bruceb news

For the last three weeks I’ve been getting occasional problem reports from clients with hosted Exchange mailboxes on Office 365, after their Office 365 service was upgraded. For a handful of users, Outlook has sporadically been unable to connect to the online Exchange server, showing “Trying to connect” in the lower right corner for five minutes, or an hour, or several hours. In some cases it’s an isolated event but a very few people have had persistent problems that would come and go for a week or two.

There was no official statement from Microsoft about system problems, and the support forums were not erupting with similar stories, just a few isolated anecdotes. […] continued

Here we go again.

Windows 8 is succumbing to the pressure from too many people with too many agendas. It’s starting to get a bit of the Vista stink. Everybody seems to “know” that Windows 8 is something to be avoided. Nobody can articulate what the problems are – it’s something they heard somewhere. “I know somebody who got it and just hated it.” “I read an article that said it was awful.”

Let’s jump to the conclusion.

  –  Windows 7 is a lovely stable operating system. If you get a computer with Windows 7, you’ll love it.

  –  Windows 8 is a lovely stable operating system. […] continued

Sometimes it seems as if we’re making progress against spam. Spam filters have improved and we don’t bother to check the Junk Mail folder any more because we know it’s all junk. Oh, sure, some crud gets through to the Inbox from the bad guys but on the whole complaints about spam have dropped way down.

But anyone with a blog knows that blog spam is flourishing.

A bit of background, then I’ll tell you why I’m so proud of Bruceb News.

WordPress is the dominant platform for websites with blogs, running more than 60 million websites worldwide. Here’s some information about WordPress if you’re not familiar with it. […] continued

Previously:
The Difference Between A Microsoft Account And An Office 365 Account
Understanding Skydrive, Part 1: Skydrive vs. Skydrive Pro
Understanding Skydrive, Part 2: The Basics
Understanding Skydrive, Part 3: The Microsoft Office Connection

Microsoft has steadily improved sharing in Skydrive. Among other uses, it has become one of the easiest and most attractive services to use for sharing photos, and it is one of the best ways to deal with files that are too large to email.

The basics:

–  You can share any file or photo in Skydrive with just a couple of clicks from the Skydrive web site, from your computer, or directly from Office 2013. […] continued

Previously:
The Difference Between A Microsoft Account And An Office 365 Account
Understanding Skydrive, Part 1: Skydrive vs. Skydrive Pro
Understanding Skydrive, Part 2: The Basics

Skydrive has become more compelling for business users because it is integrated with Office (Word / Excel / Powerpoint) in two ways:

–  Documents can be opened and saved in Skydrive directly from Office programs.

–  Office documents in Skydrive can be viewed and edited online in a web browser with Office Web Apps, web-based versions of the Office programs that are 100% compatible with Office file formats.

THE DOMINANCE OF MICROSOFT OFFICE

Microsoft Office is installed on more than 1 billion PCs. […] continued

Previously:
The Difference Between A Microsoft Account And An Office 365 Account
Understanding Skydrive, Part 1: Skydrive vs. Skydrive Pro

Skydrive lets you store files online and access them from anywhere, including PCs, Macs, and mobile devices. There are some good reasons to begin using it as the primary location for saving all of your files and pictures.

SKYDRIVE WEB SITE

Go to http://skydrive.live.com.

If you’re not signed in already, then sign in with your Microsoft account.

You will likely see some folders – by default, there are folders for Documents, Pictures, and Public. If not, create Documents and Pictures folders by clicking Create / Folder. […] continued

Skydrive is Microsoft’s service for storing files online and accessing them from any device. It is quickly becoming a core service for every Windows user, as important for you to understand as any program on your computer.

Skydrive is simple and flexible, it’s free, and it’s secure and reliable. Microsoft will give you a generous amount of storage space for your files. You can share them easily with others, making it the best way to share files that are too large to email. Skydrive is becoming more visible now as Microsoft builds it into the Office 365 service and Office 2013 programs (Word/Excel/Powerpoint/OneNote). […] continued

Microsoft has taken great strides towards simplifying its products and services. It has discarded products that were overlapping (Live Mesh discarded in favor of Skydrive, Messenger discarded in favor of Skype), it has streamlined its product names (rebranding the Windows Live services, for example), and introduced the consistent interface used on Windows computers, servers, tablets and phones.

Nothing is ever simple with Microsoft. There are still areas where you can be hopelessly confused. Here’s something you need to understand if you want to take advantage of some of Microsoft’s best new services.

Microsoft has two different databases that have credentials for you – your email address and a password. […] continued

Missing the Start button on your new Windows 8 computer? It’s easy to get it back with Start8 from Stardock Software.

Microsoft made a bold (and perhaps misguided) decision to insist that everyone use the new Windows 8 Start screen to start programs. Sure, there’s a rocky transition, but the idea is that if everyone becomes familiar with the Start screen, then two things happen: (1) the Start screen becomes pretty lovable, and (2) people will be more likely to use Windows 8 tablets and phones, since they share the identical interface.

In my experience with real users, that’s exactly what happens. […] continued

Office 365 is in the middle of a major upgrade. Many small business subscribers have already been upgraded and Microsoft intends to have all subscribers upgraded in the next few months. Hosted Exchange mailboxes are being upgraded to new servers running Exchange 2013; it doesn’t change the day-to-day experience of using Outlook but there are some improvements in webmail that are worth knowing about.

Outlook Web App (OWA), the webmail component of Office 365’s hosted Exchange mailboxes, got a lot of attention from the Exchange 2013 designers. It resembles Outlook 2013 visually, with a simplified interface, lots of white space, and flat controls. […] continued