Stan's List

MacWorld 2010 is considered a success due to the number of attendees. Crowded bothThursday and Friday. due to the expo being only in the North conference center. Apple was always on the South side and thus crowds were divided between the two sides with more on the South side than the North where smaller venders usually were found.

The Showwx laser pico projector can be connected to any device that display photos or video, such as a Mac Book or iPod or iPhone. Always stays in focus, whether projecting a 6 inch image up to 200 inches, in WVGA (848×480) format. The battery can usually power projection of an entire movie before requiring recharge. The Showwx should be available in the US in March, they had a working prototype at the expo. It is currently available in Europe and Asia. Certainly deserved the best of show award.

Office for iPhone or IPod Touch allows viewing, editing and creating MS Word and Excel documents. Many of the commands in the full version are included in the iPhone/Touch version and are listed on their web page. A number of the commands take advantage of the iPhone/Touch, particularly the Excel commands.

Both the Showwx and Office for iPhone/Touch would seem useful together, though graphs are not mentioned as a feature.in Office for iPhone/Touch.

Eye-Fi adds Wi-fi to your camera, enabling one to send photos to their computer without connecting either one to each other.

There is a compatibility page, as some camera’s can not accept a 4 GB SD memory card. My Nikon D50 can not read more than a 2 GB memory card, whereas my wife’s CoolPix S710 can.

Eleven Engineering, a semiconductor company, has targeted a new wireless technology for use in portable devices with what it contends is better-than-Bluetooth performance in stereo music applications. This company is the chip maker, partnering with potential product companies.They were demoing a wireless speaker system, nothing tempting. The technology is the key, it they can convince their partners to use their circuit board in their products. As said, Wi-Fi is preferable to Blue-Tooth. Any product using the symbol, which is a abstract of TRIK will be assurance they are using Eleven Engineering’s technology.

Open XML File Format Convertor for Mac 1.0—45MB
— Open XML Converter allows you to convert Open XML files that were created in Office 2008 for Mac or Office 2007 for Windows so that you can open, edit, and save them in earlier versions of Office for Mac.

Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.5.3 Update—15MB
— This update contains several improvements to enhance stability and performance. In addition, this update includes fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer’s memory with malicious code.

Macworld reports that Sun has release the beta for downloading. Of course the beta is free, but current release versions for other platforms is $69.95. OpenOffice is free, but they would not refuse any contribution. StarOffice has an excellent reputation for a quality office suite. Macworld notes the extras in the StarOffice compared to the OpenOffice office suite. All the open source office suites supports the XM. StarOffice for Mac only runs on Intel Macs. More …

OpenOffice 3.0b2 has been release in Aqua, making X11 unnecessary. With NeoOffice, the long time Aqua representative of the open office suites, it will be interest to watch its future. The 3.0 Beta 2 – Release Notes has what is new. OpenOffice comes in Intel and PPC versions

Open XML Converter allows you to convert Open XML files that were created in Office 2008 for Mac or Office 2007 for Windows so that you can open, edit, and save them in earlier versions of Office for Mac. Open XML Converter can convert Word documents, Excel workbooks, and PowerPoint presentations that are in the Open XML Format so that you can open and edit the files in Office 2004 for Mac and Office v. X for Mac. You can choose to convert and open one file, or convert a large number of files.

Download

Office 2008 12.1.1:
This update contains several changes that improve stability and performance for Office 2008 for Mac programs.

Description of the Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac 12.1.1 Update

Office 2004 11.5.0 update:

The Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.5.0 Update improves compatibility when you use documents that were created in Office 2008 for Mac and in 2007 Office for Windows. If you have installed the Open XML File Format Converter for Mac, this update enables Office 2004 for Mac to read and to write Office documents that are in Open XML Format. This update also improves stability.

Description of the Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.5.0 Update

It seems to have been in another lifetime that Computerworld last said the XMl converter was due soon, Well, here we are today still waiting. Computerworld now reports the current expected release date is in June.

Office 2008 for Mac, which uses the XML formate, has been getting a lot of criticism. One of my favorites is a reference to “Vista being dumped for XP and now Office2008 being dumped for Office 2004.”

Office 2004 for Mac 11.4.2 update addresses security issues. More to the point:

This security update resolves several privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Word that could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted Word file. An attacker who successfully exploited these vulnerabilities could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.

This description comes from MS Security Bulletin MS08-014 – Critical:

This security update resolves several privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Word that could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted Word file. An attacker who successfully exploited these vulnerabilities could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.

Download

Following the AutoUpdate for Mac 2.1.1, this second update addresses security concerns, reportedly including the permissions bug fix:

This update fixes critical issues in Office 2008, including issues that might cause Office 2008 applications to stop responding or quit unexpectedly, and include fixes vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of a computer’s memory by using malicious code.

Download either update