MS Office 2007 (Beta 2)

Hey everybody, how’s it going? Yeah, it’s getting kinda late here, but I wanted to make a posting before going to bed. For all parties concerned, I’m posting this article from MS Word 2007. Yeah, what a cool feature. You can register your blog account through MS Word 2007 and then write an article from Word and then post it. How friggin awesome is that? So your typing a journal entry and suddenly you realize you’d like to post it to your blog. And for me, I often post my paper and such on my blog, so this would make that incredibly easy and efficient. Plus my grammar is atrocious, so typing the post with Word will make my articles infinitely more readable.

Anyway, those are just my feelings on the matter. With Word you can also set up a workspace so several people can view and edit a paper as one. Mom, if your writing a family newsletter, you can create a workspace and set it up so certain people can edit certain parts. That way I can edit the section dealing with me while Ethan can only edit his section.

So I’m not completely 2007 (Beta 2) pro, I will say that I have encountered a bug while printing. There’s a simple workaround and I think it’s just with my printer driver/setup. Also, compatibility with previous versions can act up, but only with documents with funky graphics and such. Overall, Office 2007 looks pretty amazing. It has a lot of features missing in any current-gen office software. Check out the beta if you want. Tomorrow’s post will have more day-to-day info., so stay tuned.

Invisibility Cloak

Ok, this should be a record short post, but I just found a really interesting article about a cloak (more or less) that bends electromagnetic waves and microwaves (plus visible light) around an object.

Right now, its only partially invisible in 2 dimensions and there is a slight shadow, but the researchers (from Duke Unviersity) said the ultimate goal is invisibility in 3 dimensions with no shadowing.

The basic idea, is that carefully constructed materials can bend light around itself, making it invisible. We see things when light bounces off the object and some of it reflects back to our eyes.

Anyway, check out this article, its pretty interesting.

Book of Mormon Test

Hey guys, I'm just dropping a quick note on this one. I installed the rest of the MS Office 2007 apps and one of the ones I tried was Microsoft OneNote (which is like a really beefed-up, super cool version of Google Notebook...it even includes all the cool sharing features plus some new ones). Anyway, I have to write an Ensign article (not really, but that's the premise) about a topic in Alma chapters 13-29. Here are the notes and ideas I've collected thus far. If you happen to have MS OneNote, then use this link.

Anyway, any feedback or cool ideas you have or thoughts to share I would really like. Oh yeah, download MS OneNote...it's really cool, well worth the $1.50 download charge.

Oh yeah, if you're wondering why to download OneNote, a couple of these features might entice you.

It's just like writing notes in a notebook...anywhere you click the cursor, you can write a note.
Sharing, you can share/collaborate/anything you want with other OneNote users.
You can use OneNote to create a picture file from a portion of the screen...see a picture you like inside a flash application and you can't download it...now you can.
Text recognition from pictures---this makes it super easy to convert text documents or pictures with text in them into actual text.

So yeah, check it out and check out my notes from Alma 13-16. I'll probably publish my notes for the rest of these chapters as well.

Techno Update

Ok guys, I know that I'm a huge procrastinator when it comes to posting. Things have been extremely busy these past few weeks up here at BYU-Idaho. However, once this week is over, things are gonna be niiiiccceee.

First up, quick little dating review. I've officially gone on my 3rd date with Marianne, and I still can't tell for sure if she likes me or not. For my parents, especially mom and dad, I'm not too worried about the girl situation because I know that I'm going on my mission in a year anyway. However, thus far, I've really enjoyed the dates that I've gone on with her...oh yeah, and she's gorgeous. Enough about that though. The girl that hit me with her car (while I was on my bike) happens to be in my ward and the roommate of the girl I usually sit beside in Book Of Mormon. Craziness there ;)

As far as school goes, I got a 94 on my first physics test, which counts for 20% of my grade and I had my world civ presentation today, which counted for 25% of my world civ grade. Let's see what happens there. Also, I have a presentation in Physics on work and motion, etc. this Wednesday. I'm kinda dreading it, but oh well.

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On to other news, like the new Office 2007 Beta. So everyone who knows me that I seem to keep decently current with technology related info. For those of you who don't know, Office 2007 and Windows Vista (the new operating system, like XP) are coming out to consumers early next year (January or February). Also, if you didn't know, you can download both Office 2007 (beta of course) and the 1st release candidate of Vista. I'm a little too timid to download Vista since there could be some major issues with compatibility with my current software, but that means Office 2007 is fair game.

True to Microsoft's word, Office 2007 is a huge improvement over previous versions. 10x shinier, it has that "new software" feel to it. That's not what's most impressive. I have not conducted any tests, but it appears that Office 2007 loads a tad faster than 2003. Another neat feature is the absence of traditional menus. They are gone. Instead is a more streamlined and intuitive interface. It might take users a few minutes to become acquainted to, but it has a lot of new features that are easy to use and understand. Another cool feature is the level of integration. It works better than you imagine it could. One cool example is when inserting a table into PowerPoint. You click the button and in a few seconds your looking at PowerPoint with Excel open right beside of it. It gives you full access to Excel features and as you edit the tables in Excel, it changes the graph in PowerPoint. Its cool.

I haven't tested compatibility with previous versions of office, but I imagine it works smoothly with Office 2003 and Office XP. Its a cool download, although it does cost $1.50. I justify this by saying that I'm downloading a refreshed Beta 2, which is decently close to release software. Office 2007 will cost between $200-$400, and I've got it for $1.50. This should hold me over until I buy a new computer, in which case it'll come bundled anyway.

So yeah, check out the link/title of this post and see if you'd like to try out the Office 2007 beta. It's worth it, or at least I think so.

Color Paper

About

My name is Adam. I have been blogging sporadically since 2005 and have always enjoyed the connectedness of it. I'm preparing to serve a full time, 2 year mission for my Church. I work at a Real Estate company as a catch-all IT guy. I love watching movies, I don't read a ton of books but when I start one I can't put it down until I finish. More to come!

MS Office 2007 (Beta 2)

Invisibility Cloak

Book of Mormon Test

Techno Update

Color Paper

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