Notes

First Take: Microsoft Office 2010 beta

The Microsoft Office 2010 beta was released Wednesday, and though there aren't many major changes from the Technical Preview from July, there are some new features and enhancements worthy of note. This post will focus on the changes to the beta, but if you want a larger overview of new features across all the applications, check out our rundown of the Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview.

Outlook is the cornerstone of many companies' communications and daily schedules, and as such received a lot of enhancements in Office 2010. In the beta version, Microsoft has added even more ways to connect with coworkers and contacts. The new Outlook Social Connector is an added information pane that gives you more info about everyday contacts. Once set up, you'll be able to view pictures of contacts (even in large cc lists), previous conversations, attachments shared, meetings attended, and much more. Though not complete in the beta, Microsoft says the Outlook Social Connector will soon be able to connect with social Web sites like Facebook and Twitter, so you can follow status updates and more all in one location.

The Office 2010 Technical Preview introduced the Back Stage view, an enhanced File menu (accessed from the Office Icon tab) that lets you manage your documents, set permissions, and share your projects with colleagues. In the beta version Microsoft has decided to return to calling it the File menu, but with all the functionality and flexibility of Back Stage. They also have made it possible to access all the other tabs in the Ribbon, which were previously inaccessible in the Technical Preview, so you can get to the information you want quickly without the added step of exiting Back Stage.… Read more

Interval teacher

Music Theory Basics - Interval Training Complete has a focused set of tools for learning musical intervals. By offering a few basic options and some great tests, this program will appeal to anyone learning or relearning music theory.

The program's interface is surprisingly simple and intuitive, considering the complex material it covers. The layout consists of large buttons and onscreen directions that shouldn't require a trip to the Help file, which is fortunate, because there's no Help file to consult. Music Theory Basics opens with a simple menu asking how you want to learn. You can choose … Read more

Organized? Totally

Personal Information Managers are among the most useful kinds of software available. They can bring order to chaotic lives or help even the most organized among us wring extra time out of their busy schedules. Total Organizer is a free PIM from Konrad Papula that has some features that set it apart from the crowded PIM scene, chief among them its tree view method of organizing your tasks into folders, called "tags." These tags can belong to any number of other folders simultaneously, and it's all cross-referenced for easy searching and task conversion.

Like most PIMs, Total … Read more

Fancy to-do lists and a unique platform game: iPhone apps of the week

The evolution of the app store witnessed another milestone recently, with the release of a game that doubles as a very effective advertisement. One of my favorite iPhone games of the year, Firemint's Real Racing, just got a Lite version that doubles as a promotional tool for both the app and an outside company. Real Racing GTI (Free), sponsored by Volkswagen, lets you race on a few of the tracks of the full game using the 2010 Volkswagen GTI. You only get a small taste of the action in the full game, but it should be enough to help … Read more

Simple, free text editor

ScratchPad is a free, simple text editor inspired by the old Mac default application Note Pad. You'll find much of the functionality of Text Edit here--including support for styles and a ruler, and the ability to use rich text, color, and images--but with a few clever additions.

ScratchPad automatically saves as you type, over multiple pages, letting you quickly flip forward and back through however many separate pages you want to create in the app. One big advantage of this multipage approach over Text Edit is that you won't have so many tiny .txt files littered all over … Read more

Simple note storage

Tolon NoteKeeper provides a simple set of tools for putting ideas and images into a note filing system. While the aim is good, we were turned off by the layout and felt lukewarm about the whole program.

The note-keeper's interface was a major hurdle for us to overcome. The screen was very simple and not too cluttered, but it provided no direction on how to get started. Even after reading the Help file's tutorial, we still needed to play around for a few minutes to find our footing. This was a frustrating way to start, but we were … Read more

Music learning tool

Songtrix Silver offers to help newcomers and experienced musicians alike. With options to learn and create music, this program offers something to everyone.

Initially, we were overwhelmed by the various musical players, scales, and more that the program offers. Luckily, a series of short tutorials in the Help file gave every tool a clear role. Not being experienced musicians, we liked having the ability to choose a song from the collection and follow it note for note on a scale or on the screen's light-up keyboard. We felt that some prior understanding of notation would be necessary, but this … Read more

Zimbra notches 100 percent growth

Lost in the news of Zimbra's release of version 6.0 of its collaboration suite is the importance of one very big number: 50 million. That's how many paid mailboxes Zimbra claims now, a number that puts it within spitting distance of IBM Lotus Notes (approximately 145 million paid mailboxes) and Microsoft Exchange (approximately 175 million paid mailboxes). Whatever the truth to rumors that Zimbra is up for sale, Zimbra is an appreciating asset for Yahoo, not a depreciating one.

For one thing, it's important to consider just how explosive this growth has been. In January 2009, … Read more

Simple organizer

NotesLogExp offers to help users organize practically any bit of information into centralized location. While its design is a little boring, its simple categories are sure to help those flustered by organization.

This program is certainly not going to win any awards for its design, but this bland white screen and several entry fields are the simplest we could hope for. While we could have managed without the Help file, the insight it provided on the program's functionality made the process much smoother. We only needed to populate a new entry's many fields to start filing away information. … Read more

Easy tree organizer

Maple Professional allows users to create tree-style hierarchies to organize information. Although the program is fairly simple to use, some of its functions didn't perform as expected.

The program's interface is basic and intuitive. The screen is split into two parts, with the user's tree on the left and the contents of each node of the tree on the right. Users can easily add nodes to the tree with the click of a button. Most of the other buttons on the interface are related to text formatting and should be familiar to users of Microsoft Office products. … Read more