Software : In Depth: 80 handy iPhoto tips and tricks

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• In Depth: 80 handy iPhoto tips and tricks
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In Depth: 80 handy iPhoto tips and tricks Posted: iPhoto tips 1-20: Take better photos Probably the best tip we can give you for a happy iPhoto life, is to try and take good pictures in the first place. So we'll kick off with 20 top tips for better photos. And the great news is you don't need anything fancy. Even an everyday compact camera can take great shots when you know how to get the most from it. And if your photos still aren't quite right, iPhoto has the tools to fix them. It might not be as advanced as Photoshop, but what it does, it does quickly and simply, and underneath that simple-looking surface is an impressive image-editor. iCloud: everything you need to know Before long, of course, your photo library will be growing to epic proportions, but luckily this is what iPhoto was designed for – managing and displaying thousands of digital photos in a way that lets you find and organise your pictures as easily as possible. Even here, though, there are tips and secrets that can make your life easier. Finally, photos are meant to be shared, not hoarded away on your hard disk. And iPhoto's slideshows, web albums, prints and books are the perfect way to do it. We finish off, then, with 20 top tips for things to do with your photos. Some you have to pay for, but there's plenty of great things you can do without having to fork out a penny, too. iPhoto isn't just a photo browser. It's central to getting more out of photography with your Mac, from enhancing them to organising them and sharing them with other people. Let's get to work! Take better photos 1. Brace yourself! Most blur is caused by camera shake. In bad light, the camera uses a slow shutter speed, and unless the speed is displayed on the LCD, you might not realise it. Brace your camera hand against a wall or rest your camera on a steady surface to take the shot. 2. Check the ISO Cameras have an auto ISO setting that increases the sensitivity in low light, but this also reduces the picture quality. You'll need this if you're shooting handheld, but if the camera's braced you won't. Instead, manually set the ISO to its minimum value. 3. Manual white balance The camera's auto white balance setting will do a good job in most conditions, but not all. When you're shooting in artificial light, choose the nearest manual white balance preset ('tungsten' or 'fluorescent') for better colours. 4. Check the histogram You can't always rely on the camera's automatic exposure system to get it right. Many cameras display a histogram, though, so use this with the EV compensation control to make sure the shadows and the highlights in your photo aren't being clipped. 5. Use the focus lock Even now, you will find cameras that still suffer badly from shutter lag. This is caused by the amount of time it takes for the camera to focus when you press the shutter button. However, the trick is to half-press the shutter button to make the camera focus; you should then wait for exactly the right moment to press it the rest of the way and take the picture. 6. Don't rely on your zoom Zoom lenses can make you lazy, so don't just stand in one spot and zoom in and out to frame your picture. Walk up to your subject, past it and around it to see a wider range of viewpoints, angles and perspectives. The direction and the quality of the light will change, and have a big effect on the picture. 7. Experiment with viewpoints If you're photographing kids or pets, get down to their level. Lying on the ground can lend everyday subjects monumental proportions, and finding high viewpoints and shooting downwards will produce unusual perspectives and compositions. It's easy to get into the habit of shooting every picture at eye level, missing out on lots of interesting pictures. 8. Use natural frames Doorways, windows, overhanging branches and even buildings can make effective 'natural frames', and often you only have to move a few paces to find them. This will focus attention on your subject more effectively, and give a sense of place to your picture. 9. Use a tripod Tripods are a cumbersome nuisance, right? But they do three very important things. First, they let you shoot in light that's too dim for regular handheld photography. Second, they let you frame set-up shots like still-lifes and macros very precisely. Third, they leave your hands free to adjust props, move people around for group shots and get stuff out of your bag such as filters and memory cards. 10. Check the background We've all seen those shots where the subject has a telegraph pole sticking out of their head, but backgrounds can clash in subtler ways than that. Inappropriate signs, leering passers-by, graffiti and overflowing wheelie bins can all spoil your shots; a few moments' thought and a shift in position may be all you need to fix it. 11. Turn off the flash In full auto mode, the camera will fire its flash automatically in dim lighting. Sometimes it's useful, but it can kill the natural lighting and atmosphere. In theatres or museums, make sure you switch it off, even if it means bracing the camera or using high ISOs. And leave it off for night scenes or indoor stadiums, too. Flash power drops off with distance – there's no way it could illuminate objects more than a few metres away anyway. When the flash is enabled, the camera won't make any attempt to extend the exposure to capture any natural lighting. 12. Choose your moment Timing is everything: getting the right expression, waiting for passers-by to get out of the way, even seizing the moment when the sun breaks through the clouds. So grab a shot straight away by all means, but then wait a few moments if you can, to see if an even better one is going to come along. 13. Fill the frame/move in close Try to fill the frame with your subject by zooming in or moving closer. Many pictures lose impact because the subject isn't prominent enough and there's too much clutter or empty space around it. 14. Fill-flash for portraits Portrait shots taken in bright sunlight often look harsh or, if you're shooting into the light, can be lost in shadow completely. This is where the camera's built-in flash is useful. If you set it to 'fill flash' or 'slow flash' mode, it will light up your subject's face but the effect will be balanced against the natural lighting. 15. Rule of Thirds It's tempting to place your subject right in the centre of the frame, but this can produce some rather static-looking shots. Instead, place it a third in from the edge, or a third of the way in from the top or the bottom of the frame. You don't have to stick to this 'Rule of Thirds' for every shot, but it's worth keeping in mind. 16. Converging verticals When you shoot tall buildings, the tops tend to converge, which gives the picture an amateurish look. It happens because you're tilting the camera upwards. The solution is (where possible) to move further back so you don't have to tilt the camera. Also, try and find an interesting subject in the foreground to fill the bottom part of the frame. 17. Jog-free shutter release How do you avoid jogging the camera when you press the shutter release for long-exposure night shots, or when you're shooting close-ups with the camera on a tripod? You could invest in an expensive wireless remote, but it's much simpler just to use the self-timer on your camera. Most have an adjustable delay, too – typically two seconds or 10 seconds. 18. Shoot panoramas Many cameras these days come with wideangle zooms – however this may still not be enough to capture the full width of the scene. Instead, find out if your camera has a panoramic mode. Some shoot panoramas in a single 'sweep', others shoot single frames for stitching together later. Don't go mad, though. Two or three overlapping frames can be enough to produce a great extra-wide shot. 19. Check your settings Digital cameras allow you to change the ISO, white balance, picture style and more besides, but it's all too easy to forget you've done it and carry on shooting with the 'wrong' settings next time you use the camera. It's best to get into the habit of resetting the camera to its default settings either when you've finished using it or before you start shooting. 20. Don't use the digital zoom However much the camera makers try to dress it up, 'digital zoom' is just cropping and interpolation carried out inside the camera. If you can't get close enough to your subject, use the maximum optical zoom instead and then crop the picture in Photoshop or Elements – this means you'll be able to choose the area you crop in on. iPhoto tips 21-40: Tweak your images Tweak your images in iPhoto 21. Use the Enhance button If you've got a problem photo, try iPhoto's Enhance button. The automatic enhancements are effective, optimising the Levels, adding saturation and tweaking the white balance to produce slightly 'warmer' colours. You can then open the Adjust panel to see what it's done, and tweak or remove the adjustments if they're not working. 22. Edit highlights with RAW files An advantage of shooting RAW files is that you can extract extra highlight detail from your pictures. When you edit a RAW file in iPhoto, you'll see that a couple of the controls behave slightly differently. With JPEG images, the Highlights slider simply darkens the existing highlights in the picture; with RAW files, it recovers extra, 'hidden' highlight detail. 23. White balance and RAW files When you edit JPEG images, the Temperature and Tint sliders are 'relative', so you can make the colours look warmer or cooler. But when you edit a RAW file, the Temperature and Tint values are 'absolute' – you have access to the full colour data recorded by the sensor and before any white balance has been applied. 24. Third-party RAW conversions iPhoto can open and edit RAW files from many cameras, but while its RAW conversions are good, you might want to use a different program. If you send files to an external editor, the converted file won't be added back to your iPhoto library, so it's best to convert photos before you actually import them. 25. Retouching tips iPhoto's Retouch tool is basic but effective. First, choose a brush size a little larger than the blemish you want to remove. Second, 'dab' rather than 'brush' – a brushing action tends to smear the pixels. Third, if the repair doesn't work first time, hit undo, change the brush size or position slightly and try again. 26. Shadows and Highlights These sliders can be extremely handy for any 'problem' photos where ordinary Levels adjustments don't help. They work by separating out the darker and lighter parts of the picture for adjustment. The Highlights slider darkens over-bright areas, and the Shadows slider lightens dense shadows. Don't push them too far, though, or you'll start to see a 'glow' effect around objects where the adjustment is being blended in. 27. Edit duplicates iPhoto's adjustments are non-destructive, so that you can revert to the original version of the picture at any time. However, you can't easily see which pictures have been adjusted and which haven't, or what the original looks like. But, if you like, you can duplicate the original before you start (Command+D). The duplicate will have 'Version 2' added to the title, and the original will still be there alongside it. 28. Prints and aspect ratios When it comes to printing out your photos you'll often find that the picture's aspect ratio doesn't quite match the aspect ratio of the paper you're printing on. For example, most compact cameras shoot at a ratio of 4:3, but that's not the same as the 3:2 ratio of 6" x 4" prints. To control just how the picture is cropped to match the paper, check the Crop tool's 'Constrain' box and choose the correct aspect ratio from the list that comes up. 29. Levels adjustments The Levels adjustments in iPhoto work slightly differently to most other photo-editing apps. Here, when you move the black point (left) and white point (right) sliders, the middle slider stays exactly where it is (in other programs, you'll find it will move proportionally). However, it's really easy to grasp and means the brightness doesn't change. To adjust the brightness, move the middle slider left (lighter) or right (darker). 30. Straighten before you crop Some pictures need straightening, and some need cropping too. Make sure you straighten before you crop, though, because the straightening process removes thin wedges at the edges of the picture as you rotate it – if you crop first, you'll lose even more of the picture when you straighten it. 31. WB eyedropper tips You can adjust the white balance in your pictures by using the eyedropper to click on a neutral tone in the picture. This is not always successful, though, because there's often nothing in your pictures that will provide a truly neutral tone. You may have to click on several different areas to find one that gives good results. 32. Edits apply everywhere! Remember that when you adjust a photo, you're adjusting its appearance everywhere it appears. Let's say you want to create an album of antique-effect pictures – if those pictures appear in any other album, they're going to have that antique effect there, too. The way round this is to duplicate (Command+D) the photos before you start, and then apply the effect to the duplicates. 33. Using an external editor If you'd rather use an image-editor such as Photoshop or Elements for your more ambitious projects, you can set this up in the Advanced tab of the iPhoto preferences. When you click the Edit button, iPhoto creates a duplicate and sends it to your external editor. When you save the file, it's returned to iPhoto, replacing the duplicate – but you have to stick to the same file format (JPEG). 34. 100% zoom You can use the Zoom slider to check detail in your photos, but the magnifications aren't marked, which makes it difficult to judge the sharpness. If you want to see the image at 100% magnification, just hit the 1 key. The 0 key will fit the image to the screen again. 35. Black and white toning You can convert a colour photo to black and white in iPhoto by reducing the saturation to zero in the Adjust panel, but you can do the same thing using the B&W Effect, and introduce some nice toning effects too. Add the Boost effect to create a rich sepia tone (much better than the standard Sepia effect) or the Fade effect to create a cool-toned cyanotype. 36. Exposure adjustments Be careful when using the Exposure slider because it brightens all the tones in the image, shifting the whole histogram to the right (you can see it moving as you drag the slider), and this can clip detail in the highlights. To brighten an image without harming the highlights, drag the middle Levels slider to the left. 37. Before and after comparisons There are two ways to compare your edited photo with the original as you work on it. One is to press and hold Shift, which displays the original image until you release it again. The other is to create a duplicate of the original, and then display both in the Edit mode so that you can see the difference as you work. 38. Copy and paste adjustments You might find a set of adjustments and effects you like for one picture and decide you'd like to apply the same to another one. You can do this using the Edit > Copy Adjustments and Edit > Paste Adjustments commands, but you have to be in the Edit mode and you can only paste adjustments to one photo at a time. 39. Full-screen navigation iPhoto 11's fullscreen mode is great for editing, but the navigation system is different. You use navigation buttons at the top-left to get back to a 'home' screen, where buttons let you choose whether to browse Events, Faces, Places or Projects. 40. Don't underestimate effects iPhoto's Effects are more than they seem. They're not like effects in Photoshop, say, which are applied on top of each other. Instead, they work in parallel; you can apply more than one effect, and you can use Effects and the Adjust tools in tandem. Some of them come in different strengths, too, and you keep clicking to increase the effect. You can add or remove Effects at any time without affecting your other adjustments, and if you get in a mess you can click the None button in the Effects panel to remove them all and start again. iPhoto tips 41-60: Organise your photos Organise your images in iPhoto 41. Use Descriptions Keywords are good for categorising photos and descriptive titles can help you identify pictures quickly, but you might want to add more info about the subject or the ways in which the picture has been modified. Do this using the Description field in the Info panel. 42. Keyword shortcuts There's a quick way to add keywords you use often. First, open the Keywords window (Command+k), then drag the keyword(s) you want from the bottom to the top area – iPhoto will assign a single-letter shortcut. To apply this keyword, select an image thumbnail and type the shortcut letter (the Keywords window must be open for this to work). 43. Keyword searches You can search for keywords just by typing them straight into the Search field, but this is pretty indiscriminate and only lets you search for one keyword at a time. But if you choose Keywords from the Search field's pop-up menu, it displays a full list, and each extra keyword you click on narrows the search down further still. 44. Adding Places The Places feature is really useful even if you don't have a GPS-enabled camera. It means you don't need to use Keywords for place information, and it lets you browse photo locations on the Places map. To speed things up, you can select multiple photos or even entire Events and assign a Place to many photos at once. 45. Set key photos for Events You can 'skim' through all the pictures in an Event by moving the pointer across the Event's thumbnail from left to right, and once you've found the one that sums up the Event the best, right-click and choose 'Make Key Photo'. This now becomes the thumbnail image for the Event. 46. Faces or photos If you use your mouse to double-click a face on the corkboard to view that person's photos, you'll notice at the top-right is a switch to display Photos or Faces. By default, it just shows faces, cropping off the rest of the picture, but selecting Photos will display the whole picture, and this can be useful when you're trying to identify people in group shots. 47. Merging Events You can merge Events simply by dragging one Event thumbnail onto another. Or, if you simply want to move photos from one Event to another, select both Events and then double-click either. Both Events are opened and their pictures displayed, and you can now drag photos between these Events. 48. Autosplit Events When you import photos from your camera they'll be stored as a single Event. Manually splitting them would be tiresome and slow, so select the Event and use the Events > Autosplit Selected Events command instead. The photos will be split up automatically, with one Event for each day you took pictures. 49. Sorting photos into Events Photos can exist in various albums at the same time, but they can only ever be in one Event. Use this when organising your photos. For example, you can separate personal and work photos in different Events or, if you take pictures for a living, separate photos by client. 50. Hide poor photos Not every photograph you take will be a masterpiece, yet at the same time you don't necessarily want to throw away pictures with some historical or sentimental value. The solution is to use the Hide Photo command (Command+L). Your substandard photos are now hidden from view unless you use the View > Hidden Photos command. 51. Use ratings and smart albums The bigger your library gets, the harder it is to sort the wheat from the chaff, which is where ratings come in handy. You can sort photos by rating so that the best ones are at the top, and you can create smart albums that display only your best photos. 52. Multiple iPhoto libraries You don't have to restrict yourself to one iPhoto library. If you hold down Option as you start iPhoto, you're prompted to choose which library you want to open or where to save a new one. 53. Referencing versus importing By default, iPhoto imports copies of your photos into its own internal library, but this duplication means you've now got two lots of pictures taking up twice the disk space. But you can set iPhoto up to behave like professional image-cataloguing programs, which 'reference' photos in their existing locations – open the iPhoto preferences, select the Advanced tab and deselect the 'Copy Items to the iPhoto Library' box. 54. Show photos in the Finder The iPhoto library is displayed as a single file but you can right-click the library icon in the Finder and choose Show Package Contents to see how the files are organised. 55. Use folders for organising Albums are easy to create and useful for keeping photos together, but you can quickly end up with a lot of them. Organise them into folders (File > New > Folder). These work like the folders in the Finder, and you can also 'nest' folders within folders. 56. Filenames and titles When you import pictures, the filenames are displayed below the thumbnails. However, what you're seeing is just a photo 'Title'. iPhoto uses the filename initially, but you can type in any titles you like and they don't have to be unique. The photos retain their original filenames in the Finder, though. 57. Batch change titles Typing in titles and descriptions for every photo in your collection could become a real bore, but there's a much quicker solution. First, select the photos you want to modify, then use the Photos > Batch Change command. You can set the titles to any text you like, even adding an index number to make them unique. And you can also set the description for all the selected photos, replacing the existing Descriptions or adding (appending) new text to the existing ones. 58. Quickly compare photos Digital photos cost nothing to take, so it's tempting to shoot half a dozen variants of the same picture to be sure of getting a good one. As good as it is to have this option, it can give you a headache later because you need to work out which to keep and which to delete. But you can compare them directly by selecting them and clicking the Edit button – you can zoom in to check the fine detail, too. 59. Resetting dates and times iPhoto retrieves its date and time information from the EXIF data embedded in each image by the camera. However, if you haven't set the camera's clock correctly, the pictures will be wrongly dated. You can fix this easily by selected the problem photos and using the Photos > Adjust Date and Time command. And if you wish, you also have the option to apply the changes to the master files themselves. 60. Smart albums really are smart! Do you want to see all the photos taken with a particular camera, or at a particular ISO, shutter speed or lens aperture? You can do this by creating a smart album and then choosing shooting settings from the drop-down menu. You can add 'conditions', so you could look for all shots taken at ISO 1600 on a Canon EOS 5D, for example. Other 'conditions' include album names, faces, dates, keywords, descriptions, edited/unedited files and more. Smart Albums really are an incredibly powerful tool for finding, organising and displaying your photos. iPhoto tips 61-80: Show and share your photos Share your photos in iPhoto 61. Email your photos If you don't want to set up an online album you can always email a photo gallery. iPhoto '11 has some terrific email templates that are simple to use, and display in any HTML-compatible email program. It only takes a few moments, and because the email capability is built in, you don't need to use Apple Mail. 62. iCloud galleries There are many free ways to get your photos online, so why pay for Apple's MobileMe service? Well, it's going free with iCloud, and there's plenty of image features there. 63. Picasa Web Albums iPhoto doesn't support Picasa Web Albums directly, but you can download a Google plug-in, which adds a Picasa Web Albums tab to iPhoto's File > Export dialog. You can create a web album from an existing iPhoto album or create a new one. 64. Export to iWeb If you have your own web host, you can send photos to iWeb to produce a Photo Page using one of iWeb's built-in design themes. The latest version of iWeb also supports FTP uploads to any web host, so you can then publish your web album directly. 65. Facebook albums Simply put, iPhoto's Facebook integration is brilliant. Upload photos as albums via the Share menu, and the Description you add in iPhoto will become the captions displayed in Facebook. iPhoto will even display your friend's comments. 66. Set slideshows to music iPhoto slideshows look great, but they can sound great too when you add a soundtrack from your iTunes library. However, what you really want is for the slideshow to last for the same time as the track – click the Settings button and check 'Fit slideshow to music'. 67. Animated Places slideshows iPhoto '11 has new animated slideshows, including a Places theme that uses the Places information you add to your photos to present an animated map, with push-pins identifying the places you've visited. It comes with its own soundtrack, but you can add one of your own from your iTunes library. 68. QuickTime movies There's an even quicker way to turn your photos into a slideshow. Select the ones you want, then use the File > Export command and select the QuickTime tab. Choose the movie dimensions, select a background colour and you're done. Your photos will be exported as a QuickTime movie, with a subtle fade between each picture. 69. iPhone slideshows Once you've created a slideshow, use the File > Export command and select Slideshow. Choose a size, and check 'Automatically send slideshow to iTunes'. When you sync in iTunes, make sure 'Include videos' is checked in the Photos tab. Press the Videos button on your iPhone to see your slideshows. 70. Take your photos with you Wouldn't you like to carry round your photo library with you on your iPhone or iPad? it couldn't be easier – plug it in, then select the Photos tab. You can now choose to synchronise all your photos or selected albums only. Worried about the amount of space that will take up? Don't be, because your photos will be optimised for the smaller display and won't take up anywhere near the space they do on your Mac. 71. Print your own books? iPhoto books don't match standard printer paper sizes, so there's no easy way to print photo books yourself, unless you pick smaller sizes and trim the sheets manually (though you can still print pages for proofing purposes). But you could produce a PDF version – most printers let you set up custom paper sizes, and you can then use the PDF option in the Print dialog. 72. Custom calendars iPhoto's Calendars have to be ordered from Apple, and they're pretty pricey (£14.39 when we checked), but there's more to them than you might imagine. They're populated automatically using the photos you choose, but they can also include public holidays for different territories, events in your iCal calendars and birthdays in your Address Book. Once you get one, you'll never look back. 73. Frame your photos Print photos directly from iPhoto using a variety of preset layouts and templates, including 'digital mats', which can look quite convincing when combined with a real-life photo frame. 'Mats' are the cardboard inner frames with bevelled edges that professional framers use, but the iPhoto versions look convincing enough to pass casual inspection, especially when framed under glass. 74. Printed contact sheets If you ever need to print off the contents of an album or Event to look at on one sheet, select all the photos, hit Command+p and choose the Contact Sheet print theme. You can change the number of columns to get more pictures on a sheet, change the background colour (white will use less ink!) and even the font used for the titles. 75. Print multiple photos It looks like iPhoto can only print one picture on a sheet, but that's not the case. If you pick the Simple Border theme and hit the Customize button, you can open the Layout menu and choose 1, 2, 3 or 4 pictures. You also get a choice of how the pictures are arranged on the sheet and whether or not you want a caption. 76. Media browser Use your photos in your iWork documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Pages, Numbers and Keynote have a Media button on the toolbar that displays a panel containing the contents of your iPhoto library, complete with all your Events and albums and a search box. To use a picture, drag it across. 77. Beautiful books Why print photos when you can print books, using the superb book-creation tools in iPhoto '11? You can even print full-bleed spreads – perfect for panoramic photos. Keep an eye on the page count though as you will get charged extra for going over. 78. Desktops and screensavers Select a photo as a screensaver in the Share menu then select Set Desktop. Or create your own – go to File > Export to save copies of your photos to a new folder. Then open the Mac's Desktop & Screensaver panel, click the '+' button and add your folder of images. 79. Make your photos a movie The Photo Browser in iMovie lists the contents of iPhoto albums so you can drag photos into your movie projects, either mixing video and stills or making a movie out of stills alone. 80. Saving slideshows There are two ways to create slideshows in iPhoto, with two slightly different outcomes. If you select an album and click the Slideshow button at the bottom, you'll be able to choose a theme and settings, but they won't be saved. You can opt to have your settings saved as the defaults for future slideshows, but that's not the same thing. To create a slideshow, use the File > New > Slideshow command. The new slideshow will be added to the Slideshow section at the bottom of the panel, and each slideshow created in this way retains its own unique settings.

In Depth: Office 2012: What we're expecting to see Posted: Office 2012 release date, interface and features Office 15 will be here next year. And, what's more, it'll be getting the Windows 8 look. There will also possibly be a Windows 8 authoring tool as well as HTML add-ins too. So what are we expecting to see in Office 15? What will Office 15 be called? Microsoft's PR team refers to "Wave 15" without giving any details (like "Wave 15 is currently under development, but we have nothing further to share at this time"). Several Microsoft job adverts and LinkedIn profiles for Microsoft employees use the name Office 15, and the Access team has referred to Access 15 - but Office 15 is unlikely to be the final name (Office 2010 had the Office 14 codename). Although a discussion about SharePoint by what appears to be a Microsoft employee refers to Office 2013, the name is almost certainly going to be Office 2012. As usual, we're expecting multiple Office 2012 versions from starter to home and small business versions as well as a full Office 2012 enterprise edition, with different combinations of apps. When is the Office 2012 release date? A job advert for Office Mobile testing in October 2010 referred to "Office 15 and Windows Phone 8 planning phase just getting under way", rumours in March suggested the code had already reached Milestone 2 and what looks like a legitimate build leaked in May. The Office division takes two to three years to put out a new version and we saw the beta of Office 2010 in February 2010 followed by RTM in May. Microsoft names products by the year after the financial year they come out in (so they don't look out of date immediately), but Microsoft's financial year ends in July – so anything that releases to manufacturing after July 2012 would have 2013 in the name. Office 2012 beta will probably show up early in the year again, with final code by the middle of 2012 and the actual Office 2012 release date would be before late summer. Office 2012 features "Office 15 is shaping up to be one of the most feature packed and exciting releases," says a Microsoft job advert. There's obviously noting official on the Office 2012 features at this stage but there are some hints, like Office president Kurt delBene saying at the Worldwide Partner Conference "We want to remain the leaders in productivity on the desktop. We need to push forward in new scenarios that we had not delivered before." CLEAN LOOK: The OneNote 15 interface is sparser and easier to navigate on a tablet There's going to be more video (both editing and using for meetings), more social network integration and maybe a whole new experience for meetings tying together the invitation you send in Outlook, the presentation you give in PowerPoint, the notes you take in OneNote and the Lync client you use for the online meeting. Office 2012 interface The Office 2012 interface is going to change from what we've seen in the leaked builds so far, but we'd bet anything you like that it's not going to lose the Office ribbon. OneNote 15 already has a new look in the leaked build with a much cleaner interface that will work well on tablet PCs, and a quick thumbnail navigation to get to recent pages that also looks tablet friendly. PowerPoint 15 doesn't have any new themes, which reports from WPC mentioned, but it does preview themes straight from Office.com; it also has a new random transition option. A new M1 tab on the ribbon (probably a reference to new features in the Milestone 1 build) has a Data Grid tool that opens a redesigned version of the Chart picker with a new combo chart type. The same tab is in Word 15, along with an Extensions dropdown; there's nothing on it but it's where the new programming model we've been hearing about fits in. CLOUD LINKS: No new transitions in the PowerPoint 15 leak but note how you can see themes directly from Office.com Outlook shows the most interface differences, with a cleaner look that has more white space and resembles the Outlook Web App you get with Exchange and Office 365 - but again it keeps the ribbon. Instead of the vertical stack of buttons in the current interface there are Mail, Calendar and Contacts buttons at the bottom to switch to those views - and a menu with the familiar icons for Tasks, Folders and Shortcuts which lets you add them at the bottom as well. METRO LOOK: More white space like Outlook Web App in Office 365, but the notifications and bottom buttons are very Windows 8 This has hints of the Metro style underlying the Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8 interfaces, especially with the notification icon for new messages and tasks. The M1 command here is for sorting subfolders alphabetically rather than keeping them in the hierarchy you created. Office 2012 collaboration The co-authoring features in Word and the Word Web App show up in small changes to the change tracking, making it easier to filter by who made changes or when changes were made. That's part of what Word program manager Jonathan Bailor was promising when Office 2010 came out. " In Office 15, we'd love to take collaboration and communication to the next level. We've unlocked all of these new ways to work and a new set of expectations from users, and we're like, "Put us back in the ring; we're ready for round two." Until coauthoring a document is as easy and ubiquitous as e-mail attachments, our job isn't done." One hope is that Office 15 might deal with some long-standing issues in Office, thanks to an intern who worked on improving search features on Office.com and built a tool so the Office developers could look at what people are searching for and "leverage the data in Office '15' planning". Is there a new app in Office 2012? Maybe but it isn't Limestone; that's the same internal testing tool we saw in Office 2010 builds. The leaked build includes a new program called Moorea (there isn't a shortcut for it on the Start menu but you can run it anyway). WINDOWS 8 LOOK: The new Moorea app lets you place images, text and links to Word documents on a tiled layout that's very Metro This lets you create layouts with images, text and links to Word documents, on a widescreen grid of tiles; it looks ideal for packaging up content into a Windows 8 tablet layout and we think it might be a tablet authoring tool – the files it saves are HTML… Is Office 2012 based on HTML? No. There's Moorea, which looks like a nice way to build HTML interfaces for content, and there's a new application model for developers creating tools on top of Office using JavaScript and HTML (although Visual Basic and C# are still there). A Microsoft job advert explains "Integration of JavaScript/HTML5 will enable developers to create rich applications that span clients and server, integrate with Office 365, enhance the SharePoint experience, and unlock new scenarios that unleash the great potential that lies in the combination of Office and the cloud." One theory; developers might be able to create add-ins for Office that would also work with the Office Web Apps. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Orange Film To Go offers free films each week Posted: Orange customers will be able to download a free film every Thursday with the network's new scheme called Film To Go. Every week, Orange mobile and broadband users can nab a film from iTunes and watch it on a computer, iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone for up to 30 days. You won't be able to enjoy any old film you fancy, though; Orange has put together its own roster of films for the launch, including The Wrestler, The Ghost and Che: Part One – not exactly a laugh-a-minute line-up. Orange Thursdays Every Thursday will bring a different film with it and you'll need to text 'filmtogo' to 85060 or use the new Orange Film To Go app to get the code needed to download it. The new Film To Go service joins Orange's popular two-for-one cinema tickets promotion, Orange Wednesdays. "We know Orange customers love film," said Spencer McHugh, Orange's brand director. "So adding the Orange Film to Go service to our existing portfolio of film offers is hugely exciting for us." A word of warning: each film will be over 1GB in size, so make sure you only download it over Wi-Fi rather than eating up all your data allowance and more in one go. Otherwise you might as well, you know, buy the film.

In Depth: 12 best Google Chrome extensions Posted: 12 best Google Chrome extensions Google Chrome's speed and stability have made it many people's browser of choice. It has also supported browser extensions for some time, and there are hundreds now available that add to its features and help to make your browsing safer, faster and more productive. However, it's not always easy to separate the wheat from the chaff, and there are some shockingly poor extensions out there. We've helped show the way by picking out 12 of the best Chrome extensions. 1. Send from Gmail Clicking 'mail to' links online can be annoying if you're a Gmail user, because they generally launch the default mail program and don't work well if you prefer to use web mail. Send from Gmail changes that behaviour to open a Gmail 'Compose mail' window in Chrome whenever you click an email link. It also gives you a Gmail button next to the address bar, which you can click to open a new mail message wherever you are. You can configure the extension to support Google App for your domain. 2. Scroll to Top Button Savvy web designers generally break long sections of text into manageable page-sized chunks to avoid scrolling, and good web writers stay succinct and to the point, because most visitors are averse to scrolling and only really look at the first screen full of information. However, lots of sites still include pages that are many times the length of the average screen. Scroll Top to Bottom adds a handy 'scroll to top' button to particularly long pages, which appears when you hover the mouse over the top right of the page and makes navigating lengthy pages much easier. You can configure the button to scroll to the bottom of the page as well, and there are lots of options to customise the button and its position to suit your reading style. 3. Dropbox for Chrome Dropbox is a free service that lets you store up to 2GB of data on a remote server. It synchronises your stored files with local copies on as many PCs as you like. Dropbox for Chrome lets you access your Dropbox files directly in Chrome, so you can quickly download or upload a modified file without installing Dropbox locally. This is ideal for portable computing and laptops, where you don't want to sync continually. Once you've installed the Dropbox extension, you'll be prompted to enter your username and password. You can also specify the size of the popup window used to display your files. 4. Docs PDF PowerPoint Viewer Docs PDF PowerPoint Viewer is a very handy extension which practically does away with your need to run a local PDF viewer application. Once the plugin is installed, Chrome will automatically open any PDF files you come across when browsing as Google Documents. There's no need to download the file to your PC before you can open it, and you can store it in your Google Document space if you have a Google account. The PDF viewer is quite basic, but you can still perform a simple text search within it. The latest version of Chrome includes a PDF viewer, but this is still handy if you want to move PDFs to Google Docs and share them with others. 5. Things to Do Things to Do is a simple addition to Chrome that lets you maintain a to do list that opens whenever you start a new tab. If you're browsing the web and suddenly remember a task, open a new tab, click the 'Add' button and enter the details. You can return to this tab or open a new one at any time to maintain your list. You can use the options to customise the colours and size of the list. You can reorder items on the list page by simply clicking and dragging the bullet buttons to the left of each entry. Edit any item by clicking its text and making the necessary changes. 6. New Tab Favourites New Tab Favourites gives you a list of common destinations to choose from whenever you open a new tab in Chrome. The idea is that you can browse more quickly with convenient links to places like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook at your fingertips. There's already a list available when you install the extension, but you can customise it by clicking 'Edit mode'. Enter the names of any new sites you want to use along with their URLS, and remove any unwanted ones. 7. TweetRight Twitter is great for sharing things you've found online, but copying a URL, shortening it correctly and then pasting it into a tweet can be a tedious and clumsy affair. Even if you have a URL-shortening tool built into your preferred Twitter client, you still have to copy and paste the full address of anything that you want to share. TweetRight is a Chrome extension that makes posting something to Twitter a two-click process. Right-click the item you want to share, choose 'TweetRight' and then 'Post link to Twitter'. It's simple and easy. 8. Google Scribe Google Scribe uses Google's predictive technology to guess what you're typing as you type it, and will suggest the likely next word in a sentence. This Chrome extension makes the predictive power of Scribe available on any website. There are privacy issues, because predicting what you're writing involves remembering what you've typed before, but this is still very useful for anyone who finds typing a chore. You can enable Scribe in all text boxes by default or select 'On demand', which lets you can toggle it on and off by pressing [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[J]. 9. AdBlock Adblock removes adverts from web pages. Once it's installed select the ad filter lists that you want to use. You can add new lists if you know the URL of the list server. One of the general options lets you choose to keep text ads on Google searches, which can be useful. An option to remove YouTube ads is currently in beta. You can enable ads on certain sites in the 'Customize' tab, which can be useful if you want to see ads on a site. You can also block specific ads by URL. 10. Google Translate If you come across a foreign language web page and you can't translate it yourself, Google Translate is the next best thing. It uses Google Translate to fetch a literal translation of the page from Google's servers. It automatically detects the language used and provides a link to the translated version if it isn't your default language. You can set your default language and opt to translate pages automatically if you prefer. 11. Chrome IE Tab Multi For sites that insist you can only browse them using Internet Explorer, there are various extensions that can help. Chrome IE Tab Multi is the most useful of the options on offer, because it does the best job of mimicking Internet Explorer and supports multiple tabs. It also supports ActiveX controls, and can remember which sites you prefer to use in IE mode. In the options you can bookmark sites to open with IE Tab Multi and add options to open links in IE Tab Multi to the Chrome context menu. 12. FlashBlock Flash can add useful and attractive multimedia elements like animation to web pages, but it can also be used to hide malicious code. Flash modules can also be frustratingly slow to load, especially if they aren't relevant to what you want to do. FlashBlock is a port of the Firefox extension that blocks all Flash content until you permit it. Flash elements are presented as placeholders, which you can click and then decide whether to run the script or not. You can set up a whitelist of trusted sites, which will allow commonly used and trusted Flash content to run without interruption. Consider installing the FlashBlock plugin if you want to improve your browsing security at the expense of some bells and whistles.

In Depth: How to explore space from your desktop Posted: How to explore space from your desktop Half a century has passed since Yuri Gagarin ventured into orbit, and over 40 years since we landed on the moon, but since then, we've retreated. Space is too expensive to explore. The space shuttle fleet is being retired to museums, and our only permanent orbital presence is limited to a handful of scientists. But while manned space exploration appears to have faltered, astronomy has exploded beyond all recognition. We now know of nearly 600 planets orbiting alien suns, and have a small army of space telescopes at our command. It's not just professional scientists making breakthroughs, either. Amateur astronomers and armchair enthusiasts also provide vital discoveries. Do we really need expensive manned space flight any more, or can we now discover the secrets of the universe from our PCs and back gardens? "I actually had to classify the galaxy next to it - next to the strange thing I found," says Dutch schoolteacher Hanny van Arkel of the discovery that made her famous. Hanny's Voorwerp (the Dutch word for 'object') is an unusual patch of superheated gas close to a spiral galaxy in the constellation Leo Minor. It contains no stars, so where is the heat coming from? It seems to be a complete mystery, but it's one that could have been undiscovered for many more years if it weren't for the emerging field of citizen science. "It's very light, very warm, and it doesn't have any stars, which apparently is exceptional," says van Arkel. "I thought, 'Wait, what was that?' So I clicked the back button and saw this strange, blue sort of cloud. It caught my eye because it was very blue and it had a strange form. It was nothing like the irregular galaxies I'd seen." Van Arkel found the Voorwerp while classifying galaxies from her home in Holland as part of the Galaxy Zoo project. She contacted one of the astronomers on the project (known as Zookeepers), but neither he nor his colleagues knew what the Voorwerp was either. In a demonstration of just how much private individuals can help science, time was booked on the Hubble Space Telescope to examine the Voorwerp in more detail. The team controlling Hubble receive around 10,000 requests for time each year, but van Arkel's discovery was so intriguing and important, it became one of only 3,500 requests to be granted. Van Arkel's involvement in the Galaxy Zoo project was as unexpected as her discovery. "I have a passion for music," she says. "I play guitar, and Queen is one of the bands I like. Brian May is interested in astronomy and put an announcement on his website about a project called Galaxy Zoo. It looked very interesting and I thought: 'Well, I'll have a look.'" Crowdsourced science Galaxy Zoo is much more than a simple project to get people interested in astronomy and science in general. It's also part of an attempt to help working scientists overcome a growing problem shared by many different areas of science, as physicist Chris Lintott explains. "It's something strange that's been caused by an explosion in technology, in computing power, in the availability of cheap cameras and in bandwidth," he says. "I think for the first time in a long while, we almost have too much data. And I think that a lot of the science that happens in astronomy, in ecology [and] in climate science over the next decade will be driven by how creatively we can solve that problem." Galaxy Zoo helps solve the problem of the mountain of data streaming down to Earth from dozens of space telescopes collecting data at various wavelengths. When it comes to pattern-matching, the average human brain is still far more accurate, faster and cheaper than even the best artificial neural network software. It was therefore logical to ask members of the public to log in and set to work classifying galaxies into groups to help create a full survey of captured galaxies. Galaxy Zoo launched in 2007, with an initial one million images for people to classify. The team behind the site believed it would take two years for visitors to work through them all, but were very excited by the enthusiasm shown by armchair astronomers the world over. Within 27 hours, pictures of galaxies were being classified and re-classified at a rate of 70,000 an hour. The original million galaxies were classified 50 million times by 150,000 regular users in the first year alone. Multiple classifications increase the confidence that a galaxy has been correctly categorised. Galaxy Zoo is part of a larger initiative called the Zooniverse. Its subtitle is 'Real science online', and that's exactly what it is. After all, experimentation is only a small part of science - the bulk of the work revolves around classifying and analysing the collected data to discover what it reveals. There's no reason that anyone with an interest in science and a little training can't don a virtual lab coat, pitch in and help out. The full Zooniverse contains projects as diverse as watching for massive solar storms to help provide a much needed early warning system for Earth, hunting for planets orbiting other suns, and helping to show how Earth's climate is changing by entering naval observations stretching back to the 18th century. Getting involved The training involved in Galaxy Zoo is straightforward, making the project open to just about anyone who's interested in taking part. When classifying galaxies, you are asked several questions about their appearance. To answer the questions, you simply need to know what they mean, which is explained on the project's website. The first question is whether the galaxy is smooth (simply a cloud of material that gets brighter towards a central point), has visible features, or is a definite disk shape. There are several examples you can click to see if your classifications are correct. This idea of teaching by example is remarkably efficient, and by the third classification question, it's difficult to get the answers wrong. It's very easy to see if a galaxy is 'cigar-shaped', for example. Counting the number of arms on a spiral galaxy is just as simple. This classification system is exactly the same as the one used by working scientists like Meghan Gray, a research fellow in the Faculty of Science at Nottingham University. "Even though we have automated routines to gather some of this information," she says, "those automated routines are still not perfect and there's still a lot to be gained by using [the] eye-brain system, which is really good at picking out particular patterns or particular features." There's a real need for volunteers in these projects. "Together with a team of maybe about seven or eight other people, we could cover about six or seven thousand galaxies, with each one being done a couple of times to make sure that we agree on the classification," says Gray. Some databases contain millions of galaxies, though. "That's far too many galaxies for any sane individual to look through, one by one," she says. Amateur discoveries There's always the possibility that you might uncover something that nobody else has seen or can explain, and that's exactly what happened in the case of Hanny's Voorwerp. It became an object of interest; something out of the ordinary, and that's always something that excites scientific minds, trained or otherwise. The word 'amateur' comes from French, meaning 'lover of'. While the term has negative connotations in some fields, astronomy has a long tradition of amateurs making important discoveries, and this looks set to continue into the internet age. One inspiring example is German-born composer and musician William Herschel. His music led him to study mathematics, and eventually astronomy. After emigrating to England and settling in Bath, where he became organist at the Octagon Chapel in 1766, Herschel designed and built his own reflecting telescope - sometimes spending up to 16 hours a day carefully grinding and polishing the mirrors. In 1781, during a painstaking search for double stars, Herschel and his sister Caroline discovered Uranus. This led to his election to the Royal Society in 1782, and his appointment as the King's Astronomer. Since then, many other amateur astronomers have found fame and even fortune. Sir Patrick Moore, despite having written over 70 books and been president of the British Astronomical Association, is a proud amateur. His maps of the moon were even used by NASA to help select possible landing sites for the Apollo missions. Canadian David H Levy is an amateur astronomer who holds the record for the most comets discovered by a single person (22), including the famous Shoemaker-Levy 9, which broke up in 1994 and smashed into Jupiter's upper atmosphere in 1995. Exploring space on your PC If you'd rather simply understand what you can see on clear nights, or fly a virtual spaceship between the planets, there's no shortage of excellent free software that can help you, much of which is also open source. Stellarium is a fully featured virtual planetarium that will tell you exactly what you can see in the night sky. Turn off the atmosphere to get a better view of space by pressing [A]. You might also want to turn on the equatorial grid by pressing [E] so you can judge where you are in the sky more easily. The best thing about Stellarium is that you're not limited to observing from Earth. Press [F6] select 'Moon' and you'll find yourself on the lunar surface. You can even speed up time by hovering the cursor over the location bar at the bottom of the screen. Celestia is an application that lets you climb into a virtual spaceship and travel between planets to see some far-out sights. It's more than a simple virtual planetarium; it's a real time space simulation that uses real data to plot the location of objects in our solar system and well beyond. It's best to start with a demo, which you can enter by pressing [D], but Celestia also lets you fly around under your own control. Point your virtual spaceship in the direction you want to travel by dragging your cursor, then press [A] to accelerate. Your speed is displayed at the bottom left of the screen. To decelerate, press [Z]. To jump to a specific location, click 'Navigation | Go to Object' and enter its name. For example, to go to the Cassini probe, type Cassini and press [Enter]. Be aware, though, that Celestia can cause you to waste several hours doing things like flying through Saturn's rings, or making contact with space probes. Worldwide Telescope Microsoft Research's Worldwide Telescope is an even more impressive piece of software. It gives you access to the images from a collection of telescopes and sky studies, combined to provide a seamless view of the known universe - but there's a lot more to it than just amazing visuals. "Worldwide Telescope brings to life a dream that many of us in Microsoft Research have pursued for years, and we are proud to release this as a free service to anyone who wants to explore the universe," says Curtis Wong, Manager of Microsoft's Next Media Research Group. "There's really nothing else that allows you to so fluidly put together your own view of the night sky and different objects and then share it in a seamless way," adds Jonathan Fay, a developer with the group. The Worldwide Telescope has also been described as a space for storytelling, but what does it let you to do? For starters, you can add your own imagery to the default database. If you're already a keen amateur astronomer, this means you can create your own views of the sky, rather than relying on others to do it for you. The Communities feature lets you make a global group of like-minded individuals to help you in your research. The hope is that teachers will also use Worldwide Telescope to make lesson plans that pupils can add to. The default installation contains a catalogue of guided tours, and because the Worldwide Telescope is a collaborative venture, there are plenty to download too. When mission controllers are driving a robot on another planet, like the Spirit and Opportunity rovers on Mars, they don't only have to use simple 2D television pictures and other readings to find their way around. It makes sense to also see depth, and Worldwide Telescope gives you a sense of how that must feel if you have a pair of 3D glasses to hand. After downloading and installing the software, click 'Explore', then 'Solar System (sky)'. Click 'Mars', then select 'Panorama' from the menu at the bottom of the screen. The default image is a picture of the Apollo 12 landing site. Select an entry labelled 'stereo' from the Imagery menu and put on your 3D glasses. The Spirit and Opportunity rovers have stereo vision, and the difference it makes to their images is breathtaking. No satellite needed If astronomy isn't your thing, there are other projects out there, including the Old Weather project. Climatologists are trying to predict future weather trends by looking at records going back to the 18th century. Are current fluctuations in climate unique, or have similar changes happened before? Luckily, log books are available from ships belonging to the English East India Company. These stretch back to the 1780s and contain measurements of tides and weather, but they aren't the only resources we have. When Darwin made his historic voyage on HMS Beagle between 1831 and 1836, the voyage was part of the South American Survey. Darwin was essentially a passenger, on board partly because Captain Fitzroy feared madness if he had no one of his intellectual status to talk to. Data from this and similar voyages is also available, but the scientists trying to map historical weather have a serious problem. There are 250,000 ships' logbooks in the UK alone, and more exist in the USA, South America and Asia. Clive Wilkinson of the Old Weather Project estimates that they contain billions of observations. The problem is, computers can't read the copperplate handwriting used to log them. This is where the public comes in - the text needs to be read and entered into a database. Once this is done, the climatologists plan to publish the data so people can make their own analyses. This is very exciting; there's every chance that a non-scientist might make an important discovery about our climate. We live in an unprecedented time of technological progress, but it's also a time of data overload. Because of this, scientific discovery is no longer the preserve of professionals. They need our help, which means that anyone could discover something amazing. In that sense, we're all potential explorers, boldly going where no one has gone before. The universe is vast and mostly unmapped. There are still plenty of Voorwerps left to discover on Earth and out in space, each potentially stranger than the last. All we need is access to a PC.

Tutorial: Microsoft Excel shortcuts to save you time Posted: Start speeding up the way you use Office Excel by setting it up to reflect your personal needs. Open Options from the Tools menu, File ribbon or Office button, then work your way through the options on offer. Set up how many worksheets you prefer new workbooks to contain from the General section, and choose a default format and location new files are saved to from the Save section. When entering data, make use of the Fill Handle to dramatically speed up data entry - just type in a figure, then click and drag the fill handle down or to the right to duplicate the number or formula in each of the selected cells. The Fill Handle can also speed up entering a row or column of consecutive dates, including days, months or years. Type the first entry as normal, then click and drag using the right mouse button - if you've typed Monday, for example, you can fill out weekdays or all seven days of the week as you drag by selecting the appropriate option. The Fill Handle isn't much use for entering the same figure in non-adjacent cells, but there's a workaround. Select the cells you wish to include by Ctrl-clicking each, then type the cell reference, number or absolute formula before pressing Ctrl and Return. Navigating a large spreadsheet can be a real hassle, so instead of manually scrolling to the cell in question, simply type it into the Name box and press Return to jump straight to it. If you frequently use a specific figure, such as VAT, in your workbook calculations, save time by defining it as a constant - switch to the Formulas ribbon and choose Define Name. Type the term (VAT in our example) into the Name box and its amount (20) into the Refers to box before clicking on OK. Now just type VAT instead of 20 into your formulas, and when the VAT rate next changes, you can update the entire workbook to the new rate simply by changing the figure for VAT in the Name Manager. The quickest way to enter an unknown formula is to click the fx button and then follow the wizard to choose the appropriate one for your needs. Office Excel 2007 and 2010 users will also find a host of formulas conveniently organised into categories on the Formulas tab. When copying and pasting formulas from one cell to another, they're treated as relative, which means the cell references are based on where the cells are in relation to the cell containing the formula. Quickly create absolute formula references using the $ character, so cell A1 becomes $A$1, for example. Last, but not least, if you need to style your spreadsheet in Office Excel 2007 or 2010, make use of the Cell Styles function instead of manually highlighting or colouring cells. Select an already formatted cell, then click the Cell Styles button on the Home tab and choose New Style. Name it up and click OK - in future, click Cell Styles again to format your cells from the Custom section. Quick-fire charts The quickest and easiest way to create a chart in Office Excel isn't Chart Wizard - just select the cells you wish to include in your chart and then press F11. The Chart Wizard is bypassed and a chart instantly appears on the screen. Once that's done, just right-click on the various elements to customise the chart. Excel shortcuts Alt and Return: Start a new line in the current cell instead of moving to the next one. F11: Generate a chart from the currently selected data. Shift/Ctrl and Space: Select the current row/column. Alt and =: Total the selected cells. Ctrl and Shift and $: Format selected cells as currency with two decimal places. Ctrl and ;: Insert current date. Ctrl and Shift and ': Paste value from the cell above. Shift and F11: Insert a new worksheet. Ctrl and PageDown/PageUp: Move between worksheets. Ctrl and D/R: Fill cell with the contents of the cell either above (D) or to the left (R).

BBM6 released with in-app chat capabilities Posted: RIM has released BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) 6, an update to its much-loved messaging software that now allows users to chat from within connected apps and games. Available today, users with BlackBerry OS 4.5 or higher will be able to push messages to friends from within a select number of apps, including FourSquare and Wikitude. You can also expect to see BBM chat in some games, with achievements and trophies added to your BBM profile so your friends can see what games you're playing (and how terrible you are at them). Gamify Along with proof of your gaming prowess, you'll be able to add a status update to your profile. Conversation style text messaging support for BBM-less contacts has also been added, so you can do all your messaging from within the BBM app. We expect to see a host of newly BBM integrated apps pop up over the coming months as developers implement the system more widely, particularly in advance of iOS 5's autumn release, which brings iMessage with it - Apple's competing product for iPhone and iPad. This update to the popular messaging service could be the shiny new social thing that RIM was teasing earlier this week; sure, it's a nice update and all but… well… we were really hoping for some new hardware. Still, with a BlackBerry media event scheduled for next week, the wait for that might not be too much longer.

Facebook iPad app leaks Posted: Facebook appears to have hidden its upcoming iPad app in the code of the existing iPhone one, suggesting that the app's launch is not far off. Despite being eighteen months old, the iPad is yet to get an official Facebook app, with Apple tablet users settling for the web version or the scaled-up iPhone app. TechCrunch has posted a rather gushing hands on with the app, which points out the "great" navigation system, "great" use of overlay menus and the "great" looking photo viewer, which is similar to the iPad gallery app. Facebook feeds The look and feel of the app is certainly in keeping with the iPad's interface, with familiar icons and layout as standard. As well as access to the regular Facebook news feed, the app offers photo upload, Facebook chat, Places check-ins and the ability to toggle feed filters. It's not clear if iPad Facebook chat incorporates the newly launched, Skype-powered Facebook video calling, however. The app, which is built in HTML5, still appears to be being built, with a source noting that HTML changes are being rolled out on an hourly basis; but it's safe to say we're not far off a Facebook iPad app release.

Tutorial: Handy Microsoft Word shortcuts to save you time and effort Posted: You don't need to learn touch typing to save time using Office Word; there are plenty of other tips and tricks to try, too. Start by learning all about AutoCorrect – this useful feature doesn't just correct mistakes, it can also be used to provide shortcuts for long words or passages of text. Open Word Options, select Proofing then AutoCorrect Options to set it up. It's worth checking out the AutoFormat As You Type tab while you're here to discover some more time-saving tips, such as surrounding words with the asterisk (*) character to convert them into bold text. Special characters such as © and é can be awkward to enter manually – shortcut keys are available (Ctrl and ' and E for é, for example), but where do you find out about them? Simple, open the Insert ribbon or menu and choose Symbol ➜ More Symbols… Select the symbol to find its shortcut key, or click AutoCorrect to create something more memorable. The best way to keep text looking consistent is to make use of Office Word's Styles. If the default choices don't meet your expectations, change them – the simplest way to do this is to style up your text, select it, then right-click the appropriate style (such as Normal or No Spacing) and choose Update {Style name} to match selection. You may also want to create a special Body Text style to use instead of Normal or No Spacing – click the More button under the Styles section of the Home ribbon then click New Style to get started. If you frequently select text in your document, familiarise yourself with these shortcuts: double-click a word to select it, then click again to select the entire paragraph. To select a sentence within a paragraph, hold Ctrl as you click, or hold Alt as you click and drag the mouse to select a rectangular block of text. Creating your own ribbons If you have Office 2010, you can now customise or create your own ribbons, enabling you to place all your favourite commands on a single ribbon and saving you the hassle of moving between them. Get started by clicking the File tab, selecting Word Options and then choosing Customize Ribbon. Existing ribbons can be customised, or click New Tab to create one from scratch. Commands are then organised into different groups, and you can mix and match commands easily. Office 2007 users wanting this functionality should take a look at the RibbonCustomizer add-in. There's a free cutdown Starter Version available, or you can unlock all its features by purchasing the Pro version for US$29.99. Finally, save even more time when looking for menu or ribbon options by simply placing them on the Quick Access Toolbar where they're always visible; in Word 2007 and 2010 this is in the top-left of the Word window. Click on the down arrow and choose More Commands to access options that are on the ribbon and buried elsewhere – once placed, they'll be just a click away. Copy and paste formatting People who use either Office Word 2007 or 2010 can copy the formatting from one block of text to another; simply select some text that contains the formatting you wish to copy elsewhere, then click on the Format Painter button. The icon changes to a paint brush – just select the text you wish to restyle to see it change. Word shortcuts Ctrl and left arrow/right arrow: Move to previous/next word. Home/End: Move to beginning or end of the current line. Ctrl and Home/End: Jump to beginning or end of document. Ctrl and Shift and Home/End: Select all text before/after cursor point. Ctrl and Shift and </>: Decrease or increase selected text size by 1 point. Ctrl and [ / ]: Increase or decrease font size by 1 point. Ctrl and L/E/R: Align current paragraph left/centre/right. Ctrl and F/H: Open the Find or Find and Replace dialogue box. Ctrl and Space: Remove formatting from the current text selection. Alt: Reveal shortcut keys for menus, tabs and Quick Access Toolbar.

In Depth: 10 top Pages tips and tricks Posted: Pages is Apple's word processing and page layout app, part of the iWork productivity suite for the Mac. It's extremely easy to use but is also very powerful - here's our list of useful tips and tricks to help you get more from Pages. 1. Tables of Contents (TOCs) Tables of Contents are useful for longer documents, and so easy to do. First, make sure you use defined paragraph styles for your headings. Now place the insertion point where you want it to be added, then use the Insert > Table of Contents command. This displays the TOC tab in the Document Inspector, and you check the box next to each heading style you want the TOC to include. If you check the 'Make page numbers links' box below, you can click on a page number in the TOC to go straight to that heading. This works both in Page and exported PDF version files. 2. Alignment guides and preferences The automatic Alignment Guides are really useful for lining up any objects you add to your documents and 'snapping' them into position. However, they can sometimes be distracting and get in the way, especially when you're trying to position an object very precisely. But they are easy to get rid of, all you have to do is hold down Command as you drag them and this will temporarily disable them, leaving you to get on with your work. 3. Paste while preserving formatting Sometimes you'll want to paste in text or numbers from a web page, an email or another document, but the original text formatting (font, size, colour and so on) will be used, which means you may then have to re-style the text. The solution is not to use the usual Command+V 'Paste' shortcut, but use Shift+Option+Command+V instead. This matches the new text to the existing style at the insertion point. 4. Option-click tab to bring up multiple inspectors While the Pages Inspector doesn't actually take up that much space on your screen, it does a huge amount of work, and so it can get really tiresome having to continually swap from one tab to another. But if you Option-click on a tab icon instead, you'll see that it opens up a brand new Inspector window. You'll soon find that having a couple of your most-used Inspectors open at the same time will save a lot of clicking. 5. Outline mode Outlines are really useful for planning and organising documents, and here's not one but three outlining mini-tips. First, you can save a lot of manual formatting by choosing a suitable Outline Template. Second, there's a button on the toolbar for reducing images to unobtrusive thumbnails. Third, there's another button that curtails long paragraphs into a single line. 6. Password protection There are lots of reasons why you might want to password-protect your documents, such as you are using a shared computer or you are working with sensitive information. If you take a look at the bottom of the Document Inspector you'll see a 'Require password to open' checkbox. You can choose your own password, or let Pages suggest one for you – and you can type in a hint in case you forget your own password. Duh! 7. Word counts If you're asked to write an essay, a report or a magazine article, you're probably going to be given a word count. So how do you know how many you've written? Take a look at the bottom of the window – the status bar shows you how many words there are in the document and, if you select some text, how many there are in the selection too. 8. Sections and Word Processing Sections are a great way to split up and logically organise long Word Processing documents and make them manageable. Each section can be moved around in the document by dragging its page thumbnail (outlined in yellow in the page thumbnail panel here). You can use different page numbering, headers and footers and column layouts for each section. 9. Tables can be spreadsheets The tables you add needn't just be boxes with words in. They can be used as mini-spreadsheets too, thanks to the functions in the Table Inspector. Format cells to contain dates or currency values, for example, and add a footer row to total up a column of figures. 10. Two Up page display When you're working on Page Layout documents, it can be useful to view facing pages side by side. But don't use the Two Up option on the pop-up page view menu at the bottom left of the screen. This is the wrong way to go about it because it will put the first (front) page of the document on the left and the first inside page on the right, and all the pages will be out of sync. Instead, click the 'Facing Pages' box in the Document Inspector. This will put the first page on the right and will display page thumbnails as 'spreads'.

RIM may have a BlackBerry Messenger music app in the works Posted: RIM may be working on a social music app that uses BlackBerry Messenger to share songs between friends. The app, which may launch soon after BlackBerry App World 3.0 is officially released, is said to be named BBM Music and will come loaded on all new devices. BBMers will be able to share songs and music playlists with their contacts, while RIM will also offer a music library of its own. Songs will be downloaded directly to the BlackBerry handset through the standalone app. The hills are alive For a subscription fee of around £3 a month ($5), BlackBerry users will be able to send and receive 50 songs every month. RIM has promised that it has seven BlackBerry handsets waiting in the wings, and will be keen to make their messaging service an ever more attractive proposition now that Apple has gone and aped it with iMessage in iOS 5. With most phone OS owners looking to find a way into cloud music storage, this could be RIM's main take on the trend; but will 50 songs a month keep the digital generation happy? The rumour comes from an anonymous source talking to NerdBerry.net – while we haven't reported on any rumours from the site before, it's a well known fact that RIM is looking to social and hoping to incorporate BBM into as many other features as possible, so we'd say this rumour could well turn out to be true.

Buying Guide: 6 best productivity tools for Mac OS X Posted: 6 best productivity tools for OS X Long ago a wise man once said: "You can't manage time, you can only manage what you do with it," and almost since the first computer we have been looking to digital solutions to help us decide what to do and when. Modern personal productivity applications aim to help you do exactly this. Any good personal productivity application should let you capture, organise and complete tasks that you need to do. It's important to understand that they aren't project management apps. Although they should let you group tasks into projects, they aren't focused on project planning or resource allocation. The only resource they work on is your time, not anyone else's. And they need to do this as quickly, seamlessly and easily as possible: if you have to spend lots of time trying to make your system work, it's almost not worth having. In this test, we've picked six of the best productivity applications around. Each takes a different approach to helping you stay on top of things, but all aim to help you capture, process and act upon actions in a way that makes life easier. And that's the key to how such products should work: they must be flexible so as to work with whatever task management system you choose, without forcing you to spend hours tweaking them. Software on test Firetask - £30 Omnifocus - £45 Onlytasks - £11.50 Taskpaper - £18 TaskSurfer - £19 Things - £45 Test one: Ease of use With personal apps like these, 'ease of use' is always going to be a little relative, as it depends on the kind of system you're using to manage your tasks. But in all cases, they need to be quick and easy to get to grips with. Most apps here use a similar starting point, with an Inbox for new, unprocessed to-dos, projects and categories (also called contexts) for grouping tasks, and dates for when something is due. TaskSurfer, Things and Firetask have similar interfaces, with options on the left that let you select projects, to-dos that are due today, and so on. Onlytasks is similar, but refers to projects as 'Notebooks', while OmniFocus splits 'Contexts' out from projects. TaskPaper takes a much simpler approach, with simple lists organised using tags. Firetask is probably quickest to get to grips with. Creating projects is easy, and the 'Today' option is excellent, listing both next actions and whatever's due. Test two: Features Feature-wise, OmniFocus is probably the stand-out product: with a little time, there's very little that you can't get it to do. Tasks can have a context attached (the physical context you need to do the task in - for example, a computer). They can have due dates, estimations of the time they'll take, and notes. Projects can be linear - so you have to complete step one to go on to step two - or parallel, where you can 'park' one step and go on to another. The features, and options, are endless. None of the other products come close in terms of features, though, to be fair, they attempt to focus on a more limited set of features implemented in a way that's easy to use. TaskPaper focuses on lists, with the power of a tagging system. An honourable mention goes to TaskSurfer for its 'Smart Folders', which let you set up live searches - almost matching OmniFocus's power - and its ability to use OS X's Core Location feature to geo-locate tasks. Syncing and managing projects Test three: Syncing Personal productivity systems must be with you even when you're not in front of your Mac, so synchronising tasks - either to a website, other Macs, or an iOS device - is very important. All of the applications except Onlytasks and TaskSurfer have dedicated iOS companion software, which can synchronise directly over your Wi-Fi network. OmniFocus and TaskPaper can also sync over the internet (via a service called SimpleNote in TaskPaper's case), and this is also being planned for both Things and Firetask in the future. Onlytasks and TaskSurfer use third-party online services, both of which allow their tasks to be edited through a web browser. Onlytasks uses Evernote, a popular notetaking service, while TaskSurfer uses the excellent ToodleDo online task-management system. Both Evernote and ToodleDo have iOS apps, effectively giving these packages iOS clients too. Test four: Managing projects Although none of these apps should be considered full-blown project management packages, the ability to create and organise projects is a core part of the functionality of any task-management software. Projects come in many guises, some of which have to be completed step-by-step (linear projects), while others can be completed in any order. OmniFocus offers the widest range of project types, including a type that is simply a collection of to-dos that can be completed in any order. This is also the default project type in Things, while Firetask lets you quickly see either only the top action in a project or all of them - giving both project types in one. Onlytasks and TaskSurfer use different terminology for projects (notebooks and folders). TaskPaper's projects are simple sub-lists in your main document, but its broad tagging system compensates for this by allowing you to customise what you see. The best productivity tool for OS X is... These are personal pieces of software, which makes it very hard to name a single winner. Everyone's approach to managing tasks is different enough to make it worth your while trying out at least one or two different packages to see which one suits. We've whittled it down to a choice of three products: OmniFocus, Firetask and Things. OmniFocus is the 'big beast' of task managers. There's almost nothing you can't do with it, if you're prepared to tinker to make it work for you. Things combines a powerful tagging system with a great look and feel. But our final winner is Firetask. It's nicely designed, and anyone that's new to task management should get to grips with it in minutes. It's also powerful and has a trusted system.

Apple App Store gets UK price hike Posted: Apple has increased the prices of iOS apps and games in its UK App Store, despite US pricing staying the same. App Store pricing is set by a tier system, so when developers submit an app to the store, they pick a tier for which prices are set across each territory. So the lowest-priced tier, let's call it Tier A, used to be 59p in the UK and 99c in the US; now Tier A has become 69p in the UK whereas it remains at 99c in the US - no doubt Apple is loath to break that psychological $1 barrier. Having a giraffe But here in the UK, we're stuck with a 17 per cent increase on the cheapest apps, presumably in line with changing markets and other business-led shenanigans. £3.99 apps saw the biggest leap in pricing, up by 25 per cent – that's one whole pound – to £4.99. Meanwhile apps priced £2.99 haven't changed at all. Some countries, however, have seen prices go down thanks to the reshuffle; lucky old them, eh?

Android Market gets mobile overhaul, brings ebook downloads Posted: Google has given the mobile Android Market a bit of a makeover, with the redesign bringing the web version's good looks to Android handsets. It's got a Windows Phone 7-ish look about it, with grey tiles and side-swipe-able pages, intended to highlight the best and brightest of the apps on offer. The update, which has already begun rolling out to handsets running Android 2.2 or higher will be making its way to worldwide users over the coming weeks. Book it up The updated market also brings Google eBooks to the fore, allowing users to buy books directly from the Android Market; this feature is US-only for the time being, but we expect to see it making its way to phones in the UK, given that it's already on the HTC ChaCha. Book downloads will be linked to your Google account, so you can enjoy them on your other connected devices too. What we probably won't get is the movie rental service that those lucky Yanks will enjoy in the upgraded market. YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Pbo-d62ivY

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