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Testing, Testing…is this thing on?

Well, Blogger threw me a curve ball (and lots of other folks, I bet) by discontinuing their support of ftp…so maybe I'll just blog from Word 2010, which is convenient and simple and, of course, right here. J This is a test post, and I do realize that it is circulated via email to subscribers (I need to figure out how to turn that off—I hope it doesn't annoy you. I added the subscription feature so many years ago, pre RSS, that I've forgotten how I did it now.)

Blogging from within Word in 2010 is the same process we experienced with 2007; you create a new blog post by clicking File > New > Blog Post, type your content, format as you'd like, and click Publish in the Blog group of the Blog Post tab. Pretty simple, and quick, too.

Word will prompt you to set up your account before you post to it, of course, but that process is pretty painless as well. I will be testing over the next week or so to see whether posting directly to my site with both web design software and Word 2010 gets confusing. Maybe I will bypass Blogger altogether. We shall see.

New, free ebook on career skills! :)

I'm excited to let you know about the publication of my newest book, called Own Your Future: Update Your Skills with Resources and Career Ideas from Microsoft. My editors and I were excited to put this book together because it's one way we can contribute to the need for retooling and polishing tech skills in today's economy. And Microsoft Learning completely underwrote the project, so it can be made available for free, which makes it even better.

Written with community college students in mind (though it's got good stuff for anyone who wants to brush up job prep skills), the book includes lots of "test yourself" activities, links, and resources for learning. Here's the link to the free download: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=184952.

Feel free to download it yourself or share it with friends, family, or anyone who is thinking through career-related issues. I'd love to hear what you think, too--so feel free to leave a comment here or drop me a note.

What we do matters

This is a great time to be working in technology. Instead of being the geek that works quietly on who-knows-what in the cubicle at the end of egghead row [yes, that's where my office was years ago :)], what we do on a daily basis helps connect people to disaster relief, enabling us to send donations--instantly--via text message, making collaboration possible on climate change, and much, much more.

I heard something on NPR this morning that shined a light on the importance of something very simple--like spell check. You can visit the NPR site for the full article, but this idea elicited a "wow" from me on my predawn drive taking my son to school:

One reason, State Department official Patrick Kennedy told the Senate Judiciary Committee, was because someone misspelled the suspect's name after his father reported concerns about his son to the U.S. Embassy. As a result, the concerns were not added to Abdulmutallab's visa information. Kennedy said the State Department now has a version of spell-check software available to check names after visas are granted."

Lives at risk because of a misspelling? That's what it sounds like. Thank goodness the plan was thwarted and people are now looking at the situation from all possible angles. It has become a teachable moment: a big one. But it does underscore the importance of the work we do on a daily basis and shows that even those tiny, seemingly unimportant details can make a much larger impact than we may know at the time. (The Word equivalent to a butterfly flapping it's wings in China, I guess.) Something to think about, at any rate. :)

Telling Word 2010 what to do

Okay, this is really cool. A few years ago Word promised speech recognition (I can't remember which release that was now...maybe Office XP) and, as those of us who tried it soon realized, we spent more time teaching Word how to recognize our voices than we actually spent accomplishing anything. Not too surprisingly, speech recognition as a feature within Word faded away with a subsequent release as "a good idea, but..."

Yesterday as I was working on a new chapter in the upcoming Microsoft Word 2010 Inside Out, I tried using Windows Speech Recognition in Windows 7. After a little tutorial and a couple of how-tos (a total of about 10 minutes), I was dictating content directly into my chapter. Very cool, and almost completely pain free. I won't dictate text as a matter of course (as a piano player, I like to type), but it was exciting to see the feature working so well. It's also a nice backup in case I wipe out on my cross-country skis sometime this winter and need to give a banged up wrist a little rest. :)

If you haven't yet tried speech recognition in Windows 7, give it a try. All you need is a suitable microphone, and Windows 7 does the rest. There's still some training involved, and every once in a while the thing won't know what to do with your words (the software still translates "as you can see" as "as you can C"), but the feature is worlds better than it was a couple of years ago. It just may save you a little time and trouble--and perhaps breathe some freshness and fun into that Word content you create day in and day out. :)

Download the (free) First Look Microsoft Office 2010 ebook

Houston, we have lift-off! :) I just got word that First Look Microsoft Office 2010 is live on the Microsoft Press blog. Please feel free to download and find out about the latest and greatest features in Office 2010.

Over the next few weeks I'll be posting a few pieces about favorite Office 2010 features. You may have heard about the video editing features in PowerPoint, sparklines in Excel, Artistic Effects throughout, the customizable Ribbon (wahoo), and much more. Good stuff! And I think the features will appeal both to new users and those who've been at this a while (and like their UI the way they like it).

Enjoy First Look Microsoft Office 2010, and if you haven't yet downloaded the beta, you can get it here.

Technology's getting smarter :)

Well, as you can probably imagine, I've been up to my eyeballs in Office 2010 for some time now. I love the new features--very smart, very flexible, and they make your work look better faster than ever before. I was always a big fan of the Ribbon (love the open, artsy changes) but this Office puts it a little more under our control. Nice. Plus a number of the features bring some big-impact effects directly into my favorite apps, which is a great perk and timesaver. If you've been on the fence about upgrading from Office 2003, take a close look when the public beta becomes available--the features here are smart, flexible, and freeing. (No kidding--I'm all about working on the fly so I can have free time when I want it.) :)

In the meantime, be sure to visit these blogs from the in-house folks at Microsoft. There's lots of good info on new features, both background and how-to:

• Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering (not as boring as it sounds)
  
• Word team blog
  
• Excel team blog
  
• Powerpoint team blog
  
• Publisher team blog
  
• Outlook team blog
  
• OneNote blog from David Rasmussen (tired yet? lol!)
  
• SharePoint Workspace team blog
  
• Access team blog
  
• Office Web Apps (oh yes they are!)

Enjoy the links and get a glimpse at the beta as soon as you can. It's worth a good solid test drive and a few trips around the block.