Archive for the 'Office' Category

Nowadays, there are so many distractions to keep you from your work: social networking, surfing the web, AIM and Twitter, just to name a few. There are many ways to keep us from using these things, and today I am going to talk about one of the easier ones. It’s called WriteRoom.

WriteRoom, by Hog Bay Software is a tool for working without distractions. It puts a black (or any color you want) background behind a text editor. It is very easy to use, and really does help to keep you from getting distracted, even if you have ADD!

Microsoft released the latest version of Microsoft Office mid-January at Macworld 2008, and I have to say that after using it for a while, I am very impressed. The main change here is that this version of Office is actually Universal, meaning it runs natively on any Mac computer. All I can say about that is this: It took them long enough. Also, Mac Office 2008 is fully compatible with the new .docx file extension for documents. Beside that, the new Mac Office 2008 is a large improvement over Office 2004. For this review I’m going to focus on Word 2008, as it is the app that most users will use.

Debates and arguments have always been brewing with regards to desktop versus web apps. While one camp will argue about convenience and having your data available everywhere, the other will side with speed, privacy and reliability that desktop apps can provide.

While I seriously doubt the holy war will end anytime soon, here’s an app that will provide some middleground. It’s called Google Notifier for OS X.

I have this desire to become a consultant of sorts. I would love to be paid outrageous hourly rates to give a nod of approval or tell someone they’re doing whatever they’re doing totally wrong. At this point, I don’t have much to offer as a consultant. But when I become a guru of micromanagement, I know that all my billing needs will be taken care of.

TaskTime4 is a straightforward and simple to use Client/Project manager from ToThePoint Software. By generating a client list imported from Address Book, TaskTime4 allows the user to easily manage multiple projects, print or email custom invoices, and export projects to text or Excel as needed.

Although it used to be considered “odd” or “weird” to speak to your computer, the increased availability and accuracy of voice recognition software has encouraged the practice for more and more people. Up until now, though, it has been difficult to find a solid option for Mac OS X. However, with the introduction of MacSpeech Dictate at Macworld 2008, the game has truly changed. This program not only does the obvious service of speech to text, but it does a whole lot more. Read along to see what else this very powerful application can do.

I’ve been moving around a lot lately due to telecommuting. It’s nice to escape the cubicle, but this need to wander means that I occasionally have to mess with the location settings in my network pref pane, depending on which WiFi network I’m on.

I’m not sure of your reasons for more than one location setting, but I have an answer that will let you set it, and forget it!

Sebastiaan de With is a very talented graphic designer, and he often posts some really nice articles on his blog, Cocoia. The other day he posted a mockup of his “Dream Browser,” and now, about a week later, developers have contacted him about making his idea into a real application.

The browser’s main inspiration is the iTunes sidebar. That list includes all of your tabs, bookmarks, RSS feeds, downloads, and more.

Let’s face it: relationships are complicated things. Between keeping track of personal details, remembering dates, communicating efficiently and more, it’s a small wonder that we manage to get along at all.

And that’s just with personal relationships — what about professional relationships, where sometimes the extent of your contact with an individual is a series of digital transactions?

Jumsoft jumps to the rescue with an update to one of its award-winning pieces of productivity software, aptly named Relationship. This little gem is a piece of customer relationship management software geared towards the small business market. With its attractive price tag and competitive features, it’s easily established itself as a staple of the consumer corporate world, and the 1.1 update brings only improvements to the tried-and-tested formula for success.

iDisk used to be the most efficient online file service on the Mac platform, but a new competitor seems to be looming on the horizon. SugarSync allows you to get your files from virtually anywhere.

Previously only compatible with PC and mobile devices, the folks over at SugarSync announced today an alpha release for Mac. SugarSync allows you to upload your files to their service, and then access those files from anywhere with an internet connection and a browser.

For most of us, we have and use different identities. Some of us may have one identity for friends and family and another identity for freelancing and so on. With all these identities, we need a way to bring them all together into one.

I have four email accounts that I use the most, which means I have four different mailboxes that I check often. When using mail.app, the left sidebar of your mail.app application can become a mess with all of its folders. I decided to figure out a way to make my four mailboxes, one.

Word Processors are one of those things that just about everyone needs. The question, then, is how much of one do you really need? On one end of the spectrum, you have a Vespa, aka TextEdit. Although TextEdit is great for dealing with plain text (such as HTML files), it is lacking when it comes to actual Word Processing.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have the tank, Microsoft Word, the current industry leader. In addition to being expensive it has a million and one features that are difficult to navigate and makes the program into a serious resource hog. In between those two extremes, you have Nisus Writer Express, from Nisus Software, which is more like a BMW.

For many Mac newbie users, X11 can be a real pain.

Basically, the X11 window sytem is what OpenOffice was made for. OpenOffice, by being free, makes a perfect alternative to other office suites for the Mac, especially Microsoft’s much heralded Mac Office. So, the developers decided in September of last year to make a decent official port for the Mac.

Have you ever been writing something on your Mac, and found that you needed to use a special character? Whether it be a foreign currency symbol, obscure accents, or even another language, PopChar is here to help. PopChar is a little application that sits in the background on your Mac. When you need to insert a special character, all you need to do is click the little “P” in your menubar, and PopChar will appear. It offers every single character that you will ever need - both ASCII and Unicode.

It’s January, and it’s Macworld next week, but here’s a tidbit to keep your wallets nice and light.

We saw the introduction of new Mac Pros and Xserves on Tuesday, but with much of the Mac press covering that, it has been overlooked that you can now Pre-Order Office 2008 in any one of the three editions, detailed below.

Microsoft Office is one of the best selling Apps for OS X and love it or hate it, it’s going to be here to stay. However, this is the first time that it has had some real competition in the market space. Although still dominant in productivity apps, Apple’s own iWork is eating into the market, and Office ‘08 sales should be a nice indicator as to whether people have switched, for good.

One of the biggest features that Mac OS X (and Mac apps in general) provides is a more intuitive and efficient workflow. No matter how you try and spin it, Windows apps just can’t compare.

So here’s another nifty little Mac app. Called gMailContacts, said app streamlines the uploading of contacts from Mac OS X’s Address Book to gMail. For every contact, both the person’s name and email address will be uploaded.

Should you wish to register (for the low fee of $5), the app will extend its functionality by uploading the postal addresses and the phone numbers of your contacts. gMailContacts does require Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.10 or later, so users on older systems will have to upgrade to use it.