point

The Swiss might have been slightly late in giving women the vote (1971 was the year), but they still believe in certain progressive forms of democracy.

One of these seems to be helping a fascinating political party in its quest to have PowerPoint banned from the country.

The party is called the APPP. Yes, the Anti-PowerPoint Party. It's an organization that has, at its core, the firm belief that the Microsoft presentation software is a waste of fine Swiss resources.

Indeed, it believes that PowerPoint costs Switzerland 2.1 billion Swiss Francs (about $2.5 billion) every year. You … Read more

Office 365, announced today, gives professionals and small businesses a subscription service that lets them work from anywhere using familiar-feeling Web-enabled applications. Combined with hosted versions of Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync, Office 365 is designed to enable users to share, collaborate, and communicate in the cloud. In our testing during the beta, we found that the tools worked well across the board (with some hiccups), and expect that many people who use Office on desktop Macs and PCs will appreciate the familiar look and feel, which should help them get up and running quickly.

Obviously, Office 365 is going to … Read more

Google took a few swings at Microsoft's Office 365 yesterday as the product gears up for its official launch today.

In an official Google blog, Shan Sinha, Google Apps product manager, touted several reasons from his perspective on why customers should opt for Google Apps over the new Office 365. Though he claimed to have 365 reasons in total, Sinha focused on just a few key points, flavored with a couple of quotes from seemingly satisfied Google Apps customers.

Sinha's first claim is that Office 365 is for individuals, while Google Apps is for teams, meaning that Google … Read more

The Green Lantern's Power Ring it ain't, but a ring containing MicroPointing's touchpad is something Q might give 007. With a sensor control area of one square millimeter, the touchpad can easily be embedded in a ring.

Israeli start-up MicroPointing plans to offer the touchpad for embedding in all manner of devices large and small, including smartphones, Netbooks, remote controls, game controls, cameras, steering wheels--anywhere you might want to let your finger do some scrolling.

The touchpad could be on handsets starting in the fourth quarter of next year, according to Avi Rosenzweig, MicroPointing's vice president of business development.

The MicroPointing touchpad works by detecting the force your fingertip produces as it drags across the tiny device's three sensors, according to the company's patent application. The sensors are mounted on tiny posts spaced a few tenths of a millimeter apart--less than the size of a ridge on your fingertip.

The sensors pick up sideways force as your fingertip moves parallel to the touchpad's surface. The company's secret sauce is an algorithm that can pull detailed data from just three sensors, Rosenzweig said.… Read more

Microsoft will officially launch Office 365 on June 28 at an event in New York City.

Hosted by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, the event will start at 10 a.m. local time (7 a.m. PT) and be available via a live Webcast.

Announced in October, Office 365 is Microsoft's effort to offer business customers a cloud-based alternative to its traditional desktop and server products. Office 365 unites Microsoft's Office Web Apps with hosted versions of Exchange and SharePoint along with Lync, which kicks in the online communication and collaboration piece.

Microsoft's announcement of the launch event … Read more

Armed with some strong test results and new features, ZoneAlarm's latest consumer security suite revamp released today is a solid effort to attract new users and retain older fans. Available exclusively from CNET Download.com today, ZoneAlarm has updated its four main consumer options for download: ZoneAlarm Extreme Security, ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite, ZoneAlarm AntiVirus + Firewall, and ZoneAlarm Pro Firewall to feature a new unified look, more-effective threat scans, and some interesting value-added features for users who don't mind paying more to get ancillary security features.

The interface is the most apparent change to the suites, ditching a … Read more

Microsoft tweaked its Office Web Apps earlier this week with a few enhancements designed to make Excel and PowerPoint a bit more user friendly.

Excel aficionados can now insert, delete, and rename individual worksheets in a workbook, just like you can in the desktop version. To do this, open your Excel file in the online editor. Then simply right-click on a tab for an existing worksheet. You'll see the three familiar options to Insert, Delete, or Rename. Inserting adds a new worksheet in front of your current selection. Deleting asking for your confirmation to permanently get rid of the … Read more

When you mount a local hard drive in OS X it will appear in the Computer Name section of the Finder, but may also be found on the Desktop or in the Finder sidebar (unless you have disabled those options). Sometimes, however, when you attach a local hard drive, you will see that the name of the drive has a "-1" or another number appended to it. For instance, if you have a USB flash drive labeled "USB Drive," it may appear as "USB Drive-1" on your system.

In OS X, drives are accessed … Read more

One of the coolest features of RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is how well the device works as a multimedia presentation tool. With its integrated HDMI output and suite of Documents To Go apps, you can deliver high-resolution presentations with ease.

RIM also added a few tweaks to give the PlayBook an advantage over the iPad, such as the capability of selectively locking presentation content to the HDMI output while freeing up the tablet screen for private use and shuffling elements behind the scenes.

For those who want to learn more, I've put together this video and slideshow to … Read more