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Category Archives: Microsoft

NYC Adventures With Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium : The Video!

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At the recent launch of Office 365 Home Premium in New York City’s Bryant Park, I had the opportunity to experience the new features of Office while talking to some very exciting people (keep reading to find out who!). The Microsoft Office 365 experience center showcased the services and applications (for example Word, Excel, PowerPoint and check out OneNote) that together comprise the new Office and demonstrated how they work together for a great experience that helps you amaze, share, connect, explore, create and imagine.   

 

These days, I’m constantly amazed at when and where I can actually get things done. The new Office provides me with instant access to my documents and information offline or online, enabling me to be more productive by utilizing brief segments of my day to get things done for my family and myself. The option to use Office 365 on five devices (including PCs, Macs and Windows tablets), stream full Office apps to any Windows 7 or 8 PC, and use Office Web Apps on mobile devices also gives me the flexibility work how I want. After all, being more efficient during the day simplifies my life, and makes my nights less hectic.

 
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Check out my new video on BlogHerTV that not only shares a VIP tour of the launch but also showcases interviews with interesting people. See what busy mom and Hollywood actress Felicity Huffman says came to her rescue managing her life as a mom. Hear what my blogger buddy Jen Singer from MommaSaid.net can do from a waiting room at the Vet and learn tips from Office Insiders regarding how they are using the new Office to make their life easier. Of course, considering where I was (Bryant Park on a beautiful winter day), I had to put on some ice skates for a New York City winter adventure. Luckily, Jen Singer decided to join in the fun!

 

 

What is Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium? A Game Changer For Families.

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The new Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium is out and quite simply, it is a game changer. I just came back from the new Office 365 Experience (launch) at CitiPond at Bryant Park, NYC where I had the opportunity to work with BlogHer to gather tips and ideas on how to use new Office to be more productive. The Office Experts were at different activity hubs within the Office 365 Experience to discuss connecting, sharing, personalizing and exploring.

 

 

Office 365 Home Premium

 

 

As a busy mom pressed for time, having my documents, spreadsheets, presentations, photos and videos in different silos was not working out very well. I spent too much time trying to remember the location of the latest version a document, or location of a photo…. did I have access to it from my online device or offline on my desktop? And my “office” location rotates on a daily basis from my desk, to a client’s meeting room, to a coffee house and even inside my minivan while waiting for my kids to get out of school. Enough was enough, managing my information was stressing me out! Especially with the new reality that the 9 to 5 workday is history, I need access to all of my information across all my devices no matter where I am.

 

Office 365 Home Premium

 

 

For quite some time, I have used Microsoft Office 2010 for my social media work and my whole family has used Word, Excel and PowerPoint for homework, creative projects, communication and all things productivity. So when I received an advanced copy of the new Office a week ago, I looked forward to seeing how using Office 365 Home Premium could change my daily workflow. I also looked forward to learning new tips from the Office 365 Experience launch.

 

Many cloud-based productivity suites already exist, but what impressed me about the new Office 365 Home Premium is the seamless workflow between devices, online and offline. For me, that seamless integration not only simplified my day, but gave me the confidence to know how to access the most current version of my information no matter where I was working. Adding in my new Windows 8 PCs meant that I could also use the new Office with touch or a stylus as easily as a mouse and keyboard. My day seemed to flow so much better, it was simply a game changer for my work and home productivity.

 

Here are some of the exciting features of the new Office.

  • A single subscription to Office 365 Home Premium allows the use of Office on up to 5 PCs or Macs shared among all users in the home and includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, and Publisher.  Upgrades are now automatic.
  • Subscribers also have flexibility to change their 5 devices at any time. This means that instead of Office belonging to one device, it belongs to the subscriber across devices.
  • This subscription also includes 60 minutes of Skype world calling per month and 20 GB SkyDrive storage in addition to the 7GB every Microsoft Account holder gets for free. Additional Skydrive storage is available.
  • Office 365 Home Premium is available in both physical and online stores for $99.99 billed annually ( a great deal at  $8.34 per month).   A free 30 day trial is also available online.
  • Subscribers can stream full Office apps to any Internet-connected Windows 7 or 8 PC with Office on Demand.  With Office Web apps you can view, create and edit Office files on virtually any device, enabling sharing and collaboration.
  • Office 365 Home Premium applications allow the flexibility of writing, typing or using touch.

 

At the Office 365 Experience, I also had the fun and fabulous opportunity to interview well-known actress Felicity Huffman, blogging buddy Jen Singer of Mommasaid.net and Office Insiders.

 

Felicity Huffman sharing her productivity tips with TechMama at the Office 365 Home Premium Launch.

 

 

Beth of TechMamas.com and Jen of Mommasaid.net on skates at #Timeto365? More details of their adventures in the soon to be released video..

 

 

They all highlighted how the new Office has changed the way they manage their home and work lives, online and offline. I especially enjoyed their tips on how they use Office to organize their day as busy parents and professionals. A video of the interviews along with a VIP tour of the Office 365 Experience will be posted soon on Techmamas.com and BlogHer.com.

 

Here are some of the pictures from the Office 365 Experience at CitiPond at Bryant Park (photos in PowerPoint stored in Skydrive):

I will be sharing additional details and tips about the New Office in future upcoming videos with TechMamas.com and BlogHer. The New Office 365 Experience will be at Bryant Park until Saturday – so if you live in NYC stop by to discover more about the new Office. If you are not near NYC, visit Office.com to learn more.

 

 

 Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. All of my words are my own.

 

 

 

Building Success: Using Bing Webmaster Tools

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As part of my preparation for BlogHer PRO, I had the opportunity to speak to Duane Forrester, Sr. Product Manager with Bing’s Webmaster Program. He will be leading the lunch Keynote titled, “Lunch, and Keynote Brought to You by Bing — Growing Your Audience and Influence with Social + Search”.  Forrester explained to me the details of his personal journey: to share with others how to build success and how to leverage your business assets to become successful. He also believes that to deliver a quality product you need to have customer interaction.  His two books, “Turn Clicks Into Customers: Proven Marketing Techniques for Converting Online Traffic into Revenue” and “How to Make Money with Your Blog: The Ultimate Reference Guide for Building, Optimizing, and Monetizing Your Blog” detail how a business can increase customers and generate revenue with blogs.

 

We discussed many different topics related to blogging and one was of particular interest. Forrester discussed the new features of the Bing Webmaster tools including the “Link Explorer, SEO Analyzer/SEO Reports, and updates to current tools such as our Keyword Research Tool (beta), and our URL Removal Tool.” Bing Webmaster tools (available to anyone) detail standard info including queries, your site’s ranking and where you were shown. The tools also send alerts and when combined with Bing crawler you can proactively manage bandwidth by time of day. Another option is to set controls that someone else manages for your website. With Link Explorer you can not only see who is linking to you, but also who is linking to your competitors. BingBot offers the ability to have a crawler fetch your blog’s URL then have a search engine assess the code on the page and come back with a status. For example, you can watch out for signs of hacks in your websites such as really long links. Forrester shared important advice for all bloggers: we should get to know what “normal” code looks like on our website so we can spot when it has been hacked.

 

In addition to all of these tools, Bing is now the first search engines to provide SEO advice to users. This is accomplished with SEO Analyzer, which scans a URL then shares what SEO work needs to be done.This tool helps you know what SEO work needs to be done now, helps you learn more about SEO from a trusted source and can help you test fresh areas of your site quickly.
When I checked out the Bing Webmaster Tools online, I was happy to see blog posts from the Bing Webmaster blog that explains key product areas. For those who want to find out more, there are Bing Webmaster Guidelines blog posts and  free recorded webinars . The Bing Webmaster Getting Started Checklist is a great place for the user to start outlining the process and tools to build workflow. This checklist covers areas such as how to configure your site reports and data, Webmaster diagnostic tools and SEO Analyzer.

 

Here are some of the blog posts that are great resources not only for Bing Webmaster tools but also for SEO and reporting:

 

For more information, check the BlogHer Pro live blogs.

 

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post.