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Is Microsoft Feeling the Heat of Competition from iWork ‘08?

Thursday, August 30th, 2007 | Mac vs Windows, Opinion | No Comments

Recently Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit (MacBU) launched a new community site called, “Art of Office.” The site is intended to showcase Microsoft Office for Mac through artistic creations using Word, Excel and PowerPoint. This site is specifically for MS Office for Mac.

The combination of Art and Office, makes me wonder why Microsoft would pursue such an online community and a method to showcase its Office software suite for the Mac. I suspect that MacBU at Microsoft is responding to the newly released iWork ‘08. By including a spreadsheet program in the iWork ‘08 suite, Apple has brought it to a level where it can be considered a viable alternative to Office as a productivity suite. Notice that this Art of Office web site targets only the Mac version of Office. iWork ‘08 is not a threat to MS Office on Windows, since it runs only on a Mac.

Microsoft’s MacBU could have chosen to showcase Office in a different way. However, they decided to emphasize the creative aspect of Office. Art of Office is not promoting the number crunching superiority of Office, but rather its ability to be used for creative, artistic projects. Apple has always been associated with creativity and art and continues to be heavily used by the creative professionals. I would argue that this group of Mac consumers will be the first to consider moving away from Office in favor of iWork.

I believe that the launch of Art of Office is clearly in response to the increasing threat of competition from iWork to Microsoft Office for Mac.

What do you think about the launch of Art of Office? Share your opinion in the comments.

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Mac 101 - System Preferences: Personal Settings - Part 2

Wednesday, August 29th, 2007 | Mac 101 | No Comments

Let’s pick up where we left off. Last time we covered the first 4 groups of settings under the Personal category in System Preferences. Today, we’ll cover the rest of that category. Let’s dig right in.

International
Here you will find setting for language, format and input menu. This is where you tell your Mac which region of the world you live in, how to format the date, time and which currency symbol to use. In addition, you have options here for which languages you want available in the Input Menu on the Task Bar. The languages you select here under the Input Menu will be available to use in documents. For example, if you need to be able to type in Spanish, you can check of the box by Spanish. You will notice that you have a flag on your Task Bar, when you click on the flag it displays the language you have made available for use in applications. Select the language you want to type in and off you go.

Security
This is the biggie. Mac OS X lets you encrypt your entire home folder. This is great for security. However, it can be very dangerous. If you forget the master password, the encrypted data will be lost. And since a good portions of all the things you save are stored in the home folder, the lost can be substantial. So, use this feature with caution. There are several other options in this area such as requiring password to wake up from sleep or screen saver, log out after a period of inactivity and so on. This is also where you can disable the infrared remote control receiver.

Spotlight
Spotlight is a search tool built into Mac OS X. It searches your entire hard drive. In this area of System Preferences you can select the order in which results appear. For example, results matching an application will appear first and then system preference, followed by documents folder and so on. Here you can modify the keyboard shortcut that activates Spotlight and set privacy for certain areas on the hard drive.

This covers the first category of settings, Personal, in System Preferences. In the next installment of Mac 101 we’ll move on to Hardware. If you’d like to receive these in your Inbox, sign up for email deliver.

Let me know in the comments what you think about these Mac 101 posts. Do you find them helpful? Informative? Or useless? I’d like to hear your opinion.

Next Lesson:
Mac 101 - System Preferences: Hardware - Part 1

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New Apple Products to be Unveiled in September

Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 | Apple News | No Comments

We may be hearing about new products from Apple on September 5th.  There have been rumors going around that Apple will hold a special press release in September.  Some speculate that Apple may unveil the next generation of iPods.  This is still to be learned, but one thing is certain.  Apple is holding a special press event on September 5th.  Engadget confirms that they received an invitation to attend.  In the meantime, we can speculate what product will be in the spotlight.

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