News

20 Amazing features in Office 365

Steve Hirst - Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Office 365 is Microsoft's subscription based model for providing their software to users. The service consists of a number of different products and services, and all of Office 365's components can be managed and configured through an online portal.

Let PowerPoint design your presentation
Drop an image into your presentation and a new feature called PowerPoint Designer will automatically give you choices on the best way to display it. This lets you create a professional presentation faster, with less hassle.

Use PowerPoint 'Morph' to make the stuff on your slide automatically move
PowerPoint has a new transition called Morph.
Simply duplicate a slide, move stuff around on the second slide and when you play the slideshow, your objects will move from where they are to where you placed them. No animation or programming needed.

Use the 'tell me' box to get help
Tell Me lets you ask Office how to do something using regular language, similar to how you might search in Google.
You can ask it to show you how to 'insert a photo' or 'add pic' or even just type 'picture' and it will help you what you’re looking for.

Do Bing searches from within documents
No need to fire up a browser to look something up on the Web.
Just right click on a word, then click 'Smart lookup' and a Bing search will pop up in a window inside your document.

Find your most important emails with the Focused Inbox
Similar to how Gmail offers its uses 'Priority inbox' where it shows you what it thinks are your 'Important emails,' Outlook offers the 'Focused inbox.'
It looks at how you organise your mail and puts the messages it thinks are most important into a 'Focused' folder, with the others moving into an 'Other' folder.

Use 'ink' on the iPad Pro
With the new iPad Pro, Office apps support 'ink' just like they do on all Windows tablets.
Choices include pens, highlighters, an easy-to-use thickness control, and a new colour wheel. Using the Apple Pencil, you can also draw and mark-up documents.

Try some Outlook add-ins Find them on the Office Store.
Starbucks - With the Starbucks add-in for Outlook, you can send Starbucks e-gifts within Outlook and schedule meetings at nearby Starbucks locations instead of a conference room.
PayPal - Access your PayPal account to send money to others through email with the PayPal add-in for Outlook. This is available for Office 365, but the add-in can also be used by Outlook 2013 users.
Uber - With the Uber Outlook Add-on, you can set up an Uber ride reminder for any calendar event. Once you set up the Uber reminder, it sends it to your phone at the appointed time with the destination already set. Swipe the notification to confirm your Uber ride.
Boomerang - Boomerang will schedule emails to send at a later time, remind you to follow up if you don't get a response and add a calendar assistant that lets you schedule meetings and share your availability right from Outlook.
Delve - If your company is using the Enterprise edition of Office 365 and is storing documents in OneDrive for Business, or Microsoft's onsite app SharePoint, then you have access to Delve.
Delve is a search tool that automatically shows you the popular documents and other important content in your company. You can also use it to see what co-workers are working on by clicking on their names.

Set up a joint project-management planner for your work group
Microsoft just rolled out a new feature called Microsoft Planner to all the folks with an education or business edition of Office 365. It's like a joint to-do list on steroids for a work group.
With Planner, teams can assign and collaborate on tasks, set due dates, update statuses, share files and a dashboard keeps everyone in the loop.
When it becomes available, Planner will appear in the Office 365 app launcher.

Set up a work group for your teammates with Office 365 Groups
By setting up your team as an Office 365 Group, the team gets a shared Outlook inbox, OneDrive for Business folder, and a plan in Office 365 Planner.
If your version of Office supports groups, you can set up the group via the web version of Outlook or through OneDrive for Business.

Add a poll to your online presentation
Microsoft Sway is Microsoft's online presentation software, an alternative to PowerPoint, that makes it easy to add internet photos, videos, material from your computer, or your Microsoft cloud to your presentation
You can also add a live poll to it, with PollEverywhere.com. Create the poll and embed it into Sway.

Use GigJam to share just parts of documents

A new sharing app called GigJam that you download to your phone, let's you temporarily show and share bits and pieces of an Office 365 file with others.
Send a bit of text to one person to review, and a photo to another person.

Have multiple people edit the same document at the same time
Everyone can edit a document at the same time in Word, PowerPoint or Excel.
You can see the changes as they make them and who is doing the editing.

Skype with co-workers while working on a document
If you are collaborating with others on a document and it's stored in OneDrive for Business, you can click a 'Chat' button to chat with everyone working in the document over Skype.

Turn rows of data into a map
For those with business editions of Office 365, Excel includes a feature called the Power Map.
It helps convert rows of data into images. And if that data is geographic in nature, Power Map will put it on a 3D map.
If your version of Excel supports Power Map, you'll find the button under Insert/Map.

Let Excel reformat your data
You know how powerful Excel's Fill Down 'Control -D' command is?
With a feature called 'Flash Fill' Excel sees what you are doing and does the rest of it for you.
For example, say you’re changing the formatting of a list of people's names from being spread across two columns (first name, last name) into a single column. When you type the second reformatted name, Excel displays the whole list, reformatted. Just click to accept it.
This feature isn't brand new (Office 2013 users have it) but it is currently only available for Windows users, not Mac users.

Scan your whiteboard or meeting notes and make them readable
The free Office Lens app for iOS and Android turns your phone's camera into a scanner.
Take a picture of a whiteboard or document and it reads it and puts into Microsoft's note app, OneNote.

Atom Memory

Steve Hirst - Thursday, July 21, 2016
Memory

Ever since the first practical computers came on the market in the 1950's, scientists and engineers have been seeking ever more compact data storage technologies, which have gone from giant drums to tiny chips. Now scientists at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at the Delft University of Technology (TUDelft) have developed a memory technology that achieves the ultimate physical limit by using individual atoms to represent a single bit of data.

See more here.


Earpiece that lets you understand languages!

Steve Hirst - Friday, June 17, 2016
Domain Names

Waverly Labs have created a simple wearable earpiece called Pilot, which claims to make translation effortless and instantaneous. After a slight pause, the earpiece allows the wearer to hear a basic translation of multiple languages into their native tongue. It is designed for the international traveller and Waverly Labs looks to make it function completely offline. A companion mobile app is used to download language packs and toggle the language within the earpiece, but translation doesn't require an internet connection to work. The Pilot is running a pre-order campaign, but unfortunately won't ship until mid-2017.

Free Windows 10 upgrade ends soon

Steve Hirst - Monday, May 23, 2016
Windows 10

The free Windows 10 upgrade expires 29 July 2016.

Microsoft’s Statement:
“We are excited to offer a free upgrade to Windows 10 for qualified new or existing Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 devices that upgrade in the first year. Once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current via Windows Update for the supported lifetime of the device – at no cost.”

Please call us if you have any concerns relating to upgrading or would like us to assist you with the upgrade.

Important MYOB News

Steve Hirst - Monday, May 23, 2016
MYOB

MYOB have released new information stating they will be ending support on MYOB products still running on technologies, such as Windows 7, that Microsoft has ended mainstream support for.

It’s important to consider upgrading, as running outdated software no longer covered by mainstream support introduces an element of risk into your business. When Microsoft ceases mainstream support for a product, it ceases to fix anything other than security issues.
By continuing to use old technologies you also limit yourself to old programming and components up to a static point in time. In other words, using software that has been on the market for approximately six years means you aren’t able to take advantage of the improvements made in that time.
Considering your IT plays a large part in the operating effectiveness of your business, updating your technology to get the latest features makes good business sense.

If you have any of the following applications in your business practice, you’ll find that MYOB will only be providing limited support for any of their software packages being used in conjunction with them. 
- Windows 7 (all versions)

- Microsoft Office 2010 (all versions)

- Windows Server 2008 (all versions), including SBS 2011 (which is built on Server 2008 R2)

- Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, excluding MYOB AO clients with SQL 2008 R2 Express

You’ll need to look into making a plan for change however, as MYOB won’t be providing support beyond the 31st December 2016. This gives MYOB users some time to upgrade their IT infrastructure if required.

Feel free to talk to one of our friendly sales team to create a plan of action and ensure you’ll be operating on MYOB supported technologies in 2017 and beyond.

QuickTime Support Ends

Steve Hirst - Monday, May 23, 2016
Quicktime

It seems Apple has ended support for QuickTime on Windows and there are two major vulnerabilities found.

These vulnerabilities will allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on Windows PC's running Quicktime.

Head over to the US CERT website, here, to see the full details.

Computer Culture's advice is to uninstall this program from all your Windows devices.

A self refilling water bottle!

Steve Hirst - Friday, April 22, 2016
Fontus

Fontus have created a self-filling water bottle that lets you go on an adventure without worrying about finding a water supply or carrying heavy loads of water. There are 2 models, one that straps on your bike and relies on air to pass through a dual-chambered solar powered Peltier element that condenses air into water. And the other is a standalone bottle that uses a solar panel to power a fan that pulls humid air through a filter into a condensation chamber. With an IP54 rating it means the filters protect against dust and low pressure jets of water.



Important Changes to OneDrive

Steve Hirst - Friday, April 22, 2016


We wish to inform you about some upcoming changes to Microsoft’s OneDrive that may affect our customers. The amount of storage that comes with the free version of OneDrive will decrease from 15GB to 5GB. Microsoft is also discontinuing the 15GB camera roll bonus. These changes take effect on 13 July 2016.

We strongly recommend that users delete data and photos to ensure that they are under the new limit before this date. To ease this transition, users can claim a free one-year subscription to Office 365 Personal. This subscription includes 1 TB of OneDrive storage.  Alternatively, additional storage can be purchased.  
Please call us before July to discuss your cloud storage options.

Windows 10 for Smartphones

Steve Hirst - Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Windows 10 MobileWindows 10 Mobile has now been released after months of waiting. The OS is available to selected Windows Phone 8.1 devices, including the Lumia 1520, 930, 640, 640XL, 730, 735, 830, 532, 535, 540, 635 1GB, 636 1GB, 638 1GB, 430, 435, BLU Win HD w510u, BLU Win HD LTE x150q, and the MCJ Madosma Q501.

Here is the procedure to upgrade your phone if your device supports the Windows 10 Mobile upgrade.  If you are not confident about carrying out the upgrade yourself, or would like some advice please call our helpdesk.

1) Get Update Advisor

To check if the Windows 10 Mobile upgrade is available for your phone, you firstly need to install an app called Update Advisor app from the Windows Store on your Windows Phone 8.1 device, which you can download from here


2) Enable Windows 10 upgrade
Once you have downloaded and installed the Update Advisor, you need to open it by heading over to the All Apps list on your Windows Phone 8.1 device. After opening up the app, click on “Next” and let the app check for updates. If the app says that the Windows 10 upgrade is available, tick the Enable Windows 10 upgrade checkbox and tap on “Next”. Once the app tells you that your phone is “Ready to upgrade”, tap on “Done”

3) Get the update
After following the above two steps, you should now be able to get the Windows 10 Mobile update. To get it, open up the Settings app on your Windows Phone, scroll down and open “Phone Update” and check for updates to download the OS. Once the OS is ready to install, you will get a simple notification and be able to install the OS.

New Technology - Intel Optane Drives

Steve Hirst - Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Optane DrivesIntel’s reinvention of the Hard Drive could give laptops to super computers a major speed boost as early as next year. Intel Optane drives, as they will be called, are based on a new way to store digital data that can operate as much as 1,000 times as fast as the flash memory technology inside hard drives, memory sticks, and mobile devices today.

The sluggish speed of data storage compared to the pace at which processors can work on data has become a significant bottleneck on the capabilities of computers. Several large computing and chip companies have invested heavily in promising new data storage technologies, but none has yet borne fruit. Intel’s Optane drives are based on a technology called 3D Xpoint, developed in collaboration with the memory chip company Micron.

Intel says the technology is affordable enough that Optane drives will be made available next year for uses ranging from large corporate data centres to lightweight laptops. Rob Crooke, a general manager on Intel’s memory project, predicted that they would improve gaming, supercomputers, and data analysis. “We expect to see breakthroughs in personalized medicine, in business analytics to allow companies, cities, and maybe countries to run more efficiently,” he said.

The flash memory chips that are the fastest way to store data today use a grid of clumps of electrons trapped on silicon to represent the 0s and 1s of digital data. A 3D Xpoint chip instead has a grid formed from metal wires layered over one another; data is stored by using electricity to change the arrangement of atoms inside material trapped at each junction of the grid. Just like flash, 3D Xpoint chips hold onto data even when powered down. They can’t currently store data as densely, but Intel says the Xpoint grids can be stacked vertically, providing a route to storing more data on one chip.


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