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Archive for the ‘Software’ Category

Mozilla this morning introduced the Alpha release of the next version of its mobile browser Fennec for Android and Nokia N900.
Fennec, which serves as the codename for Firefox mobile, comes with
add-ons and is also built on the same technology that powers Firefox for the desktop.

An earlier version had surfaced back in April this year.

Fennec Alpha for Android and Nokia N900 comes with Firefox Sync built right into the browser, which means your smartphone browsing experience should closely match the one on your desktop.

Thanks to Firefox Sync, Fennec is able to synchronize your Firefox
history, bookmarks, open tabs, passwords and form data between your
desktop and mobile. Just login with your Firefox Sync account info and
Fennec will recognize you.

Apart from that, Mozilla says the main focus of this release is to
increase performance and responsiveness to user actions. From the blog
post:

This is being implemented using two major technologies,
“Electrolysis” and “Layers.” This Alpha release includes Electrolysis,
which allows the browser interface to run in a separate process from
the one rendering Web content. By doing this, Fennec is able to react
much faster to user input while pages are loading or CPU intensive
JavaScript is running.

The upcoming beta release will start taking advantage of Layers to
greatly improve performance in graphic intensive actions like
scrolling, zooming, animations and video. We’re also working to
optimize these actions using the hardware-accelerated graphics
rendering capabilities showing up in today’s mobile devices.

No word on the launch date of that upcoming beta release, though.

Release notes are here.

Important: Mozilla says that Fennec, although compatible with
Android 2.0 and above devices, has been optimized for the Nexus One.

For more information concerning the purchase and setup of android based phones call 678pc at 678-404-1001 for a free estimate. 

678PC is located in Gwinnett County and services phones in all of Metro Atlanta. 

Sale of phones throughout the US

Windows
7 adds loads of great shortcuts for switching between apps, moving
windows around your screen, moving them to another monitor altogether,
and much more. Here’s a quick-reference master list of the best new
Windows 7 shortcuts.

We’re nuts for keyboard shortcuts here at
Lifehacker, and Windows 7 brings a handful of great new ones to add to
your muscle memory. It’s also got a few handy mouse-based shortcuts
you’d do well to add to your repertoire. So let’s get shortcuttin’.

Window Management Shortcuts

One of the best changes in Windows 7 is the ability to “snap”
windows to the side of the screen, maximize them by dragging to the top
of the screen, or even move them to another monitor with a shortcut
key. Check out the video for a demonstration of how some of the keys
work.

The full list of keyboard shortcuts includes:

• Win+Home: Clear all but the active window.
• Win+Space: All windows become transparent so you can see through to the desktop.
• Win+Up arrow: Maximize the active window.
• Shift+Win+Up arrow: Maximize the active window vertically.
• Win+Down arrow: Minimize the window/Restore the window if it’s maximized.
• Win+Left/Right arrows: Dock the window to each side of the monitor.
• Shift+Win+Left/Right arrows: Move the window to the monitor on the left or right.

You can also interact with windows by dragging them with the mouse:

• Drag window to the top: Maximize
• Drag window left/right: Dock the window to fill half of the screen.
• Shake window back/forth: Minimize everything but the current window.
• Double-Click Top Window Border (edge): Maximize window vertically.

Taskbar Shortcuts

In Windows 7, using the Windows key along with the numbers 1-9 will
let you interact with the applications pinned to the taskbar in those
positions – for example, the Windows key + 4 combination would launch
Outlook in this example, or Win+Alt+4 can be used to get quick access to the Outlook Jump List from the keyboard.

You can use any of these shortcut combinations to launch the applications in their respective position on the taskbar, or more:

• Win+number (1-9): Starts the application pinned to the taskbar in that position, or switches to that program.
• Shift+Win+number (1-9): Starts a new instance of the application pinned to the taskbar in that position.
• Ctrl+Win+number (1-9): Cycles through open windows for the application pinned to the taskbar in that position.
• Alt+Win+number (1-9): Opens the Jump List for the application pinned to the taskbar.
• Win+T: Focus and scroll through items on the taskbar.
• Win+B: Focuses the System Tray icons

In addition, you can interact with the taskbar using your mouse and a modifier key:

• Shift+Click on a taskbar button: Open a program or quickly open another instance of a program.
• Ctrl+Shift+Click on a taskbar button: Open a program as an administrator.
• Shift+Right-click on a taskbar button: Show the window menu for the program (like XP does).
• Shift+Right-click on a grouped taskbar button: Show the window menu for the group.
• Ctrl+Click on a grouped taskbar button: Cycle through the windows of the group.

More Useful Hotkeys You Should Know

The
new hotkey goodness didn’t stop with the taskbar and moving windows
around—one of the best new hotkeys in Windows 7 is the fact that you
can create a new folder with a hotkey.
Just open up any Windows Explorer window, hit the Ctrl+Shift+N shortcut
key sequence, and you’ll be rewarded with a shiny “New Folder” ready
for you to rename.

Here’s a few more interesting hotkeys for you:

• Ctrl+Shift+N: Creates a new folder in Windows Explorer.
• Alt+Up: Goes up a folder level in Windows Explorer.
• Alt+P: Toggles the preview pane in Windows Explorer.
• Shift+Right-Click on a file: Adds Copy as Path, which copies the path of a file to the clipboard.
• Shift+Right-Click on a file: Adds extra hidden items to the Send To menu.
• Shift+Right-Click on a folder: Adds Command Prompt Here, which lets you easily open a command prompt in that folder.
• Win+P: Adjust presentation settings for your display.
• Win+(+/-): Zoom in/out.
• Win+G: Cycle between the Windows Gadgets on your screen.

If you need help upgrading or using Windows 7 please dont hesitate to call 678PC today (678)404-1001
Serving Metro Atlanta, Gwinnett County, and Surrounding areas.  Lawrenceville, Snellville, Buford, Suwanee, etc

Windows
7 officially launches today, but we’ve been testing, tweaking,
customizing, fixing, and writing about this OS for a year now. We
present here a guide to everything we’ve learned about the OS, from
first install to final settings change.

Whether you’ve played
around with Windows 7 during its beta or release candidate versions,
launch day is finally here, and Windows 7 is finally ready for
widespread, public consumption. This guide will take you straight
through from system requirements and upgrading your PC to highlighting
Windows 7’s best new features to helping you hit the ground running
with all of the awesome tweaks Windows 7 has in store for you.

System Requirements

According to Microsoft:

• 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Buying, installing, and upgrading

• Figure Out Which Windows 7 Edition Has the Features You Need: Not
  everybody needs Windows 7 Ultimate, but what if there’s a certain
  feature you must have when you grab your upgrade this Thursday? CNET
  breaks down each Windows 7 edition feature by feature in a handy chart.
• Prep Your PC for Windows 7: When
  Windows 7 drops this Thursday, you can either spend many, many hours
  watching a progress bar, or you can boot into a clean, speedy system
  with that new-OS smell. Let’s get your system set up for a proper
  Windows 7 upgrade.
• Get Windows 7 Home Premium for $30 With a College Email Address: If
  you’re a U.S. college student, or at least having a working .edu email
  address, you don’t have to pay $120 to upgrade Vista to Windows 7. You
  can get the Home Premium upgrade for just $30.
• Run Windows 7 for 120 Days Without Activation: The command line code (slmgr -rearm)
  that could be entered at the end of three different 30-day periods to
  give Vista 120 days without activation works just the same in Windows 7.

Our take on Windows 7

• Top 10 Things to Look Forward to in Windows 7: Windows
  7 isn’t a dramatic overhaul of its predecessor Windows Vista, but it
  does fix several sore spots and add a few welcome features.
• Windows 7’s Best Underhyped Features: It’s
  these less sexy, but very useful features, that make me think the more
  I use Windows 7, the less chance I’ll ever use Vista or XP again.
• Windows 7 Versus Mac OS X Leopard: The Feature-by-Feature Showdown: Oh,
  I know: the Mac versus PC debate is so played out. Perhaps, but dumb
  commercials aside, if you’re deciding between buying a Mac or a PC in
  the coming months, it helps to know what you’re getting from one or the
  other.

New features

• Windows 7 Tells You Why You Can’t Touch That File: Windows
  7 doesn’t just give you a wagging finger (and pretend-useful “Try
  Again” button) when you want to move or delete a file that’s in use. It
  actually tells you which application is using the file.
• Windows 7 Lets You Customize Your Logon Background: Expert
  Windows hacker Rafael Rivera finds a change in the latest build of
  Windows 7—you can finally customize the log-on screen natively.
• Windows 7 Transfers Your Wireless Settings Easily: To
  transfer the settings for yourself, head into the Network and Sharing
  Center, click on Manage Wireless Networks, and then in the properties
  for your wireless network you’ll find the link to open the wizard that
  will copy all your settings onto a flash drive.
• How to Burn ISOs in Windows 7: Burning
  that ISO to a disc is as simple as: 1. Double-click the ISO file (or
  right-click and select Burn disc image); 2. Click Burn.
• Play Your iPod Through Your Windows 7 PC’s Speakers: You
  can play an external audio device through your computer’s speakers
  without any extra software using a simple configuration setting.
• Windows 7 Makes UAC Less Annoying Than Vista: The
  biggest change in Windows 7 is the new User Account Control “slider”
  setting, where you can choose your own balance between annoyance and
  security—but behind the scenes, Microsoft reduced the amount of actions
  that will prompt you.
• Netflix Update Comes to Windows 7 Media Center, Looks Excellent: Starting
  this week, Microsoft is rolling out an upgraded Watch Instantly
  interface to Windows 7 Media Center for users looking to get their
  streaming TV and movie fix on their upgraded PCs.
• Setup File and Printer Sharing From XP to Windows 7: This
  guide walks you through the process of enabling network discovery,
  sharing your folders and printers, and accessing your shared resources
  from either Windows 7 or XP.
• IE8 Can Proactively Close Crashing Tabs in Windows 7: The
  copy of IE8 found only in (Windows 7) has a “timer” that monitors new
  tabs as they open. If they aren’t responsive within a relatively short
  amount of time, the browser will pop up and tell you this, possibly
  with a reason why, and ask whether you want to wait or kill the tab
  before it causes further problems.
• Windows 7 Lets You Finally Uninstall Internet Explorer (Kinda): …
  It won’t completely uninstall—only the executable is actually removed.
  Still, being able to finally banish IE proper from your system is a
  pretty good start for folks who really don’t like IE.
• Windows 7 Will Let You Uninstall Most Built-In Apps: You can turn almost every built-in application on or off, including Windows Search, Gadgets, and even Media Player.

The Taskbar

• Aero Peek: Peek
  supercharges Windows’ taskbar thumbnail previews, and lets you view,
  close, and switch between multiple windows by just hovering over the
  taskbar thumbnail, as well as pin programs to the taskbar permanently.

• Pin Individual Folders to the Windows 7 Taskbar: Windows
  7’s taskbar lets you pin any running program to the taskbar for easy
  future access, but it treats folders like second-class sub-items of the
  Explorer icon. Create a fake “program” to pin individual folder
  shortcuts to your taskbar.
• Middle-Click to Close Applications from Windows 7’s Taskbar: In
  Windows 7, middle-clicking a taskbar button opens a new program
  instance. The easy solution for closing an app? Middle-click its
  preview window.
• Hold Shift While Dragging to Windows 7 Taskbar to Open Files:
  All you have to do is hold down the Shift key while dragging a file to
  an icon on the taskbar, and the tooltip will change to say “Open with”
  instead of pinning to the taskbar.
• Pin Any Item to the Windows 7 Taskbar: We already showed you how to pin specific folders, and this is just a slightly tweaked application of that method.
• Put a Recycle Bin Shortcut on the Windows 7 Taskbar: Once
  you are finished, you’ll have a separate recycle icon on the
  taskbar—useful for quick access to deleted files without having to hunt
  down an icon on your desktop.
• Get a Functional Recycle Bin on Windows 7’s Taskbar: TechSpot’s
  solution—creating a Quick Launch taskbar, removing its text and title,
  then bringing the desktop Recycle Bin icon into it—covers all the
  bases, and lets you place your Recycle Bin pretty much wherever you’d
  like on the taskbar.

Jump lists

• 
• Master Windows 7 Jump Lists to Boost Your Win7 Productivity: For
  those of you that haven’t yet tried out Windows 7, when you right-click
  on a taskbar button in Windows 7, a menu slides out with recent
  documents and application tasks. Here’s a rundown of our favorite Jump
  List boosters.
• Winfox Adds Jump Lists to Firefox on Windows 7: Jump
  Lists are one of the best new features in Windows 7, and since Firefox
  still doesn’t take advantage of them, a small utility called Winfox
  adds the feature for you.
• Win7shell Adds Windows 7 Jump List Support to Winamp: Once
  you’ve downloaded, installed the plugin, and pinned Winamp to the
  taskbar, the Jump List should immediately start tracking your recently
  played media files.

Built-in Applications

• Set Up and Use XP Mode in Windows 7: Windows
  7’s new XP Mode lets you seamlessly run virtualized applications
  alongside your regular Windows 7 applications—so your outdated software
  will continue to work.
• Calculator: While
  mathletes, scientists, coders, and statisticians will appreciate
  Windows 7’s built-in calculator’s programmer, statistics, and
  scientific modes, everyday people will love figuring out things like
  hourly wages and mortgage payments without a spreadsheet.
• PowerShell: (A) souped-up command line and scripting GUI that frees you, finally, from the limits of DOS batch scripts.
• Windows 7 Media Center’s Music Player Is Hot Hot Hot: Good
  news for music lovers excited for Windows 7: The new and improved music
  interface in Windows 7 Media Center is overflowing with eye candy and
  usability.
• Windows 7’s WordPad Opens Word 2007 DOCX Files: …
  The ribbon-style WordPad in Windows 2007 opens Word 2007 files, the
  .docx kind, pretty handily, albeit with some formatting loss.
• Backup and Restore Center: For the average user with both media and crucial file needs, Windows 7’s default backup features look promising.
• Windows 7 Guest Mode Creates Bomb-Proof Accounts: In
  the simplest terms, Guest Mode takes a snapshot of how a PC was working
  before the kid, friend, coffeeshop customer, or whoever else is using
  the Guest Mode account logs on. That user can’t do much to alter the
  system, and whatever they can do, like dropping files on the desktop,
  is discarded when they log off.
• Windows 7 Calibration and ClearType Tools Fine-Tune Your Displays: Windows 7’s color calibration and ClearType tools might be good enough for non-graphic-designers to stick with.

Themes, wallpapers, and login screens

• Windows 7 Beta’s Many Free and Legit Themes: Microsoft is offering 20 fresh themes (in Windows 7). Here’s a closer look.
• Grab Every Region’s Windows 7 Wallpapers in One Download: Microsoft
  allowed Windows Vista Magazine to bundle up every wallpaper from
  Windows 7’s regional releases and, boy, we’re glad they did. One file
  brings a lot of new looks to any desktop, Windows 7 or otherwise.
• Secret Registry Hack Customizes Windows 7 Logon “Button Set”: Rafael
  Rivera, the same expert Windows hacker that figured out how to
  customize your Windows 7 logon background, finds another hack that
  changes the UI to look better with darker background images.
• Microsoft Releases More Free Windows 7 Theme Downloads: The
  full-fledged themes are specific downloads for Windows 7 users, but
  anyone can grab the wallpapers from Windows 7’s Personalization Gallery
  for their system.

Mouse and Keyboard Shortcuts

• The Best New Windows 7 Keyboard Shortcuts: Windows 7 has more cool new shortcuts than you can shake a stick at.
• Aero Shake: When
  you want to focus on the task at hand on a desktop cluttered with
  windows, just grab the window bar of the app you want to work in and
  shake it back and forth to clear away the rest. Another shake will
  restore the background apps to their former state. You can also drag
  and drop a window to the edge of the screen to maximize it, and click
  on its top bar again to restore its previous size.

• Snap windows to half screen size: …
  Dragging a window to the top of the screen maximizes it. Following
  that, if you drag a window all the way to the left or the right of the
  screen, Windows 7 will display a glass overlay on the desktop. Let go
  of the mouse button and it will snap the window onto that overlay,
  which is half the screen’s size—a handy helper for widescreen monitor
  owners.
• Maximize Windows Vertically with a Double-Click in Windows 7: Reader
  John points out that you can simply move your mouse to the top of a
  window until the pointer switches to the resize icon, and then
  double-click your mouse to instantly maximize the window to fill all
  the available vertical space.
• Shift and Right-Click to Expand Windows 7’s Send To Menu: Just as with Vista, holding down the Shift key while right-clicking in Windows 7 gives you a fuller range of options.
• Activate Windows 7 Jumplists with the Left Mouse Button: You
  don’t have to right-click on the taskbar buttons to activate Windows
  7’s Jumplists—you can hold the left mouse button and drag upwards.
• Windows 7 Creates New Folders With a Hotkey:
  To create a new folder, simply press Ctrl+Shift+N with an explorer
  window open and the folder will instantly show up, ready to be renamed
  to something more useful.

Tweaks, fixes, and customizations

• The Best Windows Tweaks that Still Work in Windows 7: The
  final version of Windows 7 is being released this week to the general
  public, and after you get your hands on it the first thing you’ll need
  to know is: Do all my tweaks still work?
• Customize or Disable Windows 7’s Action Center: Windows
  7’s Action Center does a great job of compressing all of Windows’
  update/alert/whatever notifications into one icon, but it takes some
  tweaking to make it show what you want, or disable it entirely.
• Add text to the Windows 7 taskbar buttons: Just
  right-click the taskbar, select Properties, then change the Taskbar
  buttons drop-down from “Always combine, hide labels” to “Never combine.”
• Set Default Printers Based on Network in Windows 7: Windows
  7 sports a great new feature that allows you to set default printers
  based on what network your computer is connected to, perfect for folks
  who carry laptops from network to network.
• Get Quick Access to Windows 7’s Jump Lists From the Keyboard: When
  we showed you how to master Windows 7’s new Jump Lists feature, there
  was one extremely useful tip that we left out: you can also access them
  from your keyboard.
• Create and Share Custom Themes in Windows 7: Microsoft’s
  Engineering Windows 7 weblog details how to create, save, and share
  your own custom Windows 7 themes, complete with wallpaper, window
  color, and sounds.
• Get the Old “Show Desktop” Back in Windows 7—Kinda: The
  short version: Create a folder, place a “Show Desktop.scf” file in
  there (either your standard Google-found kind or the script available
  at the bottom link), then right-click your taskbar to create a “New
  Toolbar” that points to that folder. Turn off the text and titles on
  that new toolbar, change the icons to large size, and then put your new
  one-button toolbar where you’d like.
• Hidden Windows 7 Tool Troubleshoots Sleep Mode Problems: The
  report lists all of the devices that are causing problems with sleep
  mode, explains the different power saving modes your computer supports,
  and even gives you detailed information on your battery—invaluable
  information when your system takes forever to go in and out of sleep
  mode.
• Disable the New Libraries Feature on Windows 7: Simply
  download, extract, and double-click on the provided registry hack file,
  then restart your computer and you’ll see that the Libraries are
  completely gone. There’s also an uninstall registry script provided
  just in case.

Third-party helpers

• Logon Changer Customizes the Windows 7 Login Screen: Tiny
  system customizing utility Logon Changer for Windows 7 swaps out the
  logon screen wallpaper easily. Using the utility is simple—just select
  a new wallpaper, test it, and you are done.
• Xdn Tweaker Updates to Tweak Windows 7: If
  you want your system to remember or not remember how you sort certain
  folders, edit what’s accessible through the right-click menu, or
  de-hook Windows Media Player from all the files it tries to glom onto,
  Xdn does those things for Windows 7.
• Glass CMD Enables Aero Transparency for the Command Prompt: Glass CMD for Vista forces command prompt windows to use Aero’s glass transparency effect.
• Gmail Notifier Plus Adds Email Alerts to the Windows 7 Taskbar: Gmail
  Notifier Plus displays your unread email count right in the Windows 7
  taskbar, including popup message previews and Jump Lists integration.
• Switch Power Management Plans With a Hotkey: Once
  you’ve created the shortcut, you can assign a hotkey in the properties
  dialog—even better, put the shortcut in a location to be indexed by
  Launchy or the Vista start menu search, or even add it to your
  AutoHotkey automation script.
• CSMenu Brings the Classic Start Menu Back to Windows 7: Application
  launcher CSMenu makes up for the lack of a classic start menu option in
  Windows 7 by creating a menu that looks and works just like the ancient
  Windows 2000 menu did.
• Ultimate Windows Tweaker Updates, Improves Windows 7 Support: Ultimate
  Windows Tweaker adds new features to an already excellent tool for
  tweaking all of the hidden Windows settings you normally can’t access.
• VistaSwitcher is an Absolutely Awesome Alt-Tab Replacement: It’s
  a little difficult to showcase how well this thing works with just a
  screenshot, but you can see the partially transparent Alt-Tab switcher
  window, complete with a massive preview window and the window titles
  easily readable.
• Windows 7 Recovery Discs Gets Your System Out of Tight Spots: Boot
  your system from NeoSmart’s CD, and you’ll get a stripped-down Windows
  system with a window offering startup file repair, Restore Point
  returns, recovery from a whole-cloth image, memory testing, and a
  command prompt for those dire moments when only frantically Google-d
  terminal instructions can save you.
• Hulu Desktop Integration Brings Hulu to Windows 7 Media Center: Free application Hulu Desktop Integration brings Hulu’s remote-friendly desktop app to your Windows Media Center.

If you need help upgrading or using Windows 7 please dont hesitate to call 678PC today (678)404-1001
Serving Metro Atlanta, Gwinnett County, and Surrounding areas.

While the default styles for most websites are nice there may be times when you would love to tweak how things look. See how easy it can be to change how websites look with the Stylish Extension for Firefox.

Getting Started

After installing the extension you will be presented with a first run page. You may want to keep it open so that you can browse directly to the Userstyles.org website using the link in the upper left corner.

In the lower right corner you will have a new Status Bar Icon. If you have used Greasemonkey before this icon works a little differently. It will be faded out due to no user style scripts being active at the moment. You can use either a left or right click to access the Context Menu.

The user style script management section is also added into your Add-ons Management Window instead of being separate.

When you reach the user style scripts homepage you can choose to either learn more about the extension & scripts or…

Start hunting for lots of user style script goodness. There will be three convenient categories to get you jump-started if you wish. You could also conduct a search if you have something specific in mind.

Here is some information directly from the website provided for your benefit. Notice the reference to using these scripts with Greasemonkey…

This section shows you how the scripts have been categorized and can give you a better idea of how to search for something more specific.

Finding & Installing Scripts

For our example we decided to look at the Updated Styles Section”first. Based on the page number listing at the bottom there are a lot of scripts available to look through. Time to refine our search a little bit…

Using the drop-down menu we selected site styles and entered Yahoo in the search blank. Needless to say 5 pages was a lot easier to look through than 828.

We decided to install the Yahoo! Result Number Script. When you do find a script (or scripts) that you like simply click on the Install with Stylish Button.

A small window will pop up giving you the opportunity to preview, proceed with the installation, edit the code, or cancel the process.

Note: In our example the Preview Function did not work but it may be something particular to the script or our browser’s settings.

If you decide to do some quick editing the window shown above will switch over to this one. To return to the previous window and install the user style script click on the Switch to Install Button.

After installing the user style the green section in the script’s webpage will actually change to this message…

Opening up the Add-ons Manager Window shows our new script ready to go.

The script worked perfectly when we conducted a search at Yahoo…the Status Bar Icon also changed from faded out to full color (another indicator that everything is running nicely).

Conclusion

If you prefer a custom look for your favorite websites then you can have a lot of fun experimenting with different user style scripts.

Note: See our article here for specialized How-To Geek User Style Scripts that can be added to your browser.

Links

Download the Stylish Extension (Mozilla Add-ons)

Visit the Userstyles.org Website

Install the Yahoo! Result Number User Style

Google Chrome OS UI Concept Video
Chrome OS is Google’s exciting new operating system that will be coming out in November of 2010. 
Google has kept it under wraps very well until just the other day – Check out the video above to see some of the User Interface.

Office 2010 Trial Extender Activates Office 2010 for up to 180 Days

Office 2010 Trial Extender Activates Office 2010 for up to 180 DaysWindows: If you want to squeeze all the use out of Office 2010 before you’re required to pony up for a license, free utility Trial Extender will extend the free trial period up to 6 months, no command-line work required.

Like many licensed Microsoft products, Office 2010 has a rearm function built-in to extend your trial period an extra 30 days. We’ve shown you how to do this with Windows 7, and while similar functionality is available for Office 2010, you can bypass the command line work by downloading this free utility. All you need to do is launch it the day before your trial expires (if you want to get as many days as possible out of it) and hit the “rearm” button. You can do this a total of 5 times, giving you up to 180 days of completely free, full-featured Microsoft Office.

Office 2010 Trial Extender is a free download for Windows systems.
Office 2010 Trial Extender [via Ghacks]

 

If you are interested in learning how to implement Google Docs into your company or personal life
OR
If you are looking to upgrade to Microsoft 2010 

Please Contact :
CHRIS RING
678-404-1001
SALES@678pc.com

Microsoft Office 2010 is about to be released, and you aren't sure if you should upgrade or switch to Google Docs. But have you considered using the best features of both, together? Today we'll run down how to do just that.

Below we'll detail when Google Docs is a better tool for a task than Office (and vice versa), highlight methods for keeping your Office documents in sync with Google Docs online so you can enjoy both offline desktop access and anywhere online access, and more.

When Should You Use Google Docs vs Office?

If you're using both Google Docs and Microsoft Office, there's obviously a lot of overlap in features, so it's good to know the strengths of each application instead of only using one or the other.

Google Docs
The greatest strength of Google Docs is collaboration on documents, with real-time editing for multiple users at a time. Since Docs natively tracks revisions, you can see exactly what has changed, or revert back to an older version. If you have any document that needs to be continually updated, like a spreadsheet tracking a common goal, you should create that document in Google Docs. If you haven't already tried it out, you should give the new Drawings feature a try-it's a perfect way to keep flowcharts and diagrams in sync with everybody.

The problem with Google Docs is that it requires you to be online all the time, doesn't support many of the more advanced formatting and functions, doesn't support every Office file type yet, and doesn't allow uploading large Office files-a bit of a dealbreaker if you work in an office environment with really large spreadsheets or presentations.

Microsoft Office
The biggest reason to use Microsoft Office is, naturally, perfect offline support across the board. You can use every feature and formatting option that is available, work with large files, and it's the standard. The problem is a lack of great collaboration tools if you don't feel like setting up a SharePoint server, and the new Office Web features are still a long ways from matching Google Docs.

Using Microsoft Office + Google Docs
The simple solution is to use Microsoft Office to edit or create files that will be used primarily offline, and use Google Docs to share and edit files that require collaboration with others. For instance, if you had a spreadsheet tracking customer service requests, Google Docs is a perfect place for everybody to track changes online, but if you're working on a specification document, you can create it offline in Microsoft Office, and only share it when you are done.

Use Offisync to Edit Google Docs in Microsoft Office

If you want to use Google Docs to collaborate and share documents with others, but prefer using Microsoft Office to actually put the documents together, your best solution, at the moment, at least, is to use the OffiSync plug-in for Microsoft Office to open and save documents directly to Google Docs. At some point in the future, Google will be providing their own plug-in, Docverse, that will do much of the same, but for time being OffiSync works great.

What makes OffiSync great is that once you've opened a document from Google Docs, every save will automatically update back to the shared copy-it all just works without a lot of fuss. You can also share your document, assign permissions, or even tap into Google search to add elements to the documents, and if you want to switch to using the online editor, you can do so easily from the Share menu. You can also manipulate folders directly from the open or save dialog, a very handy way to keep your projects organized.

The only real issue I've found with OffiSync is that you have to be online in order to open a document, so while you can open a document and then disconnect from the internet, if you were forced to reboot for some reason, you'd be out of luck until you could get online again. There's a simple workaround for this, of course-just save the document to a local folder, do your work, and then when you are done, you can use the Save As function from the OffiSync ribbon to save over top of the current document.

The free version of OffiSync does have some limitations-if you want to open or save documents to Google Sites folders, or access files in the native Office format, you will need to pay for the premium version. The premium version also comes with some real-time collaboration features, prompting you in Office anytime a file you are working on has changed, and allowing you to view or merge the changes. At $12 a year or $30 lifetime, it's not terribly expensive, so if those features are a deal-breaker for you, at least it won't break the bank.

Share Files in Native Office Format

Whenever you share a file on Google Docs, they will be converted to Google's format, and while you can choose to download the file in Microsoft Office format, sometimes formatting can be lost in the translation. If you want to share the documents with others but also make sure that the formatting is perfectly preserved, you can manually upload the files in Google Docs, and then uncheck the box for "Convert documents, presentations, and spreadsheets" while you do the upload.

If you are using OffiSync premium, you can edit these files directly in Office, but if not, the limitation of this technique is that you can't edit the documents online, and everybody will have to share and re-upload files if anybody makes any changes. You're also stuck to a 1GB total space for all your documents for free Google Apps accounts.

The alternate choice is to use the Dropbox shared folders feature as a cheap "network" driveto share your files with other people. This solution is even better when you consider all of the other types of Office files you can share, like OneNote databases, Access databases, document templates, or a collection of artwork to use in your documents. And since Dropbox has the same file revisioning feature that Google Docs does, you won't have to worry about losing a version of a file because another person overwrote it with a bad copy.

Upload Office Documents to Google Docs in Explorer

Rather than manually adding every single document to Google Docs, you can use the DocList Uploader application, which is actually a sample application designed to show off the features in Google's API, but it works quite well for getting your documents into Google Docs. Simply run the application, and once you've logged in with your Google account, you can drag and drop files that you want to upload.

You can then open the documents in Google Docs directly from the list, or you can add a "Send to Google Docs" to the context menu and leave the uploader application running in the system tray. You'll have to make sure it's logged in for it to work, but if you do a lot of work with Office files that you receive through email or otherwise, it might be worth it to keep the app running-otherwise it's an excellent way to import a big collection of documents quickly.

Sync Outlook with Google Calendar and Gmail (Optional)

We're focused on Google Docs today, but you can't talk about using Google Docs and Office without at least mentioning the fact that you can sync Outlook with Gmail and Google Calendar as well. You can setup Outlook to access Gmail using IMAP for the full sync experience, or using POP3 if you are primarily an Outlook user. Hooking up the calendar for offline access is even easier-just install Google Calendar Sync if you're an Outlook user, or check out our guide to how to sync any desktop calendar with Google Calendar.

Use Google Apps Add-ons for Better Collaboration

The Google Apps Marketplace gives you many useful applications that you can enable for your Google Apps domain, so you can add even more collaboration options to your Google Docs setup with productivity apps like GQueues, a list-oriented task manager that has full integration with Google Calendar and Google Apps. You can use GBridge to setup a VPN that shares files or remotely controls desktops using your Google Account. If you need a group project management tool, Manymoon covers this functionality well for free, or you can check out our top 10 Google Apps Marketplace apps for more useful tools that can be integrated into your Apps account.

 

 

If you are interested in learning how to implement Google Docs into your company or personal life

OR

If you are looking to upgrade to Microsoft 2010 

Please Contact :
CHRIS RING
678-404-1001
SALES@678pc.com

 

 

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