

(image source: Google Reader via screenshot)

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By Colleen Coplick -- 1 comment