Free eBook: Security and Privacy for Microsoft Office 2010 Users from Microsoft Press

Microsoft Press is offering Security and Privacy for Microsoft Office 2010 Users by Mitch Tulloch as a Free e-book in various formats. While the Print Ed is priced at $9.99 and can be obtained from http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0790145356925.do

Take control—and put the built-in security and privacy features in Microsoft Office to work! Whether downloading documents, publishing a presentation, or collaborating online—this guide offers concise, how-to guidance and best practices to help protect your documents and your ideas.

• Get practical, proactive guidance for using the security and privacy management features in Office 2010 and Office 365
• Walk through everyday scenarios, and discover everyday techniques that help you take charge
• Understand common risks and learn best practices you can apply right away

Here’s the Table of Contents of the Book -

• Chapter 1 : Why Should I Care?
  Hey, It’s Not My Responsibility!
  What’s My Role in This?
  Summary
  
• Chapter 2 : Alice Downloads a Document
  Working with Protected View
  Understanding Trust
  Summary
  
• Chapter 3 : Bob Prepares a Policy
  Understanding Document Properties
  Working with Document Inspector
  Working with Digital Signatures
  What About Office 365?
  Summary
  
• Chapter 4 : Carol Collaborates on Some Content
  Encrypting a Document
  Restricting Editing
  Summary
  
• Appendix : Learn More
  General Resources on Office 2010 Security and Privacy
  Protected View
  Trusted Documents
  Trusted Locations
  Document Properties
  Document Inspector
  Digital Signatures
  Encrypt with Password
  Restrict Editing
  Resources on Office Web Apps and Office 365

You can download this free eBook in three formats from the Microsoft Download Center: PDF, .mobi, and ePub.

[video] How is SkyDrive different? Introducing the new SkyDrive !

Introducing the new SkyDrive

Store any file on SkyDrive and it's available to access or share from any device - automatically. With SkyDrive, you'll never be without the documents, notes, photos and videos that matter to you

Learn more or download for Windows, Mac, iOS, WP and more: http://bit.ly/I1rPkH

How to upgrade existing SkyDrive account from 7 GB to 25 GB for FREE!

(SkyDrive cake on the epic release. Pic courtesy : http://t.co/AKx6CkA2 )

As you know preview of SkyDrive for the Windows desktop has been released. Using this you can access your SkyDrive from Windows Explorer on Windows 8, Windows 7 and Windows Vista. Thus SkyDrive has been integrated with Windows. Its available for Windows, Windows Phone, iPhone, iPad and for Mac. You can get this new app from here.

With this release of SkyDrive,  free storage limit is changing to 7 GB. As a Limited time loyalty offer existing SkyDrive users those who already have SkyDrive account, can still get their 25 GB they currently have. This is a Limited time offer and being offered only to early loyal adopters.

Let us see how to claim this free upgrade from 7GB to 25 GB for existing users. As said please note this is Limited Time offer, so do it quickly-

Sign-in to your SkyDrive account and click on ‘Manage storage’ 

or directly goto https://skydrive.live.com/ManageStorage  to get this page. Click on ‘Free Upgrade’

That’s all , now your 7GB storage will be upgraded to 25 GB for FREE!

Those SkyDrive users who were using close to 7GB before the latest update, they’ve have been automatically upgraded to 25GB.

“..starting today, for a limited time, any registered SkyDrive user *who has uploaded files to SkyDrive* as of April 22nd can opt in to keep 25GB of free storage while still getting all of the benefits of the new service. (For users who are already using more than 4GB as of April 1, we’ve automatically opted you in to 25GB of free storage to avoid any issues.) “

Also received a tip from Ludwig Keck that Users who have not made any use of their SkyDrive, i.e. not uploaded anything, do not get the free 25 GB upgrade offer.

As you can see here, this account though created long time back, did not make any use of SkyDrive, so it doesn’t have the upgrade option.

Also as you can see SkyDrive now also offers additional storage options for people who need more. SkyDrive offers affordable plans to add up to 100 GB of additional storage to SkyDrive.

India’s AICTE chooses Microsoft for largest cloud deployment!

All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) announced today that AICTE is deploying Microsoft Live@edu over the next three months to more than 10,000 technical colleges and institutes throughout India.The cloud deployment will expand students’ access to high-quality technical education and collaboration.

The press release said -

“Live@edu is a hosted communication and collaboration service that offers email, Microsoft Office Web Apps, instant messaging and storage to AICTE’s more than 7 million students and nearly 500,000 faculty members, for a total reach of 7.5 million users — roughly double the size of the Los Angeles population — making AICTE Microsoft’s largest cloud customer ever. Live@edu is the first step in AICTE’s deployment of Microsoft cloud computing for education. AICTE also plans to deploy Microsoft Office 365 for education when it becomes available later this year, providing access to Microsoft Exchange Online email and calendar, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Lync Online and Microsoft Office Professional as the technical infrastructure to support member colleges and institutes.”

Part of India’s Ministry of Human Resource Development, AICTE is the governing body for technical education in India, certifying and managing technical colleges and institutes in a country where the technology industry and higher education are both becoming increasingly vital to the economy.

AICTE reviewed solutions from a range of vendors, including Microsoft, IBM and Google. One of the major factors in the decision to choose Microsoft’s cloud services for education was Microsoft’s comprehensive commitment to education across all the company’s products and programmes, as well as the system’s seamless interoperation with the entire Microsoft product portfolio. The council was also impressed by Microsoft’s extensive experience in higher education and ability to deploy a system across geographically distributed locations without adding significantly to the institutions’ IT management costs or complexity.

The implementation is already underway and is being managed by Microsoft and a set of Live@edu partners. Full deployment is expected to be complete by summer 2012.

Live@edu is the leading cloud suite for education, with more than 22 million people using the service worldwide. At 7.5 million users, the AICTE deployment is the largest cloud deployment ever. Other recent Live@edu adoptions include a 700,000 cloud-based collaboration solution for the Kentucky Department of Education. The online service helps educational institutions provide email and enterprise-grade online tools to students and faculty while helping to reduce costs and simplify IT management.

Live@edu is a no-cost hosted platform for student communication and collaboration, providing industry-leading services to the global education market. Email and calendars with a 10GB inbox, 25GB of additional file storage, document sharing, instant messaging, video chat and mobile email are just part of the feature set.

Check the complete press release here.

Get Started Guides from Microsoft

Recently lots of ‘Get Started Guides’ on various topics have been released by Microsoft and can be downloaded from Microsoft Download center. Here’s the list with their download links -

• Successful Meetings with Lync Get Started
• Microsoft Word 2010 Get Started
• Microsoft Excel 2010 Get Started
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 Get Started
• Outlook Web App Get Started
• Outlook 2010 Get Started
• Securing Your Windows Phone Get Started
• Securing Your Computer Work Smart Guide
• Protect Data with Windows 7 BitLocker Get Started
• Environmental Sustainability Get Started
• E-Mail Basics: Managing E-Mail Get Started
• OneNote 2010 Overview
• Microsoft Office 2010 User Interface Get Started
• Windows 7 New Features Get Started

All these guides and many more are contained in this Single Zip pack It has total of 38 guides.

• Work Smart Guide Zip Download

All these are in .Docx format.

Bing gets the Taskbar Button !!

Today as I opened Bing, as usual provided with a stunning Home page and today was the video HomePage ! A time-lapse of a thunderstorm. But there was something more, Apart from its regular ‘Previous, Next, Info’ buttons, there was another to close & expand the Taskbar.

And it closes the Taskbar at the bottom of HomePage,

Check if you are getting this update- http://www.bing.com/  (Change your location to US from top of Bing Homepage)

Twitter adds more Indian cities for trend locations and also few more countries

Now Twitter has added more Indian cities for Trend locations. Earlier apart from India as a country and Mumbai as a City were the options. Now it has Ahmadabad, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore Delhi, Mumbai

Also it has added few countries like Pakistan has been added Check the old Countries list

And the new one -