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.

Bing Apps on Windows 8 Available as part of the launch

The day after the launch of the operating system has the excitement still on-going as the event at Times Square is not over yet. Exclusive to Windows 8 version of Bing search page, there’s the 360 degree panorama that allows you to zoom, pinch and swipe as you explore the images but you can do the same on any modern browser that supports HTML5 with the mouse or other same controls. For Windows 8 users, you may need to go to Windows Store and get the Bing apps and update them to get the latest features.

• Bing Search – Well, if there’s an instant search feature similar to the one on Google Search, that will make this one extra fast and fluid. Finger-friendly results and images are front and center letting you quickly find what you’re looking for. You can rely on the same great Bing web experience in Internet Explorer 10 but it can shine as well on Windows 8 Bing apps.
• Bing Weather – This one brings you the beautiful preview of the weather backgrounds that helps you prepare for the latest conditions with hourly, daily and 10-day forecasts. To help plan when to do something, historical data is available to examine the respective weather conditions for a given time period. Also, like the Weather apps on other devices, you can add additional time zones of weather predictions for tracking real time and daily predictions for other sets of places of interest to you.
• Bing Media apps – You know, I’ve been checking for the latest news regarding Technology so these apps are not for me. These include Finance, Travel, News in any type and Sports and I’m not into them so I’m sticking back to probably Pulse app or perhaps Rockmelt to check out more news of Technology.

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.

Box for Windows 8 Final Version

Alright, looks like Windows 8 is finally released to the stores and the event at Times Square must be really big. Today marks the big day for Windows 8 but let’s talk about other news we recently discovered.

Previously, Box was available for the release preview version of Windows 8 but with the final version coming in, it seems that there are some improvements.

The collaboration and sharing play well with this metro app that you can make use of the Share Charm to share files taken from your Box cloud storage to the respective social networking sites. You can also share by mail in case you’re still doing some work with your teammates which may be useful. The Box app also has the SSO login support and a passcode lock feature so that you can rest safe to know that you’re using the company credentials and that you can protect your content from curious fingers if you happen to lose your device that you can revoke it.

The limited time bonuses are that if you happen to be using Windows 8 on any HP device, you get the 25GB bonus for using Box Sync and a 50GB account for using Box on Samsung ATIV Tab.

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.

Model 2 Collection for PSN and XBLA

The title inaccurately says it all but some of the Model 2 games previously released for PSN and XBLA were already in true widescreen such as a Virtual On game previously released as well as Daytona USA widescreen edition. There was also the widescreen HD version of Daytona USA in the arcades but that was named Sega Racing Classic and there were some removals due to licensing issues.

This contains Virtua Fighter 2, Sonic The Fighters, Virtua Striker, Fighting Vipers and so on. Perhaps Classic Game Room may be proud but where’s Fighting MegaMix, you may ask? This may be why this compilation may be inaccurate because not all games are in it.

We don’t know the release date for this but that was what the video showed us.

Skype for Windows 8 final version

The Metro version of Skype is almost ready and we’re still stuck with the desktop version. Apparently, it is part of the RTM Windows Store that you may have to wait until October 26 to get this. What’s better than the desktop version is that, even if the Skype app is closed, you still can receive voice and video calls as well as the chat messages similar to other apps on the smartphones and tablets. Even better is that you can snap the Skype app and easily tell whatever you’re doing through the voice call, video call and even instant messages. However, the way you’re going to show off the proof is still inaccurate as if even having two webcams simultaneously won’t even help.

In addition, the Skype also brings the contacts from the People App for easier importing. By logging in to the Skype App with your Microsoft account, all your Skype contacts will show up in the People App. The People App can also show you what’s going on from your friends on the respective social networking sites. You can also reach them who aren’t on Skype yet through phone calls if you have a phone number stored in their contact information and a little Skype credit or a subscription.