We covered Live Documents, the new online office documents competition last month, that is about to make a move to steal some market share aware from Zoho, ThinkFree and Google.
Live Documents has released some screen grabs from its interface, giving a little more insight into what they are all about. The Flash based interfaces do resemble what Microsoft currently has on the market, but add the ability to collaborate. Screenshots include Presentations, Spreadsheets and Documents.
Live Documents does reference Microsoft, and Microsoft's Office applications quite a bit when talking about its own suite, and the look and feel closely resembles what MS offers, so we have to assume that they have relied heavily on Office as a starting point. Is this a bad thing? Not if you're looking to quickly build and sell the business.
We'll have to test Live Documents when it becomes readily available to see what its winning points are, and whether or not it will become a major player in the online office space.
Imagine you were using Excel, and it was actually fun!
Yes, it's difficult, but try.
While it might be hard to imagine, the makers of Excit have accomplished the task of making Excel fun. It's not really Excel, but an Excel-themed online Flash game, but even still it's remarkable. Excit is described as an "MIS Spreadsheet game", implying that there are a number of such games. For this Time Waster we're going to focus on Excit.
The goal of the game is to exit the level you're on. Get it? Excel / exit? It's a clever play on the two words... oh, you get it already. Okay.
Each level consists of a number of walls arranged in different patterns with a clearly marked exit cell, as well as other objects that your cursor can interact with. Control in the game is dead-simple: you can move your cursor up, down, left or right with the arrow keys, but choose wisely, because your cursor is going to continue in that direction until it hits an object that stops it, or continues off the screen. If it goes off the screen, you start the level over. Luckily, there is no concept of lives in this game, so you can continue with a trial and error approach until you succeed, or go crazy from frustration.
The first few levels are fairly easy, but soon enough the challenge level ramps up enough to get your brain thinking ahead by a a few moves. Each time you complete a level, you are given a password so that if you want to come back to the game at a later time, you can jump right to the level you were at.
With some concentrated effort, it should be possible to complete Excit during a lunch hour and have time left over to scarf down a sandwich. It's definitely a great little brain teasing Time Waster.
Microsoft Office 2007 may include a bunch of nifty updates from previous versions of Microsoft's office suite. But it also includes new document formats for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. In other words, it causes a bunch of headaches when an Office 2007 user sends files to Office 2003 or OpenOffice.org users.
There are a bunch of services that will convert the new .xlsx, .docx, and .pptx files to old fashioned .xls, .doc, and .ppt files. But Microsoft has a solution for anyone who just needs to read documents without editing them.
This summer Microsoft release a compatibility update allowing Office 2003 and earlier customers to open the new file formats. It turns out that update also lets you use the free Word Viewer 2003 to read .docx files. Now Microsoft has also released PowerPoint Viewer 2007 with support for .pptx files.
There's no update to Excel Viewer 2003 yet, but we're guessing it's just a matter of time.
Call us silly, but one of the things we've come to expect from spreadsheet applications is accurate math. But a few weeks ago a number of users started reporting that there was a bug in Microsoft Excel 2007 that caused the number 100,000 to pop up any time you entered an equation that should have equaled 65,535 or 65,536. For example, 850 x 77.1 = 100,000.
As it turns out, if you perform other functions on that cell, Excel will spit out the correct numbers. But on-screen it displays the wrong number.
Two weeks later, Microsoft has issued a fix for Excel 2007, and the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Excel Services 2007. The update will eventually be pushed to Excel 2007 users through Windows Update. But if you want to download it now, you can download the appropriate update from Microsoft.
It's been a busy week here at Download Squad headquarters. And we assume you've had a busy week too. So if you've fallen behind on your tech news, here are a few things you might have missed during the week ending September 29th, 2007. Download Squad interviews Evan Jones of 360desktop - Video
Ever get the feeling that there's just not enough space for all the shortcuts, temporary files, and widgets you need to live a contended life? 360desktop lets you use a panoramic photo as a desktop background. Since panoramic photos don't fit too well on a 1024 x 768 pixel monitor, 360desktop creates more virtual desktop space by letting you scroll beyond the edge of your monitor.
Download Squad's Ted Wallingford has been spending some quality time with his Nokia N800, and he has the video to prove it. Sure, the N800 isn't technically a phone like the iPhone, but put that puppy near a Wi-Fi hot spot, fire up the VoIP and anything's possible.
Download Squad's Gordon Finlayson has a few questions about Facebook developers. So he sent e-mails to a handful of said developers. And he was labeled a spammer, his account was banned, and Facebook lawyers told him the immortal soul of his firstborn child was now theres. OK, we made the last part up. But Finlayson does have some interesting thoughts on Facebook's over-aggressive anti-spam policy.
Resident developer Alex Hung offers up some valuable advice for honing your skills even when your current job is far too easy for you. Only the strong survive, and one day you're going to be looking for another job. So why not contribute to open source projects, take evening classes, or actually show your bosses that there might be a better way of doing things.
Most of the threats to our computers come from the web. So while firewalls, anti-virus, and anti-spyware applications are great, sometimes what you really need is a way to protect your browsing session. At least, that's the premise behind ZoneAlarm's latest security offering. Preview of Nero 8 - DLS interview
Nero is set to release the latest version of its popular CD/DVD burning suite next week. We got a chance to ask Nero technical director Craig Campbell a few questions about what sets Nero 8 apart from Nero 7. In a nutshell: a few performance enhancements and a whole bunch of visual tweaks.
Here are a few more of our most popular articles from the week:
While some members of the Download Squad team may be math whizzes, some are lucky if they can find the Windows calculator. But once it's up and running, we're pretty sure that when you multiply 850 by 77.1, the answer should be 65,535. But for some reason when you perform the same calculation using Microsoft Excel 2007, you get 100,000.
Now, 100,000 is a nice round number. Generally speaking, we like it. But in this particular instance it's wrong. And that's not something we like to see in a spreadsheet application. As it turns out, any time you enter an equation that should result in 65,535, you'll get 100,000.
Microsoft has been made aware of the problem and is developing a fix. But it's a bit surprising that the software's been on the shelves as long as it has been without anyone discovering this flaw. Anyone find any other calculations that come up wrong?
Hot on the heels of today's new iLife suite, iWork '08 comes to the table too. Whilst new Keynote, and Pages, features are expected, the most hotly tipped question was "Would Apple bring out an Excel rival"? Behold Numbers and so much more.
If you are a regular user of Microsoft Office, and the Box.net storage platform, you are going to love this new feature that makes storing and accessing your docs online an easy alternative to Google's Docs and Spreadsheets.
The Box.net team has just completed work on an Office On Demand feature for Word users that enables an easy way to save Word, Powerpoint, Excel and Access files directly into Box.net storage accounts.
The application is only available for Windows XP and Vista users. It adds a "Save to Box.net" button to the application toolbar, that when clicked, instantly uploads the file. This new feature is great if you are constantly switching between multiple computers, no more flash keys or manual uploading required.
ThinkFree has launched a few different ways for people to startup their own little applications and mashups.
We covered the company last year when it returned from the dead and began offering a web based application suite. ThinkFree now has a plugin available that was released yesterday that gives Wordpress bloggers the ability to drop in MS Office documents, spreadsheets and presentations that can be viewable even if the end viewer does not have the associated Office or Acrobat applications installed. This opens up the ability for bloggers to drop in a powerpoint presentation into their blog posts, or embed excel spreadsheets of information.
The company has also announced their Viewer API which gives people the opportunity to create mashups and applications using the Viewer utility. ThinkFree wants to get the ball rolling with web service companies who they hope will create mashups and applications using the utility. With the API, designers can integrate Viewer files, doc's, xls, or ppt files directly into an online application, giving end users, regardless of Operating systems or plugins, the ability to view files.
ThinkFree is also working on a document exchange product called ThinkFree Docs that has been described as a Flickr for Office files. Through this new location ThinkFree will enable content creators to read, share, get feedback, and source office documents. There is a demo up online now, but the actual site will be up with a redesign in the near future.
Consilient wants to push your email. Should we forget about Blackberry's and try out Consilient's new push mobile email application? This former partner of RIM looks like it has the inside scoop on push technology with this new offering that was built for the Asian market, and has recently traveled to North American soil.
Consilient's free push offering includes access to five email accounts, including Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo, along with IMAP and POP accounts. The company states that they do not store passwords and the free application will push out emails in real time as they are received into personal and corporate email accounts that have been setup in the application. The push application is available for most popular phones and Windows Mobile devices, and does have the ability to accept attachments in Word, PDF and Excel formats.
For users wishing to upgrade from the free account, a $5/month (plus a $10 activation fee) plan is available that will unlock enhanced features that allow content sharing and mobile social networking.
Mac users seem to always get it last, and this upcoming version of Office 2008 is no exception. The team at Microsoft has been testing the next version of Office for Mac which is scheduled to be out in the middle of this year, and luckily adds some features that Apple fans have been missing out on.
Office 2008 has been finally released in a private beta test version for Mac users to test on Intel and Power PC setups. This release has taken longer than Microsoft's normal schedule of 18-24 months for new Mac versions of software releases. The current Mac version of Office is 2004 came out in April 2004. Mac Office will also finally get support for XML file formats, which was added in the Windows Office 2007 version. Office for Mac will also see an application called My Day, which give quick access to calendar items. Other improvements include improved page layout in Word and Excel with ledger sheets.
An Office alternative that more and more users are getting turned onto is the new OpenOffice 2.2 which has recently been released.
Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch caught what could be evidence that Microsoft is prepping some sort of online spreadsheet program, which would probably be a stripped down version of Excel.
Microsoft Developer Tod Hilton posted on his personal blog that he's moving from Microsoft's Global Foundation Services to the company's Excel Services team. And yesterday, he wrote that the product "has tons of potential and will probably be competing with the likes of Google Spreadsheets, DabbleDB, Zoho, and JotSpot Tracker."
A short while later, Hilton removed that text and updates his post to say that he was removing his "personal opinions." The implication is that we shouldn't read too much into what he wrote on the post, it may have just been excitement about moving to a new team. Either Microsoft is planning on developing an online spreadsheet application, or Hilton really thinks they should and wrote his post in a moment of blind enthusiasm.
Obviously there's not enough information here to determine whether Microsoft is developing online versions of other Office programs such as Word or PowerPoint. But one can dream. While we're dreaming, let's imagine that these applications would all be free.
BigContacts is a web based contact manager where users can upload both personal and business contacts from Outlook of Excel and simply keep track of all contacts in one place. From playing around with the free beta version, this does have a lot of potential. On first glance of the demo, the screen seems a tad busy, and overwhelming. It looks like there is a lot going on, and I wasnt really sure where I should click first. BigContacts might have been better off by making things look a little simpler and less intimidating to o users. Then again, they are still developing this online solution, so I assume things will be changed around a bit when the full launch comes around. BigContacts has used the Web 2.0 application standard, Ajax to build this tool. There are a fair share of features and options that are offered, including Contact clouds that blow up names that have had more activity over another, and team activities that can be tracked through RSS feeds. The contact manager also has the ability to attach photos, notes and files with contacts, which is a great feature for remembering important details about a person. There is a group calendar and Skype integration as well. Last but not least, the BigContacts has the added bonus of being able to review your contacts from any web enabled phone, where users can also review and write notes and tasks. I will be playing with this a bit more to get a greater feel for it. I'm not totally sold on using this yet, but it does have serious potential as a contact manager. The beta is open to everyone and pricing will range from $59.95 for a 10 users account, to a Free 3 user account.
In one of those baffling decisions that Microsoft sometimes makes, the company decided that Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone users didn't need those advanced features that Pocket PC users have, like say... mobile versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Sure, there's no touch-screen interface on Smartphones for using those programs that way you would on a Pocket PC, but there's no touch-screen interface on most PCs running Microsoft Office either.
Well, DataViz, makers of Documents To Go for PalmOS devices have decided that those programs run just fine on Smartphones. So they're porting their software to run on Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphones including the Motorola Q, Samsung BlackJack, and T-Mobile Dash.
The suite, which is available as a public beta right now lets you view, edit, and create Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. You can also view PDF files, and extra ZIP files, two functions that Microsoft has never included.
No word on pricing yet, but the Palm version of Documents To Go sells for $30 to $90 depending on which functions you need, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the Windows Mobile version will be comparably priced.
PalmOS and Windows Mobile devices generally come with basic document viewing and editing software. You an create and edit simple spreadsheets and text documents. But if you want advanced features like editing footnotes or on-the-fly spell checking, you need to look elsewhere.
In the last month, two of the biggest names in handheld office suites have released updates. DataViz Documents To Go for PalmOS is up to version 9, and SoftMaker Office 2006 final edition for Pocket PC was released this week.
Some of the new features:
Documents To Go
View and edit footnotes and endnotes in word processing files
View and edit comments in word processing files
Added new zoom levels for pictures and presentations
Added an integrated file explorer
There's no longer support for Word 95, Wordperfect, WordPro, RTF, Palm Doc, Excel 95, Word 6 for Mac files.
There's also no longer support for Palm's Tungsten T, T2, Zire 21, Zire 31, Zire 71, or for what looks like pretty much Sony's entire line of PalmOS PDAs. For a complete list of changes, click the read link.
SoftMaker Office 2006
Import OpenOffice.org and OpenDocument files
Track changes to your document
Improved filters for Microsoft Word and RT documents
Split and Merge table cells
Bibliography support
Documents To Go is available for $30 for the standard edition (just a word processor and spreadsheet), or $50 for the premium edition, (with support for PDF files, presentations, spell-checking, and other advanced features). Upgrades from an earlier version are $30
SoftMaker Office is available for $70. Or you can pick up just the spreadsheet or word processing software for $50 each. For $100 you can get the whole bundle plus versions of the software for Windows. Upgrade options are available as well. Both programs offer 30 day free trials of their software.
Imagine you were using Excel, and it was actually fun! 
It's been a busy week here at Download Squad headquarters. And we assume you've had a busy week too. So if you've fallen behind on your tech news, here are a few things you might have missed during the week ending September 29th, 2007.
