Hello again,

I have now been running Beta 2 of Office 2007 for a while and still love the product.  It is still toooooo memory hungry - don't try running it on a 256MB machine, but it is still a product I constantly find myself missing when I have to go back to older versions.  Search and the new UI are both godsends, as is the ability to make something more visually impactful.

OK, so the blogs - there is this guy Jensen Harris - his blog is amazing.  I would just like to point out two of his posts. The 1st includes a bunch of links for information - go get them if you want to know more about Office:

http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/05/24/605678.aspx - snippet of most interest:

Office User Interface Video Tour: This is a live action movie in which Julie Larson-Green and I give you a quick tour of the UI and some of the thinking that went into it. The build we were using for the video is a lot older than Beta 2, so you might notice some rough spots. Nonetheless, a number of people have said that they found it worthwhile.

Office User Interface Live Demo: This brand new Flash-based demo walks you through the UI and gives you a chance to play with it (including clicking through tabs, giving Live Preview a whirl, etc.) This is probably the best way to get a sense of exactly what the Beta 2 UI looks like and how it works.

Office Compatibility Pack Beta 2: Here’s where you can download the compatibility pack to allow Office XP and 2003 to read and write the new Office 2007 file formats (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc.) Of course, you can also save documents in the 97/2000/XP/2003 file formats directly from Office 2007 as well.

Office 2007 Learning Portal: Here you can see some of the many resources available to get you up-to-speed on Office 2007. There are free e-learning online courses you can take (including Introduction to the New Office User Interface.) You can also access free book content and sign up for classroom learning near you.

MSDN Office Developer Center: All of the information to learn about the new developer opportunities built on top of Office 2007 are brought together in this great portal.

MSDN Ribbon Developer Portal: This is an entire developer portal devoted to customizing and extending the new user interface through RibbonX. I’m so excited that this one finally exists!

The second post of his is entitled "Are we there yet" and talks about what is planned in terms of changes between now and beta 2. http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/06/06/618830.aspx.  I especially like the line:

"So, if you've been holding out hope that we're going to be replacing the Ribbon with a ray-traced speech-enabled version of Clipppy--or any other major change of overall direction for that matter--I’m sorry to say it won't be happening"

that is it for tonight on Office - have fun.

ttfn

David