Microsoft Office 2010 Opens for Beta Testing!

Microsoft is inviting IT professionals around the world to test Office 2010 and reflect feedbacks. This is a pre-release version of Office Professional Plus 2010, so take your pre-caution before installing.

To register and download this beta version, click here.

Make sure you have the following:

Internet access (to download Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta and get updates)

A PC with these minimum recommended specifications:

• 500 MHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor or higher
• 256 MB of system memory or more
• 3.5 GB of available disk space
• 1024x768 or higher resolution monitor
• DVD-R/W Drive

Supported Operating Systems:

• Windows XP with Service Pack (SP) 3 (32-bit)
• Windows Vista with SP1 (32-bit or 64-bit)
• Windows Server 2003 R2 (32-bit or 64-bit)
• Windows Server 2008 with SP2 (32-bit or 64-bit)
• Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit)

Manager's Must-Know: Wonderful Task Management in Outlook 2007

Microsoft Office is actually a suite of very powerful tools but not many people know how to use them. Take Outlook as an example, on top of emailing, you can use it to keep track of projects or tasks. You can create, prioritize, delegate, and track any task item like an email. Take a look at this video, you will know what I'm talking about.

The Office Team at Microsoft had spent so much time on this product and it is not hard to use at all but unfortunately not many companies are willing to spend a little time to train their employees to fully utilize it. Instead, many go for the hype of cloud computing with less features, slower performance, and higher security risk. And with their agile developing approach, it's not surprise to see a feature or a link that appeared on the screen yesterday disappeared today. The reason is simple, you're part of an experiment everyday whether you want it or not. So, if you see your favorite features disappearing every day, just stop being productive that day and send them an email. They will be glad to add that feature back in a few days, as their agile development cycle is short. (Your boss may not be very happy though.)