10 Reasons to Try Office 2010

Office 2010 is now available for purchase worldwide, having hit the store shelves both in traditional retail outlets and in online shops on June 15th, 2010, two months after the productivity suite was released to manufacturing. Released in Beta in November 2009, Build 14.0.4536.1000 went on to be downloaded in excess of nine million times over the course of the five months that separated the first public testing milestone from the final stage of the development process. In terms of Beta size, judging by the sheer number of downloads, Office 2010 outperformed the testing program built for what went on to become the world’s fastest selling operating system. Windows 7 Beta downloads stopped at the eight-million mark, according to Microsoft.

1. Did I mention it’s free? Just like it was the case with Office 2007, Microsoft is serving free trial downloads of Office 2010. Users will get to test the RTM Build 14.0.4760.1000 for a good 60 days before the product expires, at which time they will be offered the option to buy a license, and continue running the productivity suite.

2. It’s Microsoft Office, do you need anything else? With Office 2010, Microsoft continues to provide the most complete and comprehensive productivity suite on the market. Now spanning the desktop, the Cloud and mobile devices, Office 2010 simply doesn’t have an equivalent in any of the third-party productivity suites available on the market, be them free or not.

3. Modest system requirements. By any standards, Office 2010 only requires a most hardware infrastructure, and can go as low as a 500 MHz CPU, with a recommended 512 MB, and 3.0 GB of free space. Like I said, modest is the key word. This means that even users with older computers still running Windows XP SP3 can download, install and test Office 2010 without any problems.

4. Top performance. I have been a Beta tester for Office 2010 since Microsoft released the Technical Preview ahead of the actual Beta in 2009. And while I don’t have actual benchmark results, I was impressed with the speed of the productivity suite’s components on several of my computers. On my home computer, by far the best machine I own with a 3GHz procession and 4GB of DDR3, Office 2010 simply flies. But, at the same time, it also performs excellently on my work machine, and older PCs with a 2GHz CPU and just 3.37GB of usable RAM.

5. You can now touch Office. Look at it any way you want, but NUI (natural user interfaces) are the future. And, provided you own a touch-capable computer and run Windows 7, there is no reason why you shouldn’t get a more hands-on experience with the productivity suite.

6. Office Ribbon. Speaking of NUI, the evolution of the Ribbon/Fluent graphical user interface from Office 2007 to Office 2010 delivers a more streamlined user experience. Granted, the Ribbon might seem scary at first, but, once you get the hang of it, you see just how antiquated the traditional menus will feel. And Ribbon customization is one of the best aspects of the UI, allowing users to tailor the experience in accordance with their preferences, work style, etc.

7. Going mobile. Office Mobile 2010 is defined as a rich mobile productivity companion for Office 2010. Users will only get the mobile flavor of the productivity suite provided that they buy it together with a Windows Phone. Office Mobile 2010 will come preinstalled on a range of devices, allowing the productivity suite to span to a new screen. Word Mobile 2010, Excel Mobile 2010, PowerPoint Mobile 2010, OneNote Mobile 2010, SharePoint Workspace Mobile 2010 and Outlook Mobile 2010 are all available on Windows Phones with Office Mobile 2010 preinstalled.

8. Reaching for the Cloud. Share, collaborate, access files from anywhere and from a variety of devices, store content online, all free of charge via Office Web Apps. Available via Windows Live SkyDrive, Office Web Apps only require users to have a valid Windows Live ID.

9. Stay social right from Outlook. With the Outlook Social Connector, Outlook 2010 offers users the possibility to get an overall, centralized perspective over their social networking life, and remain connected to friends on Facebook, Windows Live, LinkedIn or MySpace. Fact is that more and more Microsoft products and services are embracing social networks, and Outlook 2010 is a great example of this.

10. Test-drive new features and capabilities. As far as I’m concerned, the best thing about Office 2010 trial releases is that they offer users a chance to test some of the new features that the productivity suite brings to the table.

By all means, feel free to download a free trial edition of Office 2010 via the links below and dive into the new productivity suite from Microsoft

Office Home and Business 2010 RTM Build 14.0.4760.1000 is available for download here.

Office Home and Student 2010 RTM Build 14.0.4760.1000 is available for download here.

Office Professional 2010 RTM Build 14.0.4760.1000 is available for download here.

Nokia Handsets and Services Sales Going Pretty Bad
It seems that the rather poor economic period the world has been going through is affecting some of the biggest names in the mobile industry a lot more than they had initially anticipated. And while US customers are battling it out for an iPhone pre-order, Nokia's prospects for the future are pretty grim, with the sales estimates for 2010 dropping, due mostly to less interest from the customers and a much more savage market competition.


So, according to their own statement, Nokia now expects Devices & Services net sales to be at the lower end of, or slightly below, its previously expected range of EUR 6.7 billion to EUR 7.2 billion for the second quarter of 2010. This update is primarily due to lower than previously expected average selling prices and mobile device volumes. Furthermore, Nokia now expects the Devices & Services non-IFRS operating margin to be at the lower end of, or slightly below, its previously expected range of 9% to 12% for the second quarter 2010.

The rest of the year won't be particularly good for the Finnish mobile phone manufacturer either since it continues to expect industry mobile device volumes to be up approximately 10% in 2010, compared to 2009, but also its mobile device value market share to be slightly lower in 2010. This update is primarily due to competitiveness on the high-end market and shifts in product mix.

In other words, Nokia's finding it more and more difficult to keep up the pace with the other major players in this industry, such as HTC, Samsung, LG, RIM, Sony Ericsson and even Apple. Unfortunately, as far as we're concerned, this is nothing but their own fault, because the company didn't really manage to keep up with the innovations in this field, not to mention the diversification of market demand. If they had, they would have probably enjoyed a much better position than they do today.

            Add a background image to Google

Google has also introduced a new feature: the option to customize the background image in the Google homepage.

The feature is being slowly rolled out, so don’t worry if you don’t see it yet. For those who already have it enabled, you should see a Change background image link in the bottom left corner of Google’s homepage.