Webware

Microsoft is stepping closer to providing anywhere access to Office files. The free Office Live Workspace (more here), which lets people share work in Word, Excel and PowerPoint online, is expanding today to invite more beta testers.

You can sign up to try the work in progress at OfficeLive.com, although access may not be immediate. A final version is set for next spring.

When Office 2007 debuted nearly a year ago, it seemed curious that Microsoft offered no easy, one-click option for accessing work from the Web. Meanwhile, Zoho built an add-in for Office 2007, as Google Docs & Spreadsheets and other tools allowed people to share as well as compose work within a browser.

The free, ad-supported Office Live Workspace is a bridge to Office software, not a browser-based replica. Workspace synchronizes changes made to files stored both on a desktop and at Office Live's servers, including Outlook contacts and events. It works with Windows XP SP2, 2003 Server, or Vista with Internet Explorer 6 and Firefox 2 or higher (required for users of Mac OS 10.2 and up).

The online tools preview Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files as well as PDFs, PNGs, and JPGs. Workspace is meant to work in tandem with Word, Excel and PowerPoint XP, 2003, or 2007 running locally on a PC. You can preview, not edit, documents from a browser. Web Notes, on the other hand, do enable the creation and formatting of small text documents online.

Office Live Workspace emphasizes collaboration rather than composition. To share documents with other people, you can send them a secure URL without requiring them to sign in with a Windows Live ID. Everyone with access to the workspace can make and view each others' comments.

Those invited for editing can make changes to the work, as long as they have Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on their hard drive. Office Live Workspace handily preserves the Track Changes feature from Office apps while also keeping five histories of a file. And the Share View screen allows control of another user's PC.

Another desktop component of this service is the Office Live Add-In for Microsoft Office. This is a quick download, although you'll have to restart the system afterward. Once it's installed, a Save to Office Live option will appear under the Office button within Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, with the subsequent dialog box showing your available workspaces.

Workspaces are collections of documents. Ten templates are built to manage a classroom, sports team, travels, job search, household, and so forth. For example, a travel workspace will include an expense report spreadsheet with Word files for an itinerary, packing list, and personal data. You can store a maximum of 500 workspaces containing 500 documents each for a total of 500 MB per account and 25 MB per file.

Office users who learn about these tools are likely to come to depend upon them to stash their work online with a few, quick clicks. Workplaces that use Microsoft's staple software will probably find Workspace a fine collaboration tool that makes it easy to take work away from the office.

This is a well-designed service, but I'd still like something not only to store work, but to let me make edits without opening local applications. What if you only want to correct a misspelled byline in a 20 MB report? You'll have to open Word, since Office Live Workspace doesn't even allow light, text only edits within a browser. I'll continue to lean on Google Docs for that.

Office Live Workspace, by the way, is not to be confused with Office Live Small Business, which offers a free domain name and Web design templates.

Please see more images after the jump.

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If you want instant messaging without an extra app, there's always Meebo. For those missing out on the desktop experience, however, there's a new solution called AirTalkr that does multiclient IM sans a full installation using Adobe's Integrated Runtime (AIR). The service works with five of the major clients, along with several Web services including YouTube, Flickr, along with Twitter and MySpace. In addition to its AIR namesake, there's also a Web version that has identical functionality sans the install, if you're willing to relegate yourself to the Windows Vista-style virtual desktop it creates in your browser.

The app breaks up IM, photos and videos into three different tabs. The IM is multitabbed and supports something called AirCards, which pull up your buddy's MySpace and Friendster profile, along with Flickr shots, Twitter updates, blog, and profile on LinkedIn from their e-mail address. If it can't find it, there are links to ask your buddy (which will start a conversation) or add it yourself using another e-mail address or a URL.

The photos tab links up with Flickr, and if you're a Flickr user you can authorize your the app to browse your photos, which can be opened up and viewed on your desktop. The Video feature is a little more basic, with four pages full of popular and featured videos from YouTube that play in a small window, along with a search tool. The video player is small and cannot be resized, which is where the illusion of a real app begins to break down.

All in all, Air Talkr is off to a good start, although it's in a very competitive field. Competitors like Meebo have things like buddy list pop-out, file transfer, and public rooms. AIR is also a bit young, and still very much in beta. Keep an eye on this one, though, the AirCard concept is a second layer of convergence on top of multiclients that might make this one stand out.

To see a video of Air Talkr in action, click the read more link below. On a related note, if you're a developer working on a hands-on video with your service, Kelly Clarkson is not the way to go.

[via Mashable]

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When is your shiny new Windows Vista protected against evil Web threats? Not as often as we were all led to believe in all those Microsoft Windows Vista ads. I ran across this post from Microsoft's Internet Explorer blog site shortly after the software giant patched the animated cursor flaw in Windows Vista with the release of MS07-017. Microsoft has said that users running IE 7 under Windows Vista are better protected from the malicious effects of Web exploits such as the animated cursor exploit than users running IE 7 under Windows XP IE 7 due to the introduction of a new "sandbox" element (called Protected Mode) within the new operating system. For example, in the case of the animated cursor attack, with Protected Mode enabled, remote attackers can only view files on an infected Windows Vista machine, not run malicious code. Now it seems there are exceptions.

Microsoft says that Protected Mode for IE 7 under Windows Vista is enabled by default only for sites within the Internet, Intranet, and Restricted zones. It is not enabled for Trusted Sites or Local Machine zones. Thus, you are likely to see the Protected Mode icon switch from On to Off and back again as you move between sites that fall within different Internet Explorer zones. To remedy this, Microsoft says you must enable or disable Protected Mode for Trusted Sites or Local Machine zones yourself.

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Google has released a new module to use on its personalized homepage that retains the look and feel of its Windows-only installable chat application, Google Talk. What's interesting is that the Web-based version ends up having a few extra features you don't get with the desktop client. For instance, starting a conversation with a contact creates a new tab on the top of the interface. You can jump through these like tabs on a Web browser. It's far better system than the Google Talk application, which uses expandable horizontal bars like Microsoft Outlook.

There's also a neat new feature that lets you view Picasa albums as well asYouTube videos right inside the chat window, simply by inserting the URL. Interestingly enough, for videos it uses a semitransparent control interface that looks like something you'd find on OS X's Dashboard instead of YouTube's somewhat dated metallic player. I'd be interested to see if it makes its way into YouTube (assuming there still is a YouTube) in the near future.

Google has had a Web-based version of their chat client within Gmail since last June. This new module is coded in Flash, whereas the Gmail one is HTML. Fittingly, the new one is flashier and much more responsive. Despite this, I'd still like to see Google let you 'pop' it out to be placed on the desktop, something you can do with Meebo and conversations in Gmail's chat. Windows Vista users can use Amnesty Generator (review) to put it on their sidebar.

The only drawbacks thus far are a four tabs at-a-time limit, reliance on the Windows app for the call feature, and less customizable interface. Expect those things to be fixed in later versions.

Google has done a short video overview, which I've embedded in this post. In the meantime, you can grab the module here.

[Found on The Google Blog]

This post has been updated from the original. Added: Hands-on video with Amnesty Generator.

For those early adopters out there with Windows Vista, you might be struggling to get some widgets from the Web onto your flashy, new sidebar. To help you out is Amnesty Generator, a small and free app that converts nearly every type of online widget into the 'gadget format' that's compatible with Vista's new desktop toolbar. Using the program requires no coding experience; it's as simple as pasting in the embedding code, and the program does the rest.

Amnesty generator works with Google homepage widgets, as well as simple embeddable objects such as YouTube videos. For Mac users, there's also a version that does the same conversion for Tiger's Dashboard.

[found on Google Code Blog]

AT&T rolled out a new security portal today called Smart Limits. Designed for parents who want to monitor all aspects of their children's activities, the site provides instructions for parental controls of the Internet, cellular phones, television watching, and regular landline telephone calls. There is one catch, though: all the information is for AT&T's services, so it's not going to work on your Comcast cable box or Verizon cell phone.

There's obviously a big push for parental controls, as Windows Vista and Web services like MySpace recently have pushed out new child protection initiatives. Instead of a Web site telling you how to access and monitor these controls in the individual services, I'd like to see AT&T put together a site that would allow you to control and manage all these services remotely. Combine that with Inilex for your car, and your kids will do nothing without you knowing.

Flickr member Hamad Darwish is now a part of computing history, with two of his photographs included in Windows Vista. Usually Microsoft doesn't approach people with (we're assuming) large checks unless they're vying for a name or settling a lawsuit, but Darwish's work wowed Microsoft so much they hired him for a photo shoot.

Apparently there are three more images from Flickr users shipping with Vista, along with a few from Microsoft employees, too.

This is a cool use of services like Flickr. While Corbis, iStockPhoto, and Getty Images are all a hotbed for finding good wallpaper material, Flickr and other photo hosting services are a great place to find budding photographers who likely will be eager to have their work showcased and purchased.

[Found on Flickr blog]

This morning, despite subzero temperatures and a wicked wind chill, a crowd of press, special guests, and Windows Vista beta testers from around the world showed up in Manhattan's post-industrial West Chelsea neighborhood to watch a rather unusual spectacle: a troupe of aerial dancers on the side of the Terminal Building, clad in spandex bodysuits, bouncing around on bungee cords, and forming the Vista and Office 2007 logos. It's all part of the massive Vista launch festivities that are going on all day in NYC leading up to the operating system's consumer debut tomorrow.

Not exactly what you'd expect from Gates, Ballmer, and company. But Microsoft is determined to promote Vista as truly different and innovative, and if the aerial performance by NYC's Grounded troupe is any indicator, it certainly will be.

Developed in concert with Microsoft, the New York Times Times Reader (still in Beta) is a hybrid RSS feed reader and XPS desktop publishing system that runs as a standalone applet on your desktop. Like RSS, the Times Reader updates itself with the latest content from the New York Times. But going beyond traditional RSS, the Times Reader offers the look and feel of the print version of the Times. That's in part because of the new graphics system within .Net Framework 3.0 architecture available within Windows Vista and downloadable for Windows XP SP2 users.

The Times Reader renders New York Times articles better than visiting the Times Web site, providing users with the ability to search throughout the document for keywords; cut and paste, then either save or e-mail citations; and to print whatever content you want. Additional advantages with this reader include the ability to choose an article without scrolling and to read and view content while offline. A very cool "What's Read?" feature grays out the individual articles you've already seen. Another nifty feature is the "News in Pictures" slide show, where you can first preview the day's hottest articles in pictures, then drill down to the text via embedded links. There is no capability yet for rendering video feeds within the Times Reader.

The Times is currently offering a public beta to registered members of its site. Registration is free, however, be prepared to give your e-mail address, year of birth, and zip code. Ostensibly this is prevent minors from registering without adult consent, and to key specific advertising to your particular region of the country. We recommend reading through the member agreement section before signing up.

A few technical caveats: The Times states the minimum hardware requirements are 1Ghz processor, 384MB of RAM (with 500MB of RAM recommended). This application also requires .Net Framework 3.0 be downloaded onto Windows XP SP2. On our test machine, our Net Framework 3.0 installation caused numerous problems and had to be removed. On our Windows Vista machine, we experienced no problems installing or using the Times Reader.