words

Bing rolls out five apps for Office 365 and Office 2013

Microsoft launched five new free Bing apps for Office 365 and Office 2013 today. These apps are geared toward integrating work templates with search functions. The apps include Bing Finance for Excel, Bing Maps for Excel, Bing Image Search for Word, Bing News Search for Word, and Bing Dictionary for Excel and Word.

The software giant released its 2013 version of Office and its subscription-centric version of Office -- Office 365 Home Premium -- just this week. The latter of these two products is downloadable and can be locally installed on versions of Office 2013. Users are charged annual or monthly fees … Read more

Create words with Word Crack

Social gaming has taken over Facebook profiles and mobile gadgets. Now, while you wait for your friends to take their turn in other games you're playing, you can play a round of Word Crack. It tests your creativity and vocabulary at a relaxed pace. Replay value is high, and the price of $1.99, which you need to pay for an ad-free version, is not too much. However, the game might be a little too simplistic to keep you coming back and choosing this over other digital board games.

The app requires you to either sign up through Facebook … Read more

Advanced Word to Pdf Converter isn't and didn't

Advanced Word to Pdf Converter Free promises to convert Word documents (DOC, DOCX, and DOCM) as well as text and rich-text documents into searchable PDFs, as the name suggests, for free. We assume it's intended for users who lack Word, since Word can save Word, text, and rich-text documents directly as PDFs. And "free" in this case means it's a restricted version of a premium tool. That wouldn't matter so much if it actually converted files in its default mode, without the paid version's settings and options. Unfortunately, it didn't.

Advanced Word to … Read more

Get a free office suite, help charity

I love a good win-win.

From now until December 24, you can get SoftMaker FreeOffice for Windows or Linux absolutely free. And when you do, SoftMaker will donate 0.10 Euros to betterplace.org, which raises funds for a variety of worthy worldwide projects.

So what the heck is SoftMaker FreeOffice? As you may have guessed from the name, it's the free version of SoftMaker's commercial office suite. It provides word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations, all with an interface that closely resembles Microsoft Office 2003.

Speaking of which, FreeOffice is fully file-compatible with Microsoft's suite, though it'… Read more

WordPress' Mullenweg: Users lose in Twitter-Instagram spat

The turf battle between Instagram and Twitter shows the sites have the wrong priorities, said Matt Mullenweg, founder of Automattic and its WordPress.com blogging service.

There's a danger when a company focuses too much on its own properties and pleasing its own advertisers at the expense of giving its users what they need, Mullenweg said here at the LeWeb 2012 show. Those problems are what's afflicted microblogging site Twitter and photo-sharing service Instagram, which Facebook recently acquired.

Twitter has been restricting access to third-party tweeting software and limiting access that third-party companies such as Instagram get to … Read more

Convert PDF files to Word documents with Free PDF to Word

People share PDFs more than any other type of file, but they can be a pain to edit. Free PDF to Word switches them over to work in text editors so you can make quick edits. Though the program mentions Microsoft Word's ubiquitous word processor, it also works with Open Office and other open-source programs.

The program won't take up much hard-drive space and it can be installed in seconds. Free PDF to Word isn't exciting to look at, but it works like a charm. The best part is that it maintains most of the PDF's … Read more

Microsoft serves up 60-day trial version of Office 2013

People who want to take Office 2013 for a spin can download a 60-day evaluation edition.

The version available is the full Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013 suite, which includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Access, Publisher, and Lync. The software contains all the features in the paid edition, so you won't miss out on anything.

You will need a Microsoft account in order to access the download page, but otherwise there are no strings attached.

Here's how you can grab the free trial version:

Head over to the Office Professional Plus 2013 download page on TechNet. Click … Read more

Behold the $30,000 high-tech Scrabble board

Prepare to witness one of the most expensive board games ever made.

When the Prague Mind Sports Festival kicks off December 1, gamers can play on a high-tech Scrabble setup unlike any other. The festival -- which hosts tournaments for the popular word game plus bridge, backgammon, poker, League of Legends, and Counter Strike: Global Offensive -- introduced to the world this week a carbon fiber Scrabble system with LED lighting that cost more than 20,000 pounds ($31,732) to create. … Read more

WordPress begins accepting Bitcoin for service upgrades

WordPress has announced it will begin accepting payment for upgrades via the controversial peer-to-peer currency Bitcoin, a move it promises will break down geographical and corporate boundaries.

While the popular blogging platform is a free service, it does offer paid upgrades such as custom designs and ad-free presentations. However, not everyone has access to those upgrades due to limits on traditional payment networks such as PayPal, which is blocked in more than 60 countries, notes Andy Skelton, code wrangler at WordPress parent Automattic.

"Some are blocked for political reasons, some because of higher fraud rates, and some for other … Read more