Excel 2007: The problem is that the 3rd column contains =a2*b2 ... (the first 500 numbers for 2^32 pass, though...)

etc. etc.

Is there a pattern in there?

Alan Zeichick relates what happened when the first .docx file was sent to BZ Media, a company that runs primarily on Macs. Microsoft says that everything's just swell:

We are running on target and expect to release a free public beta version of the file format converters in Spring 2007, with final converters available six to eight weeks after we launch our next version of Office for Mac (which, as previously reported, will be available 6-8 months after general availability of Win Office.)

But Alan wonders "How can Microsoft expect outside developers to be able to implement these new Office Open XML formats , when they can't even do that themselves in a timely matter? A six to eight month delay, after having more than a year to prepare?"

I thought I was the only one in the world who can't stand the Ribbon. I find it much harder to find functions than I did using menus. Alan Zeichick agrees, but for more noble reasons.

Properly chastised by Neil Bartlett for not labeling my Y Axis on a graph, I added such a title to my next attempt. I then cut-and-pasted that image, which resulted in this being pasted into my blog editor:

And yet, I had already typed the Axis Title, as this screen capture of my Excel chart shows:

Now if only I could also figure out how to add a title for the X axis! Thank God for the Ribbonbar!

This is probably obvious, but my life has been eased since I've created a OneNote section called "Product Keys" and used it to store serial numbers and keys.

Killer post by Chris Pratley on setting up OneNote 12 so that it stays synchronized across multiple machines. I love OneNote and this makes me love it a little more.

Oh, and something else I just discovered that makes me love it a little more: they've added "section groups" so now you can have Notebooks | [Section Group]* | Section | Page. So, for instance, I have a Work notebook, a Section Group for a specific Client, a Section Group for each project, and then a Section for, say, Requirements, or Meetings, or Research, etc. Perfect!

Oh, and another another thing that makes me love it a little more: you can now hook an Outlook item directly to a OneNote page. So, for instance, you can schedule, say, a "Weekly Review" in Outlook for Fridays at 1PM and then when it pops up, *click* and up comes OneNote, all linked back and forth. You could use this as an alternative to the Daily Journal PowerToy.

 

Sweet. The simple trick is to use OneNote's "send email" capablity

Download: One Note Blogged from.one

When you start the beta versions of Outlook or OneNote, you get a dialog box that says "Blah blah blah functionality requires Microsoft Desktop Search. Download now?" That seems dangerously close to using the Office monopoly to "tie" Microsoft's offering in personal search. Not only that, you don't even have an option of "Don't tell me again." It's either "Download now" or "Remind me later."

Personally, I use X1 for personal search and don't want to change. But for the sake of OneNote, I'd do anything. To add insult to injury, though, MS Desktop Search doesn't install on test machine! I just get an "access denied" dialog and the install quits, even when run in Safe Mode.

Oh well. Being able to blog from OneNote is a dream. I had a whole bunch of posts using graphics and ink all set to go.

Well, there goes my bandwidth for the next few hours... Office Beta 2 is available for all comers and Vista Beta 2 is available on MSDN for subscribers.