Office 17 for Windows 10 only

I don't know if Microsoft is finally doing the right thing when it comes to the privacy stuff on Windows 10 this time but it seems that they have made an announcement to the upcoming successor of Office 2016 that will be Windows 10 exclusive. It's quite a bad luck for Windows 7 and 8.1 users but they already have experienced backported UIs from probably Windows 8 and 10 like the third-party software using the new UI as well as the new notification in the style of Windows 8/10.
Office 17 will have the standard apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook as well as Skype for Business. I don't know if the non-business edition of this may have the inclusion of standard edition of Skype which is supposed to be free to get.
Installation-wise, the only way generally will be through Click-To-Run technology similar to the previous versions of Office although the MSI-based installer will be on Office server products. The installation is ONLINE only so you're out of luck if you're trying to install it without the internet connection. If that's the case, how do technicians install this in the enterprise environment?
The worse thing is that in the future, Microsoft will move on to Office 365 and Office in the cloud entirely after 7 years. Until now, the UWP versions of Office still have yet to be on par with the desktop app version but the problem is that certain features don't seem to be quite touch-friendly so two separate versions are already the better bet currently.

Windows 10 Live Event

This one's a great event despite the previous controversy I blogged about for Windows 10 the last time but rest assured, the keylogging thingy will be gone in the final version. After this event, there may be the next build released to the public next week, followed by the mobile version next month in prototype form of course.
Features such as Continuum which is almost automatic when switching between tablet and laptop mode, Cortana, Universal App just like Android and IOS, new web browser that looks like Chrome, Cross Play between Xbox One and Windows 10 which is similar to PS4 X PS Vita via Remote Play although I don't know how will that work in addition to using Windows 10 on PC, tablets and phones for playing Xbox One games remotely, Windows 10 on mobile devices, Hololens and Holo-Studios and so on, are coming in the Windows 10 time frame.
Good thing is that Windows 10 will be a free upgrade for Windows 7, 8.1 and Phone 8.1 users although I don't know if I will be ready for that in the future like upgrading from OEM Windows 7 Home Premium that came with my computer that I have to Windows 10 for instance. Next thing is that the UI is starting to look and behave like the Android UI like there are certain buttons to trigger, the notifications and other stuffs. For notification bar, it may have superceded the one on Android in which each notification has additional actions for you to choose from. Next is Office for Windows 10, Android and IOS which has the ribbon UI in the different form for smartphones but the arrangement of ribbon UI is the same for tablets. Even the new mail app for Windows 10 may happen to have the ribbon UI or something. Perhaps, it's the Outlook app that I'm talking about since it has both the mail and calendar apps. There's also the Hololens which is super-delusional, I'm telling you. You can see cool fictional things to interact with when you have the Hololens on but the others can't. Also, it takes in reality, not virtual reality so call this the AR kind of technology. You can integrate your Holo-Studios creation to the 3D Printer like de-fictionalizing your creation with that. There's the Surface Hub which may look like the Microsoft Smart TV for business use. I don't know if there will be the consumer purpose for that thing. Next, the Cross Play feature between Xbox One and Windows 10 similar to the one for Playstation 4 and Vita. Playing Xbox One games remotely on Windows 10 machines is the first step and especially that you can encounter the players who are playing the other versions of the same game. It's a shameful challenge like trying to play Xbox One or Playstation 4 games remotely on the phones or tablets as if you will need the other kind of USB connection and the controller hooked up to those mobile devices running the companion apps. Like the Playstation 4 companion app where you socialize on stuffs, this is the same for Xbox One. Also, like the Playstation 4, you can video capture stuffs easily without having to buy the external video capture device. Best of all, you can do the same for Windows 10 although there are already tons of video capture programs on PC like Bandicam for example. There's also the video capturing stuff from Steam which is the answer to Twitch.tv. Lastly, the Cortana feature which was previously in Windows Phone 8.1. It's going to be extended to Windows 10 platforms and I'm sure that even the Xbox One will have that as well.
Gaming-wise, there's going to be DirectX 12 which I already mentioned in the previous blog posts, that will be coming to Windows 10 and Xbox One for improvements. Maybe it's to get Xbox One on par with its rival but still, product wars can make us pathetic when we have become adults. Regardless of platforms or product brands, arcade gaming is still an important thing for me.
You know what pissed me off during the event? It's the connectivity interruption during the live stream and unlike MVA Jump Start or perhaps YouTube live stream, this one's a different media player service and it doesn't have various qualities to choose from. It's also sort of like some fags at home were trying to stop me from going further in nighttime events like this like they're trying to take those for trash or something.

Microsoft Office made free for mobile devices

Having Office 365 subscription for this is a big no-no for the users but it may seem that we have been using Microsoft Office on the desktop/laptop which still looks as standard as ever for that device as if it is still touch unfriendly on the tablet devices as there are like too many buttons to pick from no matter how large the spacing and interface can be. It was like a disaster for the tablet users back then when it comes to Office 2k13 and 365 but now, it looks like Microsoft is trying to improve Microsoft Office Online and Mobile versions so that they can be suited for mobile devices. Also, the mobile version is highly limited without Office 365 subscription and having to buy the subscription as the in-app purchase is kind of bullshit!
At least, Microsoft has done things right this time by having all the features available for use in the free version of Microsoft Office for mobile devices but it's still not the same for business users as they will still be required to use the Office 365 subscription. Not to mention that they have to be using Onedrive and Dropbox Business Editions which give them additional features. Hell, there's also the Office support for Dropbox in which you can edit the documents stored in your Dropbox storage online through Office Online similar to what you can do in Onedrive although Dropbox is still the best one to use in everyone's opinion.
The Iphone version was already out last year with the Ipad version out this year. In the future, there will be new Android and Windows touch versions as well as the new Microsoft Office for standard computers that will be coming in as well although for Windows 10 devices, we don't know how Microsoft Office will switch in between modes automatically like between Touch and Standard Modes, that is. The Touch mode should bring you to the Modern UI version when the device is in tablet mode while the Standard mode should bring you to the standard desktop version when the device is in laptop mode. Perhaps, the switching behavior is somewhat based on how web browsers do for Windows 8 devices but I expect it to be automatic in software when you switch in between two modes.

Office Swap

It is said to be the modern evolution of PowerPoint as many people use and no programming knowledge is required. The idea is that you can bring in the contents from various online services like cloud storage services, social networking services, video sharing services and so on into the modern presentation that can be seen on any device. This removes the burden on having to make a webpage with embedded presentation that allows users to view it online. Having embedded presentation on the website is likely to be a classic problem but the modern software technology allows the presentations to be viewable online that easily. You should be able to make one at Slideshare for example so that other people can view it and it's a popular service.
There's also the Office Online service which is the online version of the Office apps we know of. It may have superseded Office Viewer series as Office Online may have more functions but it's limited. Even with the Office apps installed, they are still not that touch friendly as there are too many features suited for desktop and laptop use and besides, they don't look anything modern enough compared to OneNote Modern UI version which is a little bit challenging to take down and modify notes from unless you know the tactics.
Right now, Office Swap is still under beta stage and the only way to register is through invitation. Also, the features there are still limited.

Major Outlook Online features for Office 365

There may be upcoming improvements for Outlook Online for Office 365 as well as the Android version of those apps that will be joining the recently released IOS versions. You can edit the Office documents from the email via those online apps and then send those updated files back via the reply.
We don't know when the Android version will be released but in the mean time, you can try out the recently released IOS version of Office 365.

More Lumia reveals in April 2nd at press event

Tomorrow, Microsoft will be planning to reveal tons of their stuffs at the press conference at San Franscisco such as Office for Ipad, Windows Phone 8.1 stuffs, etc. Do note somehow that this press conference is held separately from the BUILD developer conference which is another event Microsoft is involved. Speaking of more Lumia reveals, those upcoming smartphones will be using Windows Phone 8.1 and we already have lots of anticipations for the upcoming Windows Phone updates like this and especially for more upcoming mobile devices coming this year. Certain of which were announced at the previous event like the MWC.

UK Government's support for ODF only is not enough

It may be a good move to ditch Office 365 technology in favor of open source programs but then, there's another concern to worry about. Will the open source programs be the next cyber-victim of the spying agencies once they become so god-damn popular? It seems that Microsoft Office is the most popular Office suite and it has been used by huge amount of people including business but the downside of this move by the UK Government is that other file formats are not supported as concerned by Microsoft.
The other format is Open XML which is used by IOS and Google Docs in addition to Microsoft Office but then, I don't know what is the good point of using Open XML when IOS and Google Docs are already the targets of the cyber-spying agencies?
I can believe that you can stick on to Microsoft Office alternative for the sake of securing your privacy but using that alone will not be enough for business. The cost will be higher and dealing with the government in the future will be more tough for supporting ODF only.

Office Online

The interface may seem to be improved but even then, it cannot be the same for the Ribbon UI or perhaps the standard toolbar as enlarging it may be a difficult way. Sure, Office client version has the Touch Mode to expand the spacing that makes things suitable for the touch screen devices but unfortunately, certain of those tablet devices are making the buttons look too small. I don't know what the latest version of Office mobile looks like on Windows Phone but I assume that the buttons can't be this small.
Interface-wise, there are newer features for Office Online apps. There will be features that will make those apps catch up with the client counterparts and the Metro counterparts. While OneNote itself is free across multi-platforms, the others are not.

UK Government plans to ditch Microsoft Office in favor open-source

Hmm, I don't know if this is gonna be a controversial move or perhaps a good move. A good move in ditching Microsoft Office service is that your documents are safe from being spied. A controversial move in ditching this is that the spying process may be somewhat spread to open-source solutions that the Europeans may somewhat need to keep a lookout for. Now, it seems that the UK Government is planning to ditch Microsoft Office perhaps to save costs but despite that, many of the private companies in the UK are still using Microsoft Office. Sure, the open-source software similar to Microsoft Office is somewhat inferior but at least, the open-source office suite software is something you should have used nowadays instead.
Last year, Neowin apparently reported on the IT consultancy that claimed that many of the clients are were ditching Google Docs service in favor of Office 365. Maybe the new cloud technology from Microsoft is interesting enough to use and especially for the Office Web Apps which are incomplete compared to the clients' counterpart but at least, they look kind of similar and have more features like always. So, bravos to those clients for ditching Google Docs in favor of Office 365, not because Google is kind of an evil betrayal to the users nowadays.
OK, it seems that I still have Office 2010 in my computer in addition to the open-source office solutions and especially when I had recently switched to Springpad for note-taking after thinking that even Evernote was the next victim of the spying agencies. Maybe next time, I'll transfer the notes from my OneNote and Evernote accounts to Springpad.
And of course, for future personal works, the graphics will be done with Inkscape but that can be time consuming and not all graphics are going to be done with that.

Better encryption from Microsoft will be completed by the end of next year

Well, this is taking a long time for this super encryption to be completed and deployed against the evil cyber-spying agencies we already know of and news of such spying scandal has been everywhere around the globe and everyone already knows it. In fact, we already saw a recent news on what they have been up to against the internet users. The services that will be encrypted are, Outlook.com, Office 365, Skydrive and Windows Azure.

Using the highest key length so far which is 2KBit and we’re not joking about that, this is by far the best-in-class industry cryptography Microsoft has planned. Another encryption standard called Perfect Forward Secrecy will also be implemented as well.

Under Legal Protection Reinforcement, it seems that Microsoft had already taken lawful actions against the bad things the governments had attempted to do against the customers. We don’t know when did Microsoft do this to protect us but they said that they will continue to protect us in the future to preserve their ability to alert us when some idiots DARE to force them to hand over the customer data. Of course, the consequences for such refusal are complete BULLSHIT! If Microsoft can continue to protect us, then there may be a reason to use their products again. But until the day of super-encryption, our computers and servers running Apple or Microsoft OSes are nothing but malware-infected junks. Even our tablets and phones are the similar victims as well.

Office 2013 Service Pack 1 coming early next year

Next year, there will be upcoming Service Pack 1 for the latest Office, SharePoint and Exchange products. This may deliver performance enhancements, feature updates and improve compatibility with Windows 8.1 which was already out months ago that Windows 8 users should upgrade to 8.1 whenever possible. OK, what else is there to say about this upcoming service pack? There isn’t much else to say from this official link: http://blogs.office.com/b/office-news/archive/2013/11/20/office-2013-service-pack-1-coming-early-next-year.aspx.

Office 365 Message Encryption

It seems that Google already has the full encryption on most of its service but it seems that Outlook.com is like a complete joke due to lack of encryption. This one’s powering the Office 365 services along with Windows Azure Rights Management which is part of E3 and E4 plans. Well, thankfully, the new Outlook site may seem to be part of the Office 365 cloud technology where you can use this new message encryption feature to encrypt your messages through your Office 365 ID or Microsoft account.

From the Message Encryption interface, it appears to be based on the Outlook Web App, in which Office 365 webmail is also using. With Message Encryption, you can customize the disclaimer text and header text in your company’s encryption emails as well as the company Logo and portal text that appear in your encrypted emails.

Office 365 Message Encryption will be available in the first quarter of next year and it is probably available for business users.

Organizing & Sharing Information with OneNote Jump Start

Alright, it looks like I'm back for another Jump Start from Microsoft Virtual Academy and this blog as well. Hopefully, things should be peaceful this year like there won't be any need for emergency like blog-posting reaction from me like disastrous things that will be bound to happen in some year that I may to blog everything about the products that will be released on that year just like I did last year alot about Windows 8 and Office 15. This time, it's about OneNote and things should be that easier and especially when we're missing certain tricks needed to use for OneNote.
Before that, I had made various discoveries from that Jump Start. You can go to the Office Webinar like the next one will happen next week. Also, the Office Webinar happens like regularly except on some days like today due to the freaking Jump Start. Another thing was the Opalis Integration Server in which I have no freaking idea even if it is part of System Center family of suites from Microsoft. I don't know if that feature will be learnt in Microsoft Virtual Academy as well but we want the students to know what the hell is that as it left me kind of curious during the Jump Start.
For this Jump Start, it featured various keyboard shortcuts shown such as using Shift + Alt, followed by other key to do the tricks and especially Ctrl + . or / for bullets and numbering respectively. For Ctrl + numbers, those are for tags and you can make your own one if you want. Other features involved importing slides into OneNote, inserting embedded Excel and Visio documents, adding subpages and synchronizing OneNote documents to Skydrive, Sharepoint and Skydrive Pro. Even better is that you can use Lync with OneNote perhaps for online meeting, I guess, and you can try to edit the documents and take notes during the meeting. Lastly, you can record video and audio but is there a reason not to have the feature about inserting embedded videos? OK, I asked a question about that but I may assume that I'm not the only one who makes this kind of request. Sure, you can insert embedded videos in other document editing software but for OneNote, it's trying to be a different thing like its main purpose is about taking down notes. Other stuffs seen from the Jump Start involved the Event Template, Schedule Template, Resume Template and so on.
Unfortunately for others, there was some disgraceful technical problem that they were not able to get in the Jump Start even when it had started. It might have wasted their time but for me, the technical problems were kind of different though that I was kind of fine.
So that's it for this event and we'll be looking forward to more of these Jump Starts from MVA.

Office documents on Office 365 Final Version

As we already know, the preview versions of all the Office 365 products had already expired and it's going to be time to buy the final versions of Office 365 products like they were already available. So, when you install Office 365, you get to see the Welcome to Office video. I don't know if that video is updated or not for the final version but it should be to reflect the title.
Now, here came an irritating part. For some reason, the applications decided to jam/hang on me due to that STUPID CONNECTION TO Office 365 and Skydrive stuffs. WHAT WAS THAT TECHNICAL PROBLEM ALL ABOUT WHEN TRYING TO EDIT OR SAVE A DOCUMENT ONLINE? In that case, I had already decided to edit the Office documents stored in my Dropbox storage INSTEAD! Even worse was that the Office documents I've been using were not able to be synchronized properly. That freaking Office Upload feature, it wouldn't do any uploading feature let alone the Skydrive doing all the work.
At least, the new Skydrive doesn't give me whatever technical problems because it functions the same way as Dropbox does and especially for the new Skydrive site that allows you to browse the files online but if you try to work on the Office documents stored in your company's Office 365/Skydrive online as a team, I don't know if the technical problems will surely annoy you or some sort. Better still, use Skydrive for storage purposes while using Dropbox for synchronization and document editing purposes in business.
Another irritating problem when editing documents is that interface keeps animating when the window is not that large or wide enough and when you're editing certain parts of the documents.
I don't know if the bugs are fixed in the final version and I will be buying Office 365 Home Premium or not one day but that has been so much of beta testing for me that new bugs can continue to annoy the beta testers upon detecting them and the developers are being reported regarding them and asked to fix them.

Office 15 now available for business customers

Finally, they can purchase the on-premises versions of Office 15, Exchange Server 15, Lync Server 15, SharePoint Server 15, Project 15 and Visio 15 through Microsoft Volume Licensing. For such an example business like that, they can buy Exchange Server, Lync Server, SharePoint Server, Visio and Office for business use but this kind of super-plan can be seriously expensive and fulfilling the licenses like these may not be quite easy for legal business use. Broad availability through the retail and online channels is still planned for the first quarter of next year.

To begin for business use, you may want to ask your Microsoft Account Team or your Microsoft Partner. In the meantime, there’s also the trial version of the product that you can try today and let the developers of Office 15 know what you think.

Enhancements on the new SharePoint done by Microsoft

Yesterday, they demonstrated at the conference the existing array of the new product enhancements in the new SharePoint and highlighted significant investments in social, cloud and mobile capabilities. The enhancements include the new Metro user experience where you can share documents inside or outside the organization with the single click, drag and drop content into document libraries, edit lists inline and create new sites easily.

Other enhancements are as follows:

• With the use of Skydrive Pro, you can store and sync documents across all the devices in the organization.
• For task management, you can organize your work with task lists and project timelines as well as to consolidate task management across SharePoint, Outlook and Project.
• You can customize and narrow your search for more relevant results and discover related people and documents with recommendations with the newly improved FAST Search.
• Using eDiscovery across SharePoint, Exchange, Lync and file shares, you can make the dynamic websites with cross-site publishing and enhanced Web content management. Improve scalability and performance with a new cloud architecture.

In addition, SharePoint 15 also introduces a new cloud app model for more than 700k developers building on it. This new cloud app model and a new Office store make it easier for developers to build, buy and deploy and manage applications using existing Web development skills. This can be done with the use of the new Visual Studio in which they can work with Napa tools for online development of Office 365 apps, include templates and designers to facilitate app development and support the LightSwitch HTML client for easy creation of data-centric business apps in SharePoint 15.

The last thing may include SharePoint mobile for Windows 8, Windows Phone, IOS and Android devices. All of these apps will work with both SharePoint 15 and Online.

Excel Surveys for Skydrive

Oh man, perhaps Microsoft Access can be better suited in storing the databases of the surveys you’ve made so far. Yesterday, they had launched the Excel survey feature on Skydrive. It is for collecting information from your friends and family to better organize and plan activities. So, if you’re planning to organize one activity, you can make use of this feature to do so judging from the best feedback written in your surveys.

How can this work with Microsoft Excel? First, you can plan out the questions and type of answers you want as well as to set the response type and determine whether the questions are answered to answer or not. Once you’re done, you can share the survey through the link which is a freaking joke to the future of the technology. Having to announce your plans by mail or links like that may be a no-no as you may end up annoying your friends like that. Once the response is complete from your friends you’ve invited to the survey, you can see the results in Excel and do neat things like embed the results in the webpage or make and share the chart of the results which may be useful for holiday party, vacation or perhaps some kind of research.

Office on Windows Phone 8

Can this one be extra fluid and fast since the whole Windows Phone 7 is done from scratch? Previously, it seems that Windows Phone 7 is supposed to fast and fluid but from what you can see from the start screen, you can notice that some of the apps are not fast and fluid enough as if there are some remaining traces of glassy stuffs which can spoil the performance of Windows Phone 7 devices. Now with Office for Windows Phone 8, it is basically based on Office 15 for Windows Phone 8 devices and that’s extra fluid and fast for sure.

Your office documents are on the cloud with Skydrive or Office 365 and you can use them from the computers, tablets and even smartphone devices. There’s also the Tap + Send feature in Windows Phone 8 that allows you to share documents to another NFC-capable device.

In PowerPoint for Windows Phone 8, it seamlessly renders all shapes and SmartArt Graphics and honors the transition effects and timing. There’s also the portrait mode with speaker notes, slide thumbnails make navigation between slides a lot easier.

In Excel, you’re able to zoom and to edit the workbooks but I don’t know if there will be the scrollbar in any case. I guess that when zoomed out, you can move anywhere you want but when zoomed in, you may end up selecting the cells to edit or enter in plus selecting multiple cells. Also, the View Cell Text feature is as useful as editing cells in the desktop version of Excel.

OneNote Mobile – Oh man, try not to treat this as the secondary Messenger for issuing tasks like that like we already saw in one of the Windows 7 commercials. You can use this to take notes, tasks and other stuffs you may want. Also, there’s even the Voice Notes which may be cool enough.

What’s more is that you can use Lync, Skype and Yammer for perhaps multiple ways of communication and collaboration effectively from your mobile devices, tablets and even the computers. Outlook provides the integrated email, contacts, calendar and tasks which may be the hallmark experience on Windows Phone. For Skype and Lync as we know of, you can use voice, video, IM, email, SMS, feeds and presence for communication. It’s easy to participate in meetings from your mobile device without typing in any access codes. Unfortunately, it seems that the developers will provide more details about their enterprise social experiences in the coming months perhaps once Windows Phone 8 is out.

Quicker Replies in Outlook 15

Using Quick Response, you can quickly reply without leaving the inbox in Outlook 15. This saves time without having to take some time to reply to messages by going back to Inbox and then selecting which messages you need to reply to that open up the message window. Instead, there’s a right pane for quick reply to whatever message you’ve received in the inbox. Also, there’s the draft indicator whose drafts will be there until you send your response or discard it just like composing the respective messages you want to send to. The draft indicator may make it easy for you to see which messages you still need to act on without switching to Drafts folder or looking around for open reply windows. When you click on a conversation that shows the indicator, you will automatically be brought back to the mail you were composing so you can pick up where you left off.

Well, that’s about it but you can find out the full details of Quicker Replies in Outlook 15 at the official Outlook Blog. Hopefully, they won’t screw up in case.

Office for Windows RT Update

Office 15 for Windows RT had recently hit RTM stage but it’s a huge shame for Surface users to get the prototype version instead when it’s going to be launched in October 26th. And having to upgrade through Windows Update in the desktop way is a son of a butt for tablet users. This is stupidly tedious compared to updating Office for IOS, Android and Windows Phone devices. There will be signs of restarting the tablets which may be bullshit but hopefully, there shouldn’t be any restart requirement anyway. And speaking of patches for the OSes, Windows RT should be updated in the similar way its rival operating systems do. It should be patched with like version updates with all the planned patches in there instead. Even service packs have to go for tablet users but I doubt that they should be replaced in anyway. OK, there can be alternatives for service packs but that doesn’t mean the tablet has to keep on updating itself with every patch. The service pack alternative patches can include the patches for other Microsoft products which may be neater for tablets.