Microsoft reissued statement of Support for Office 365 Apps

Office versions and connectivity to Office 365 services

Hope everyone is well. Please note the bellow communication from Microsoft regarding Office versions that will be supported for connecting to Office 365/Microsoft 365 services. Older versions than Office 2016 will not be blocked, but upgrades are recommended over time.

Starting on October 13, 2020, only these versions of Office will be supported for connecting to Office 365 (and Microsoft 365) services:

• ·         Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise (previously named Office 365 ProPlus)
• ·         Microsoft 365 Apps for business (previously named Office 365 Business)
• ·         Office 2019, such as Office Professional Plus 2019
• ·         Office 2016, such as Office Standard 2016

Examples of Office 365 services include Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business.

 Important

We won’t take any active measures to block other versions of the Office client, such as Office 2013, from connecting to Office 365 services, but these older clients may encounter performance or reliability issues over time.

Impact of using older Office clients to connect to Office 365 services

After October 13, 2020, ongoing investments to our cloud services will not take into account older Office clients. Over time, these Office clients may encounter performance or reliability issues. Organizations that use these older clients will almost certainly face an increased security risk and may find themselves out of compliance depending upon specific regional or industry requirements.

Therefore, administrators should update older Office clients to versions of Office supported for connecting to Office 365 services.

Upgrade resources available to administrators

We recommend that you upgrade older Office clients to a subscription version of the Office client, such as Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise. The most up-to-date subscription versions of the Office client are always supported connecting to Office 365 services.

We provide various services to help you upgrade to subscription versions of the Office client. The following list provides some examples of resources that are available:

• ·        
• ·        
• ·        
• ·         Product lifecycle dashboard and upgrade readiness dashboard, for users of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (current branch).
• ·        

Upcoming changes related to connectivity to Office 365 services

Retirement of TLS 1.0 and 1.1

After October 15, 2020, you must be using at least TLS 1.2 to connect to Office 365 services. For more information, see TLS 1.0 and 1.1 deprecation for Office 365 and Preparing for TLS 1.2 in Office 365 and Office 365 GCC.

Basic authentication with Exchange Online

There are some changes planned related to the use of Basic Authentication with Exchange Online. For more information, see Basic Authentication and Exchange Online – April 2020 Update.

Microsoft Support for Office 2010 and Mac version 2016 ending

Microsoft's support for Office 2016 for Mac and Office 2010 will reach their end of support on October 13, 2020. After this date, Microsoft will no longer provide technical support, bug fixes, or security updates for Office 2016 for Mac and Office 2010. You will still be able to use these versions of Office, but over time, organizations may face an increase in security risks and compliance issues.

Also, as previously announced, after October 13, 2020, customers will need to be running Microsoft 365 Apps, Office 2019 or Office 2016 to connect to Office 365 services. Microsoft will not take any active measures to block legacy versions of the Office client from connecting to Office 365 services, but these older clients may encounter performance and/or reliability issues over time. For related Office client support timelines, see the Microsoft 365 and Office system requirements matrix.

Key Points:

• Major: Retirement
• Timing: October 13, 2020
• Action: review and assess

What you need to do to prepare:

Because of the changes listed above, we strongly recommend that you upgrade to one of the latest versions of Office as soon as possible:

• Microsoft 365 Apps, the subscription version of Office that comes with most Office 365 enterprise plans. Microsoft 365 Apps can be installed on up to five PCs or Macs, five tablets, and five mobile devices.
• Office 2019, which is a one-time purchase and available for one PC or Mac per license.

A key difference between Microsoft 365 Apps and Office 2019 is that Microsoft 365 Apps is updated on a regular basis with new features. Office 2019 has the same set of features that it had when it was released in October 2018. Prior to deploying either version, please check the System requirements for Microsoft 365 and Office as well as the Microsoft 365 and Office system requirements matrix to ensure that the version you choose is supported on the operating system you are using.

In order to identify users on Office 2010 and Office 2013 clients, deploy Microsoft 365 Apps or a supported non-subscription version of Office to those desktops, and ensure that they will have supported access to Office 365 services after October 13, 2020, there are two Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager dashboards (updated as part of version 1902) that you can use:

• the Configuration Manager Product Lifecycle dashboard allows you to see which versions of Office are running on your desktops, to determine which will need updated Office apps to help ensure a seamless connection to Office 365 services
• the Microsoft 365 Apps Upgrade Readiness report on the Office 365 client management dashboard helps to identify desktops in your organization that are ready to upgrade to Microsoft 365 Apps.

Additional information:

• Office 2010 end of support roadmap.
• End of Support for Office 2016 for Mac
• Deployment guide for Office for Mac
• Office versions and connectivity to Office 365 services
• Microsoft 365 and Office system requirements matrix
• Microsoft Office End of Support Tech Community

OneNote's August update is here with a load of new features to try

I’m a big OneNote fan so I am always looking for new things that I can do with this application. Here is the new August additions:

• Text to Math: Use your keyboard to type an equation as text in OneNote, and use Math to solve it or draw a graph.
• Smart Lookup: Get definitions, wiki articles, and top related searches from the web without leaving OneNote
• Insert online pictures: Use Bing's Image Search to safely insert photos and images without ever having to leave OneNote.
• Tables of all shapes and sizes: One cell or many? Choose the number of rows and columns you need to organize your content. Once you've got a table, you can add or delete rows or columns, add table shading, or sort your content.
• More highlight colors: Yellow isn't the only color in the rainbow. Now you can highlight with blue, green, red, and more.
• Zoom in, zoom out: Use the new Page Width option on the View tab to zoom out to see all the notes on your page, or zoom in to focus on just what you need.

The August update version number is 17.841.5771 to have all of these new features.

Should I Subscribe to O365 for myself?

If you are considering using Microsoft Office Suite at home you have several options that you can consider. The first is whether you want to pay on a subscription basis or if you want to move into a one-time purchase model. In the subscription model you have two choices between Office 365 Personal or Office 365 Home.

Why would I choose a perpetual license? First, you only pay a fee one time. You can either purchase “Home and Student” or “Home and Business”.  Main difference between these two? You get Outlook in Home and Business. If you are not using Outlook or are happy accessing your email through a web browser then the “Home and Student” may work for you. Priced at $145.00. Home and Business is $229.99. The Cons on going with a perpetual license are many, they are licensed for only one machine and legally cannot be moved to a new system purchase from an old installation. It doesn’t license installation on mobile devices and you don’t get any cloud storage. Lastly, you don’t get to always use the most current version. Microsoft seems to have major updates every 3 years. If being current doesn’t matter to you then…

Why I like the subscription model. First, I can always be up to date. If you only have one machine but a couple of mobile devices, tablet or phone, then you are licensed to put these most of the suite products on these as well. You also have access to on-line versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote so that you can be on any computer and access your programs. You get 1 TB of cloud space, so you can also store you documents to the CLOUD and have access to these files from any device. Last, you get the full Office Suite. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Publisher, Access and Outlook. Office 365 Home offers installing the office suite for up to five users with each user getting their own 1TB cloud storage space for a cost of $99.99/year. Office 365 Personal is $69.99/year.

Now let’s do the math. If you think you would be upgrading your Office license with each new release you Perpetual licenses would be slightly less expensive then your subscription counterparts. However, you are not getting the ability to install on mobile devices, in the case of Office 365 Home you can install on up to 5 workstations (all the kids, you and your wife’s systems, and you don’t have the cloud apps or storage space. If you need it on more than 1 machine than the Office 365 Home subscription seems to me to be a no brainer. Of course if your employer has opted into Office 365 Business Premium, then that creates a whole different scenario.

Repost: Microsoft Access "Class Not Registered" Run-time Error '-2147221164 (80040154)'

Microsoft Access "Class Not Registered" Run-time Error '-2147221164 (80040154)'

Written by Luke Chung, FMS President

You've created a Microsoft Access database solution and have successfully distributed it to many people. Everyone is running it properly but one machine is triggering this error. The error message makes no sense and everything you try fails to resolve the problem. What's going on?

Symptom

The MS Access database actually runs so it's compiled and functional. It doesn't seem corrupt since others can run the same database, yet this error appears when very simple ADO code such as CurrentProject.Connection is run to open a table or query recordset:

We've actually had reports of this problem for years but were never able to reproduce the problem. We finally did and have a solution.

"Class Not Registered" is Unclear

The "Class Not Registered" message is very confusing. Which class is not registered? And what's the problem with this machine when the database runs successfully on other PCs?

The message implies it is caused by code that won't compile, but the code compiles and is running fine before this crash occurs. Common techniques such as decompiling the database make no difference.

Is it a broken library reference? Checking the list of referenced libraries doesn't reveal any problems. Is the database corrupt?

The symptom can exist if you create a new database and run this in the Immediate Window:

? CurrentProject.Connection

This simple test effectively rules out any issues associated with your database. This basic Microsoft Access VBA command won't even run on a blank database.

Potential Causes

The CurrentProject object is part of Microsoft Access. It's not something a developer adds. The problem exists within MS Access, not your database, so the fix is at the Access/Office level.

One of the causes for this error appears to be related to uninstalling another version of Access after your version of Access was installed. This may include uninstalling runtime versions of Access.

For instance, your machine may have Access 2007 installed on it. Access 2013 was later installed, and then Access 2007 uninstalled. Access 2013 seems to be running properly but it fails when this code is run. For some reason, the uninstallation of the prior version of Access makes the current one you're running unstable.

It may also be related to the installation of Windows updates and security patches. And of course, it could be caused by unknown file corruptions. Thankfully, this error doesn't happen often.

Solution: Repair Microsoft Office Access

The solution we've found is very straightforward. Just fix (repair) the installation of Microsoft Office/Access. You may need Administrator permissions to do this.

Go under the Control Panel, Programs, Programs and Features, select "Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013" (or your version of Access) and click on Change:

When the next screen appears, select Repair:

It takes a while, but after Office and Access are repaired, the problem goes away.

Confirm it's fixed by running Microsoft Access, opening a database, and testing CurrentProject.Connection in the Immediate Window. It should now work.

If it doesn't work, you may need to uninstall and reinstall Microsoft Office and Access.

Collaboration updates across your Office apps

Interesting YouTube video describing many of the new collaboration functions available in your Office applications.

What are my options for getting MS Office for myself?

If you are not needing to be part of team/organization that is shares information and documents, then you will want to consider one of the many personal options. The first is to purchase a perpetual license that can only be put on one machine, period. Your options here are Home & Student $150 or Home & Business $230. The primary difference is that Outlook comes with the Home & Business version. When purchasing one of these two packages you are purchasing the current version of the software that does not have an upgrade path to new version and can only be installed on one machine. The positive point is that you are acquiring at a fixed cost. If you do not upgrade your MS Office with each new version and if you have multiple machines that you want to put it on then you may find that the subscription service of Office 365 is a better option.

On the personal side you have two choices, either a Personal Subscription $70/year or a Home Subscription $100/year.

Office 365 Personal includes	Office 365 Home includes
1-year auto-renewal subscription For 1 PC or Mac, 1 tablet including iPad, Android, or Windows, plus 1 phone Fully installed versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and more Also includes Publisher and Access for PC (not available for Mac). 1TB cloud storage Ongoing access to updates	1-year auto-renewal subscription For 5 PCs or Macs, 5 tablets including iPad, Android, or Windows, plus 5 phones Fully installed versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and more Also includes Publisher and Access for PC (not available for Mac). 1TB cloud storage per user for up to 5 users Ongoing access to updates
$69.99/Year	$99.99/Year

This should give you some idea of where you want to go with this.

Naked Security: AKBuilder, Microsoft Word Intruder exploiting Office RTF vulnerability

A Microsoft bulletin for patching Office released last October patches a vulnerability attackers could exploit on your computers. Read here what this exploit is all about and what you need to do to protect yourself before you become infected.

SophosLabs researchers have discovered fresh cases of AKBuilder and Microsoft Word Intruder (MWI) exploiting the flaw.

This vulnerability is already under fire by two major exploit builders. It all happened within a couple of weeks, with the help of an underground forum.

OneNote July Updates

I love OneNote and it has become a central point of my daily information collection and distribution medium. Combine it with Office 365 and SharePoint file access on the internet and you have a product that will provide you a wonderful tool to capture your ideas and notes.

The earlier versions of OneNote when compared to the ability of products like EverNote was a little lacking. If you haven’t tried it out recently you really should. It is nothing like what it was a few years ago. Whether you are a school student, office worker or retired, this product is a winner.

In this article from blogs.office.com, they posted some of the new July updates to the OneNote program. The three main areas that have been added to include Inking, Clipping and Notifications. Take a look!

New updates make OneNote even more powerful

I find myself using OneNote all of the time not only in the office but outside of the office as well for so many things. It has become the go to application for me to collect some thoughts, take notes while I’m on the phone, and keep up on meeting topics for our office. With recent updates to the program, there are even more things you can do with it. Some of the new features follow:

Users can paste a video link into their OneNote note, and they'll see a thumbnail of that video and have the option to play it. This will work in OneNote for Windows 10, Mac or iOS, and users can paste video links from YouTube, Vimeo, Vine and Sway.

In OneNote for Windows, users will be able to sign in using their Office 365 organization ID.

In OneNote for the Windows Phone, users can now speak their notes, as there's a new audio recording feature.

In OneNote for iOS, users can rearrange audio recordings, images, text and shapes by touching and dragging. They can also use a newly-debuted lasso tool to select items for grouping and rearranging. Finally, they now have the ability to insert multiple photos on a page at once.

In OneNote Online, users will be able to use Bing for Smart Lookup -- i.e. they'll be able to find related notes by selecting a note's contents and selecting an option in the right-click menu. The ability to find related items -- and act on them accordingly -- will be huge for people who are compiling and acting on research.

And for academic users, they'll have the ability to sort their stacks of notebooks by "your personal notebooks, notebooks that others have shared with you and OneNote Class Notebooks you belong to."

You can read the full text of the OneNote team's announcement here.

Surface Book-OneNote-Handwriting-Text

I have been continuing to work with my Surface Book and finding new things that I can do with the pen or other applications in Windows 10 that are really quite amazing. I have been working between the OneNote App and the Desktop OneNote Program to see what the differences are and how to work around some of the limitations I have found in the OneNote App. If you take a quick look at it you don’t have anywhere near the options but the big ot ne that I see missing is the ability to transform handwriting to text. This is something that the OneNote Desktop Program does very well and is missing from the App. Not a problem though. If after you have done all your handwriting in the OneNote App when you are at a meeting or seminar or wherever, all you need to do is jump to the desktop program and go to the draw tab while on the page with you handwritten text and choose the function to Ink to Text. It works like a champ

While we might not like the cost of the Microsoft Office 365 Subscription in some instances these products fit a great niche.

The issue now is that Microsoft is making it harder than ever to own Microsoft Office without moving into their subscription plan. If you qualify as a non-profit or educational customer, than your options are not bad. If you are a consumer or commercial client your options are a lot less. There are a couple of perrenial options with either Open Licensing Office Pro Plus or Standard (very expensive) or PKC products with either Home and Student or Home and Business. Let's look at the benefits of these options.

	MOLP Pro Plus	MOLP Office Standard	PKC-Home and Student	PKC-Home and Business
What is included	Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, Publisher, MS Office Web Apps, Commercial Use Rights, Skype for Business, InfoPath	Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, MS Office Web Apps, Commercial Use Rights	Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote	Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook
How many machines can it be put on	Limited by device but includes the following: Work System, Home System and Virtual on the server using RAS	Limited by device but includes the following: Work System, Home System and Virtual on the server using RAS	1 PC only (once it is licensed and installed on a machine it is only allowed to be installed on that hardware)	1 PC only once it is licensed and installed on a machine it is only allowed to be installed on that hardware)
Notes	This is also a portable license which means that if you update your hardware you can reinstall this software	This is also a portable license which means that if you update your hardware you can reinstall this software
Price	$508.00	$373.00	$149.99	$229.99

If you have more than one device then you might want to pick one of the Office 365 Subsciption offerings. One of the first benefits is that each user license allows you to install the Office desktop Apps on up to five of your devices. For example: Work Desktop, Notebook, Home Workstation, Mobile Devices like Apple iPhone, iPad and Android devices. You can also install it virtually on your network server to have it working from you Remote Access Server (RAS) and your remote desktop client. It can also give you access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote Web Apps as well. You have a few choice here as well.

Business Essentials and Business Premium provide for up to 300 user licenses in an organization. Enterprise provides for unlimited number of users. So how do you choose which one is right for you? Easy, let's talk about several scenerios and see where you might fit in.

Hosted Exchange: This is one of the main reasons for us to move you into a Office 365 subscription. Over the years we had many customers that opted in for Microsoft Small Business Server because this product provided an Exchange Server as one of the many things that it did. In Microsoft's infinite wisdom they no longer have this product available and as the SBS server versions continue to become End of Life we have to make a decision on how to provide Exchange as we migrate to new hardware and software. For many of our clients moving to the cloud is the answer. Exchange Servers are a resource hog and require you to have larger servers to accomodate them. So how do we get around this issue? Hosted Exchange Servers. The entry level plan for this is Office 365 P1 and all that it provides is just Hosted Exchange. It costs around $48/user/year. For just a little bit more you can move into the Business Essentials version that provides you with Hosted Exchange, Skype for Business, Office Web Apps, 1TB of personal online storage, and Team Sites for Hosted SharePoint Services. The cost of this service is $60/user/month.

Office Desktop Applications: Always having the most current version of Office may be one of you goals. This gives you more consistant environments for your users to work in. The Office 365 Business Premium and Enterprise E2, E3, E5 plans provde Office for your desktop and laptop systems. 

	Business Premium	Office 365 ProPlus	Enterprise E3	Enterprise E5
Desktop Apps	Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook and Publisher	Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, Access	Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, Access	Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, Access
Hosted Exchange	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Skype for Business	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
OneDrive	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Organizational User Limit	300	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Annual Cost	$150	$144	$240	$420

Another Ed Bott trick! Software Licensing Secrets

Software licensing secrets

By Ed Bott 

Every version of Windows dating back to Windows Vista has included the Windows Software Licensing Management Tool, a script file found in the WindowsSystem32 folder as Slmgr.vbs. The script is designed for a local administrator to run in an elevated Command Prompt window.

Most people never need to use this tool, but it can come in handy when you're trying to resolve activation problems or upgrade a Windows PC. The secret is knowing which switches to add to the end of the command to achieve the desired result.

If you just type the command, with no switches, you get a series of five dialog boxes that list all those switches. Network administrators who manage a Key Management server for Volume Licensing will find a goldmine here. For the rest of us, the three most commonly used switches are the following:

Slmgr.vbs /dli Displays basic license information, including the last five characters of the product key

Slmgr.vbs /dlv Displays much more detailed license information

Slmgr.vbs /cpky Removes the product key from the registry so that it can't be copied and reused

Tech Republic reported on the next release of Office (2016)

Office 2016 IT Pro and Developer Preview has a number of valuable new features  By Tony Bradley March 18, 2015

Tony discusses that many of the new features revolve around security and data loss protection (DLP). Installation and feature updates are going to be more fluid and more frequent. Activation of the product is also supposed to be simplified. There will be an Office 365 admin portal to manage device activations for your users.

Outlook should have its stability improved over unreliable networks to help improve performance. Hopefully this will help to speed up delivery of messages. Other than these under the hood changes the UI is going to remain essentially the same so that should be a good thing for your users. There are always some cries of anguish when then UI is changed substantially. I don’t think many of us like change that much.

Video Conferencing made easy by Logitech

Logitech has three great solutions for adding Video Conferencing to your Conference Room. Gone are the days for most of needing a $50,000 specially designed room to be able to communication both visually and verbally between two locations. It has really become easy and affordable using one of these three solutions from Logitech.

Starting under $300 for the BCC950 these units can bring Video Conferencing into most any situation using your notebook and either a projector or fixed large screen display. They have built high quality microphones that work great in small groups with noise cancellation and high quality audio clarity. They include High Definition 1080p cameras and work with  Microsoft® Lync™ 2013, Cisco Jabber™, WebEx® compatible* and Skype™ certified. See www.logitech.com/ciscocompatibility for the latest version.

All cameras use ZEISS Optics with Autofocus to give you sharp resolution. Whether the camera is showing your smiling face or held up articles or paperwork all can be shared between sites. The camera has a 78 degree field of view and can be controlled with zoom and rotation up to 180 degrees. The sound is crystal-clear. The built-in, full duplex speakerphone and noise-cancelling microphone allow meeting members to hear and be heard clearly up to 8 feet away from the base. The speakerphone can also be used as a standalone during audio calls.

Download the ConferenceCam data sheet

The ConferenceCam is extremely portable, has a 90 degree field of view with digital pan and tilt and a 4x digital zoom. Logitech states that this unit is optimized for small groups of 4-6 people. They have included Mult-Device connectivity that provides simple setup with either PC’s or Mac’s and provides screen mirroring and audio pairing with mobile devices. The acoustics are tuned for a 12 foot radius. Plug in the USB cable and your PC or Mac will begin it’s plug and play connection. There is no software to load or device drives to load everything works in minutes. The unit has a built in rechargeable battery and can run a video call for up to 3 hours of use or 15 hours if you are just using audio. The battery can be recharged using either the AC adapter or USB connection.

Download the ConferenceCam Connect Data Sheet

If you need a system that will allow a slightly larger coverage area the ConferenceCam CC3000e might fit the bill. This system also uses the ZEISS lens with autofocus and 1080p resolution and sports a 10x lossless zoom. It also has a 90 degree field of view with remote controlled mechanical 260 degree pan and 130 degree tilt. It also includes USB Plug and Play connectivity. Optimized for Microsoft® Lync™ 2013, Cisco Jabber™, WebEx® compatible¹, and Skype™ certified ensures an integrated experience with most business-grade UC platforms. The audio microphone allows a 20-foot  diameter around the base without mic pods. The system also support NFC pairing to enable mobile devices connectivity to the base unit. Set up the conference room with up to a 32-foot range between the camera and the speaker. Use the camera on the table or mount it on the wall with included hardware. The bottom of the camera is designed with a standard tripod thread for added versatility. Download the CC3000e Data Sheet

We have had very good results using Logitech’s video conferencing products and if you find yourself wanting to add this capability into your conference room call us to help your pick and design the perfect setup for you.

Microsoft releases Office for iPad version update 1.1

I am still waiting for Android to get this and I will probably be waiting for a very long time but iPad users received an update to the Office for iPad suite this week. You can get the update by visiting the Apple’s iTunes App Store. OneNote was also updated as well with a version 2.3 release.

Redmond Channel Partner reported:

The update is part of an effort to deliver continuous updates to Office for iPad, Microsoft said in a blog post on Thursday. The update includes three highly requested feature additions. The first is the ability to let users save files in the Adobe PDF format, even if they don't have Office 365 subscriptions. Another addition is the ability to edit photos in Word on the iPad. Though limited, the photo-editing feature enables cropping and resetting. The third key feature is support for third-party fonts.

In Excel, Microsoft has added a new sorting capability that lets users filter, extend, collapse, display details and refresh PivotTables in an Excel workbook, as well as change the way they're displayed. Another new feature called "flick gesture" aims to simplify the use of workbooks, including the selection of data fields with large ranges.

"Simply grab the selection handle, flick it in any direction and Excel will automatically select from where you started to the next blank cell," Microsoft said in the blog, adding that if "you're at the top of a column of data and want to select all the way to the bottom, just flick down and the column is selected automatically."

The new PowerPoint app supports the use of multimedia capabilities on the iPad, specifically audio and video embedded into slides. It also lets users insert videos and photos from their iPad camera rolls. When projecting a presentation from the iPad, users can now enable Presenter View to see their own notes on the device.

Neat new throw back device…

Pilot Pen has introduced a new fountain pen design the is reasonably priced and pretty cool looking. The Pilot Varsity is an interesting throw back to an earlier time when writing was a skill set and frankly, a lost art. They are available an multiple colors to make any office products geek happy!

Amazon sells them in a 7-Pack in assorted color inks for $14.34.

You can also buy a box of black ink pens for just $23.95 and if you feel that you don’t need that many you can purchase a 3-pack for $8.45.

Office Online will shortly be available as a chrome app…

I question the need for this but it could possibly be useful for some of you. While Office Online apps already work in Chrome they will shortly be available as a Chrome Application. I just tried using it on my Nexus 7 with no luck, all I was able to access was my mail, calendar and contacts. However, on a computer it came up just fine in Chrome. The Office Web Apps seem to be getting better and better with each iteration.

Since the Nexus screen is only 7 inches I’m not sure that it is a big loss not having it there but I would still like the option.

To access Office Online right now go to www.office.com and sign in with your account information. If you don’t have an online account you can sign up here.

Let me know what you think of this…

Just a quick update… Skype continued.

Remember if you are setting your college-bound child up with office 365 for students then Skype is part of the package and if you are setting yourself up with office 365 for home, which allows you to have up to five systems in the house installed with office 2013 you will also get Skype with that subscription as well. So here is a little more incentive for you to go ahead and get this all set up and tested out before they leave you for their new digs.

Learn more about Office 365 Home Premium

Learn more about Office 365 University

Read and earlier post on Office 365 University

Microsoft Outlook Configuration Analyzer Tool 2.0

The Outlook Configuration Analyzer Tool 2.0 (OCAT ) has been replaced by the Office Configuration Analyzer Tool (OffCAT). The OffCAT tool provides all of the same functionality as the OCAT tool, but it also allows you to scan more Office programs (Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Word).

 

OffCAT download

Download Documentation