Microsoft Office 2010 Starter

I hadn’t heard of Microsoft Office 2010 Starter until I saw it included with a laptop computer I was looking at online. I’ve been using libreOffice exclusively for some time and have grown to enjoy using it, but I was curious to see exactly what this starter version of office was. So with a few searches on the internet I was able to find that Microsoft decided to get rid of Works -which just sucked anyway- and to add a version of Word and Excel that do not have all of the features of the paid version. They also included a little rotating advertisement in the bottom right side of the screen.

To tell you the truth I do like using Word and Excel but the price of $100 to purchase them is excessive. If the price for a home version were more on the line of $29 then I would be happy to fork over the money to pay for it, but when I can get a full blown compatible office suite for free why would I spend $100 per computer to do so. This brings me to 2010 Office Starter.

First off the things that are missing from starter I don’t use anyway. Starter is missing the ability to use pivot tables in Excel, and the ability to see revision history in Word. Those missing features are no big deal to me at all. The advertisement in the bottom right hand corner doesn’t bother me either. So to tell you the truth I’m pretty happy with it. If I really wanted to upgrade to the full blown Office program I could by buying it for $100 but I won’t. If I really need to do a Power Point presentation I will do it in LibreOffice.

I think it’s smart of Microsoft to provide this with new computers. With so many free ways to create documents using free software or online with sites like Google Docs they needed to do something to stay relevant to the average user.   Microsoft only provides Office 2010 Starter preinstalled on new machines, but they don’t care if it’s copied. It will only run on Windows Vista and Windows 7. You can download it here, click on the rectangular box under Microsoft Windows Starter 2010, and start using it.

Have fun. 

What Are My Computer's Specifications?

It will happen, one day you will want to sell your old faithful Windows based computer to buy something new. Yes, you could donate it to Goodwill or some other charitable organization, but you may want to sell it.

So how do you figure out what you actually have? If someone reads your ebay or craigslist advertisement for your computer you will need to put the specification in it. Here are two Free programs that will do just that.

Speccy will tell you all sorts of essential information about your computer. Here are a few:

• Processor brand and model
• Hard drive size and speed
• Amount of memory (RAM)
• Graphics card
• Operating system
• And much more

Speccy will also tell you what temperature your computer is running at, and many other things that a potential buyer might ask. It will also save a screen shot so you can add it to your advertisement.


For a more comprehensive report you may want to check out Belarc Adviser. It's free and will even tell you service packs you have installed and software license numbers. Both are great programs and the price is right, FREE.

 

VirtualBox, Add Another OS the Easy Way

I had never heard of the Oracle VirtualBox until the other day after reading an article on how to use it on Windows Secrets to test drive Windows 8. After reading this article I wondered if there was a Linux version? I thought it would be great to have Windows XP for those programs that only run on Windows and they do make a version for Linux and for MAC OSX.

So what exactly can you do with it? You can run a completely different operating system in a Window on the operating system that you are currently using. I used it to run Windows XP in a Window on My Ubuntu Laptop. But you could have just as easily run the test drive for Windows 8 on you Vista system, or Ubuntu Linux on your WIndows 7 computer without making new partitions or messing with the instillation that you already have.

It works very well, and you can easily allocate processors in your multi processor computer, how much RAM it will use, and how much graphics memory it will take. Of cource the more RAM and processors you have the smoother everything will run. I'm running it on a dual processor machine with 4 Gig of RAM and it does a good job with allocating 1.5  Gigs to Windows XP.

You can download your version here Oracle VirtualBox.

I Have a New Website

I just turned loose my new Website onto the world. If you get a chance stop by and check it out Dan LaFollette Technology Consulting. I will be adding more and more helpful links and other information as I have time to add them. My goal is to give people as much information as I can to solve their common technology problems. If they still need help they can Ask Dan!