Microsoft Equipt launching in UK next Monday: rent Office software

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Microsoft has announced that it will be launching its Equipt software subscription service in the UK next week. We announced the service in July, when it became available to US customers for $70 per year.

The service offers Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, Windows Live OneCare, and Windows Live tools for an annual subscription of £59.99 (the exchange rate rip-off is at work again). It will initially be sold through PC World.

OpenOffice 3.0 released

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What’s your favourite open-source Microsoft Office alternative? Yay! I love OpenOffice too! Let’s be friends, and throw a party, because version 3.0 has just been released. In the new version: native Mac OS X compatibility, support for version 1.2 of the OpenDocument format, and compatibility with Microsoft’s OOXML format.

The latter feature is particularly useful, given that Office 2007 saves .docx files by default – something that’s confused many a hapless user as they tried to send stuff to people using older versions of the office suite…

YouTube Video of the Week: Computer history via interpretive dance

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Again, not quite on YouTube, but I couldn’t resist this adorable video of pixellated office workers taking you through the history of computing in the form of interpretive dance. The music’s rather charming as well. I think we might have a rival to our very own Tech Trumpet.

Related videos: Deepest fish…. ever! | Lil’ Bill O’Reilly

"HAVIN GUD TIME. HAS PHOTOCPIER GT TONER?" – 65% of people contact office while on holiday

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We are a nation of WORKAHOLICS that are heading for an EARLY GRAVE thanks to technology. Those are the findings of a report by data protection agency Credant Technologies. It didn’t mention early graves, but I can assure you it would’ve if it could’ve.

The shock statistic is that the days of relaxing holidays are long gone, with 65% of us checking in with the office via email, phone…

Microsoft Equipt: subscription-based Office and OneCare software

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Microsoft has announced that it will sell a subscription-based bundled version of its Office and OneCare software in the States later this month.

The $70 per year offering will enable users to gain access to the latest versions of the software without having to buy them outright. Whenever Microsoft updates the software (say, from Office 2007 to “Office 14” expected in 2009) users will automatically get the upgrade…

VIDEO: What's best? Working from home? Or working in the office?

Thanks to working for the very forward-thinking and modernist Shiny Media, I’m often afforded the luxury of being able to work from home.

But is it all it’s cracked up to be? Is the relaxed nature of home working beneficial, or do you end up slacking off more? Does the stricter office environment force you to work harder, or does the diversion of other people actually slow you down? What’s best? Home? Or office?

Let’s find out via a video comparison!

Hitachi unveils your future desk mate

EMIEW-2-office-robot.jpgMeet EMIEW 2. EMIEW stands for Excellent Mobility and Interactive Existence as Workmate, which is a nightmare for the poor thing to type in every morning when it logs onto the network, so EMIEW 2 it is.

EMIEW is an office worker robot, which was recently demonstrated at Hitachi’s Research Lab. It has the ability to (brace yourself) guide visitors…