A Simple Excel Sheet To calculate totals in a cash register drawer using US Dollars and Russian Rubles

Working at the Commissary here we just got a new Manager. We have been talking about streamlining the way things are done here. So I created this spreadsheet where you enter the number of each type of bills and coins and value of checks and ruble credit/debit amounts and it organizes it into something easy for a small receipt printer to output

DollarandRubleDrawerCounter.xls

Free Support for Windows XP Home and Mainstream Support for Office 2003 is OVER!

From Microsoft to Windows XP Home Users: You're on Your Own
Sorry to come a little late with this one, but we all knew it was coming. Now don't fret, as I know this can sound a little misleading. There will still be security updates. They are still "secure" solid products. They've not been completely abandoned. Simply put, there will be no new technology released for XP Home and whatever free support you could squeeze out of Microsoft will no longer be free. I don't see this as much of an issue for myself as I have never used any "real" Microsoft support. Simply Googling, or searching through Microsoft's TechNet site results in the actual fix being in the top five of search results. Also a little secret: when you call Microsoft they will be looking through the TechNet for the answer to your problem. So before you shell out a reported $195 per incident do a quick search because that's what will happen at the other end of that phone line. Similar situation with Office 2003 just not so dire. Office 2003 is leaving Mainstream support and entering its new 5-year extended support phase. What this means to those who don't work for Microsoft is: security updates remain free, you will have to pay the outrageous support fee for any calls to Microsoft. The big shaft is, if you want any of the hotfixes, so any actual product updates, something not working but Microsoft has a security patch to fix it whatever, you will need to enter a Microsoft Extended Hotfix Support Agreement within 90 days of the Mainstream support ending. ( By "enter" read "buy" ) Outlook Junk Email Filter will still receive regular updates, however. The second Microsoft stops creating security updates GET AWAY!! Those products will be targeted by spyware and virus authors quicker than Kirk can say, "Come Here Baby." My recommendation: If you are totally in love with the way things look in Office 2003 but don;t want the hassle of no updates just get OpenOffice.org. It looks the same and, in my opinion, functions much better than Office 2003 while continuing to receive constant FREE security and product updates. And oh yeah, it's 100% FREE

Image via Microsoft Turkey
Office 2003 Info via Redmond Developer Network
XP Home Info via Redmond Developer Network
OpenOffice.Org
Microsoft Support Lifecycle Policy FAQ

Office 2007 SP2 Released Apr 28!!

So it's been confirmed that the next Service Pack to Office 2007 will be released this month, April 28th. Call me a nerd, but I love service packs, updates, patches. Wow, even I would call myself a nerd after that one lol. Let's take a brief look at what's to come in SP2.

• A big thing to point out would be the ability to handle OpenOffice documents; .odt (OpenDocument Text), .ods (OpenDocument Spreadsheet), and .odp (OpenDocument Presentation) Very useful if you get sent homework or other work related things in ODT format.
• This will be the first service pack to support uninstalls of individual updates via the Microsoft Service Pack Uninstall Tool for the 2007 Microsoft Office Suite. Microsoft, for the love of all that is good and holy, please stop using these crazy long names. Shorten it to something like MS SP Uninstaller. At least that way you still make sure that everyone knows its your product while not being the reason I develop carpal tunnel! The ability to uninstall via command line will also be available.
• The Save-As PDF or XPS plugin will no longer be necessary as this is addressed by the service pack. Saving to PDF may be more valuable and useful than you think.
  
• You can now export Access reports to Excel (This hasn't been possible before? I figured that Microsoft would have already been compatible with its own software by now...). Some performance improvements are also included.
• Overall Outlook performance has been improved (If you haven't already switched to Thunderbird already...)
• File saving has been sped up in PowerPoint.
  

This is certainly not a full list. Just the ones that I find relevant to my interests.
Image via: PC World Blog
Info via: Office Technet Blog
I heard it from Lifehacker/ars technica

Office 2010

Hey, Looks like Office 2010 has entered the rumor mill. Supposed to come out late next year, but probably not around the release of Windows 7. So OEM's will get to tinker with it for the first part of next year and there is no definite date when the regular folks like us will get to take a crack at it. Six weeks to four months sounds a lot like the phone guy when he says, "Sometime between 8am and 5pm." I'm sure it'll start leaking on the torrent sites before it reaches us officially and there will be some outcry from Microsoft. This alone will probably end up costing like five-hundred dollars! Supposedly this new version will be slimmed down a bit (Thank GOD!) and will allow you to edit documents in a web browser (ahem...Google Docs). And what is this? A FREE version?!? ad-supported huh? Well, I have to give Microsoft SOME credit, they do realize people don't want to pay exorbitant amounts of money for their products. An updated Exchange will be coming out with what purports to be changes to help stupid hurried executives hitting reply-all with there Ponzi Scheme plans as well as prevent employees from emailing outside the company. (Goodbye Whistle Blower Protection Act, eh?)
LATE TO CLASS: I also found out just this morning (APR16) that there will be separate 32 and 64 bit versions. As a current 64 bit user this is great, no need to emulate. I am always looking, scrounging around in forums, to find the 64-bit versions of popular software.
Image via MegaLeecher
Info via Google/AP
I heard it from Technibble

Bitlet, WYSIWYG of Torrent Clients

bitlet
Originally uploaded by digitalpixelate

While Stumbling at my many god-awful hours of that night, I came across a curious tool. Bitlet. Bitlet is a torrent client minus the client! More accurately it is a torrent client that requires you to download nothing beyond the latest
JRE. You should already have it if you have ever used the internet, if you don't, well here's your oppurtunity. So I'm trying to integrate Chrome into all aspects of my browsing experience except for the obvious lack of a stumble browser. JEEZ! So I know I have java but I get a message that informs me that, "This browser does not have a Java Plugin." And I am directed where to get my Plug-in. It almost seems as if I wasn't supposed to have the java plug-in which at the time of writing is shown to be Java(TM) Platform SE6 U10 Beta. Ok so far I am still unable to install the plugin so I am going to open up Shiretoko(Firefox 3 Alpha) and give it a whirl there. Now I have it up and running in firefox. All I needed to do was type or paste the URL of the .torrent file and select download torrent. it will work for a few seconds and pop up with a window asking you where you want the file to be downloaded to. If you have to close your browser before the download is finished you can effectively pause it. When you restart your browser just do what you did to load the torrent originally, then make sure the original save location is selected. It will quickly verify the files(s) then resume the download. I seem to be getting much better download speeds than when I use Utorrent. 185k - 250k average compared with barely 150 on utorrent. Maybe It's my settings, whatever. Seeds to peers 15 to 0 So maybe theres one really nice guy lol. There are only two settings, maximum upload rate and incoming connection port. There is a plug-in available for both Firefox and IE that "..should let you inject a direct 'download by bitlet' link in many torrent search engines." Hearing the word inject when I am trying a new web-based app and a file-sharing app no less is not conforting.

Ok I am extremely impressed with the functionality of this app. An idiot can operate it. There are few enough settings (2!?) so that no one can break it. Nice, efficient and as barebones as you can get, sorry utorrent, but Bitlet's got the stones. I will however stick to utorrent as I download more than I would want to have tiny windows floating around my monitor :)

Aaron