3 Reasons NOT to upgrade to Microsoft Office 2010 ...

Microsoft will release Office 2010 in the next few weeks. The upgrade price will likely cost around $130 for the home edition which includes Word, Excel and Powerpoint. The professional versions cost as much as $500 depending on what package you get. After almost fifteen years of using Microsoft Office and watching others use Microsoft Office, I can say without hesitation that it is a waste of hard earned money for most...

How to fix a row or column in any spreadsheet R...

I don’t use spreadsheets too often, but I do help folks learn how to use them somewhat frequently. Many long-time spreadsheet users overlook this simple technique to fix a row(s) and/or column(s). Why would you want to fix a row or column? The video demonstrates the why behind this tip quite well, but by learning to fix a row or column, you can scroll through a long spreadsheet without losing track of the row or column...

Students and online apps

My high school daughter ran from the house today in a panic because she was running late and didn’t have to time to print something she needed for school. She uses a MacBook and OpenOffice, but had already shut the computer off and was out the door. Interestingly enough, she uses and is sold on the utility and effectiveness of online apps as well. She uses both Google Docs and Zoho (which she likes better) regularly...

Business and Education Save Money by Moving to the...

Since joining Twitter last spring, I made it a point to follow industry leaders and pundits that post interesting and breaking tech news and information. Two of my favorites are GoogleAtWork and Zoho. After nearly 15 years in the computer help and training business, I firmly believe in the mission of these two organizations…cloud computing. Quickly, cloud computing involves using your browser for your document creation...

Yet another reason to ditch Microsoft Office for w...

This news story has flown mostly under the radar of most computer users for weeks. In a nutshell, it’s a patent infringement suit brought upon Microsoft by a Canadian company called i4i. The suit alleges that Microsoft knowingly used proprietary technologies in Microsoft Word 2003 and 2007. Last week, a judge in Texas, ruled in favor of i4i and ordered Microsoft to remove Microsoft Word from being sold and fined them...

Using templates can save you time

The old adage of not reinventing the wheel applies perfectly to computing and document creation. Why spend time creating a document from scratch if someone else has taken the time to put the same type of doucment together already? A template, in computer lingo, is a pre-formatted document like a resume, flyer, labels, invoice, etc. that you can adapt for your own use. If you are short on time or don’t really have the...

Google Docs privacy leak

Headlines garner attention, but do people then read the article. This week an article is making the rounds about a Google Docs security problem. Turns out that the problem only affects an extremely minor number of users who already shared document and then happened to perform a very particular set of steps. In other words, the chances of a problem were pretty remote. Google, however, addressed and corrected the issue as...