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Last month’s poll asked our readers…’Which TWO Microsoft Office Applications do you use the most?’  The diagram to the right (click to enlarge) shows how our readers voted.  As you can see Microsoft Office Word, Excel and Outlook were the three applications to receive the most votes, which to us isn’t surprising as the applications are commonly used worldwide due to the overall quality, simplicity and flexibilty of the software.

PowerPoint and Publisher again are commonly used pieces of software but it is rare that the ‘typical’ home user requires them for their general computer usage.  Whereas Access is a far more specialist application for those who need to create/manage a database system.

Office 2010 is set to be released in June (2010).  Many companies are doing a deal whereby you purchase Office 2007 and can download 2010 for free when it comes out so have a look around on the internet for such deals! For example…Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Student from Amazon (PC)

It is almost unbelievable that Microsoft are bringing out a new version of Windows when Vista was only released two years ago…but I suppose it is only in Beta.  But we have it here to test and have been playing with it for some time.

First impressions are that it is very Vista-like!  But we are fans of Vista here so that is a good thing.  The install went very quickly and smoothly on a fairly basic Dell Optiplex 360 Intel Core 2 Duo machine.

So here is the desktop….

As you can see, it has the Vista Sidebar with the clock at the top, and the big Vista style icons.  The most noticeable change here is the taskbar at the bottom.  The quick launch icons have got bigger!  And the open applications are just the program icon which is nice.

One note about the Sidebar, this is actually no longer just a Sidebar because the gadgets that you can choose to have there can actually be positioned anywhere on the screen.

If you hover over one of the icons on the taskbar that is representing an open application you get a preview of what is open, see image below….

And then you just click on the one you want to work with.  Easy.

Also, if you right click on one of the icons on the quick launch/taskbar you get a menu specific to that application, rather then the good old standard right click menu.  So for example you might get recent documents if you right click on the word icon that is down there or shortcuts to desktop, pictures, music, videos etc if you right click on the documents folder.

The main aim here I believe is to make things more accessible for users, ways to quickly get where we want rather than having to wait for windows to load before we can get to pictures etc.

Another nice, yet simple feature I would like to bring to your attention is a change to the start menu,

You will notice that in the top picture that programs such as Word and Paint have arrows next to them, if you were to hover over the program for long enough or click the arrow and you get….yes you’ve guessed it, a list of recent documents (see  bottom image of the two above).  Now that is a feature we really like!

That’s it for the first glance, coming up soon will be some nice simple features of Windows 7 Beta!  Keep an eye out for that one.

See Also:
Windows 7 Beta

Brandstar have recently released a brand new Software page!  The software page attempts to tackle the problem of not knowing which software is worth buying and downloading.  After all, there are so many options to choose from!  It covers a variety of both free and commercial products in the genres of Computer Security, Media, Office Applications and System Tools.

It’s worth checking out!

With all the different Office packages available, we have put together a diagram which we think will help you to make the right decision of which version is best for you! Click on the image to make it viewable!

Please let us know if you have any thoughts!

You may have read on the Brandstar Blog many reviews about the latest version of Microsoft Office (2007). But some people want an alternative, either because the cost of Office can’t be warranted for their purposes or because they just want something that isn’t Microsoft.

A pretty brilliant piece of software called OpenOffice exists and is available free of charge! That’s right FREE! OpenOffice consists of applications much like Microsoft Office does. These being Writer (much like Word), Impress (like Powerpoint), Calc (like Excel), Base (like Access), Draw and Math.

You will notice that there is no equivalent for Microsoft Publisher, so if that is what you are after then you might have to cough up for that! Otherwise Open Office offers a decent package that looks and works much like the more commonly used Microsoft Office.

With so many people using Microsoft Office you need to ensure that choosing an alternative package isn’t going to cause problems sharing files. OpenOffice can open Microsoft Office files and can save as Microsoft Office files.

I could go on and on but if this might be of use then check out the website at www.openoffice.org and download it now! You can download it with or without the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). You need this to run the software so if you don’t have it installed make sure you download the right version.

Personally I still prefer Microsoft Office (especially 2007), there is just a more finished feel to it. There is also one more application missing from OpenOffice, Outlook! And I use Outlook with the calendar function every day of the year so certainly couldn’t do without it!

But for those not doing a great amount with an Office package then this is a great way to save yourself some cash!

Enjoy and let us know what you think