I
received several emails last week after my final Office 2013 article. They asked if I would use it or not. They wanted to know what I really thought, so this should be the absolutely, positively last Office 2013 column. I am also including a reminder about Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Office 2013 has several revamped and new features which make it a better suite, particularly with Excel. I also like Word, PowerPoint, OneNote (which I did not write much about since few people use it…hmm, future article?) and all the others with my least favorite being Outlook. However, most home users will not use Outlook anyway since it is mostly used in the corporate environs.
Since I do not like to spend much money, would I buy it? Nope, I thought Office 97 was one of the best ever and with recent versions you get some neat features. You also get a lot of "fluff" that the large percentage of users will never see. Once MS added OneNote in 2003 I had all the extras I needed. If you are going to college or are a high end user I would without doubt recommend the upgrade since you may need more than the older versions have to offer.
I do have 2013 for my computers but I get it at a very much reduced price so I think it is worth the cost. At full price I would personally wait until I had to have it. Also, remember if you are not that excited by the price or Microsoft (yes, I know some of you are haters) you can get "Libre Office" for free. It comes highly recommended by me and more geeks farther up the nerd-food chain than I.
Now, let us move on to Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE for short). On May 3rd there was security issue regarding MSIE 8. There was a coding exploit that led to the U.S. Department of Labor Web site being hacked along with some others. It was reported there was no major damage or security issue from this attack.
Microsoft also came out with a fix to download a couple of days after the problem was discovered. But come on folks, just update your software like you are supposed to and you most likely will not have problems like this. At least, you would have avoided that one.
Even if you are on a dialup connection (I hope you are not) you need to update your antivirus and windows software at the very least. It is very easy to do and will only take a short period of time…if you do it monthly.
Many people complain that windows updates take too long. The reason is they do it once every 6-12 months and they have hundreds of updates they have to get done. MS releases regular updates on the second Tuesday of every month so sometime during that week I suggest you update. You can also set your computer to update automatically but I like to do it manually to make sure I get all of the updates possible.
Also, MSIE 8 came out in March, 2009 which is ancient in terms of computer programs. Since MSIE 10 was released February 26, 2013 I suggest you get it along with all of your other updates. It is a very easy way to help stay safe online, so just do it!
