BufferOverrun: Brian Johnson: Mac

Microsoft Careers - Product Manager for the Mac Business Unit

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 16:46:12 GMT

I was talking to my former manager this morning about how the search for my replacement is going. They're still looking, so I thought I would blog the posting, in case anyone is interested in going for the job. This is a great position, and through it I was able to talk to a huge range of customers about Microsoft Mac offerings.

If you're interested, follow the instructions on the Microsoft Careers site. Here's a link to the job listing.

Job Details - MacBU Product Manager
The Macintosh Business Unit (MacBU) is looking for a Senior Product Manager to help drive the business and marketing strategies for Microsoft’s Macintosh product line. As a part of the MacBU product management team, you will be responsible for a range of activities, both in presenting our Mac product line to customers as well as in working closely with program management and development to ensure that we are delivering products that meet our customers’ needs. Your work will be highly dependant on interactions with virtual team members, both within the business unit and across Microsoft.

Technorati Tags: MacBU, Macintosh, Job, Product Manager, Microsoft

Macworld 2007

Mon, 08 Jan 2007 19:44:13 GMT

Lot's of stuff going on this week. I'm down in San Francisco for Macworld. Nobody ever knows what Apple's going to announce at these things, and I think that makes for great fun and anticipation. My prediction is that they'll come out with something cool that I won't be able to afford. :)

That said, I have been really good about not buying gadgets in the last month or two. The last big thing I bought was my Zune, and so I definitely have the itch. Funny thing. Last week I was in three different stores in Redmond that had the PS3 in stock. I was really tempted to buy one (just because I'm a gaming junkie), but I think that $600 price tag is just crazy.

I'll be in and out of the Microsoft booth on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon this week. I'll also be in and out of blogger lounge if you want to drop by and say hi.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, Microsoft, Macworld, Mac Office

Open XML file format and Office 2004

Tue, 05 Dec 2006 22:54:27 GMT

There's been some traffic today on the Mac news sites about the Office 2007 file format converters that we're building for Office 2004 for Mac. Sheridan has posted the bottom line information about the work we're doing these and our estimates of when they'll be available. Check it out here:

Converters Coming! Free and (Fairly) Fast.
There's been some pretty alarmist news stories this morning (apcstart.com; CrunchGear) about file format converters and Office for Mac. Because some of these stories seem designed more to inflame than inform, I want to reiterate our previously reported intention to provide free converters, clarify our timing for their release, and also give some direction on how best to avoid incompatibility until they are available.

Technorati Tags: Mac, Mac Office, Microsoft, Office

Mac Office Holiday Promotion

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 18:06:58 GMT

We've got a holiday promotion for Office for Mac through January. You can get the details at the Apple Store here:

Save 25% on Office for Mac
This holiday season, you’ll have no trouble believing in Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac. Just take a look at what it can do for you — from creating beautiful documents and compelling presentations to managing and sharing your information.
With up to 25% off until January 16, 2007, there’s never been a better time to believe.

This is a good time to pick up a copy of Office Standard (or Pro) if you need it. Pro includes Virtual PC, and you can only use that on a Power PC based Mac, so if you've got a newer Intel-based Mac, be sure to get Standard. :)

Mac OS X 10.4.8 Update

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 23:46:15 GMT

Apple released an OS update today. There are a couple of important fixes in there for Office users, so big thanks to Apple for getting those in. The Office fixes are for Word and PowerPoint:

Resolves an issue for Microsoft Word in which Word might stop responding when saving a file that uses certain OpenType fonts.
Resolves an issue for Microsoft PowerPoint in which the display resolution might not change as expected after switching from a PowerPoint presentation to a different application via Command-Tab.

Get the full details at the Apple site here:

About the Mac OS X 10.4.8 Update (delta)

Technorati Tags: Mac, Mac Office, Microsoft, Office

Messenger for Mac 6 Available

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 20:05:59 GMT

Today we released Microsoft Messenger for Mac 6.0. This is a great release, especially for users on Intel-based Macs because this is a universal binary application. Basically this means you can leave it running all of the time and it won't take the memory overhead of an application running under Rosetta. There are a ton of new features in this release. Here's the page with all the details:

Microsoft Messenger for Mac 6.0
Messenger for Mac 6.0 makes it easy to take advantage of the full power of instant messaging, and it is a Universal application built to run on both PowerPC-based and Intel-based Macs. This update allows Messenger for Mac users to:

Chat with Yahoo! Messenger contacts
Add a status message that your personal contacts can see
Share what you are listening to in iTunes with your personal contacts
Create, send, and receive custom emoticons with personal contacts
Send and receive custom animated emoticons with personal contacts
Search for conversation histories using Spotlight
Check the spelling in your instant messages

I know a lot of people are still looking for A/V support in Messenger for Mac. Mary Starman (my boss) has posted some information about the work that we're doing on A/V to the Mac Mojo blog.

New Carbon Emacs Available

Sun, 03 Sep 2006 20:34:49 GMT

For those into Emacs, there's a new Carbon Emacs package available from the Apple site. Get the download here. Carbon Emacs is the best flavor of Emacs that I've ever used and I'm even using it now more than I use Vim, though I use both for different reasons. You can find out more about the package here:

About Carbon Emacs Package
A Carbon/OSX distribution of GNU Emacs, based on the CVS source code. In order to install, drag the Emacs icon into the Applications folder or anywhere else you would like. This distribution has been developed since 2003, with help from MacEmacs JP project.

If you haven't tried Emacs, the Emacs Wiki has a ton of great information about getting started and using the different packages available.

Technorati Tags: Mac, Productivity, Emacs

Mac Mojo

Tue, 29 Aug 2006 19:39:02 GMT

The new Mac Office blog, Mac Mojo is now live. I'm one of the bloggers who's going to be contributing to this blog, but I'm really excited about the others who are going to be sharing information and stories about working at MacBU and building Office for Mac. My plan is to post on Fridays and to link to interesting Mac Office stuff out in the blogsphere that I find during the week. I'll post more about this later as I get time. Here's the introductory post:

Welcome to our blog!
Hello world! We’re excited to launch our first official blog for the Office for Mac team at Microsoft. To some we are also known as the Macintosh Business Unit or just “MacBU”. We are developers, testers, product managers, usability engineers, product marketers and executives who offer different perspectives but share the same passion for Office and the Mac. We hope this blog provides you with a deeper insight into our work and who we are, and we’re very excited to be out here talking to you!

I think one of the interesting things about this blog is the fact that it's not going to be marketing focused. I should clarify. The site was obviously planned and built by the marketing team - there isn't really anyone else in MacBU with the bandwidth to pull it all together. That said, we've tried to add some of our best engineers, program managers, testers, and even our leadership team to this blog and we've done so without a pre-planned agenda, and we've given the individuals the keys to the blog. What you see from a dev or a tester isn't going to be reviewed by marketing, unless they ask for help or clarification of issues. We've suggested a few topics, such as engineering, extensibility, history, folklore, etc, but we haven't asked people to write anything specific. Hopefully, we'll hear from customers about what they want us to blog about and we'll be able to help them understand where we are and where we're going with Mac products at Microsoft.

Here's the link to the blog and the RSS feed:

Mac Mojo
Mac Mojo RSS Feed

Update: Nadyne has more here.

Technorati Tags: Mac, Mac Office, Microsoft

The Graphing Calculator Story

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 06:35:31 GMT

Most Mac geeks probably know the Graphing Calculator Story. Today I stumbled on this video of Ron Avitzur sharing the story at Google. This is great stuff, check it out:

The Graphing Calculator Story

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, Calculator

Inserting the Date and Time in Notebook Layout View

Tue, 15 Aug 2006 23:06:54 GMT

When I was at Macworld last January, somebody asked me how to insert the current Time and Date into a document in Notebook Layout View.

Notebook Layout View was designed for the specific purpose of taking notes and creating outlines and so the interface was pared down in order to make it easier for people to concentrate on the task at hand. That said, there are some things that people want to do in that view, that aren’t exposed in the UI. Since Insert Date and Time isn’t exposed, we can just use AutoText and Field Codes to do the work for us. It’s pretty fast and easy. You can do this by following these steps:

Open Word 2004 for Mac and create a new document.
Switch to Page Layout View (View -> Page Layout)
Open the Field dialog box to insert a new field into the document (Insert -> Field)
From the Field dialog box, choose Date from the Date and Time category and click OK. Press Space and then repeat that step, inserting the Time.
You should have text that looks like this: 8/15/06 9:24 AM
The date and time that you see here actually fields. When we insert them into a document, they get updated with the current time and date.
Select this new text. You should see a slight shadow around the two fields.
Click Insert -> AutoText -> New.
In the Create Auto Text dialog box, type DateTime.
Now, switch to Notebook Layout View (View -> Notebook Layout).
Type Date and you should see a little flag that says DateTime over the word. Press Return and the date and time will be inserted in your document at the cursor. Alternatively you can just go to Insert -> AutoText -> DateTime and insert the data that way.

Note that the fields that we add in this way are still live, and so they'll update under certain circumstances. To turn the field into plain text, you can select it and press Command-Shift-F9.

Now that you know how to do this, take a look at the field codes again and imagine all of the things you can do with AutoText. I can think of about 50 different ways that Getting Things Done fans could use field codes and AutoText in their Word docs to become more productive. If you come up with something cool, be sure to trackback to this post.

Technorati Tags: Mac, Microsoft, Office, Productivity, Mac Office, Word

Schwieb: Saying goodbye to Visual Basic

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 18:36:10 GMT

Schwieb has written a really long post explaining some of the thinking and the difficulties that we've faced with VB in Office for the Mac over the years, and why we've decided not to move forward with it in our next version of the product. Read the whole thing for some good background on the topic and some thoughts about where we're going with extensibility in the future.

Saying goodbye to Visual Basic
The MacBU did not make this decision lightly. I personally spent several weeks digging into the VB source code to identify and plan what work would have to be done to move it to Xcode and make it universal, and I had several long discussions with our product planning folks to help our group leadership weigh the costs of doing the VB port vs. the costs of not doing it. I’ll try to lead you through some of the analysis here...

Keep in mind that he wrote this in his own blog, and so the opinions expressed there are his and not necessarily Microsoft's.

Security Update for Office for Mac

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 00:44:54 GMT

Today we released some security updates for Office 2004 for Mac and for Office X for Mac. You can get the updates through Auto Update, or you can download them directly from Mactopia here:

Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.2.6 Update
This update fixes vulnerabilities in Office 2004 and Microsoft PowerPoint 2004 for Mac that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code.

Microsoft Office v. X for Mac Security Update (2006-08-08)
This update fixes product vulnerabilities in Office v. X and Microsoft PowerPoint X for Mac that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code.

Technorati Tags: Mac, Microsoft, Office, PowerPoint, Security

Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.2.5 Update

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 19:49:44 GMT

We posted a couple of updates for Office for Mac today. The first one below is for Office 2004, the second one is for Office v.X. You just need the update that matches your version.

Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.2.5 Update
This update fixes vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code. This update also fixes issues in Microsoft Entourage 2004 for Mac and includes all of the improvements released in all previous Office 2004 updates.

Applies to: Office 2004 Standard Edition, Office 2004 Student and Teacher Edition, Office 2004 Professional Edition, Microsoft Word 2004 for Mac, Microsoft Excel 2004 for Mac, Microsoft PowerPoint 2004 for Mac, Entourage 2004.

Note This update is also available from Microsoft AutoUpdate, an application that can automatically keep your Microsoft software up to date. To use AutoUpdate, open an Office application, and then on the Help menu, click Check for Updates.

Microsoft Office v. X for Mac 10.1.7 Security Update
This update contains several updates to enhance security and stability, including fixes for vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office v. X for Mac, Microsoft Word for Mac, and Microsoft Excel for Mac that could enable an attacker to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code and includes all of the improvements released in all previous Office v. X updates.

Technorati Tags: Mac, Microsoft, Office

Wireless Laser Desktop for Mac

Thu, 29 Jun 2006 23:43:26 GMT

Wireless Laser Desktop for Mac

Originally uploaded by brianjo.

First, I should disclaim this post by saying that I work for the division that makes this product, but I'm not involved in the production or marketing for it. That out of the way, I wanted to share my thoughts about the Microsoft Wireless Laser Desktop for Mac.

I was able to get my hands on this a couple of weeks ago. The bottom line is that I'm really enjoying using this keyboard/mouse set. I was previously using the Apple Bluetooth keyboard and mouse with my MacBook Pro, and I was actually fairly happy with that setup. I've tried to use regular Windows keyboards with my Macs before, but I don't usually find the experience very good due to the layout of the keys. When you use the MacBook Pro a lot, you get pretty used to the Mac keys any anything else feels a little funny.

The Wireless Laser Desktop for Mac is built with the right keys for Mac users and so typing on it is a breeze. The keyboard itself is slightly curved, and the mouse has a nice ergonomic feel to it and so while it takes a little getting used to, I find it a bit more comfortable to use than the Apple mouse. The wheel and the extra buttons are nice also.

The only negative about this setup is that it should really be a Bluetooth device. It's not. Plugging in the wireless adapter isn't a huge deal, but it would be so much better if it was Bluetooth and I didn't have to think about reconnecting anything in when I come back to a meeting. Most Macs come with Bluetooth, so I don't even think you would need to include a dongle or anything in the box. That's a suggestion I'm going to pass on to the hardware team. :)

All in all, I'm quit happy with this setup, and I've even added one of these sets to my iMac.

Technorati Tags: Mac, Microsoft, Office

Templates on Office 2004 for Mac

Wed, 28 Jun 2006 18:48:51 GMT

A lot of people ask me how to use templates from the Microsoft Office Online site with Office 2004 for Mac. In this post, I'll run through some steps for doing this.

First things first. If you didn't know it already, we have a number (437 to be exact) of Office for Mac templates available on our Mactopia website. These templates are available here. The templates on this site are either uncompressed or are compressed in ZIP format, so it's easy to download and use them with Office 2004 for Mac. To use one of these templates, just download it to your local machine, uncompress it like any other download you might get, and copy it to your My Templates folder located in the Microsoft Office 2004:Templates folder. After you do this, you'll find the templates listed in your Project Gallery and you're ready to create new documents based on these templates.

One of the benefits to using the Mactopia templates is that we've tested them with Office 2004 for Mac. (If you find one that doesn't work, send me an e-mail.)

Now, I'm going to tell you how to use templates from the Microsoft Office Online site from the Mac, keeping in mind that these templates have not been tested with Office 2004 for Mac.

These templates are in CAB format, so they'll need to be decompressed before you can use them on your Mac. You have a couple of choices here. The easiest thing to do is to download a copy of StuffIt expander from SmithMicro. After you install StuffIt, and you download a CAB file from the Microsoft Office Online Templates section, you should be able to open the context menu on the CAB file and choose Open With. Choose StuffIt Expander from the list and your template should appear in the same folder as the CAB file. At this point I suggest renaming the extracted template to something you can recognize (if it's not already) and then copy it to your My Templates folder as described above.

There are a couple of different alternatives to using StuffIt. One of them is the command line tool cabestract, written by Stuart Caie. This tool works very well if you're comfortable with using Terminal.

In the screen below, you can see my My Templates section in the Project Gallery populated with a few of the templates I've downloaded from Mactopia and the Microsoft Office Online sites. Leave a comment and let me know if you run into any problems with these instructions and I'll update them accordingly. Thanks!

Technorati Tags: Mac, Microsoft, Office, Templates

Mac problem resolved: No sound in Flash

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 21:02:13 GMT

I was having the strangest problem. I couldn't get any sound in Flash movies played on my MacBook Pro. I tried everything; re-installed the Flash bits a bunch of times, I re-installed Quicktime, etc. Nothing worked. Finally, I checked the forums at Apple and I found a link to this entry at Mac OS X Hints:

A possible fix for no sound in Flash on Intel Macs
I'm not sure if this problem is exclusive to Intel Macintoshes, but I first noticed it after an iTunes update; my Flash plugin had completely lost its sound.

Luckily, I found an extremely strange but workable fix in the Macromedia forums -- but you need GarageBand in order to implement it. Open GarageBand, and do something that generates music — I opened the piano keyboard and played a couple notes from the Star Wars theme. Quit.

You've most likely now got your Flash sound back.

Why this fix works, I have absolutely no idea. I imagine GarageBand might be doing something behind the scenes, but this has to be one of the more odd fixes I've ever run across. (But one of the most difficult fixes to find — thus the post here.)

And success. Thanks Mike!

Technorati Tags: Mac, Flash

Office 2004 Update 11.2.4

Tue, 13 Jun 2006 19:50:01 GMT

We released an update to Office 2004 for Mac today. Here's the link and the details:

Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.2.4 Update
This update fixes vulnerabilities in Office 2004 for Mac that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code. This update also fixes issues in Microsoft PowerPoint 2004 and Entourage 2004, and it includes all of the improvements released in all previous Office 2004 updates.

Applies to: Microsoft Office 2004 Standard Edition, Office 2004 Student and Teacher Edition, Office 2004 Professional Edition, Word 2004, Excel 2004, PowerPoint 2004, Entourage 2004.

Technorati Tags: Entourage, Mac, Microsoft

Extra Credit Promo

Tue, 13 Jun 2006 17:17:22 GMT

We launched a new promotion for Office 2004 for Mac Student and Teacher edition today. Get the details here:

Score some extra credit
With Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Student and Teacher Edition you get the leading presentation, spreadsheet, word processing and e-mail software from Microsoft all in one convenient, specially priced package. It works great on the new Intel-based Macs, and when you buy before Sept. 12, 2006, you can receive an extra $50 rebate - what a score!

Technorati Tags: Mac, Microsoft

MyMac.com Podcast Contest

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 04:54:31 GMT

Check out MyMac.com this week for a chance to win Office 2004 and keyboard.

MyMac Podcast 85 - Microsoft Contest
Listen to this weeks podcast for the details to win both the new Microsoft Wireless Laser Desktop for Mac and a copy of Microsoft Office 2004 for Macintosh. That is $500 that one listener will win next week. Also, Chad and Tim look at the latest in Apple and Mac news, plus iPod gaming and Harman Kardon Drive + Play

Technorati Tags: Mac, Microsoft

Erik Schwiebert Blog

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 05:34:45 GMT

MacBU Dev Lead Erik Schwiebert has a new blog. It promises to be both entertaining and informative. :) In his latest post, he details some of the issues in moving from CodeWarrior to Xcode. The blog is here, and this is a link to the RSS.

Whither Xcode?
...I want to start by telling you about my role here. I’m a development lead in the MacBU, with a team of 4 devs reporting to me. (No, Rick is not one of them…) Part of my team’s responsibility is tool evaluation and maintenance. For the last few years I had been our point-of-contact and liaison with Metrowerks. My team tested their pre-releases of CodeWarrior, filed bugs with Metrowerks, updated our code to adhere to their ever-stricter-and-more-standards-compilant compiler, and rolled the updates out to the MacBU as they shipped. Given my experiences with that aspect of our tools and external dependencies, my manager asked me to take the lead dev role in our coordination with Apple as we investigated switching to Xcode.

Technorati Tags: Mac, Microsoft

The Free iPod Book 2.0

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 04:22:44 GMT

It's available from iLounge.com. It's sort of a giant catalogue/book that has about everything you might want to know about the iPod and iPod accessories. Very nice.

Download Now: The Free iPod Book 2.0
It’s here: The Free iPod Book 2.0, by iLounge.com! Weighing in at 194 pages, this revised and expanded second edition of our popular Book is your one-stop answer to every major iPod and iTunes question… plus much, much more. Inside, you’ll find 20 exclusive sneak peeks at new iPod accessories from Atlantic, Belkin, Griffin, Monitor Audio, Oakley, Sonic Impact, Targus, v-moda, and others, ratings of over 900 accessories and iPods, plus extraordinary guides to All Things iPod, All Things iTunes, and Beyond.

Technorati Tags: Mac

The Cube as Art

Thu, 25 May 2006 20:37:03 GMT

There’s an interesting story about the new Apple Store in New York in Business Week. I believe that when a building or structure improves the area surrounding it, then it is indeed art. And that’s just what I thought of the new cube in New York. It makes everything around it look better. Check out the article here:

Apple's glass structure embodies growth
Call it the symbolic revenge of the Cube. Apple Computer Inc.'s latest cube-shaped creation -- a stunning three-story glass structure marking the entrance to its new store on New York City's Fifth Avenue -- reflects how far the Macintosh maker has come since its first embodiment of a hexahedron.

Speaking of cubes, I recently read Simson Garfinkel’s account of torching a NeXT Cube case back in the 90’s. They were made of magnesium, so as you can imagine, this made for a pretty hot fire.

Technorati Tags: Art, Mac

XScreenSaver

Wed, 24 May 2006 05:34:13 GMT

JWZ has released XScreenSaver 5. Lot's of great stuff in here for Mac owners.

XScreenSaver
XScreenSaver is the standard screen saver collection shipped on most Linux and Unix systems running the X11 Window System. I released the first version in 1992. In 2006, I ported it to MacOS X 10.4.

On X11 systems, XScreenSaver is two things: it is both a large collection of screen savers; and it is also the framework for blanking and locking the screen.

On MacOS systems, these screen savers work with the usual MacOS screen saving framework (X11 is not required).

Technorati Tags: Mac

Office 2004 Resource Kit v2

Fri, 19 May 2006 02:51:50 GMT

The MacBU UA folks have released version 2 of the Office 2004 for Mac Resource Kit. Get the download and the details here:

Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Resource Kit version 2
The Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Resource Kit version 2 provides procedure and reference information for administrators and support professionals who deploy, administer, and support Office 2004 for Mac in networked environments. This Resource Kit provides guidance for using Office 2004 for Mac with Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Live Communications Server, Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server, and related products.

Technorati Tags: Entourage, Mac, Microsoft

I'm on 10 today...

Thu, 04 May 2006 17:55:23 GMT

You can check out the show here. I was planning to demo getting your contacts and calendar items from Entourage to an iPod, but we never really got to it. :) In any case, it was a lot of fun. I noticed they also updated the 10 home page. Looks really nice.

Technorati Tags: Mac, Microsoft

MacTech Benchmarks Office 2004

Mon, 24 Apr 2006 01:16:56 GMT

MacTech has posted a benchmark study they did of Office 2004 running on Rosetta. David Chartier at TUAW links to it with his thoughts on the subject here. Here's a link to the MacTech article:

Office 2004 Benchmarks on Intel-based Macs
If you are a Microsoft Office user on the Mac, there's likely a question on your mind if you are considering purchasing a new Mac based on the Intel processor. You see, currently, Microsoft Office is not "Universal." In other words, it runs on top of Rosetta (Apple's technology to dynamically translate PowerPC-based applications to work on Intel-based Macs). Now, Microsoft has announced that the next version of Office will be Universal, but no one expects this imminently. (It's a big job, Apple released their Intel-based machines earlier than expected, and Office isn't borne from Xcode.)

The big question is this: Does Microsoft Office 2004 run well enough on the new Intel-based Macs? Or should you delay your purchase of these machines?

I've been running Office 2004 happily under Rosetta without really noticing any performance degradation at all, but check out the article and see what MacTech has to say about it.

Technorati Tags: Mac, Microsoft

Mac Memory Info

Tue, 11 Apr 2006 20:35:40 GMT

This is one of those, notes to self. Apple has information for devs around RAM expansion on Macs. Lots of good information. Here's the link.

RAM Expansion Developer Note
Every Macintosh computer currently shipping allows for increasing memory by installing one or more RAM modules. To ensure proper performance, reliability, and compatibility, such RAM modules must include certain features and must comply with industry standards, as described in this document.

New Mac Product Feedback Page

Wed, 05 Apr 2006 12:01:42 GMT

We posted a new product feedback page to the Mac site this week. You can use this page to provide feedback for Office 2004 for Mac, Virtual PC for Mac, Microsoft Messenger for Mac, and anything else on the Mactopia site. Check it out here:

Product Feedback!
Microsoft is committed to continuously improving your experience with our products. If you have product enhancement ideas, feature requests, or specific comments about Microsoft for Mac products or the Mactopia Web site, we want to hear from you.

I should mention that the Web and UA teams did a great job putting this together. I think this is going to be a very useful tool for customers and for Microsoft.

Technorati Tags: Mac, Microsoft

Drive Visualization

Sat, 25 Mar 2006 17:35:54 GMT

I was looking for a tool to see what files were taking up all the space on my PowerBook and I found this great application called JDiskReport. (I think I'm subscribed to about 20 different video podcasts, and I had a bunch of movies I took in Florida last year that I forgot about taking up a few gigs.) It's cross platform and it's pretty fast for what it does. Check it out here.

Technorati Tags: Mac

Porting to Intel Macs

Sat, 25 Mar 2006 09:53:46 GMT

I get asked about this at least twice a day. Rick has a great post describing some of the work we need to do to move our code base to a new toolset, not to mention a new platform.

Of Intel Macs and Red Herrings
...But all of that's very much beside the point. Whether we had gone through the pain of porting to XCode/GCC in some earlier release of our products, we'd have still had to go through this pain. The time spent doing this work then would have to have come from the features that we were, instead, adding to our programs. Arguing that we should have, somehow, absorbed this pain earlier really has little bearing on the nature and extent of the pain. We'd still have to do the work, and customers would have suffered as much then as they are now. The only difference is that, now, we have a tangibly legitimate reason for the suffering.

Technorati Tags: Mac, Microsoft

David Pogue on Spotlight in 11.2.3

Fri, 24 Mar 2006 20:55:31 GMT

David Pogue has a nice note up today on the Office update we released last week. Check it out here:

An Entourage Update
There's a new minor update of Microsoft's e-mail program for the Macintosh, Entourage (which is the program I use most). It adds a really great feature: you can now search all your Entourage e-mail, contacts and calendar using Spotlight, the built-in Mac OS X search genie. Man, I've been waiting a long time for this--and it really works beautifully. (Hint: You have to make sure that in Spotlight preferences, "Mail" is turned on as a category to search.)

Technorati Tags: Entourage, Mac, Microsoft

Spotlight Support in Entourage Explained

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 07:04:29 GMT

Amir posted a great entry to the Entourage Blog that explains Spotlight support in the latest update. It includes everything you probably need to know about Spotlight support in Entourage. You can read the whole thing here:

Spotlight Support in Entourage 2004
With the new 11.2.3 Update installed, you can now use Apple’s Spotlight feature to execute searches against your Entourage database contents. Spotlight can find any item inside your Entourage database; it does not matter, where that item is. You can find any item related to any kind of mail account (POP, IMAP or Exchange) which is present in a folder inside your Entourage database. Folder type also does not matter, i.e. Spotlight can search all folders of any type related to any kind of mail account. As Entourage downloads a copy of each item in its local database, even when you use IMAP or Exchange mail account (which are only ‘mirrored’ locally in database, Entourage does not delete messages from the mailbox on server after downloading), thus using Spotlight you can execute searches against all of those items.

I've promised a screen demo and I just haven't gotten to it yet. I'll try to do that tomorrow sometime. This really is a remarkable feature. I've been working with MSN Search and LookOut search in Outlook for the last couple of years and these technologies can fundamentally change the way you work and think about the information stored on your computers.

Technorati Tags: Mac, Microsoft, Entourage

Your Mac Life

Thu, 16 Mar 2006 02:18:07 GMT

Update: I was on tonight and I really enjoyed the show. Thanks to Shawn for inviting me. I wasn't aware of the security issues patched in 11.2.3, so here's a link to Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-012 which describes the problem.

MACNN covers it here.

I'm going to be on Your Mac Life tonight to talk about Office 2004 update 11.2.3. You can get information about tuning in here.

Technorati Tags: Mac

Office 2004 Update 11.2.3 Available

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 19:44:52 GMT

Today we released update 11.2.3 for Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac. This update has some really cool new features in it and I'm going to post some video later today to show some of this. For now I just wanted mention the update and I wanted to let everyone know about what was added:

Entourage support for Sync Services
Entourage support for Spotlight
Smart card support in Entourage

So, with Sync Services support, you can basically now syncronize your Entourage calendar, contacts, and tasks with anything you can iSync on your Mac, including your iPod and your mobile phone. Spotlight support lets you easly find contacts and e-mail with Spotlight. (Searching for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint has been there for a while.) I use this all the time with Entourage now and it's awesome.

You can get to the page for the update here. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Update: Here's a link to a video I made that shows how to turn on Sync Services in Entourage and then how to add your calendar and contacts to your iPod. I'll make another for Spotlight sometime later tonight. I used iWeb and my .Mac account for this, so I might move this at a later time.

MacBook Pro

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 02:12:52 GMT

I got a MacBook Pro to play with. (For the night at least.) It's a pretty sweet little machine. It feels very thin, sort of like a Razr phone. Might make a good match if you're into skinny metal stuff. :) The big draw for me is probably the camera. I like being able to do video conferencing on the road and this woulld be a great machine for that.

Spring Cleaning Makeover

Tue, 07 Mar 2006 23:31:28 GMT

Microsoft is sponsoring a Spring Cleaning Makeover. Check out the home page here:

Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Spring Cleaning Sweepstakes

and, some details from the Entry page:

Signing up for the Spring Cleaning Sweepstakes is easier than scrubbing the floor, yet it could make your office sparkle all the same. Simply fill out the registration form below.

After the entry period ends on June 30, 2006, we'll post the winners of the four $10,000 Spring Cleaning Makeovers on this web site. We'll also announce those who won the runner-up prizes.

Ready to make your office sparkle? So are we! Just make sure you meet the promotion requirements before entering.

To qualify, you must:

* Be from a business organization with 1 - 49 employees, or
* Be from a business organization with 1 -24 personal computers, or
* Be sole proprietor or unincorporated yet income-generating business from home, or
* Perform home office-based professional services as an employee for any size company

And you are required to:

* Be a legal U.S. resident
* Be at least 18 years old

Good Luck!

Technorati Tags: Mac

iPod Hi-Fi

Thu, 02 Mar 2006 07:03:01 GMT

iLounge has a first look at the iPod Hi-Fi with lots of pictures. I think I might want one. I'll wait until I see it in the store to decide. It's a weird device, pretty big (look at the Bose comparison) but if the sound is good enough...

Technorati Tags: Mac, iPod

Macworld gets MacBook Pros

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 23:40:46 GMT

Macworld has a story on their experiences with the new MacBook Pro. It sounds like they're pretty happy with it. As expected, Office seems to run fine...

Several of my bread-and-butter applications, most notably Eudora and Microsoft Office, aren’t currently available in versions that run natively on Intel processors. But I honestly haven’t perceived any slowness in those applications. (The one quirk I have noticed? The MacBook Pro’s Scrolling Trackpad feature didn’t seem to work quite right in Microsoft Word.)

I'll pass on the last bit about the trackpad to the team. If you have a new Intel-based Mac and you do run into issues with Office. feel free to drop me a note, or trackback to this post from your own blog.

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Intel iMac

Sat, 18 Feb 2006 21:39:53 GMT

I picked up an Intel iMac at The Mac Store in Redmond last night. The staff was great and it was nice to just go down the street to pick up a new computer. I also picked up a copy of Unreal Tournament 2004, mostly because I knew there were universal binaries for it and I wanted to test the performance a little.

So far this is a pretty awesome machine. I got the 20 and I put it in the bedroom. It's a very quiet machine, so that's a bonus. The kids had a blast with the Photo Booth application. That app makes my kids laugh so much, it's almost worth the price of the whole machine. (There's a Flickr group for Photo Booth here.)

I haven't had much of a chance to play because I was sick as a dog this morning. Hopefully I'll feel well enough to get Office installed and set up later today. Just sitting here now watching the end of the Demolition Derby Bush race. Pretty good except for all the crashes. :)

Technorati Tags: Mac

Businessweek: New Mouseketeer

Fri, 10 Feb 2006 18:07:05 GMT

Last night I listened to a really good podcast from Businessweek about the Disney Pixar purchase. I'm a big fan of the products of both of these companies and so I think it's going to be interesting to see what happens here over the next few years.

New MouseketeerSteve Job's Magic Kingdom
He breathed new life into Apple and made Pixar into a movie powerhouse. Now with kindred spirit and gadget-lover Bob Iger of Disney, Jobs could help turn the staid giant into a leading lab for media convergence, marrying movies and iPods and much more. BW's John Byrne and cover-story writers Peter Burrows and Ronald Grover take a look at Jobs' modus operandi and how it may fit in at the Mouse House

Intel-based Mac Q&A

Fri, 10 Feb 2006 00:39:41 GMT

So last night I asked my wife about possibly getting one of those sweet new Intel iMacs from Apple. She said, "Would I get your Powerbook?" Um, um.. well I guess I'll keep working on that one. Anyway, for anyone interested in issues around Office 2004 for the Mac and the new Intel-based Macs, we have posted a Q&A on the Microsoft Mac web site. You can get to the page here along with the first Q/A:

Q&A: Intel-Based Macs
Will Office for Mac and Messenger for Mac run on the Intel-based Macs?
A. Yes. The Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit tested both programs on Intel-based Macs running Rosetta, and the programs run well in that configuration. Rosetta is software that is included with every Intel-based Mac and works behind the scenes to make sure that your existing software runs on the Intel-based Mac. You do not need to set up or configure Rosetta to use either Office 2004 or Messenger for Mac. For more information about Rosetta, visit the Apple Web site.

Technorati Tags: Mac

Lifehacker Video iPod Tips

Sun, 15 Jan 2006 22:20:17 GMT

I bought a new 5G iPod to take on my trip to Macworld and I had a really great time with it. Before I left, I downloaded a bunch of video podcasts, along with the Battlestar Galactica mini series. Last week, Lifehacker posted some tips for Video iPod users. Today I've tried a few of these, including using a standard video cable for playback on TV and it worked great. Here's link to the entry:

Hack Attack: Get the most out of your video iPod
...we at Lifehacker know that you’ve put down a lot of good money for that shiny black or white monolith, and we strive to help you work your new iPod to its fullest potential.

Although it’s great to buy new music or videos to put on that digital video player, I can think of a lot of other things you can do to take advantage of your new iPod that won’t cost you a dime.

We announced at Macworld that we would be supporting the Mac Sync Services in our next update (in March) so this is something you'll want to add to the list; if you're an iPod/Entourage user, you can look forward to easily syncing your Entourage calendars and contacts to the iPod. :)

Technorati Tags: Mac, iPod

Windows Media Components for QuickTime

Thu, 12 Jan 2006 08:20:27 GMT

Available now. Here's the link. Have fun!

Windows Media Components for QuickTime
With Windows Media Components for QuickTime, by Flip4Mac, you can play Windows Media files (.wma and .wmv) directly in QuickTime Player and view Windows Media content on the Internet using a Web browser.

Here's a link to the press release on the Flip4Mac site.

Technorati Tags: Mac, QuickTime

Nadyne: I'm not unemployed!

Wed, 11 Jan 2006 05:45:04 GMT

Heh, I had the very same feeling. :)

Technorati Tags: Mac

Macworld Announcements

Tue, 10 Jan 2006 21:27:19 GMT

Well, it's official. Microsoft today announced a formal agreement around the continued development of Microsoft Office for Mac. I think this is a pretty much a no-brainer. We've got a really good relationship with Apple and I think our products fully compliment the Apple product line, especially now that we'll be shipping support for Sync Services in March. (Being able to sync my Entourage calendar and address book on my iPod is a truly killer feature.)

Here's a link to the press release and Q&A we have out there now:

Microsoft Commits to New Versions of Office for Mac
Formalized commitment underscores Mac BU, Apple long-term relationship

SAN FRANCISCO — Jan. 10, 2006 — Microsoft Corp.’s Macintosh Business Unit (Mac BU) today announced at Macworld Conference & Expo 2006 a formal five-year agreement that reinforces Microsoft’s plans to develop Microsoft® Office for Mac software for both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs. The Mac BU outlined several upcoming improvements to Entourage® 2004 for Mac and said it plans to build converters to read the new Microsoft Office Open XML Formats. The commitment agreement and product announcements emphasize the cooperation between the two companies and serve as significant indicators of Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to the Mac platform.

Q&A: Microsoft's Renewed Commitment to Developing for the Mac

Technorati Tags: Mac

Virtual Macworld Exhibit

Tue, 10 Jan 2006 05:26:19 GMT

If you're at Macworld this week, be sure to stop by the Microsoft booth. Whether you're in SF for Macworld or not this week, go ahead and take a look at our Virtual Macworld Exhibit on Microsoft.com.

Join the Party
Microsoft at Macworld 2006 - January 9 -13 in San Francisco, CA
Come join us at the 2006 Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco! In our Microsoft booth you can meet members of our Macintosh Business Unit and other Mac experts, see demonstrations of our products for Macs and get answers to your questions.

It's funny, the teacher Mark profiled on the site mentioned that they teach the kids PowerPoint in first grade. I was surprised a couple of years ago to find out that my kids knew how to use it also. They wanted to develop a set of Halo toys, and so they worked up a presentation for me. :)

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Behind the magic curtain

Sun, 08 Jan 2006 01:14:40 GMT

Great story in the Guardian by Mike Evangelist about working on the keynotes for Macworld.

Behind the magic curtain
Next week Steve Jobs of Apple will grab media attention with another simple-looking stage show. Mike Evangelist tells the insider secrets of his gruelling preparation.

Mike has a cool Mac blog here.

Technorati Tags: Mac