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Office 2016: Office For the Mac Better Than You Ever Imagined It Might Be

My jump to the mac many years ago was as amazing as it was frustrating. Working in a PC (microsoft) based environment meant dealing with Office documents. Something the Mac was ill suited to given the shocking mess of an app was 2011.

Frustrations included
Slow to respond
incredibly slow in an excel sheet
non intuative ui features
Lack of updates
Almost everything was poorly formatted the moment I’d open it up on the mac.

With the eyebrow of sceptical raised back in march i installed the 2016 beta and right there and then I saw the new micosoft releasing something special. A version of Office that worked, worked well, fitted in nicely on the Mac, cloud synching and lots more.

Apple have tried to fill the Office update voiced us Mac have endured for o so long but they never hit the spot. Thinking on it I don’t know who to blame for the lack of success of the iLife / iWork / Pages etc suite of apps but blaming all of this on Apple is unjust.

We live in a world thats being consumed by mobile first, PC 2nd. Companies go otu of their way for Facebook likes, instagramming, twitter, social media marketing all to raise exposure and yet most fail whenver it comes time to paperwork.

How many times have you hit a website where a form needs to be downloaded and it’s in a dreaded Word format. In 98% of cases whenever a word form needs filling in, it’s a disaster. Text boxes instead of fields, boxes are easily screwed up with too much text, more than once different fonts had been used but not cleared and then in the final step, saving a filled out document on your device normally has it’s own issues.

What really makes this situation all the more frustrating is that I would palce good money on those who are creating these lovely forms have a tablet from one make or another at home yet somehow can’t make the transition from the device on the couch to the real world, no matter how many times they might seem them out and about being used in the real world.

Not so long ago I completed a sporting event and in an eagerness to see the results I hit up the website only to find, to start with, I had to download an excel file and manually sort and filter to find the results. Easily done for myself even if it meant downloading to a laptop, downloading the file, waiting for more windows update to install etc etc.

Office Excel 2016 For Mac thumb Office 2016: Office For the Mac Better Than You Ever Imagined It Might Be

 

Back to Office for the Mac.

On my rig it’s hard to tell if the loading times for Office 2016 are any better than before but that’s down to a hard drive thats been paved with updates rather than clean installs every time.

Scrolling around any of the apps is silky smooth, even one of my more complicated (read badly implemented) spreadsheets containing a hefty amount of data didn’t bad an eyelid.

Dealing with files takes a smallamount of getting used to. the new Microsoft clearly wants you to keep everything in the cloud and that’s the default save to position.

Outlook for Mac will no doubt be the killer app for the business types who want the lightest laptop out there which looks half decent..

Office 365 subscribers can get the newest version of Office for Mac today. Office 2016 for Mac will become available as a one-time purchase option this September.

More information over on the Office For Mac Microsoft Website

Apple Earbuds
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10 Handy Tricks For Making The Most Out Of Those Earbud Controls

tricks using Apple EarPods
The Apple EarPods have three different buttons that help you to perform several tasks in handsfree mode. Here are some of the things you can do when you connect Apple EarPods to your iPhone or iPad.

Fast forward and rewind audio or video
While playing an audio or video, press the middle button of the EarPods twice and hold it down after second press, the audio or video will fast forward. To stop fast forwarding, just release the middle button.

Similarly, you can also rewind an audio or video using the EarPods. To do so, press on the middle button thrice and hold it down to begin rewinding the currently playing media. To resume normal playback, release the middle button.

Skip to Previous and Next tracks
While playing music, press the middle button twice to skip to the next track. Press the same button thrice to skip to the previous track.

Capture photos
If your hands are a bit shaky when taking photos, you can set the iPhone on a stand and use the volume keys of the (connected) EarPods to capture photos.

Activate Siri
You can activate Siri without taking your iPhone out of your pocket. Just press and hold the middle button of the connected EarPods and listen for the familiar chime from Siri. You can then tell it to do anything you’d like it to do.

Answer or reject incoming calls
If someone calls you when your EarPods are connected, simply press the middle button once to answer it. If you want to reject the call, press the middle button and hold it for two-seconds.

Hang up on a call
To hang up a call, press the middle button of the EarPods once during a call.

Switch between calls
If a call comes in while you are already on another call, you can easily receive the other call by pressing the middle button of the EarPods once. While you’re on the second call, the first caller will be put on hold. To switch back to the first caller (and put the second caller on hold), press the middle button once again.

End current call and answer a new call
Sometimes, when a call comes in while you’re already on another call, you might want to end the first call to attend the second one. To do so, press and hold the middle button for two-seconds. You should hear two beeps after which the first call will be terminated and you’ll automatically be connected to the new call.

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“Loving” a radio track does not improve the radio station algorithm. Use “Play more like this” instead

It’s confusing since the heart is so visible, but “loving” only improves the “For You” section of Apple Music. To get to “Play more like this” you need to hit the “…” next to the track name, which will actually improve the quality of the radio station.

Continue reading → “Loving” a radio track does not improve the radio station algorithm. Use “Play more like this” instead