Office 2010 Beta.

Ooh yeah! Office 2010 Beta was released today! I spent far to much time downloading and installing it. And I'm having fun. All of the apps seem to run much faster than Office 2007 too.

This first screen shot is one of the first things which impressed me. For the first time since I can remember I actually have two separate Excel spreadsheets open at the same time and they don't share the same window! That's right, you can look at two spreadsheets at the same time! Woo, hoo!

This second screenshot shows the second thing I was excited about. See those buttons labeled New, Open and Save? Well Using the new Ribbon editor I was able to add them right where I thought they should have been the whole time.

And Here is is the ribbon editor all set up with my new custom File panel.

 

 

 

 

 

I also downloaded the betas for Visio and MS Project. Visio is still the mostly flow-chart oriented design that I find soo frustrating but this version does have at least one new redeeming quality that I have found.

That is Visio can now save as svg! Woo hoo!

Now if only Visio was a standard part of the suite…

 

Anyway It's looking good so far.

Where is that SQL Management Studio?

Have you have Installed SQL Server Express Edition only to discover that SQL Management Studio did not get installed with it? Or when you try to install it you can’t find it in the options?

Well, for some reason, if an application such as Visual Web Developer Express, which installs a minimum install of SQL Express, is installed first those settings are used for all subsequent installs of SQL Express on the OS and since SQL Management Studio was not an option for the first install it won’t be permitted for any of the latter.

The solution is to install SQL Server Express Edition first, before any other software is installed.

Should you find yourself in this predicament you may need to wipe the machine and reinstall everything again. Fun.

Office Web

Whoot! From the tiny Thumbnail you might not be able to tell exactly what the screen shot is of, but it's something I'm excided about.

I opened up my SkyDrive today and found I had been accepted to the Office Web Apps Technical Preview.  Which means I get to be one of the first to be able to view Word Docs, view and edit Excel spreadsheets all in side of SkyDrive  in the browser.

The one thing which has really surprised me so far, is that it could actually handle opening my almost a ream of paper document!! I'm impressed. It is limited though, I tried a few of my crazier spread sheets which wouldn't open online. It isn't designed to replace Office in any right anyway but is a nice offering so far.