As you probably know by now Microsoft has made some major changes to the interface in the their Microsoft Office 2007 suite up applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.), specifically the “Ribbon”. The ribbon is essentially a completely new way of displaying buttons, tools, commands and menus items which is “intended” to enhance usability and decreases the time it takes to edit documents.

However, until you learn to use the ribbon it could have the exact opposite affect! Most people find themselves continually hunting for buttons and tools that they could easily find in the past.  Don’t worry they still exist! You just have to learn where to look, and here’s how:

One of the best tools to make this transition easier is the Microsoft Office Interactive Guides. The site contains Microsoft Office 2007 user interface guides for each application in the suite. The guides are simple visual tools that show you were where to look in Office 2007 to find the same exact tool you used in Office 2003. (If you’re used to a version older than 2003 don’t worry, it’s probably similar enough to 2003 that the tool will work just fine for you as well.)

You can launch web based versions or download them and take them with you. They run independent of other programs and don’t require any version of office to be installed on your computer.

After you launch one of the guides you are presented with the Office 2003 interface where you navigate to the button or menu you were searching for. By hovering over the item you are presented with a simple description of where to look in Office 2007 to find the same tool. If you click an item you get an animated display. It’s that simple!

Here’s the link where you can find the interactive guides: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/HA102295841033.aspx.
You may also want to check out the Microsoft Office training site for lots of other helpful information on the Office suites: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/FX100565001033.aspx

Now that you’re well on your way to learning how to use the ribbon you can take full advantage of one of its best features: hovering over an item on the ribbon will temporarily modify your document (until you hover off) so you can see exactly what the results of selecting the item will be, no more trial and error!

Good luck and enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Office, Office-2007, Training

More and more programs these days are using tabs in one form or another, web browsers and Firefox and IE have had tabs for a long time. Most of these programs now also allow you to drag and drop the tabs to re-order them. The drag and drop feature lets you organize better and helps to increase your proficiency.

So if you’re anything like me, you’re wondering why hasn’t Microsoft added this feature to the taskbar of the Windows operating system. If you could re-order your open applications and windows you could group them together in order by the tasks your are working on.

There’s no reason to keep waiting for Microsoft, meet Taskbar Shuffle!

This little program is easy to install and works as advertised. Taskbar Shuffle runs in your system tray without slowing things down. Once installed you can begin dragging your taskbar items around and reordering them any way you like. Go ahead, give it a shot!

Technorati Tags: taskbar, shuffle, windows, drag-and-drop,

Mark Hendrickson of TechCrunch.com is reporting that Microsoft has purchased the airfare prediction search engine Farecast.com (confirmed on their blog). Farecast.com, previously talked about here, is an airline flight search engine similar to Kayak.com. It searches across multiple travel sites including the airlines themselves, finding you the best bang for your buck!

Farecast’s claim to fame is their airfare prediction engine that provides and easy to read arrow display that suggest weather your should buy now or wait based on their prediction of whether the price will rise of fall. A confidence level percentage is also shown to help you decide if you would like to follow their advice or not.

Now that Microsoft owns farecast we’ll probably soon see it integrated into the MSN travel site.

Technorati Tags: microsoft, search, farecast

It’s Official, Yahoo has rejected Microsoft’s offer of a $44.6 billion buyout and Microsoft Responds. The NYTimes is reporting Yahoo’s stock has risen slightly in light of the rejection letter.

That means that investors appear confident that Yahoo is simply posturing to get a better deal from Microsoft (most likely) or someone else (if they can).

What does this mean for Google? Is Yahoo going to strike a deal with AOL? Keep up with the latest news on Yahoo and Microsoft in relation to this recent offer on the NYTimes Bits blog.

Technorati Tags: microsoft, yahoo, merger, aol

This time it’s actually true. Yesterday Microsoft made a $44.6 billion offer to acquire Yahoo! Google is by far the most dominant when it comes to online advertising. A deal like this, if accepted by Yahoo, could create a true competitor in the online advertising market. Here’s what Eric Sconfeld over at TechCruch came up with to show how a Microsoft – Yahoo merger would compared to Google.

The real question may be what will happen with each of the properties owned by Yahoo and Microsoft if the two companies combine. Microsoft has been putting a lot of effort behind their new “live” branded properties, including many still under development. Both companies have their own media players, search engines, email, photo sharing, etc. Duncan Riley from TechCrunch gives his take on what will happen to some of the major products in the event of a merger.

In my opinion this seems like it would create a company too large but on the other hand it could create great competition in the online world. Yahoo just recently announced 1,000 layoffs, could Microsoft be the company to get Yahoo properties back on track? So when it comes down to it I guess I don’t really have much of an opinion yet, I can see the goods and bads that could come out of this merger. We’ll just have to wait and see when and if the deal actually goes through, I hear News Corp (Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate) is now also scrambling for a bid.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Yahoo, merger