Not much has been said about when Office Online will be ready, or, for that matter, even when consumers will actually be able to start playing with it. Ideally,  consumers will get a peek at office online when Office 14 finally comes out, but who knows when that will be.

End result? If you’re waiting for Office Online, you should probably not hold your breath.

Post from: EveryJoe

Office online – you’re gonna have to chill

Using TextFlow, editors send their changes to the master editor, who then can simply drag and drop all of the different versions of a document to TextFlow, which will then look at all the documents in the service, finding all of the edits, and then will display all the changes, allowing the main editor to quickly run through and accept or reject edits to their master document, like you do with track changes.

The best way to see how TextFlow works is to watch their demo video.

Right now, TextFlow can only handle documents up to 10 pages long, and contributions from seven contributors. In most cases, that would be fine, and if it’s not, it should be easy enough to break down your document into a couple of 10 page chunks and then bringing each of the seperate “master” chunks back together into one pretty  document. The other thing that TextFlow can’t handle at the moment are charts and graphics, but really, those would be seperate elements that you have to bring in from somewhere else anyway, so to me, that’s not a deal breaker.

Now that I’ve seen the video twice, I am off to hunt for a document I can collaborate with other people on!

(Video Source: TextFlow)

Post from: EveryJoe

Textflow: Lets Several Editors Work on One Document

I’ve used Windows Live Writer for my offline blog reading, and then Google Gears for offline Google Reader posts, and now, I can throw my drafts up on Mesh and not have to try and remember which draft is where and what I’ve written when.

Live Mesh lets you  synchronize files with all of your devices, so you always have the latest versions handy. Access your files from any device or from the web, easily share them with others, and get notified whenever someone changes a file.

Depending on where you do the majority of your writing, you might want to Mesh just the Drafts folder. Drafts live here: C:\Users\<USERNAME>\Documents\My Weblog Posts\Drafts. So, if you’re writing most of your offline posts at work, just add that one folder to your Live Mesh account and then when you get home, you just sync that one folder.

Post from: EveryJoe

Sync Live Writer Drafts with Mesh Now

Microsoft won’t say when the new version of Office, known as Office 14, will arrive, but Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop said that a technology preview of the browser-based products will come later this year and that a beta version will be released in 2009.

There’s a full Q&A with Microsoft Blogger, Sarah Perez here, including a discussion about whether the products will be free (unsure, but the indication is there will be an ad supported free version and a paid subscription version) and if a specific operating system will be required (not as long as you’re running a supported browser). Sarah answers all of the questions she came across most frequently misunderstood comments and questions here.

Edited to Add: The first release of the online versions of the products won’t have an offline option, so you’ll have to be connected to be able to use the online versions, for now at least.

Post from: EveryJoe

Web-based version of office to work on all OS

This free and open productivity suite release candidate 1 can be downloaded for  Linux, Windows, Solaris, and Mac.

Oh, by the way, be sure to checkout the system requirements before you install OpenOffice.org 3.0 Release Candidate 1.

[ via OpenOffice.org Snapshot Builds and Release Candidates ]

Post from: EveryJoe

OpenOffice.org 3.0 Release Candidate 1

Fire up GMDesk, and just alt-tab (on Windows or Linux) or Cmd-tab (on Mac) to shift between this application and the other ones you are running.

GMDesk offers an easy menu as well as keyboard shortcuts to switch between different Google services, and you can specify what default service you want the application to start with. It also supports Google Apps access as well.

By the way, GMDesk requires you to install Adobe AIR before you can install the application itself.

Post from: EveryJoe

Introducing GMDesk

As we go along, I may say that I am still a beginner with the new language and has to learn more. Well, I then visit some Chinese websites to have a more hand-on with the language. Applying and practicing what you learn will help you more use the language. Then, I downloaded this Firefox plugin to help me out with the translations of Kanji characters when I visit sites. It is called Chinese Perapera-kun: Chinese Popup Translator.

Simply put, this extension will allow you read Chinese on websites. This is useful for just getting around a site, or even MORE useful if you are studying Chinese. It works with both Simplified and Traditional characters, and also allows you to…

This plugin was submitted by Justin Kovalchuk. I hope this will help you as well in learning Chinese. It really helped me alot.

Post from: EveryJoe

A Chinese Popup Translator

Developed by Martin Bresson, Executor gives you easy way to manage shortcuts of runnable applications or tools in your Windows system. It has many features which includes:

• Keywords have properties like shortcuts, and you can for example drag-drop a shortcut/file/folder/favorite to add it as a keyword.
• Auto-completion for keywords, file system and history (can also be configured).
• Url detection, Enter URLs directly (like www.google.com, mail.google.com, google.com or http://www.google.com).
• Keywords support parameters. Example “google latest executor” “wiki nirvana”.
• Besides keywords Executor can also optionally and dynamically add matching start-menu items, control panel items and other handy items to the drop-down/list.
• Ability to add your own paths to scan for user defined file extensions.
• Keyword “find [text]” for using Windows Instant Search (Vista) feature or Windows Desktop Search (WDS for XP etc.).
• Can add keyword integration with popular services like GMail, Twitter, GCal, RTM and many others (see forums for howto’s, tutorials and tips).
• and many more.. click here to see them all.

For more screenshots, click here. Please visit http://executor.dk/ for download instructions.

Post from: EveryJoe

Be sure to have Executor!

Ads for Adobe PDF is a new opt-in service that enables publishers to monetize their PDF content through advertising. The advertising service, powered by Yahoo!, automatically matches and displays dynamic, contextual ads in Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat when a user views the PDF. Publishers that sign up to participate in this program are eligible to be paid for valid clicks on ads. In this unique advertising relationship, Yahoo! helps connect advertisers from its extensive network of online advertisers with publishers that are distributing content through Adobe PDFs. Yahoo! will incorporate this new advertising inventory into its portfolio of online advertising opportunities.

If you are interested, you can visit http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/adsforpdf/.  Screenshots via this link.

Post from: EveryJoe

Earn with Adobe PDF Ads

A tool to search craigslist based on multiple locations and categories. Enter your search term and choose your options to narrow down your search result. Set notifications to alert you, or send you an email when new posts meeting your criteria appear on craigslist. Fast searches are performed by using concurrent connections. Sort items by date, location, category, title or price. Save, and load search results to analyze or store. Version 3.2 has added few features, and fixed few defects.

It’s a nice small tool to avoid sorting your listings. It runs on all Windows Operating System and is Free. You can download it here.

[ via Download.com Blog ]

Post from: EveryJoe

Craigslist for Desktops