Digital Chaos Control

Tag: google

  • What Everyone Ought to Know About Office Alternatives

    What Everyone Ought to Know About Office Alternatives

    Microsoft Office

    Microsoft Office has been a workhorse for years.

    Many of us first became accustomed to it in our corporate work. If you’re still working in a corporate setting or if you’re creating detailed documents, spreadsheets, or presentations on a PC, there’s still nothing that beats Office for standard and more advanced content creation.

    Office is not cheap.

    A single license of Office Home and Student costs $120, but we’re often working on multiple devices these days. If you want to install Office on your home computer, your office computer, and your iPad, you’re better off with Office 365, which costs $9.99/month. Other advantages to Office 365 include automatic updates and new downloads to new computers.

    Office on the Mac has always been an afterthought for Microsoft, and not as full-featured as its PC equivalent. (However, Microsoft made many improvements in its Office 2016 version for the Mac.) Fortunately, if you’re on a Mac, you’ve got a great alternative – Apple’s application suite – Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. (Just remember to convert to the Office document equivalent when sharing files so that PC users can open them.)

    If you don’t need the advanced options that Office provides, then Google Docs is worth checking out.

    Mac or PC, you’ve also got an alternative with Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides. These applications are completely free to use on the web and also via the Google Docs mobile apps. Advantages include 15 GB of cloud storage space, easy collaboration with other Google users, and conversion to Office files for sharing.

    Office OnlineAnother option, perhaps even a better one than Google Docs, is Office Online. You can use the online versions of Word, PowerPoint, and Excel free of charge, with 5 GB of cloud storage. The online versions don’t have all of the features as the paid versions, but that may be fine if you’re not a power user.

    Microsoft Office OutlookMicrosoft Office for Business also includes Outlook, which is a nice integrated email reader, contacts manager, calendar, and task manager. Outlook calendar and contacts can sync with your iOS device by installing the iCloud plug-in, but you’ll need to look at third-party apps for Android contacts sync, or sign up for a Google for Work account.

    Mac Mail Office AlternativeIf you’re a Mac user and you don’t have Outlook, or you don’t want to use the Mac version of Outlook, then Mac Mail is a fine program and integrates well with the Mac Address Book. You will have to launch the Mac Calendar and Mac Reminders separately. (If you’d like to know how to integrate Mac Mail with Mac Reminders, read my blog post here: How to Ingrate Email with Task Management). The Mac Calendar and Mac Address Book can sync with both iOS and Android (through your Google account).

    Windows has always had a basic email program as part of its Windows Essentials. In Windows 10, Microsoft released a new mail program with integrated calendar and contacts. (The jury is still out on this program as Microsoft works out the bugs.) With the release of Windows 10 Mail, Microsoft will no longer be updating Windows Live Mail, and will no longer support it for outlook.com email addresses. Unlike Outlook, Windows 10 Mail will sync with both iOS and Android contacts.

    Thunderbird Office AlternativeFor years, I’ve been using a free program from Mozilla called Thunderbird as my email reader on the PC. Thunderbird, like Outlook, is extensible with add-ons, so I have a calendar add-on called Lightning, and another add-on that syncs with my Google calendar. There are available add-ons for contacts sync as well. Thunderbird is a full-featured program that may be a bit difficult for many people to learn, and the search function is limited. However, if you’re on a PC, you don’t have Outlook, and you have multiple email addresses that you want to manage in one place, then Thunderbird is an excellent option.

    Need help with Office or your email program? Contact me.

     

  • Do You Swipe?

    Do You Swipe?

    If you have a smartphone, you probably do. Apple’s iOS first popularized the use of swipe gestures such as swiping between app screens. In later iOS updates, Apple added more swipe gestures, such as swiping down to see notifications. Now, smartphone applications are adding their own swipe gestures, which are similar to clicking on something in a computer application and then selecting an action. But swiping is so much simpler, isn’t it?

    When you think about all of the actions that you can take with an email – reply to it, forward it, delete it, archive it, move it, flag it, etc., have you ever wondered if there’s a more efficient way?

    Swipe Gestures for Apple Mail

    Apple, Microsoft, and lots of other application developers have been thinking about it too. Here’s what you can do now with Apple mail on your iOS 9 device:

    • You can swipe on an email from left to right and mark the email as “Unread”.iOs Mail Swipe
    • As you swipe slowly from right to left, you can select “Archive”, “Flag”, or “More…”. From “More..”, you can select “Reply All”, “Forward”, “Mark..”, “Notify Me…”, “Move Message”.
    • Swiping quickly from right to left will delete the message.

    If you don’t like these gestures, you can go to your Mail settings and change them.

     

    On your Macintosh, you can swipe left on an email to delete it, or swipe right to mark it as read.

    Other Applications are Going Further

    Some application developers are going further. Here are a couple of examples:

    Google Inbox Swipe

    • Outlook for iOS adds the ability to swipe to schedule an email. This is like a “snooze” feature for an email that you don’t have time to deal with right now.
    • In Google’s Inbox app, swiping right marks the email as “Done.” Swiping left will “snooze” it, similar to Outlook’s “swipe to schedule”. Swiping down or up will close the email.

    One of the biggest breakthroughs in technology was the mouse and the ability to move a cursor around the screen, click to select, and click to perform an action. In the mobile-centric 21st century, we are moving rapidly toward an all-touchscreen world. Knowing the swipe gestures and other kinds of gestures for your favorite applications will keep you working efficiently.

    Confused about how to swipe? Contact me.