August 24, 2014

Inexpensive Windows PCs hit the market with help from Microsoft

PC makers are selling laptops with Microsoft's royalty-free Windows 8.1 With Bing OS starting at $249

Computerworld - Microsoft is helping hardware makers build low-priced Windows PCs to combat Chromebooks, and the early results of that effort are hitting the market.
Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Lenovo are selling laptops priced less than $250 that run on Windows 8.1 With Bing, a royalty-free version of the company's flagship operating system. Windows 8.1 With Bing is the same as Windows 8.1, but it has Bing as the default search engine in Internet Explorer.

Microsoft is using Windows 8.1 With Bing, which was unveiled in May, to spread Windows to more low-cost PCs and tablets. It's also an attempt to take on Google's free Chrome OS, which is used in Chromebooks, the inexpensive and lightweight laptops that are growing in popularity among the Web-based computing audience.

The first PCs featuring Windows 8.1 With Bing were shown at Computex in June. The cheapest is a Lenovo desktop model that costs $225. Laptops start at $249. Microsoft has promised that laptop prices will fall to $199 with HP's Stream 14 model, which has not been unveiled -- though information about it has leaked out.

Some Acer Chromebooks sell for less than $200, but HP, Dell and Lenovo are selling Windows laptops that are priced lower than their Chromebooks. The laptops have basic processors and specifications, much like comparable Chromebooks.



The Windows laptops have common features such as 1366-x-768-pixel resolution screens, hard drive storage and HDMI ports. The processors from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices are good for basic computing and casual gaming, but the laptops do have some deficiencies.
HP is shipping the 15z, a 15.6-in. nontouch laptop, and the Pavilion 10z, which has a 10.1-in. touchscreen. Both are priced at $249.99 and run on low-end AMD processors. Features include Wi-Fi, up to 500GB of hard-drive storage and a maximum of 4GB of memory. The laptops have poor battery life, with the 15z offering 4 hours and 15 minutes, and the Pavilion 10z offering 4 hours.



Lenovo's G40, which has a 14-in. screen, and the G50-30, which has a 15.6-in. screen, are priced at $249. The laptops have 320GB hard drives, 2GB of memory and Intel's Celeron 2830 processor, which is based on the Bay Trail architecture.

Dell's $249.99 Inspiron 15 Non-Touch laptop has no USB 3.0 port but is instead equipped with two USB 2.0 ports. PC makers often sacrifice some hardware features in inexpensive laptops. The Inspiron also has the Celeron 2830 CPU, 500GB of storage and 4GB of DDR3 memory.
The least expensive PC featuring Windows 8.1 With Bing is Lenovo's Q190 mini-desktop, which is selling for $224.99, compared to $285.99 for the Windows 8.1-only version. The desktops have Intel's Celeron 1017U processor, which is based on the older Ivy Bridge microarchitecture.

The desktop is priced much lower than the $490 IdeaCentre Q190, which shipped with a Core i3 processor and Windows 8 last year.
Agam Shah covers PCs, tablets, servers, chips and semiconductors for the IDG News Service. Follow Agam on Twitter at @agamsh. Agam's email address is agam_shah@idg.com


August 18, 2014

5 Reasons You Should Use Office Online

Don’t Pay For Word! 5 Reasons You Should Use Office Online Microsoft is not known for its quick adoption of new trends, but when it does get on board, it often tries to make up lost time with gobs of money and hoards of experienced software engineers.
This strategy seems to be working with Office Online, a cloud-connected version of the world’s most popular productivity software that is free to use (with limitations) and offers a buffet of useful features. You’ll even find Office Online useful, if you already have a copy of Office installed on your computer.

Office Online Is Free

There’s always been one big, fat problem with Office; the price. It’s expensive, and many users simply can’t afford it, even if they prefer it over a free solution like Google Docs or LibreOffice.
Office Online, however, is one of the few ways you can use Office entirely free of charge, forever, and without any specific limitations. Office’s web apps are the same whether you pay or not, and free users even receive 15 gigabytes of cloud storage, which is far more than you’re likely to need, if you’re only using said storage for Word documents or PowerPoint presentations.


Office Online   Dont Pay For Word! 5 Reasons You Should Use Office Online


What’s the catch? Well, while Office Online is great, it isn’t a full-fledged version Office. Just like web document editors from Google, Zoho and others, there are limitations on what you can accomplish. Word’s advanced formatting options are not present, Excel’s graph functionality is limited, and PowerPoint can’t be used to insert video.
What you can do, however, is create, edit and open Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. You may not want to use Office Online to craft a presentation for a Fortune 500 company, but it’ll work fine for banging out a resume or budgeting your finances.

Access Your Documents From Anywhere

One of the Office Online’s most obvious advantages is its cloud storage connectivity. Documents, spreadsheets and presentations edited used the online interface are automatically saved to OneDrive and can be opened from any computer. You can also save files to your local PC, but that is not the default behavior.


onedrive   Dont Pay For Word! 5 Reasons You Should Use Office Online


In short, it works like any other cloud productivity service. This is not an advantage relative to those, but it is an advantage to a huge number of Office owners who might be reading this article. Office did not bundle OneDrive connectivity until the introduction of Office 2013, so there’s a ton of users with older versions of Office (for PC and for Mac) who lack this feature.
Sure, you could grab cloud connectivity by paying for an upgrade, but that’s not going to look attractive if you’re already satisfied with what your version of Office can handle. Office Online is free and instantly available, making it a perfect upgrade path for the budget-minded user.

Share & Collaborate On Documents In Real-Time

Office has included collaboration tools for many years, but it has been consistently behind the curve in the online collaboration, and important tool that many organizations love to use. This remains a problem in the desktop apps, but Office Online is a bit more welcoming.


officeonline2   Dont Pay For Word! 5 Reasons You Should Use Office Online


Documents created in Office Online are easy to share with others because they’re automatically stored in OneDrive, which lets you share with other people with a Microsoft account or by generating and sending a link. Other users given editing permission can collaborate with you in real-time, and each user can see the others as they work.
For better or worse, this remains a trick you can only pull off with the online version. Even Office 365 subscribers can’t do the same from the desktop application, though they do have access to a broader range of offline collaboration options. You can add, edit and view comments in Office Online, but you can’t use Track Changes or add advanced markup to comments.

Easy Cross-Platform Compatibility

While the cloud connectivity of Office Online can be partially replicated by paying Office 365 owners, the desktop applications remain restricted to Windows and Mac.


officeonlineandroid   Dont Pay For Word! 5 Reasons You Should Use Office Online


Office Online, however, is available on anything that can run a web browser. There’s also free apps for Android and iOS phones, though for some reason iPad owners have to subscribe to Office 365 for this advantage. While not called Office Online, the app versions of Office 365 are basically that; they share the same restrictions and advantages.
This makes Office Online great for anyone who owns an Android tablet with a keyboard, a Linux PC or a Chromebook. Yes, you could use Google Documents and other services instead, but Office Online provides highly accurate Office file format support, fifteen gigabytes of free storage and easy connectivity with Office 365, if you use it or plan to in the future.

Simplify Your Workflow

Google’s Chromebooks have proven that a simplified operating environment has value to users. Limited options mean less distraction, and saving items to the cloud eliminates the need to navigate folders or organize libraries. Fewer options result in a more efficient workflow, if the extras aren’t necessary.


officeonline1   Dont Pay For Word! 5 Reasons You Should Use Office Online


Office Online provides this same advantage in a familiar interface. No, it is not as powerful as the full version, but it does enough to handle the document editing needs of many home and even professional users. And you already know where to find the menus and buttons you need.
The online version is also surprisingly fast; in fact, it sometimes feels quicker than the desktop application on old systems with limited RAM and a slow mechanical hard drive. And, since files are stored in the cloud, they don’t eat into your valuable hard drive space or become lost in a tangle of folders you really should have organized by now.
I speak of Office Online’s efficiency from experience. I own Office 2010 for my PC and Office 2011 on my Mac, and use both regularly. Yet, I’ve found that the vast majority of my work is just as easily accomplished in Office Online – and, when I use it, I benefit from its cloud storage, which makes syncing between my PC and Mac dead-simple. Give the online tools a chance and you may find they completely change your workflow.

Should You Use Office Online?

Microsoft Office Online is not superior (or inferior) to Google Documents and doesn’t stand out as the best online platform, but it’s the obvious choice for users already hooked into Microsoft’s ecosystem. The interface is exactly like the desktop apps, missing features aside, so there’s no need to learn new tricks. Office Online is free, quick and instantly familiar, and for those reasons it’s worth a second look from any skeptical eyes that passed on its earlier incarnations.
Have you tried Office Online? Let us know what you though of it! And if you’ve tried other solutions, let us know about your experience with those, too!

Source: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/dont-pay-word-5-reasons-use-office-online/

August 15, 2014

IE11 Offers Browser Emulation Modes for older versions IE5,7,8,9, and 10

By Craig Buckler. A month ago I reported how Browser Modes had been removed from IE11. Browser modes have been provided since IE8 to help developers fix issues quickly by telling a site to render like a previous version of the application:


IE10 browser modes


The modes were intended to help companies continue to use legacy web applications while developers made fixes.
However, far more of us used browser modes to test old IE rendering. We certainly shouldn’t since the modes are an unreliable imitation of the real browsers. For example, you can find features such as CSS3 animations working in IE10 when it’s switched into IE9 mode.
Many developers applauded Microsoft’s decision. I did. Browser modes are flawed, impart a false sense of security and have become increasingly unnecessary as IE improves.
Many developers disagreed…
Browser modes allow devs to quickly reproduce something a user is experiencing, and provides a quick way to test fixes in your own environment, yes the final fix should be tested in a non-emulated browser, but MS makes that hard since you cannot have more that one version of IE on a system at a time.
Despite browser modes being a poor substitute for oldIEs, many find them convenient for quick and dirty testing. Starting up a virtual machine may only take a few seconds on a fast PC, but browser modes are almost instantaneous.
Anyway, they’re back. Microsoft has listened to the complaints and re-implemented browser modes in IE11 on Windows 8.1 (technically, they were always lurking beneath the surface and just hidden). I’m not aware of any official announcement — I found them by accident when tinkering with IE11 final on Windows 8.1 for a SitePoint review.


IE11 browser modes


To access the modes, start the F12 Developer Tools, click the Emulation icon at the bottom, and choose a Document Mode — they’re not named “browser modes” any longer.
Has Microsoft made the right decision? Ironically, the lack of browser mode functionality would have dissuaded some companies from upgrading IE9/10. Fewer upgrades means longer having to support oldIEs. I suspect they’ve done the right thing.
That said, please don’t use browser modes! I know they’re convenient, but they could cause more problems than they’re worth when real IE8 users report issues with your site or application.

Are you pleased to see the return of IE browser modes?

Source: http://www.sitepoint.com/ie11-browser-modes-return/