With the final release due in a couple of months, Microsoft have provided a beta test version of Office 2010 that’s [...]]]> Despite it being the second most used application on my work computer (behind the Mozilla Firefox browser), it’s still impossible for me to get excited about a new edition of the Microsoft Office suite.

With the final release due in a couple of months, Microsoft have provided a beta test version of Office 2010 that’s free for members of the public to download.  The beta test version will run unhindered until October 2010 at which point users must decide whether they wish to purchase the final release or have it removed from their hard drive.

For the costs involved the majority of home users may still be better off with the free OpenOffice Suite (www.openoffice.org) as it should provide all the features you are likely to need at no cost.  This having been said, the Office Suite has remained a popular flagship product over the years due to business users often requiring a specific function or application only present in the Microsoft offering.  I, for example, use Outlook on a regular basis and haven’t yet found an alternative that suits my needs.

Having not been the biggest fan of Office 2007 (especially the ‘ribbon’ interface discussed in the past) I wasted no time downloading the 64-bit professional version of the beta to put it through its paces.  I have now been using it for a couple of days it does appear notably faster than Office 2007 and certainty incredibly stable.  The speed increase could easily be attributed to the fact that a 64-bit version of the application is now available to run on modern 64-bit computers.

Office Professional 2010 includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, InfoPath, OneNote, Outlook, Access and Publisher.  The home edition (also currently available in beta) includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote.  After the official release, computer manufacturers may choose to bundle new machines with a starter edition of Office which includes just Excel and Word; this version of Office will replace the aging Microsoft Works Suite.

Although the ribbon interface remains, it is certainly a lot clearer than that provided with Office 2007; the confusing Office orb has been replaced with the familiar file menu, there are fewer distracting borders, a neutral colour scheme and most importantly it is customisable to the users individual tastes.  The applications look and behave like a ‘family’ now and have become more intuitive to use as a result of the more refined user interface.

An important new feature due for release in the final version but missing from the beta is the ‘Web Apps’ which will extend the Office functionality to a compatible web browser.  Very similar in form to Google Docs, Office Web Apps allows users to collaborate, edit and share Office documents online.  This is an incredibly important new feature that has no doubt come about due to the success of Google Docs and one that I would like to field test when complete.

This article isn’t long enough to go in to details about minor new features so I will summarise by observing that the changes made from Office 2007 to Office 2010 are evolutionary rather than revolutionary; very much in the same way that Windows 7 was an evolutionary change compared with Vista.  Excluding the Web Apps there is nothing substantially new however the minor improvements are certainly welcome as is the chance to road test a new piece of software completely free of charge for a year.

Users interested in downloading the beta version of Office 2010 should visit www.microsoft.com/office/2010 to get their hands on a copy.

It [...]]]> Over the past few months I’ve mentioned the Mozilla Firefox browser several times because it is a worthy alternative to Internet Explorer not least because as well as being free it also is in my opinion a faster and more stable browser than the Microsoft equivalent.

It seems only natural then that I should digress and discuss the e-mail client available from the same people so it would compliment Firefox perfectly. I would probably pitch Mozilla Thunderbird as a viable alternative to Outlook Express as to be honest the product isn’t feature rich enough to compete on a level playing field with the expensive Microsoft Outlook 2003. Such a comment isn’t an insult to the programmers as I think it would be unreasonable to expect a free 5.8mb download to compete against a program that is dozens of times its size and comes as part of an expensive office suite.

The main advantage to Thunderbird over Outlook Express is that it contains a powerful anti-spam filter that is integrated into the program. This feature alone will be enough to convince a large number of people to make the switch as every week my inbox is filled with people asking my advice on how to get a usually poor anti-spam program installed on their machine. When you consider that many anti-spam solutions cost money then it could be a cheaper option to change your entire e-mail program to the free Mozilla Thunderbird as opposed to trying to get anti spam integration with your existing one.

As many of you will know the Mozilla suite of programs are ‘Open Source’ and this means that anybody can download the original code and improve/add to it with a view of their changes making it into a finished version of the product. One advantage to making programs in this fashion is that often you collect a loyal user base who are happy to spend their time working on improvements. As well as changes to the program itself, these improvements can also be accommodated into Thunderbird as a ‘plug-ins’. Whilst the core version of Thunderbird is relatively small you can then add features that you require via plug ins to add functionality such as the Mozilla calendar or perhaps you’d prefer several new custom tool bars.

The look and feel of Thunderbird is relatively minimalist and easy on the eye but the layout can be largely customized to your own taste or even changed completely by loading up a new ‘skin’ for the program – such skins are often created by other users and available online to download for free.

An especially nice feature that I noticed is the ability to restrict the download of messages over a certain size. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a good chuckle watching a user on a slow 56k connection be unable to view any of their e-mail as Outlook Express is busy downloading a 50mb file that was sent to them by a relative who has broadband. If the user cancels the download then all that happens is next time they try and download their e-mail is that the entire process starts again from scratch – More often than not they’ll spend 2 hours downloading a rubbish program which is then instantly deleted.

When composing an e-mail Thunderbird has full support for HTML messages as well as the ability to add emoticons (smilies and the like) to messages. Incoming e-mail can be downloaded as either plain text or formatted HTML and the program has the ability to view RSS feeds without any additional software.

Possibly one of the most important features of the program is the import feature. The first time you run Thunderbird it will ask you if you want to import all your messages and settings from another mail client such as Outlook Express. Just say ‘yes’ and the program will quite happily take all the information it needs from your previous mail client before asking you if you then want to make it the default. Once you are happy that Thunderbird is for you then just delete your previous mail client and begin the experience of spam free and speedy e-mail.