17 December 2012

Preview or Pro – Which Office 2013 Edition should you Download?



Microsoft is expected to release a new version of Office, called Microsoft Office 2013 (or Office 15) early next year. The new Office, the release version of which is already available for download to MSDN and TechNet subscribers, sports a minimalist interface and, among other features, is very tightly integrated with SkyDrive.


If you aren’t an MSDN/Technet subscriber, you can still download and install Microsoft Office 2013 as long as your computer is running Windows 7 or Windows 8.


Microsoft Office 2013


Where can I download Microsoft Office 2013


Option A: You can go to office.com/preview and download the full-featured edition of Office 2013 that includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, and Microsoft Access (no Visio here). You can install this version on up to 5 PCs using your Microsoft account.


This is actually Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium Preview and what’s unique here is that you can get Office running on your computer within minutes of hitting the install button. This uses Microsoft’s Click-To-Run installation technology – you just have to download a 500KB installer and it “streams” the Microsoft Office applications to your computer.


The downside is that you have to install the entire Office package and second, this isn’t the final release of Office but a “preview” edition (version 15.0.4128.1025).


Option B: The other option is that you download the Microsoft Office 2013 installer from the Technet website (all you need is a Windows Live ID). Unlike the preview edition of Office, this one is the “final” Office Professional Plus 2013 release (version 15.0.4433.1506) that will continue to work for 60 days from the date of installation.


In order to install this version of Office, you’ll be required to download the full MSI installer (666 MB, OfficeProfessionalPlus_x86_en-us.img) but the advantage is that you can choose which Office programs should be installed on the computer.


Which Microsoft Office 2013 edition should I download?


Microsoft Office 2013 Pro is available as a 60-day trial while there’s no exact expiry date fixed for Office 365 Preview. Microsoft says that Office Preview will expire approximately 60 days after Office 2013 becomes available in that market. You will thus have more time to play with Office 2013 with the preview release.


Office 365 Preview can be installed alongside an older copy of Microsoft Office whereas in the case of Office 2013 Professional, it will override your existing installation.


One more thing. The Office 2013 preview release streams very quickly (click to run) and you don’t even have to be an administrator of your computer to install it. That’s not the case with Office 2013 Pro.


Microsoft hasn’t specified an exact release date for Microsoft Office 2013 but if you buy a licence of Microsoft Office 2010 now, you will get a free upgrade to Office 2013.


Tweet this Share on Facebook




Digital Inspiration @labnol This story, Preview or Pro – Which Office 2013 Edition should you Download?, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 17/12/2012 under Microsoft Office, Software.



Kindle For PC Proves That You Don’t Need A Kindle To Enjoy Books From Amazon



kindle for pcBeing the voracious reader that I am, a library was always a small hillock to conquer. Thanks to the eBook revolution that has swept over us now, we now have peaks to scale. One of them just happens to go by the name of a jungle – Amazon. Or to be more specific, the Kindle Store. The Kindle Store is heaven sent for us bookworms. I am not even talking about paying a dime here because there are absolutely legal ways to download free books from the Kindle Store.


Did you know that there are more than 50 websites that tell you all about the availability of free books on Kindle? From the known Project Gutenberg to the well recommended Hundred Zeros and Pixel of Ink. Then there’s the horse’s mouth too which tells you all about the Top 100 free books on Kindle. Subscribe to their feeds to stay in the know.


But I don’t want to buy a Kindle


You don’t have to. It’s Christmas and someone might gift you one. I am kidding, because with the range of free reading apps from Kindle, you don’t really have to make anyone plonk down $100 or more. The free Kindle reading apps cover the gamut – from smartphones and computers to tablets. My friend Ryan should you how to use the Kindle Cloud Reader which is entirely on the browser. Just a few months back, Yaara gave you a quick peek into ways to enjoy books without an eReader. She hinted at the Kindle desktop app for Windows and Mac. It’s the free Kindle reading app for Windows (available for both 7 and 8) that I will be looking at here.


Get started with a free Amazon account


After quickly installing the 32 MB sized download package, all you need is register the eReader with your Amazon account. Even if you don’t have one, you can create a new one straight from the first screen.


kindle for pc


In a flash, Kindle for PC will sync all your purchased or freely downloaded books. You may use any Kindle reading app across the devices you own; your books and collections are all kept synchronized. Amazon Kindle uses Whispersync technology to automatically sync your books across apps and this gives you a seamless reading experience as you jump from the Kindle reader to the PC or to the Android smartphone.


Reading with Kindle for PC


kindle app for pc


Kindle for PC mirrors most of the features you will find on any other version of the Kindle. On first use you may have to download the books and other elements like the dictionary, but it all happens in a jiffy. If you have loads of books, it’s always better to arrange them in collections. As you can see in the screen below, organizing collections is a simple matter of right clicking the book thumbnail and creating a new collection or adding to an existing one.


kindle app for pc


You can jump to a bookmarked page, or a specific location from the options on the right-click menu. The right-click menu also gives you the shortcut to view any notes you might have saved for reference. Remember, all bookmarks, annotations, and notes are also synced across all your installs of Kindle thanks to Whispersync. The last page read is automatically saved and synced. You can also refer to the page numbers that correspond to a book’s print edition page numbers to easily cite passages.


Adding highlights and notes is something we usually do during the course of our reading. It’s very smooth – click on a passage to add highlights, and also if you wish to append a note.


kindle app for pc


All you notes, highlights, and also bookmarks are viewable on the left pane. A note icon is also visible on the text body which you can click to expand the note.


kindle reader for pc


A right-click on a relevant work can also bring up the dictionary meaning, and a few other tools like a link to Shelfari and reference information on the book. It could include extras like character sketches, quotes, Dewey classification, reading level of the book and other supplemental material. You can also use the Wikipedia link to get a quick page of information.


kindle reader for pc


These extra tools do not interrupt your flow and help to give you more context around your reading.


Personalize your book


The Kindle App for PC allows you to personalize your reading experience. For instance, I generally prefer to read my books in the full-screen view. Sometimes I switch on multi-column to do a bit of speed reading or if the material really demands it.


kindle for pc


The Options window allows for a few customizations as you can see in the screenshot. What’s always nice to play around with are the three color modes available.


You can’t cuddle up with a book but…


You can do so much more apart from cuddling up under the blanket with a good book. The Kindle for PC application gives you an unified interface for all your books. If you are nitpicky, you can arrange them in collections and use notes to record useful information. Best of all, it is synced across all your devices, so reading a book on your Android wouldn’t require you to thumb through the last read page. Kindle for PC has found a place on our Best Windows Software page. Has it, or will it find a place on your PC?


The post Kindle For PC Proves That You Don’t Need A Kindle To Enjoy Books From Amazon appeared first on MakeUseOf.



[WhatsApp] Using WhatsApp as a Private Store for your Documents and Notes

You have been using WhatsApp primarily for text messaging and calling but there are a couple of other interesting uses for WhatsApp that will help boost the utility value of this app even further. 

Other than communicating with the external world, you can also use WhatsApp to:
1. Capture and save ideas, notes, voice memos, scanned documents and everything else in you own private storage space that is accessible from everywhere.
2. Quickly transfer web links, documents, screenshots, and other files between your computer and phone without having to sign-up for another service.


The idea is simple. You create a new virtual contact inside WhatsApp and, everything that you wish to capture privately, you can just share it with this virtual contact.
It is not possible to send WhatsApp messages to your own number but there’s a simple hack to get around this problem. Create a new WhatsApp group with just a single participant – you. Here’s how:

1. Open WhatsApp on your phone and create a new group.
2. Add any contact from your address book to this group. Give your group a name and save.

3. Now go to the group in WhatsApp, tap the subject to view the list of participants.

4. Tap and hold the lone participant in this list and remove them from the group.

That’s it. What you now have a private store in WhatsApp that is visible only to you and accessible from the web (desktop) and your mobile phone.

If you wish to transfer a document from computer to phone, open web.whatsapp.com on the computer, send the file to this group and it will instantly become available on your phone. There’s search built-in so you can easily find messages by keyword later.

A New Way to Publish your Shared Folders on the Web



File hosting services like Dropbox and Google Drive have made it easy for anyone to distribute files through Shared Folders. You can upload a file to your shared folder and that file is instantly available to all other people with whom you have shared that folder. In the case of Google Drive, you can even create “public” shared folders where your files can be viewed by anyone on the web.


The problem is how do you keep people in the loop when you add new files to a shared folders. Also, the less tech-savvy crowd may still prefer to receive these shared files as email attachments instead of using Dropbox or Google Drive.


shared folders


iBeam.it, a new web service from Wappolf, is trying to solve this problem in an interesting way. Here you can put your files on Google Drive or Dropbox as before and the files are instantly “beamed” to other users who are watching your shared folder.


To get started, you just have to connect any of your Dropbox or Google Drive folder with iBeam.it (it uses OAuth). The folder get a unique URL that others can use to follow your folder (see this sample folder).


The “followers” are unaware of the service that you are using to host your files and they may choose to “receive” them inside Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, SkyDrive, Box and other popular services. Alternatively, they may choose to follow your Shared Folder through email and in that case, they will get your files as email attachments.


The service is free though you are only allowed to beam files up to 25 MB in size. Most email programs won’t handle attachments that large anyway. Also, sharing is one way – if you delete a file from the shared folder, it won’t be deleted from the folders of other users.


Similar things can possibly be done through IFTTT but iBeam.it is super-easy and doesn’t even require you to create an account.


Tweet this Share on Facebook




Digital Inspiration @labnol This story, A New Way to Publish your Shared Folders on the Web, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 17/12/2012 under Dropbox, Google Drive, Internet.