Microsoft
Gaming 2019: Console & PC Gaming
The traditional picture of a “gamer” is someone using a Sony Playstation, Microsoft Xbox, or a powerful PC, playing one of the AAA blockbuster titles that get all the attention and prestige. The console & PC games industry today is like the movie industry: dominated by a relatively small number of big-budget productions from major studios, primarily sequels in longstanding franchises, each one with a big marketing budget. […] continued
Read moreYou Never Have To Change Your Passwords Again!*
You never have to change your passwords again!*
*FOOTNOTELet’s get right to the fine print. Of course you have to change your password if something happens that makes it necessary!
• Change your password right away if a password is stolen (AKA an account is hacked) or you get a notice of suspicious activity in one of your accounts. […] continued
Read moreBreaking News: Special Google Edition, May 13, 2019
Google, Microsoft, and Facebook held developer conferences last week to showcase new products and services. Google had some exciting announcements. Microsoft and Facebook, not so much.
MICROSOFT Microsoft is an enterprise company. At its Build Conference, it showed off new cloud services for developers and enterprises. That’s it. That’s what it does now. […] continued
Read moreOneNote Is Lonely And Confused
Microsoft OneNote isn’t on the Office team these days, at least not like it has been for the last ten years when it was installed alongside Word and Excel as a full-fledged Office program. OneNote has been left to play by itself.
Oh, and if you’re a OneNote user, the version you’re almost certainly using on your PC is on its last legs and someday will be discontinued. […] continued
Read moreGoogle Docs Adding Support For Microsoft Office File Formats
Google is trying to make the grass look greener in its walled garden, hoping to lure businesses that might otherwise stay loyal to Microsoft. The change it has announced sounds innocuous but might have big consequences in the long run.
Google is adding native support to Google Docs for editing, commenting, and collaborating on files in Microsoft Office file formats. […] continued
Read moreHow To Live The Simple Life . . . With Microsoft
My new computer is simple and has relatively few confusing bits.
My new computer runs Windows and primarily relies on Microsoft services.
Those two sentences are not normally uttered together! Microsoft’s mish-mash of dueling and overlapping personal and business accounts is anything but simple. I continue to have conversations every day with people who are confused by Microsoft services. […] continued
Read moreFond Memories Of Patch Tuesday, And Other Windows Update Laments
Once upon a time, O my children, Microsoft had a predictable date for installing updates to Windows, and lo, we called it “Patch Tuesday.” Once a month (well, sometimes twice), we would wake up on Wednesday morning and our computers would have restarted, and we would bellow and curse and rend our garments and then we would resume work because it was, after all, Wednesday, and we understood nothing but at least we knew that Tuesday was ordained to be the day on which updates would be delivered. […] continued
Read moreExciting New Features In The Next Windows 10 Update
[ This page intentionally left blank. ]
[…] continued Read moreMicrosoft Has Improved AutoSave For Office Documents (But Not For Everybody, And With One Bit That Might Make You Curse)
Have you ever lost hours of work in a Word document because you closed it without saving? Of course you have. It’s happened to everyone.
That has never happened to you if you use Google Docs. In fact, you’ve forgotten about that problem because Google Docs automatically saves everything continuously. Now that you think about it, you’re feeling a bit superior, aren’t you? […] continued
Read morePrivacy And Trust Part 5: What Can We Do?
A series of articles about privacy and trust in the era of tech overlords.
• Part 1: Data about you is being gathered by the big tech companies (as well as many other companies) in startling ways. Their ability to analyze that data and predict your behavior is more like magic than technology – and it has the potential to change the world, for better or worse. […] continued
Read morePrivacy And Trust Part 3: What Do They Know And How Do They Know It?
A series of articles about privacy and trust in the era of tech overlords.
• Part 1: Data about you is being gathered by the big tech companies (as well as many other companies) in startling ways. Their ability to analyze that data and predict your behavior is more like magic than technology – and it has the potential to change the world, for better or worse. […] continued
Read morePrivacy And Trust Part 2: No Escape!
A series of articles about privacy and trust in the era of tech overlords.
• Part 1: Data about you is being gathered by the big tech companies (as well as many other companies) in startling ways. Their ability to analyze that data and predict your behavior is more like magic than technology – and it has the potential to change the world, for better or worse. […] continued
Read moreMicrosoft Thinks The Future Belongs To Teams (And It Might Work For You, Too)
Microsoft Teams is an Office 365 service that businesses can use for their employees to chat and collaborate, providing an alternative (and perhaps a replacement) for email inside the company. Although it’s relatively new, Teams has quickly become a strategic priority for Microsoft.
Many Office 365 services only make sense for large enterprises, but Teams might be the exception that even small businesses should closely examine. […] continued
Read moreHow To Pin A Chrome Shortcut To The Taskbar
Google has changed the steps required to pin a website to your Windows 10 taskbar. It’s still possible but it takes a bit of extra effort.
There are some websites that fit your workflow best when they are running in their own separate window. When you set up a website to open in its own window, it shows up separately on the taskbar so you can switch to it easily, and you won’t close it by accident when you’re closing 12 other tabs in your main Chrome window. […] continued
Read moreIt’s Not Just Your Computer – Everything Is Too Hard To Use (And It’s Not Your Fault)
I wrote an article a few years ago about how difficult it is for non-tech people to manage the fiddly bits required to run a Windows computer. It’s one of the things that drove the transition from computers to phone and tablets.
An interesting thing is happening today. The explosion of devices, products and services is causing just as much confusion and frustration in the world of mobile devices. […] continued
Read more