Office 2010… It’s Here!

If you’re a student, you probably need Microsoft Office …but please don’t pay full price!

There several sources that you can use to get Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access at an extreme student discount.

However, before you spend any money, consider the Free Trial of Office 2010.

If you’re thinking about buying Microsoft Office 2010, but aren’t sure that you really need it — or, if you do need it but don’t have the cash to buy it today — you can get a free trial version that you can use for 60 days.

For best results, choose Microsoft® Office Professional 2010. (If you are planning to use your software for CIS 1A, be sure to get the Professional Edition of Office).

To download your free 60-day trial from Microsoft.com, you’ll need to have a Windows Live ID (in other words, a user account from Windows Live, MSN, or Hotmail); RCC students can use their free RCC student e-mail account.

You’ll also need a fast Internet connection, because you’ll be downloading about 750 MB.

Be sure to make a note of the product activation key you will receive during the download process. You’ll need to use that key to activate your software.

Once your free trial is over (typically in 60 days), the software operates in “Reduced Functionality mode” and behaves similarly to a viewer (in other words, you can’t save changes to existing documents or create any new documents).

As you near the end of your evaluation period, you’ll receive offers to buy the product at full price. Ignore those offers — if you want to buy the Microsoft Office 2010, be sure to take advantage of special student pricing and one of these two sources:

Source 1: Download Office Professional Academic 2010 direct from Microsoft, for only $79.95 You will get:

• Access® 2010
• Excel® 2010
• OneNote® 2010
• Outlook® 2010
• PowerPoint® 2010
• Publisher 2010
• Word 2010

This is an official academic discount price from Microsoft, with all the Office 2010 applications most students will ever need. This site also has special student discounts on Windows 7. This academic offer is for students only, not faculty.

Students must be actively enrolled at a U.S. educational institution, with at least 0.5 course credit (and must provide proof of enrollment upon request). Software is delivered by digital download; the cost for ordering disks is an additional $13.00.

Source 2: Another great discount for both students and faculty is Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010  for $79.98 at JourneyEd.com (download price).

This deal includes:

• Access® 2010
• Excel® 2010
• OneNote® 2010
• Outlook® 2010
• PowerPoint® 2010
• Publisher 2010
• Word 2010
• InfoPath
• Communicator

One advantage to ordering software from JourneyEd is the availability of phone support should you have any questions about your order.

Delivery is by instant digital download. For additional $7.95 you can get Software Replacement Assurance (which lets you reinstall your software when needed, even if you no longer have the original installation media.)

This $79.98 academic price is part of Microsoft’s Student Select pricing program, which is limited to participating Higher Ed institutions. The list of participating schools is quite extensive …but even students who are not enrolled in one of these schools can still get an academic discount, at a slightly higher price.

For more information about Microsoft Office 2010, visit the Microsoft’s website or the Office 2010 blog.

These sources detailed above are two legitimate sources for good student discounts are Microsoft products, and my students and I have had good experiences with both sites.

I buy my own software at JourneyEd, but there are certainly other academic sellers with good reputations, so it never hurts to comparison shop. Just be sure to exercise due diligence before you buy. I encourage you to check out prospective online sellers carefully—before trusting them with your credit card, especially if the price you’re getting seems “too good to be true.”

By the way, at JourneyEd the item number for Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 (as described above) was 38441473LARS (price verified July 29, 2010). Prices subject to change. JourneyEd is an affiliate sponsor for this website, which means that I might get paid a sponsorship fee if my visitors shop at JourneyEd.

Have you had any good (or bad) experiences buying software online? Share your comments below…

This short video explains how to take an MP3 file, insert it into a PowerPoint show, and make it play automatically when the presentation begins.

How To Add Music To A PowerPoint Presentation

This demonstration uses an MP3 file. MP3s provide good compression (i.e smaller file sizes) and are the most popular format for digital music. The technique also works with other formats, like WMA (Windows Media Audio) and WAV (Windows Audio).

Using an MP3 file is much better than trying to run the music off an audio CD. The presentation is easier to set up, loads faster, doesn’t depend of having a CD present, and works well on any machine — as long as the MP3 file always in the same folder as the PowerPoint presentation.

The video show how to use the  settings to Play across slides and Loop until stopped …so the music continues to play until the presentation is finished.

Keep in mind that some music tracks sound better when looped than others — in fact some tracks are designed to be looped seamlessly.

For music and loop tracks (plus audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, etc.) released under a Creative Commons License, check out The Freesound Project or ccMixter.

Tutorial: Quick Start Guide to Sharing a File on drop.io on Vimeo.

VIDEO: Solve a common email problem
Attaching a large file to an email message can be inconvenient at best — but it can be downright inconsiderate or impractical if the files are really big.

If you ever need to share files or pictures… or even voicemail, drop.io will do all that and more, for free. The numerous free services drop.io provides include…

• audio drops
• voicemail
• collaboration
• privacy
• chat
• integration with Facebook and Twitter

…most of which are beyond the scope of this short video.

I do hope this tutorial gets you started. To discover everything else that drop.io can do, explore http://drop.io

Lately I’ve received a few questions about creating screenshots. This post will provide some information about capturing an image of your computer’s screen using any version of Microsoft Windows.

What is a screenshot?

A screenshot (also called screen print, or screen capture, or screen dump) is simply a image of your computer screen that is captured and saved as an graphics file.

Screenshots can be used to…

• Make a record of something that you have done with your computer
• Illustrate a tutorial
• Create a walk-through of a computer game
• Document a problem with your computer that you need to report to Tech Support

Making a screenshot is very simple…

Before you begin, look at your keyboard and locate the Print Screen key. It will probably be near the Back Space key, and it may be labeled PrtScr or something similar. When you press the Print Screen key, an image of your screen is temporarily stored in the computer’s memory. Once you have captured the screenshot, you’ll need to paste it into an application like Paint, or Word or Adobe Photoshop.

1. Arrange everything on your screen to your liking
2. Press the Print Screen key
3. Open Microsoft Word
4. Position the insertion point where the screenshot should be located
5. Click the Paste button
   (it looks like a clipboard… or type Ctrl V on the keyboard)
6. Your new screenshot should be inserted.

I like to use Word to paste my screen shots because Word handles the image with some intelligence that makes life easier: it re-sizes the image to fit into the document, and compresses the image to create a smaller file. (You’ll get similar results using Paint on Vista, which saves the image as a JPG file.)

To take a Screenshot of the “active window” only, press Alt and Print Screen together. This will take a picture of the topmost window only (aka the Active Window), eliminating the clutter of other windows in the background, the Task Bar, etc. It’s also very useful when you have two monitors!

 For a good video lesson on capturing screenshots on both Mac and Windows, see “How to take screen shots on your Mac or PC” at Lynda.com.

Some laptop computers don’t have a Print Screen key. In that case, you may be interested in one of these products: Jing or  ScreenHunter 5 Free – both of these products have versions that are free for personal and business use.

Image sources:
Standard 102-key computer keyboard with the Print screen key marked in red.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/solylunafamilia/3016899983/

Other resources:

Tutorial: “Windows Print Screen Key”
microsoft.com: “Take a screen shot”
wikipedia: “Screenshot”

Microsoft has re-introduced special student pricing for Office 2007 through a promotion called “The Ultimate Steal.”

Qualified students can purchase the “Ultimate Edition” of Office 2007 for only $59.95. This Ultimate Edition includes all the Office applications, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, Publisher, OneNote, Groove and InfoPath. Complete details are available at theultimatesteal.com.

To be eligible for the special price, students must…

• Have an email account ending in .EDU
  (or have an email account at another qualifying institutions)
• Be currently enrolled in a US school
• Carry at least a 0.5 course credit

The Ultimate Steal Promotion had originally been introduced when in 2007, but it ended on April 30, 2008.

According to Naman Khan (Worldwide public sector strategy manager for Microsoft Office)…

“Students responded overwhelmingly to The Ultimate Steal last year, telling us that they need Microsoft Office and want more flexible ways to get the latest version… This offer provides students with an accessible and convenient means to acquire [Office] at a great price to help them reach their academic goals.”

With the program’s renewal, the promotion has been extended to include an offer for a  Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade* for $64.95, and Visio Professional 2007 for $55.95. Microsoft has  stated that the offer is currently scheduled to last until December 31, 2010.

Students can obtain the software by downloading from The Ultimate Steal Web site during the purchase process, or they can choose to order disk(s) for and additional $13.00.

Sources:

The Ultimate Steal Web site
Ultimate Steal Terms and Conditions
The Ultimate Steal: A Deal on the 2007 Microsoft Office for Students
Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 product overview
The Ultimate Steal Offers Students Easy Access to Microsoft Office 2007

* Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade available to licensed users of Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows NT Workstation 4.0, Windows 98, Apple Macintosh.