Slashdot Mirror

And if you don't like fruits: https://products.office.com/en...

If the answer is no, then forget about it.

What should I do if the answer is yes?

There you go: https://support.office.com/en-... Trivial indeed.

I still haven't seen any actual examples but if that page is anything to go by then it's almost a complete non-issue for the overwhelming majority of cases.

There you go: https://support.office.com/en-... Trivial indeed.

You must work with only tiny spreadsheets. One of the major limitations of spreadsheet software is that it is difficult or impractical to validate results and formulas. It simply takes too much time to locate stray keystrokes or formulas that have sporadic differences... and no, Excel doesn't do anything to highlight them on larger spreadsheets.

Don't believe me, do some research. Even the Microsoft guides tell you that finding errors in formulas is problematic. See this for an example... https://support.office.com/en-...

But from a fiscal point of view, Software was always a subscription, as long as you got your patches and updates. You just never got the bill split up into the initial payment for the software and the subsequent payment for the software assurance subscription, as you had to pay for it all at once.

Technically, anything you buy which wears out is a subscription (rent). If you buy a washing machine for $500, which dies after 5 years (on average) and needs to be replaced with a new $500 washing machine, you are paying $100/year for the washing machine. If you buy a car (new or used) for $20k, use it for 5 years, and sell it for $10k, your car ownership is basically the same as renting for $2k/year.

The resistance to a rental model is mainly because most people ignore maintenance and upkeep costs in their purchase decisions. You'll notice I left out the maintenance costs of the car in the above example and it probably never crossed your mind. So people's cursory fiscal analysis of renting vs buying tends to be skewed against renting, because they leave the maintenance and upkeep costs out on the buying side, but which are included as the norm in renting..

Software is the exception however. Software doesn't wear out. If Office 2003 worked and had all the features you ever needed in 2003, then it still works and has all the features you ever needed in 2018. And your one-time payment for it in 2003 could be stretched out to 15+ years. The only issue with software is security patches. Which for an app really should never be an issue if the system were designed properly (require root/admin privileges for an app to do something which modifies the system, don't run third party scripts by default like Office likes to do).

Adobe's Creative Cloud subscription prices are actually pretty reasonable. $120/year for Photoshop and Lightroom. Those used to have an upgrade cost of $150 and $120 respectively, with a new version coming out about every 1.5 years. So effectively their subscription price is the same as ($150 + $120) / ($120) = upgrading every 2.25 years. So cheaper than if you upgraded every version, more expensive than if you upgraded every other version. Back when I did a lot of photography I used to upgrade every other version, but overall I consider it priced pretty fairly. Except now that I do much less photography, the existing one-time-purchase copies of Photoshop and Lightroom I've still got are more than pulling their weight since I can still run them without needing to pay a subscription fee (they don't try to modify the system or run third party scripts, so security updates are unnecessary).

Likewise, Office 365 is priced pretty reasonably too if you planned to stay current with updates. Purchasing Home and Student outright is $150. A one-seat subscription to Office 365 is $70/yr. So about the same as upgrading every 2 years. 6-seat license is $100/yr, which is equivalent to upgrading every 9 years. But is probably more realistically priced since most home users who bought Office illegally installed it on more than one computer at home. (Microsoft wasn't as nice as Adobe. Adobe allowed you to install Photoshop on multiple computers, as long as you only used one copy at a time. A realistic concession to many people having a laptop for travel, and a home PC which was more powerful for doing "real work.")

I don't consider a subscription model valid for an OS though. The OS should work as long as the hardware works, because the two are useless without each other. The only way I'd consider a subscription model reasonable for an OS is if the seller also rents you the hardware for the same term as the OS subscription,. And takes care of any required software and hardware maintenance and fixes during that period.

One important caveat, I do not believe that link (https://myaccount.google.com/permissions) automatically includes all 3rd parties. For others, here is an article about this, that is NOT behind a paywall, from the BBC dated July 3, 2018: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44699263.

The link at the end of the above https://myaccount.google.com/p...">article, has a link to Google's Security Checkup Page, funny when I went there, it said I have one app, that I did give access too, that I might want to consider removing...fyi, that site cannot read my emails, what is funny, is when I go to the link provided above looking for applications that I gave Permission to to read my email, that app is NOT listed...my guess is it is a "3rd Party application with limited (cannot read emails) access to my account.

In fact, per that page, I have NOT given any applications access to my Google gMail account. Of course I know it (Google's Primary checkup page) is NOT checking for 3rd party sites.

Like everything online, the devil is in the details and most people (me included sometimes) do not make time to dig into the details...deep in the bowls of the FREE website. Hey its FREE, we are giving them something, else its not cost effective for them to provide that service for FREE.

And if you do read the Terms of Service (ToS) of every website, there is a very good chance you would miss the sentenance where you gave them access to everything about you as they are rarely straight forward.

For Reference:
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-26677607Here is a 2012 article about this same issue with Microsoft

I am sure I could find this for every other email service, especially if it is free, online, to be honest I do not want to bother looking.

An important point to consider,

my guess is all the websites work like this, to be sure check your email application's FAQs or better yet other blogs not controlled by the company that put out that email package

, is that if you have given a 3rd party access, even when you later turn it off, it will NOT automatically turn off ALL 3rd Party access, only future 3rd party access.

From Microsoft Outlook: If Integrated Apps is turned off, apps that have already been installed and have permission to access information won't be uninstalled, and the permissions won’t be removed. Even though Integrated Apps is turned off,....

Look for a place where each app is listed and can individually be turned off if you want to later block third party applications!

The problem is XP is vulnerable to a lot of hacks shared with XP/Vista/7/8/10. If malware which exploits it should get onto your PACS or RIS server, it could conceivably spread itself to your XP box over your LAN. Your servers will get security and anti-virus updates which detect and remove the malware, but not your XP box.

The bigger problem I've run across with clients still running XP (isolated from the Internet) is that Microsoft no longer allows you to update it over the Internet (aside from a registry hack to trick Microsoft into thinking it's an embedded system). So if you ever need to wipe and reinstall, you end up with an older version of XP and no way to update it automatically. You have to know to manually download the last service pack and install it yourself. And I'm not sure how to install any updates which were released after the last service pack.

This really makes me worry about how well supported Windows 8/10 will be after they're replaced. Those have no service packs - you can only update them via Windows Update. If Microsoft continues dropping update support after extended support for the OS ends, there's going to be no way to update them. Microsoft really needs to make available install media for these older obsoleted OSes available with all updates slipstreamed in. (I've had similar problems with Office 2003 and 2007 - Microsoft's website to download Office updates disappeared and now redirects you to buy a subscription to Office 365. As best as I can tell, the only way to get updates for Office 2003/2007 is now also through Windows Update. Or if you know to search for and download the service packs.)

The article and embedded links talk about how bad Excel's algorithm is, but never states the Excel version that Canada's IRCC uses. In this case it matters because recent versions of Excel are OK.

Excel 2010 and later uses Mersenne Twister for the PRNG. This is good.
https://support.office.com/en-...

Excel versions before Excel 2010 use an implementation of the Wichman-Hill that provides not-so-good pseudorandom numbers.
https://support.microsoft.com/...

If I were you, I would try to avoid over-engineering the visualizations.

With that in mind, I'd suggest 3-D Maps with Excel (but not Visio).
https://support.office.com/en-...
It's part of Microsoft Office 360 and as a non-profit, you should be able to get a discount for the monthly subscription.

Or you could use a map add-on with Google Sheets.
https://chrome.google.com/webs...
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/...

You could even draw or upload your own private map as a layer.
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/...

Change the way AI is done.

It doesn't have to be so esoteric: make it "visible" as layered voting machines where each factor "votes". Use data layouts similar to spreadsheets and relational database reports so that "regular" office workers can study, arrange, relate to, and adjust factor weightings, mask weightings, and routing paths (similar to "hidden layers") as needed.

Color coding, similar to Excel's conditional formatting can make high-match and low-match factors stand out for test cases or trouble-shooting.

Staff can be divided similar to the processing tree. For example, in vision recognition, one group can focus on people identification, another on furniture and building identification, another on outdoor patterns, etc. The idea of one giant do-it-all monolithic neural-network is not practical if we want rank-and-file AI and dissect-able AI. Bring in modularity and divide-and-conquer techniques.

You may need an experienced AI domain specialist to help divide up tasks and provide factor (test) guidelines or drafts, but once staff have their basic assignments they can focus and tune without being caught up in the big picture and way-out theory.

For $20/year, you can keep current with Office for 4 years if you have a student email address during the initial activation. Yeah boo-hoo what a bunch of money-grabbers. Other than the deceptive ways that MS shoved Windows 10 down everyone's throat, they're far better than they were 10 years ago.

But I guess a lot of people would prefer systemd-officed

Having spent time trying to fix excel worksheets for managers, I'd kill for a way to place excel sheets in source control or get a practical DIFF between versions.

Excel 2007 introduced change tracking.

If your child has a .edu email address, they can get office free.

https://products.office.com/en...

For hardware, I have some thoughts.

I just bought my daughter (13) a used Surface Pro 4. She loves to draw, and the touch+pen were killer features for her. She takes care of her kit, and it's in a case so I don't worry about her breaking it.

I, on the other hand, am a klutz. If it were for me I'd buy something that could take more physical abuse. I used to have a Lenovo W520 and W540. I loved those, with the exception of their weight, and would probably look in that family.

Back to Software, whatever browser you choose, get an adblocker. Ad Networks are the primary distribution mechanism for malware now.

Fourteen is old enough to teach them to use a password keeper, and keep the file on dropbox or onedrive. Build that habit now and their future self will thank you.

Create a personal email, e.g. deathlord982 at somedomain.com email and a realname email now. Teach them to use the personal for fun stuff and realname for School stuff. Separating fun and work is a good habit to get into now too.

Teach them to put a post-it over the webcam. Yes, that's a thing.

Other Free software worth getting:
Gimp, Inkscape, VLC, and Paint.Net

You'll probably want the Steam and Origin clients, Discord, and TeamSpeak.

If you want to teach them 3d modeling, ZBrush and AutoDesk Fusion 360 are amazing. I think that both are free for hobbyists.

Good luck.

Yeah - that's the real feature being lost.

The rest of it? Bah, it was something like $100 AUD year (oddly I'm quoted AUD prices); but Office 365 for Home is 150 AUD a year or so. Might as well just get Office 365 Home.

You're looking at $12.50 / user / month (12 month term) for a custom domain name, I think.

And, for those on the Microsoft / Office 365 Ecosystem, Microsoft Teams.

It's actually quite good.

He linked to a page about adding a SHARED mailbox, which is something only admins can do, then claimed that page DOESN'T answer the question when it in fact does.

So no, the OP was not "spot on".

Further, if you Bing "How do I add a mailbox to Outlook?" you get the following right in front of your face. It's actual content on the top of the results page, not a regular search result, extracted from their support forum (see the poor grammar):

How Add mailbox to Outlook?

        On the File menu, point to Open, and then click Other User's Folder.
        Type the name of the person you are sending the message on behalf of, or click Name to select the name from the Global Address List.
        Click OK.
        Add the other user's folder to your Navigation Pane. On the Tools menu, click Account Settings. On the E-mail tab, click the Exchange account, and then ...

Manage another person's mail and calendar items - Outlook

How about when you direct people to your web page to try and solve their issue, you give them useful information.

One can use Microsoft as a prime example of the hoops one has to jump through to find a simple solution. If the question is, "How do I add a mailbox to Outlook?", the page should not start with:

A shared mailbox can be a practical solution for any business with groups of people working from different locations. With the right permissions, any person in a group can access a shared mailbox that appears in their address book. The shared mailbox is automatically available in the Folder pane in Outlook. (taken directly from the Microsoft page)

No one cares about a "practical solution". They want to know how to add a mailbox to Outlook. Nor do they care about why one should use a shared mailbox. They asked how to add a mailbox. In fact, nowhere on the page does it tell you how to add a mailbox. It does everything but that.

If you want your call center volume to go down, provide useful information, information which is not buried ten menus deep or stuck in some corner with an obscure name.

You know why people keep calling you? Because your information pages technology sucks. That's why.

Here's the announcement at Microsoft. It's for enterprises only, and I think MS previously offered Windows as a sub for them, so bundling Office makes sense.

I doubt the OneDrive service needs it; but the current version of the Onedrive client which has gone though a pile of revisions over the years seems to.

In my unsubstantiated opinion, most likely related to files-on-demand coming-soon feature.

DISCLAIMER: This is just a guess. It's plausible to me, but I am nowhere near sure.

I don't know if there's anything similar, i.e. evolved IRC for companies

Microsoft has one in Office365:

https://products.office.com/en...

It's like the illegitimate child of Slack and Sharepoint.

Best part is, the video on the product page hits all the right points:
[x] Diversity in the workplace
[x] Non-white, non-male, non-American narrator, possibly non-heterosexual
[x] Puts an emphasis on young beautiful people but throw in a couple of fatso and old turds
[x] Has both startup and enterprise scenes with vibrant energy
[x] Emotional, hopeful soundtrack
[x] Blonde chick with a leather jacket

Clickbait article does mention that "newer" office versions may offer yet another barrier to infection. However, it conveniently omits to mention that the feature which prevents the script from running even if you view the file in Powerpoint is called Protected View, and has been available and enabled by default since Office 2010 !!!

When downloading files through a browser or receiving it through an email client, the file is "tainted" with a zone identifier that indicates that the file has been received from the Internet.

When an office app opens a tainted file, it drops to run in a process with a restricted token in "low integrity" mode. I.e. the process itself is prevented from writing anywhere on the system (except some cache locations). Yes, it's running in a sandbox. Note that the restricted token is created *before* the process starts - it's not like a *nix SUID root process that must drop itself. If the user choses to "elevate", powerpoint restarts in a new process with the current user token instead of the restricted token.

So, if you have Office 2010 or later you should be protected against this.

As I understand it, they're forcing you to use the Office 365 evergreen, click to run, version of Office to connect to Office 365 services from 2020. Companies that already use the click-to-run edition won't be affected in the slightest.

But this is Slashdot, they have such an anti-Microsoft hate. In its early days, /. was far more technical and geeky, it talked about what Microsoft were doing in an actual honest and factual way. Now, it's anti-Microsoft haters that react without actual facts - coupled with reading echo chamber blog posts. (E.g., reading this stupid blog post instead of linking to the actual announcement; so it was anti-Microsoft ignorant hater's uneducated view instead of actual facts.

"OneDrive and Skype for Business to be ditched for standalone Office users" -- okay, which stand-alone versions of Office included free use of Office 365 services? Anyone remember? Since when could Office stand-alone connect to Office 365 for free anyway? That's why this seems to be someone with an axe to grind, but it's a swing in a miss because there are three groups of people:
* Those that don't use Office 365 services (do nothing)
* Those that use and pay for Office 365 services and have the current click-to-run client (do nothing)
* Those that use and pay for Office 365 services but have old licenses and use old versions of Office -- about three years to switch to the Office 365 Click To Run edition. Yes, you can migrate now. No, it won't cost anything because you're already paying for it.

Is there literally ANYONE using Office 365 services without paying for a Office 365 subscription? And I mean COMMERICAL Office 365, not outlook.com and consumer one drive.

Read the real story, not some stupid 3rd party blog.

Firstly, this is ONLY commercial Office 365 cloud services -- essentially, OneDrive For Business (effectively hosted SharePoint) - not to be confused with OneDrive for consumer (completely different) and hosted exchange. CONSUMER SERVICES ARE UNAFFECTED.

If I am understanding this correctly, the ONLY people affected are companies that [a] paying for Office 365 subscriptions (otherwise they would have no access to Office 365's hosted services); but also [b] not using the Office 365 included distribution of the Office software.

The push here is to get enterprises moving and use the Office 365 version of Office instead of whatever old version they bought as a one off -- you don't get to use Outlook 2013 to talk to Office365 exchange, you use the 'evergreen' Office 365 version of Outlook. Any enterprise that's simply using the 'current click to run' version of Office 365 is unaffected.

Consumers and people not using Office 365 services are NOT AFFECTED. People with Office 365 subscriptions using the Office 365 software are not affected. This is absolutely no different to any other service with a dedicated client that insists your client software is kept up to date. Netflix makes the exact same demand, for example, and nobody complains about THAT.

Absolutely nobody is required to pay any money for this -- you are either already paying for the new version (with your office 365 subscription) or you can't access the services you're not paying for ANYWAY. The only people affected are those paying for Office 365 but not using Office 365 version of the software that they are already paying for. That is literally IT.

They also cost - https://products.office.com/en...

the second two so go against the grain that I don't think they'll be able to take that plunge

The last one, maybe. The second on your list, however, a web accessible Office compatible app, has been available for a long time now. It does have a few limitations (rendering of tables in Word seems screwed up for some reason) but it works, and even works on non-Microsoft platforms.

Yes, they want you to buy Word, but their model is starting to veer towards a freemium (basics for free, extras require a subscription or purchase) away from requiring that you spend money.

It looks like there are a lot of potential reasons why PowerPoint docs can be incompatible between platforms. I just found this document which explains why.

All of the reasons why don't make a bit of difference to me. I want it to work. It must work, And if it doesn't work, it gets a big fat fail.

According to the article not all of the reasons are the fault of Microsoft, but simply underlying issues related to the different platforms.

It's rather odd, when the Mac is accused of being a closed system where the software is easily available, I can run Windows OS's flawlessly using bootcamp, and most of all, AO doesn't have that problem on all three platforms. But I understand, Being the big boy on the block for so long, Microsoft and it's proponents don't often admit of fault except for others.

[I know I will get killed on here for being an MS shill but I'm not. Just trying to have a realistic dicussion about the relative merits of different types of professional desktop software in real-world deployments.]

The issue is, there are many real worlds. For a lot of people here, they work in Microsoft only Workplaces. And they are used to Microsoft only problems, so its no big deal. On the other hand, some of us do not work in a monoculture. The deployments become much different in that case.

It looks like there are a lot of potential reasons why PowerPoint docs can be incompatible between platforms. I just found this document which explains why. According to the article not all of the reasons are the fault of Microsoft, but simply underlying issues related to the different platforms.

[I know I will get killed on here for being an MS shill but I'm not. Just trying to have a realistic dicussion about the relative merits of different types of professional desktop software in real-world deployments.]

It does matter. We're stuck with Vista because several of the Microsoft apps we have to run won't run on any newer version of Windows. From:

https://products.office.com/en-US/office-system-requirements

"Office 365 is designed to work with Internet Explorer 11." But, the highest version of MSIE that is allowed to be run on Vista is MSIE 9. And with Chrome already dropping upgrades and Firefox scheduled to drop them in September, Office 365 is quickly becoming unusable on many of the versions of Windows that Microsoft requires us to use to use some of their products.

No I'm talking about the free tier support from Office365.

As an admin for Office 365 for business, you get free access to our knowledgeable support agents for help resolving technical issues, as well as for pre-sales, account, and billing support. You can also contact us on behalf of Office 365 users in your organization.

https://support.office.com/en-...

According to MS support page Edge doesn't support javascript. That's a bit of a downer ;)

"While Windows 10 does support JavaScript, the Microsoft Edge web browser does not. You cannot activate or enable the Java plug-in on the Edge browser. However, Windows 10 also includes Internet Explorer 11. If you encounter JavaScript content in Edge"

https://support.office.com/en-...

You still ain't shown anything to backup your incredible claims.

https://support.office.com/en-...

Office for Mac doesn't run correctly within itself. https://support.microsoft.com/...

Some ways to help - but not a complete list. http://www.officeformachelp.co...

A bad answer, but more problems http://answers.microsoft.com/e... As they say "most likely" That will take care of some issues but not all.

http://www.walternelson.com/dr...

Here you are told to do exactly what an above link tells you not to do http://presentationsoft.about....

Just general things https://support.microsoft.com/...

This one is cute - directly from Microsoft and I quote> "However, high compatibility workbooks/projects can be achieved", as well as "There may well be a solution or workaround." Hozabout that? High compatibility is not compatibility, and workarounds are not compatibility. http://answers.microsoft.com/e...

And with Office 365 in particular http://answers.microsoft.com/e...

So anyhow there is about as much as I'm willing to do for you, coward. Any more, and do your own research Which of course is a non starter isn't it?

Right from Microsoft, they speak of it's issues. Take it up with them. Sparky.

Meantime, I'm using a suite that doesn't have those issues.

You have months to get all your data off if you decide to stop paying for it.

Or, you know, Office

I'm all for alternatives, but Office compatibility tends to make or break computing devices.

Except that MS Office for Android isn't feature-complete. If LO/OO can reengineer the full suite to trim out the fat and make them fully tablet friendly, there would be something there.

Or, you know, Office

I'm all for alternatives, but Office compatibility tends to make or break computing devices.

Years ago(10+) when I was running my site from home I would check the logs daily and see similar to what you describe.
Sure, there were loads of crap ssh attacks from all over the world, but the vast majority were from Chinese and Eastern European ip block ranges.

I blocked whole ranges of ip's(Chinese and Eastern European).

I think the moral of the story, which I can't believe still isn't the reality we live in, is that everything will have only whitelists.
However, have fun whitelisting Office 365

I'm still using Office 2000 SR3 on my very old, updated Windows XP Pro SP3 machine. I rarely use it these days and don't do fancy stuff.

I also noticed OO and LO can't open password protected documents like .docx files even with their updated 2007 converter packs. This is by design according to MS. :/

Haven't used Vizio since Microsoft bought them

So, you haven't used Visio for over fifteen years, but you think you know something about it and can make a recommendation? You're part of the problem that holds open source software back, utter classlessness wrapped in cocksure attitude.

Libre Office Draw is a steaming pile of shit! That's just generally speaking. More specifically, it is in no way shape or form anything at all like Visio and it cannot produce anything the is similar to what comes out of Visio. You'd be better off trying to use Gimp as a Visio alternative than Draw. But, don't even try that because Gimp is not even close either.

Presently, the closest thing Linux has to Visio is Dia. But, DIa is a steaming pile of fail as well. It compares (poorly) to Visio 2000 and is not worth comparing to any of the last four versions of Visio.

Visio is diagram and mapping software, project management, asset management, network discovery and whole boatload more.

Skype is a Microsoft product now, so there's no way it would have a Linux client
http://www.skype.com/en/downlo...
Wait, it does?

No Office though.
https://www.libreoffice.org/
That's not Office, I mean something that will open .doc files.
*points at link again*
But it isn't Microsoft
https://products.office.com/en...
That's not funny!

Still doesn't address text editors
-emacs
-jed
-nano
-pico
-vim
-gvim
-gedit
-NEdit
-Tea
-Sublime
-Eclipse

Outlook can be set to delay outgoing emails.

The sent message sits in the Outbox until the configured delay elapses, after which Outlook automatically sends it. I've found it handy for recalling a sent email and reviewing it, making minor edits, or moving it back into Drafts and reworking it before resending it out.

Does anyone use Scroll Lock for anything?

It still has uses in Excel and for switching inputs on some KVM switches. (I find it somewhat funny that the search results for this Excel feature are basically troubleshooting steps on how to turn off Scroll Lock!)

That would be a decent rant if you weren't totally wrong.

There's a little drop down box labeled "Save as type:" in the Save As dialog. Change it to "PDF (*.pdf)" and guess what! You've got exactly what you're bitching about right there.

Directions for Word 2007
Directions for Word 2010-2013

That would be a decent rant if you weren't totally wrong.

There's a little drop down box labeled "Save as type:" in the Save As dialog. Change it to "PDF (*.pdf)" and guess what! You've got exactly what you're bitching about right there.

Directions for Word 2007
Directions for Word 2010-2013

You're missing out on Excel pivot tables. That is one hell of a big selling point for versions >= 2007.

Microsoft Excel introduced pivot tables in version 5.0 released in 1995. So yes they do keep making improvements pivot tables in each version (up to and including Power Pivots as an add-on for 2010 and included in 2013), but no you do "miss out" on pivot tables at all.

I really like the design and specs of the Chromebook Pixel. Unfortunately, it doesn't run anything I need/want. That's been a problem with Linux in general for me. Or rather, a problem with Microsoft and Adobe, not Linux. Maybe Google will convince them to release Office and Adobe CS for Chrome, give me a reason to buy one. :)

There's a web-version of Office 365 that runs in a browser, and it runs great on a Chromebook or under Linux. Heck, you can even run the web versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote for free right now, today.

Microsoft gets a lot of flak around here (not wholly underserved), but that old crutch of 'Nobody will ever use Linux because they can't use Office' is really looking wobbly these days.

When Linux has a worthy Office competitor.

I know it's blasphemy around here to say anything positive about Microsoft, but Office Online works great under Linux, as long as you have a modern graphical web browser.

VBA code can be cryptographically signed since Office 2007 or 2003, IIRC. For the cost of a few certs and restricting documents having unsigned VBA, they could have avoided such a problem - although we don't yet know if that might be how hackers are breaching their security.

- T

Btw, here is Microsoft's Advertized "details" (they call theirs "Top Features") for exchange: http://products.office.com/en-...

I know, I know, you can go on TechNet and find anything you want. Do you really think that Amazon doesn't have similar documentation stashed around somewhere?

Try OneNote with the smartboard. It sounds like others have done it successfully: http://shc-edutech.hct.ac.ae/p...
http://blogs.office.com/2014/0...
http://emrefirat.edublogs.org/...

One problem that I have read is that OneNote's hand-writing recognition is not as good on smart boards as it is on a tablet (especially one with a Wacom pen), but it still works relatively well. Set OneNote to automatically index all handwriting, photos, and audio, and it can make it easy for students to search the notebooks if they are looking for a specific topic that was discussed. You insert your existing Word/Writer/othertextfile into the Notebook before class and have students go to the board to answer the questions, etc (my brain thinks from the Mathematics/Sciences, but if you have another subject, I'm sure you can still come up with novel ways to utilize the technology.

Last year they also had a Google Docs Isn't Worth the Gamble campaign accompanied with a video.