Flying back in time
Filed under: Conversation, Microsoft, New Web Creations, New technology, Web services
There are some things you just have to write about.
For me the return of Microsoft Flight Simulator is one of them. Dreams of earlier days sitting at my wheezing desktop, landing my plane at a California airstrip, as the hard drive and the machine RAM spluttered like the propellor.
It’s going to return, it’s called Flight and you can see the campaign vision here.
Get your goggles and gloves ready, this time we are in high-def plasma and high speed broadband.
Microsoft, I can hardly wait!
Small Basic – big concept
Filed under: Community, Conversation, Microsoft, New technology, Web services
Microsoft’s Small Basic has reached version 0.9.
Microsoft say that many bugs have been fixed and the system now works faster than ever. To see the updates in this version you can visit the Small Basic archive here.
What’s it for? One thing is as a great entry level for young people into the world of coding and software creation.
Lynn Langit and Llewellyn Franco have put together a great web site for children and teachers – www.teachingkidsprogramming.org
You can find a great way, as a tutor, into the world of code here and for young people the site offers the tools to get to grips with programming too.
We have written about Small Basic a long time ago, but the latest version and the Langit/Franco concept makes it a great way to get started for young people to create their own programmes.
The Third Sector Web home page is here.
Microsoft Web Office – now live
Filed under: Community, Microsoft, New Web Creations, New technology, Web services
Microsoft have gone live with their new free online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.
You can access them thorugh your Windows Live desktop after signing in. The files are stored on your linked SkyDrive account and enable you to recall, share or edit files just as if they were on your laptop or PC.
The suite available offers a reduced set of functions from the full set of facilities available in Office 2010, but still includes enough to make creating documents a useful online experience.
We were pleased to see OneNote included. This is a powerful information management and note taking, action list driven tool and is a useful compliment to the other online services available.
Microsoft with Windows Live accounts, the revamped Hotmail and this new suite now offers a useful and intuitive package.
We think the road-warriors on our team will definitely be using it.
You can find our Third Sector Web home page here.
The Internet of Things
Filed under: Community, Conversation, Microsoft, New Web Creations, New technology, Web services
We looked recently on this blog at where Microsoft thought the direction the technological world was going.
Below, this short film The Internet of Things is a vision of the same future from IBM.
Sensors will be linked to hardware and information generated will be filtered, analysed and used to make wise choices about our lives and activities.
IBM see the internet as the nerve backbone of the globe, which will generate a new concept of the Earth. A giant information generation system.
Welcome to the e-world. Whichever vision you cleave to, we are in for an interesting ride in the next twenty years.
Crocodoc – share and save
Filed under: Community, Conversation, Microsoft, New Web Creations, New technology, Web services
Simple collaboration – with Crocodoc you can upload documents in Word, PowerPoint or pdf, as well as open web page snapshots, in order to mark them up, annotate and draw on them and save them again as a pdf download.
Each item you open in Crocodoc is allocated a unique web address, which you can share with colleagues, clients or friends – so that you can work together on the material.
The ability to store you document on the Crocodoc server means that you can return to your archived work in progress if you wish.
The killer element for us though, is the ability to download a pdf version of the completed revised document.
This is simple, elegant collaboration – for free.
You do need to sign up for a free account to save your document. An enterprise version of Crocodoc is available.
You can find the home page of Third Sector Web here.
The future according to Microsoft
Filed under: Conversation, Microsoft, New Web Creations, New technology, Web services
Craig Mundie is the Chief Research and Strategy Officer for Microsoft. His job is to envision and explain how changes in software and hardware will have an effect on the computer user in the coming decades.
Use the Microsoft News link below to access the film archive and see a short film by Mundie which explains some of the key concepts in Microsoft future thinking. Not only will ‘cloud computing’ become more powerful and accessible, but the development of what Microsoft call natural user interfaces’ will dramatically affect present day users.
Our laptops and devices will also go on getting more powerful and, Mundie argues, enable the creation of ‘personal assistants’. Where our devices can render support and services in the way that a human support worker can offer at present.
Games and flat screen touch technology will also offer a paradigm shift in how we look at, interrogate and sort information.
Mundie’s film is good on featuring practical application change that will be recognisable to the computer user of today.
You can find the Third Sector Web home page here.
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