It’s the first time I take some time to talk about this product but I’ve had access to it since last summer. I got the beta of Microsoft Office 2007 around the same time I got my Vista Beta 2. I had installed in on that system but wasn’t using it as a mainstream application. When I got an email from Microsoft saying that my beta key would expire at the end of March I said to myself I had to give it more credit and put OpenOffice aside for a few weeks. So I did it, I’ve been using Word, Outlook, Excel and PowerPoint 2007 for a few weeks and found it quite pleasent. People feared the new Ribbon interface was going away from the classic toolbar view. At first, it was very confusing but I quickly learned to appreciate the new ease of use it provided me. I’m running the Beta 2 Technical Refresh and it’s actually 95% functional, the only problem I’m still running into is that I can’t correct the misspelled instances, it does point them out with red or green underlining but when I select the correction from the contextual menu it does not change it to my selection. So for now I have to manually correct my mistakes. This has clearly been fixed in the final version.
Microsoft is setting the score straight just like it’s doing with Vista by bringing us new features and look by keeping what made their products work in the first place. You get a good balance between the ease of use and the in-depth options you can access with their applications. I’m a student, a free version is always welcome and they provide a lower cost edition for these type of situations.
Archive for February, 2007
MS Office 2007
Thursday, February 22nd, 2007Joost me up!
Wednesday, February 21st, 2007
What best then a major deal to break the news to the world. It’s been a few days now that I’ve added a promo banner at the bottom left of the blog and it’s going to be there for a little while. Now joining the ranks of Opera, Skype and Ubuntu; Joost is the new name given to the formerly known The Venice Project. At first it was about sharing, then about talking for free, now you can watch for free. The new Joost platform allows content to be watched on PC or Mac with Linux coming soon. There is not much to say about it just yet, they’ve got a lot of nice programming to entertain you. Thanks to the recent buzz Joost signed a deal with Viacom, meaning there will be ties with Paramount, MTV, BET and Comedy Central. They boast themselves as providers of premium content and they are definitely delivering. Keep your eyes on the blog for invites as soon as I get some, or even more details as soon as I read back that non-disclosure agreement you have to accept each time you load the beta program. They’ve reached version 0.8 and we could expect a final version not too far out. Visit Joost.com for some more info on the program.
Sony beats Microsoft to GoW II
Thursday, February 1st, 2007Just a word of caution on the intense use of acronyms. They can be quite handy to use in order to communicate an information that would other wise be pretty long. Finally some good news for the Sony camp as they will soon release a sequel to their Greatest Hits God of War. Back in 2005 I had no idea that despite the arrival of all three next generation game consoles a PS2 title would still make the masses go crazy. I discovered the series last year and became an instant fan, the game play experience is simply formidable and all the friends I showed it to where amazed by it. You can read my first impressions on it in a previous post. If you are a Xbox fan when you read GoW you saw Gears of Wars, yeah that looks like a pretty good game from Epic, but I’ll wait for Unreal Tournament III to get a real taste of the action. So until that release of the day those games come to PC. I’ll look to God of War II to get off some steam once in a while. It’s release date is around the end of Febuary or middle of March, official scheduel says March but according to the editors’ blog he’s completed his work.
Previews tell that this sequel takes off right were the first installment left us. Kratos returns to complete his vengeance and still tries to struggle with his past. He is betrayed and left in some extreme situations that you have to play through and survive, slashing enemies! GoW II will come in a 2-disc set loaded with bonus features, that add-on was really appreciated on the first one and this one is a guaranteed Greatest Hits before the end of 2007. This is one exemple why the PS2 is still the platform that sells the most unit, even with the Wii, Xbox 360 and Sony’s own PS3 in the mix. It’s extra cheap and the games are still coming! You can look forward more information about God of War II when I get my hands on it.
The Marine
Thursday, February 1st, 2007
Taken off balance for a minute and surviving a gaz explosion (on multiple occasions) he heads off to try and save his wife. We end up getting a good old man hunt with the police being totally useless he has to do the entire job to save her. On many occasions you see our protagonist use his marine training to beat bad guys and survive the most unlikely ways possible. Over all you can have some fun watching it but it’s neither a buy nor a good rental. You see it once and that’s it! I’ll give it a nice 7 out 10, didn’t hate it, reminded me of Crank!