'Tis the End

If, like most of the people we know, you are a Windows XP fan, well, then, today is a day or mourning. Today is the last day that you will be able to order a new computer with Windows XP, and that is only through selected manufacturers (HP, Acer). Dude, if you wanted a Dell with XP you're out of luck, they stopped selling them back on the 18th of this month.

All the manufacturers are offering a downgrade options with higher end versions of Vista. This means you can still get XP, but you have to pay for uber Vista first. On the plus side of this deal, once they finally (we hope!) get all the hideousness out of Vista, or you upgrade your video and RAM to handle the system hogging OS, you can upgrade to it for free. Or at least for "already paid for it."

Intuit's New Look

Intuit is quietly re-branding with a new logo design.

The Duct Tape Marketing guy likes it.

The guys at The Inquirer don't.

Under Consideration's "Brand New" column is still on the fence, but the column is old so maybe they've made up their mind? I mostly added this one because it was the first place the old and new logos side by side so people could compare for themselves.

I will say, it's a logo. The thinner lettering is a little less imposing to me, and while the case changes bug me a little, it's a logo and they don't have to follow the same grammar rules the rest of us do.

It's Been a Week... Did you Download?

If you don't know what I'm talking about, well, you either don't hang out with any open source fans, or have been stuck in an elevator for a while now.

What I'm talking about is Firefox 3! Yes, the best got better and the new version was available for download last week. In fact, Mozilla was encouraging people to download the new version in an effort to make the Guinness Book of World Records. People listened, and crashed Mozilla's servers for a while as a result! For current status on the world record chase, check out Mozilla's blog.

If you want to know a little more about the new version before making the switch, check out this First Look video from c|net TV.

YaHoopla!

Yahoo and Microsoft are in the news again.

In May it came out that the two were discussing just selling SOME of Yahoo! to the Redmond-based software giant.

This week Yahoo announced a host of new ad deals in an effort to appease all the stockholders who wanted to them to give in and give it up to Megasoft (short-sighted anyone?), but admitted they are still negotiating with The Software Company Who Shall Not Be Named.

Yahoo! management and the disgruntled moneygrubbers stockholders will have their big showdown at the just announced August 1, 2008 annual shareholders meeting.

As someone who uses way more Yahoo than she wants to admit, and who does NOT want to use anymore of that other company's software than she has to, I'll be keeping an eye on this.

OO 3.0

Has anyone else noticed that when you try to abbreviate Open Office, especially when speaking, you end up saying, "Oooh?" Do you think they planned it that way, or was it just a happy accident?

Either way, no one here is disputing the fact that Open Office is cool and getting cooler. OO 3.0 will be available the day after Labor Day, or at least that's the plan as I last heard it.

In the meantime, for a sneak peek, check out this nifty entry over at Open Office Ninja's blog.

Yea, it's a couple months old, but that just means the release date is that much closer! And let's face it, it's easier to get excited about something coming at the end of the summer in May than it would have been in March.

We're Baaaack...

The server upgrade went surprisingly well after a few initial hiccups on the first day and we are up and running! Woo hoo!

If you are one of the people who was having problems with the server, remember, Tom, our IT genius, really likes brownies :-)

Down, Doobie Doo, Down Down

Our servers, that is.

The OffAssist QuickBooks and file servers will be down this weekend, from Friday evening until Monday morning. We will be moving to a new server software during this time. We have done some initial testing and it appears that it will take care of the printing issues some of you are experiencing when using Vista - and in some instances, XP.

Within the next two months we will also be upgrading the QuickBooks version on the server. We're holding off until we can make sure the new server software is going to work well. We will, of course, let our clients know before we do this.

It should be pretty seamless for you guys, and the changes minimal.

If you have something you need to do, please get it done before Friday afternoon. We will be unable to easily access files during the upgrade.

As always, we appreciate your patience during this upgrade and rest assured that complete backups are kept and will be made once more before the upgrade happens.

If you have problems, please call the tech support line at 512-339-2255 or email tom@offassist.com.

The coffee area is stocked and we will all avoid looking the IT guy directly in the eyes for the next few days *laugh*

PS - I've heard he likes brownies, if you want to offer your support ;-)

Microsoft Going the Way of the Megalosaurus?

If you are, like many of us, not a fan of MacroSoft (you know who I mean!), then this recent Linux Journal blog post may intrigue you as much as it did me.

There's no denying the Big Company is having a bad year. The Europeans picked on them and fined them a bunch and Vista is, frankly, a disaster.

I remember the fuss over 95, because it was such a change from 3.11 (gee, my geek is showing!), and again from 95 to 2000 (uhnother mistake!), but it was nothing like the antipathy generated by Vista. I wonder if we're just all a little braver now that open-source has become so much more user-friendly for those of us who are not programmers and need easy-to-use GUI. Heh... GUI. I just like to say it, typing it isn't as much fun.

No Love for the Vista

Yep. It's true. Vista is so overwhelmingly popular that Microsoft is making XP Home available for another couple of years.

If I understood the article at arstechnica.com right, the main reason is because of Vista's heavy-duty graphic requirements. Some of the new uber-budget-friendly systems that have been coming out, usually around back-to-school time, just can't handle the OS without doing major hardware changes that would adversely affect their price point (read that as not cheap anymore).

In my non anti-Microsoft moments I wonder if this is what it was like when the big switch was made from MS-DOS to Windows, or maybe from 3.11 to 95 (that was a HUGE change, I am, sadly, old enough to have been a working grown up when it happened)? Are we all going to look back in 5 or 10 years and wonder how we ever worked on XP?

Photoshop for Free?!

Yes, free.

Of course, it's not the full version of Photoshop, or even the light version, Elements.

With online image editors becoming more popular, Adobe has decided to add the not inconsiderable weight of their brand name to the game with last week's beta release of Photoshop Express. Express is designed for use by the casual photo manipulator; people who just want to clean up a picture before posting it on the web or emailing to friends. There will, of course, be upsell opportunities, mostly to Adobe's Elements--lighter than Photoshop, more significant than Express.

Check out the full skinny at Wired.com, or head on over to the Adobe Express site and see for yourself.

Firefox 3 - Coming Soon!

At long last...

There has been beta buzz and nifty new features touted, but soon, in 2-3 months, we'll be able to see the new Firefox 3 for ourselves. A spokesperson for Mozilla told Reuters last week that they hope to roll it out to the public in June of this year.

Check out the full article for more info!

Nonconformists Not Wanted

Yep, if you can't conform to the so-called norm, Microsoft can't handle you. Say, for example, if you happen to be that most unusual of days, February 29th.

February 29th is an odd day, literally, and many MS products had trouble handling it. Microsoft appears to be aware of the problem and yet hesitant to fix it, according to a recent accountingweb article.

Sources say MS even tried to incorporate the leap year bug into their OOXML file standard.

Plus: The software giant now has almost 4 full years before it's a problem again.

Minus: The software problem with leap day has existed for over 20 years, so who knows how long it will take to fix?

Mobile Mozilla by Year's End

Last October we reported that Mozilla was working on a mobile version of the Firefox browser.

Mozilla has recently announced that they expect to release mobile Firefox versions for embedded Linux and Windows Mobile by the end of the year. We think that's great.


Now if only we can get Candy to stop pouting in the corner because they won't have a version for Morris (i.e. Palm OS) this year...

Team Effort

Google recently released a new, "Team Edition" of its software package. It is, apparently, designed to make collaboration between team members over the web easier. I haven't had time to check it out yet, but trust me, I will.

Find the news article I read here: "Google Releases New Online Software for Businesses"

Find the goods here: Google Apps Team Edition

Yahoo! Just Says No

I doubt I was the only one trembling in my boots last week when the word went out that MegaSoft (you know, they really should change their name, they haven't been "micro" in a looong time) was putting the moves on Yahoo!

Why? Yahoo has history. Way back when I was heading back to work after the birth of my daughter, our house flooded and I needed a web-based email to use in applying for jobs that didn't have a goofy old bbs handle in the address. I went with Yahoo and, well, EVERYTHING is tied into it since I've had it so long. I really don't want to have to switch, but I will if Microsoft takes over. I do NOT want Bill Gates in my inbox, connected to my groups, filtering my mail, etc. No No No.

I, like most of us at OffAssist, am an open-source fan, but I am not a fanatic and still prefer to do the bulk of my word processing, spreadsheets, and desktop publishing in Microsoft applications because I know how to use them. So, they are not all bad, I'll grant them that, I just think they are too hungry and there is already too little competition in our modern world.

The MS search engine leaves a lot to be desired, and new media is the way to go, but I'm concerned by Microsoft's history of 'free'. As in things only stay free til you're hooked, like a dealer handing out penny bag samples, then they've got you!

Yahoo! You go! Fight back. But in case you lose, I'm off to open a gmail account.

PS - Happy Valentine's Day y'all!

Good to Know

Back in August--yes, I am waay behind the times--Mashable put together a list of some of the best and brightest plug-ins and toolbars available to Firefox. You can check out the list here.

Like all things Web-related, though, since it is a whopping six months old it may now be woefully out of date. Or, at the very least, if you are one of those lucky enough to be beta-testing the latest Firefox you can count on a lot of them not being available or fully functional for your version of the browser.

Tips include links and info to:

23 Social Networking Toolbars & Plug-Ins
40+ Blogging Add-Ons
50+ Plug-Ins to Enhance Security and Privacy
Over 30 Goodies for Downloading Videos, Photos, and Files
30+ Search and Bookmarking Plug-Ins

Plus translation tools, time-wasters, more.

Live Alternatives

Microsoft, being the software mega-giant that it is, has such a large target over it, metaphorically speaking, that no one can resist trying to hit the bullseye. Google has been quietly chipping away at Microsoft's appplications for a while now, most notably with the Google docs group of features.

Now someone else has their eye on Microsoft Live, the software company's online tool suite. Ulteo, a company whose motto is "My Digital Life Made Simple", went into beta-testing last month with a portable, web-based version of Open Office, including Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base and Math. The actual applications, NOT watered down portable versions.

For more info straight from the source, check out Ulteo's blog .

Speaking of Fire Fox...

There's a spiffy article about the new Firefox beta at computerworld.com.

Before I get into it, I will say, after a recent experience working in an environment where all Web work was done using IE 6 with most of it being research, Firefox could go back a version or two and it would STILL rock!

I noticed the article's author seemed concerned that FF would become top-heavy with new features that are currently available as add-ons. Well, as an enthusiastic but not overly technical FF user, I have to say I'm not worried. It may make me a traitor to the Mozilla movement, but I hate FF add-ons. I hate that little pop-up bar asking if I want to update every third time I open the application, and I am hesitant to use them because the ones I had for Thunderbird worked out SO well (that plinking noise? that was the sarcasm dripping...).

More details, in a little easier to understand format, can be found in the InternetNews.com article about the original beta release from November.

Check it out for yourself and let us know what you think.

Anti-Fox

I heard about Denny Carlton and his site in the context of another project I was on back in November, checked it out, laughed at the presumptive insanity of some people, and moved on.

His website, "whyfirefoxisblocked.com" outlines his philosophy that AdBlocker Plus, a FF add-on that is remarkably effective in blocking unwanted ads, is a violation of his rights as a webmaster. Because he cannot block the ABP and force FF users to view the ads on his site, he has blocked the whole browser. Seriously, I admit it, I tried to visit in FF just to see what would happen and it gave me a splash screen to come back with a different browser.

Apparently this is a hot-button issue for a lot of people. I don't see why. As one commenter on Information Week's (2nd) article on Carlton stated, "This guy fails to think about the fact that the people who are choosing to block ads are just the kind of person who aren't going to click on them anyway."

True enough in my case. Although I will admit, his protest has had one unintended side-effect I read about over and over. People like me who were unfamiliar with AdBlocker Plus have now downloaded it and added it to their arsenal of web tools.

Just to be mean, I'm going to thumb my nose at Denny Carlton and say you can too, by downloading ABP here.

Gmail - the Microsoft Way....

We seem to pick on Microsoft a lot here at OffAssist, don't we?

Well, I'm not gonna...

What If Gmail Had Been Designed by Microsoft?

I'll just point you to someone else that is... seriously funny funny stuff!

I do have to wonder though... with the near disaster they are having with Vista (more on that later from Tom), what do the folks up there in Redmond need to do to get it right? They are losing market share and really mucking things up.

While We're on the Subject...

... of Google and Open Source...

The Google Pack. I still haven't been to check it out, though I will admit to having a custom Google home page...

Apparently, in addition to the Google Docs we've all known about for a while, Google slid a full-on MS Office competitor into their Google Pack back in August, Star Office 8. Star Office is a Sun Microsystems product loosely based around Open Office but with a few more perks that Sun sells.

This is the first time Star Office has been made available for free. Check out the article, then check out the Google Pack.

Google Rising

Seems we're all about the G-word right now.

Word on the street is the Google is diving into the mobile browser market--with an Open Source platform.

I'm not geekalicious to competently pass all the scoop on, so check out this article on Financial Times' website for all the skinny.

Just in case

you weren't sure Google is trying to displace Micro$oft one application at a time.

May I present:

The Google Calculator, brought to us today by Jennifer Gniadecki of Atypical Virtual Associates

Candy & I got a chance to meet Jennifer at a conference about this time last year and she is one smart cookie. At the time she was in middle of re-designing her website--and she was doing it herself! I'm still impressed. Go, click, see what she has to say.

Today is Not the End

The 2002 Microsoft anti-trust suit ended in a consent decree; basically Microsoft agreed to let a judge scrutinize their operations rather than having the case go forward (does anti-trust go to trial? My government and history classes were a looong time ago).

The software giant did get the usual oversight period reduced from ten years to a mere five, citing a fast-changing industry as justifiable cause.

Today, 11/12/07, was supposed to be the last day of that five years of oversight.

The judge in charge has extended it, currently to expire not later than January 31, 2008. This is due to concerns brought up by several states involved in the original suit that Microsoft has not adequately proven that their newest offerings, including Vista, are NOT in violation of the anti-trust laws.

The states want the restrictions and oversight extended another five years--giving Microsoft the same ten years of oversight that other companies involved in anti-trust settlements are subject to. The states filed motions seeking to extend the restrictions in October.

The Judge in charge, Federal District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, gave Microsoft until 11/6 to respond to the motions. The Justice Department was given until 11/9 to file a brief in support of Microsoft (or not, as the case may be). The states involved in the October filing have until this Friday, 11/16, to respond to Microsoft's response.

Go Go Mozilla!

Not surprisingly, the huge success of the iPhone and its advanced mobile web functionality is making a lot of developers take another look at this growing market segment.

Mozilla, developers of the Firefox browsers, announced last week that they are working on a mobile browser with a planned release in 2008. For more information, check out this article at CIO.com. Even more details can be found on Mozilla Engineering VP Mike Schroepfer's blog, here.

Quickbooks 2008 is here!

With loads of new features, primarily aimed at making life easier for less experienced users and those in service industries, who bill by time rather than product or task, QuickBooks 2008 is now available.

Technically it's been available directly from Intuit, via their website (quickbooks.intuit.com) for a week now. That's still the only way to get it, since it won't be available in retail stores until next Wednesday, the 10th.

For more info on the new features, consider taking one of Intuit's update classes. You can find more info on these sessions here.

Consumer Updates

Both Intuit and Microsoft recently updated their personal finance software, Quicken and Money respectively.

Intuit dropped their Quicken Basic and added Quicken Starter, which retails for the same $29.99. Starter includes tools for bill paying, account balancing, and tracking spending, but lacks the saving planning and investment management bells and whistles of its big brothers, Quicken Deluxe, Premier, and Home and Business versions. Those same big brothers got a few new gadgets, too, like support for PayPal transactions (has eBay taken over the world yet?) and streamlined budgeting.

Intuit also announced an online-only version of Quicken is in the works for 2008, presumably thanks to the success of the online version of Intuit's business line, Quickbooks, but nothing solid about the likely subscription fee.

Microsoft, ever eager to beat the competition to the punch, released the 2008 versions of Microsoft Money a week prior to the new Quicken release.

For more information on the new versions, check out their websites.

Quicken

Microsoft Money

Shortcuts for Excel

Many of us learned computing in the days of DOS, when there was no mouse and if you didn't know the keys to do something you were in trouble (think WordPerfect 5.0)!

With the advent of GUIs (do I really need to explain this one?) the mouse became a dominant force in how we interact with our computers and software. This is great for the web surfing, but leaves a bit to be desired when working with large documents or spreadsheets.

Here to save us from scroll-wheel induced carpal tunnel is a great article from CFO.com on 10 keyboard shortcuts for Excel. I know I added it to my bookmarks.

Candy, like me, is a big fan of keyboard shortcuts. Her response to this article was, "Cool! I'm a keyboard junkie and Excel always makes me crazy with all the clicking clicking clicking!"

The Wonderful World of Wikis

Who hasn't heard of Wikipedia, the giant Internet-based, user-generated encyclopedia?

If you've spent any time looking up information at Wikipedia you probably understand how it works. It is a giant interactive forum where anyone can log in and create or edit entries; basically a giant collaborative project.

When was the last time you had to work on a collaborative project? How long did it take just to find a time when everyone could get together? Longer than you wanted it to, probably.

Wikis allow for real-time online collaboration. Many of them include features that allow users to track changes to the collaborative areas, determine who made a change and when, and, if necessary, restore to an earlier version.

The corporate world, home of bloated meeting schedules and frequent lack of productivity on collaborative projects, is coming to see the sense of wikis, according to this recent accountingweb article.

Another great use for wikis is in academics, from junior high to doctoral programs. Some wikis we here at OffAssist like are Google Docs and Spreadsheets and the wiki feature of Backpack found at backpackit.com.

Candy says, "One of my corporate clients uses a wiki - I LOVE it - it keeps us all up to date on what's going on and houses all those pesky questions that people ask over and over and over :) ."

Works-ing for Free?

Yep. In an effort to appease the many, many people who think Microsoft needs to make productivity software more affordable, Works 9.0 will be available on new systems soon, for free.

As long as you don't mind ads in the corner. Or a software package that hooks itself up to the web to update the ad content. Is it just me or do most of us spend money on software every year to STOP programs on our computer that access the Internet and download ads to our systems?

For the retail price of $40 you can get a key to make this ad-supported Works ad-free. Or download the trial version of Office 2007 (for free - but only for a limited time).

Frankly, I've always thought of Works as substandard software - just enough functionality to tick a girl off and not enough to allow you to really get any work done. For my money-or lack thereof-I'll take OpenOffice any day!

Spreadsheet Error & Human Error

Today seemed like a good day to post this, since we were just talking about Excel yesterday...

Apparently errors are almost inevitable in spreadsheets, and those who research spreadsheet errors (I am dying to ask if these people have a hobby, but then I remember I read grammar books for fun) have wildly varying opinions on the problem, ranging from It's bad to think to Spreadsheet error correction and audit cost more than the original error.

Having seen some of those error rates and their numeric impact, I have a hard time with the latter.

However, since I am not a statistician or a true numbers gal, if you want the real scoop, start with the accountingweb article I read, then you can move on to the research page for the gentleman quoted in the article. If that confuses you as much as it does me, check out the last link to Louise Pryor's blog. She breaks it down in a way that makes the whole error issue a little more comprehensible.

Spreadsheet error research: Wasted time worse than mistakes

Ray Panko's SSR (spreadsheet research) Site

Louise Pryor on Spreadsheet Error Rates