office

Cubicle periscope keeps eye on co-workers

As staunch advocates of workplace productivity, we at Crave seize on any tips that may help hasten your day at the office. A few months ago, for instance, we featured an ingenious item called the "StealthSwitch," a foot-operated device that instantly hides whatever is on your screen the moment an inconsiderate co-worker approaches your personal space.

Further fulfilling our obligation today is the "Sportscope Cubicle Periscope," which Technabob concedes was designed for spectator sports but is also "ideally suited for snooping around your office." We prefer to look at it in a more positive … Read more

Microsoft Office Live

Category: Productivity

Microsoft Office Live is Microsoft's attempt at creating a low-cost a la carte alternative to some of the small business software solutions that's available--including their own. It's designed to get a small business on the Web--both publicly, with a Web site, and privately, for collaboration and back-office work. Businesses get their own domain, e-mail, shared workspaces, Web site, and a contact manager tool.

Microsoft offers three tiers of Office Live service. One is free, with the other two being paid premium versions that throw in more shared storage space, e-mail addresses, and more back-office tools, … Read more

Office interior is an homage to Verne's Captain Nemo

If you've caught the nautical bug but aren't sure you want to live in a pineapple under the sea, consider this. Pirate-friendly game development company Three Rings Design has pimped out its office so that it resembles the interior of the high-seas-steampunk Nautilus submarine from Jules Verne's classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The interior is a mishmash of old maps, eye-catching colors, (fake) wheels and cogs, and Victorian-era styling that's sure to enamor just about anyone who ever thought that Star Trek-inspired interiors just weren't elegant enough. This masterpiece of a makeover was … Read more

Feds enlist public's help on techy patent filings

Critics of the U.S. patent system have long griped that it's entirely too easy to get patents these days on obvious or otherwise unmeritorious inventions--in part because overworked patent examiners don't have ready access to information about what's already out there.

A yearlong pilot project, endorsed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in partnership with the New York Law School, is supposed to help.

The goal behind the Peer to Patent Project, officially launched last Friday, is to allow anyone who's interested to weigh in on 250 pending patent applications belonging to … Read more

News flash: Microsoft finds that it is god of its own world

I must admit that I am shocked - SHOCKED - that Microsoft found that its software is better than open source software on the desktop for European schools. Shocked, I tell you! I mean, after hours of rigorous study and painfully bought and paid for research, to find out that it likes its own software more than open source.... Who would have thought?

For those who aren't aware, Microsoft paid Wipro Technologies to come up with findings (as Mary Jo Foley and others have reported) that show that open source software on the desktop stinks for schools, and that Microsoft is manna from heaven.

Among the "findings":

In schools where both Microsoft Office and Open Office are available, student and teacher satisfaction with Microsoft is consistently higher. For desktop productivity, 48?50 per cent of schools reported that student satisfaction with Microsoft products is higher than with OSS, but only 17?26 per cent reported the same for the open source platform.… Read more

Alpha alert: OpenOffice.org for Mac

OpenOffice.org programmers have released a very rough version of the open-source office suite that runs natively on Mac OS X.

The Microsoft Office competitor works on Linux and Unix systems using the X11 graphical interface, but the new version uses Apple's native Aqua interface.

It's alpha software, though. "This software may crash and may destroy your data. Do not use this software for real work in a production environment," the download site warns. And there are serious issues yet to be addressed: it can't print, copy and paste aren't fully functioning, and the … Read more

Control the office climate from your cubicle

It could be all the microclimates here on CNET's sixth floor, or it could just be my co-workers' widely divergent internal thermostats. Either way, a given day here in the office will see some of us shivering and reaching for thick sweaters, while others complain that the place is steaming hot. What's a newsroom comprised of such varying body temperatures to do?

Office furniture maker Herman Miller, it turns out, has come up with the C2, a $300 personal climate control device for just such a workplace dilemma. The company--which notes on its Web site that temperature control … Read more

Office Live partners for Web design service

Microsoft announced Tuesday a new service designed to help the small businesses that use Office Live get their Web site professionally designed. Microsoft said it is partnering with Website Pros to offer an $80 monthly service to allow businesses to set up and maintain their Web site using the Microsoft tools.

As part of the new service, users get a five-page Web site designed for them by Website Pros, with that site then submitted to MSN, Google, Yahoo and 100 other search engines, as well as business cards and a listing in Yahoo's yellow pages.

Patent Office board to revisit Microsoft-Eolas spat

In a move that could shape an upcoming retrial, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has agreed once again to revisit Web browser plug-in patents at the heart of a dispute between Microsoft and University of California spinoff Eolas Technologies.

Microsoft associate general counsel Andy Culbert told CNET News.com in a telephone interview on Friday that the Patent Office agreed last week to undertake what is known as an interference proceeding.

An interference proceeding occurs when the Patent Office has determined that two separate patent holders hold patents covering the same subject matter. A five-judge panel within the … Read more

Mac users get a better work experience with NeoOffice

Whether they are "switchers" or longtime Mac users, one of the first downloads many people look for when firing up a new Mac are office programs. With Microsoft Office as the most commonly used office program in the workplace, people understandably want their home computers to be able to work with the same types of documents. The problem is, the retail version of Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac is $399 (from Microsoft's Web site).

Fortunately, a group of developers started OpenOffice.org to create an open-source solution with the mission of providing a free alternative to Microsoft Office. If you've tried looking for free office alternatives before, you've undoubtedly run across OpenOffice, but if you're a Mac user, there's something else that might be even better.… Read more