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While it may sound like a difficult task, inserting slides from other presentations is really as easy as copy & paste or even drag and drop. You just need to know how to arrange your windows for optimum performance.
After all, if you’ve created something similar for one presentation, there’s no reason to re-create it just for another.

Arranging your PowerPoint Windows
1. Open the presentation that contains the slide(s) you want to copy
2. Choose Slide Sorter view in the Presentation Views group on the View tab
3. Open the presentation that you will be copying to
4. Choose Slide Sorter view in the Presentation Views group on the View tab
5. Choose the Arrange All command in the Window group on the View tab

Inserting Slides Using the Ribbon
1. Follow the steps above for arranging your PowerPoint Windows
2. Select any slides in the presentation that contains the slide(s) you want to copy
(You can select multiple slides by holding the [SHIFT] key while selecting slides)
3. Choose the Copy command in the Clipboard group on the Home tab
4. Click the Title Bar of the presentation that you will be copying to
5. Choose the Paste command in the Clipboard group on the Home tab

Inserting Slides Using the Shortcut Menu
1. Follow the steps above for arranging your PowerPoint Windows
2. Select any slides in the presentation that contains the slide(s) you want to copy
(You can select multiple slides by holding the [SHIFT] key while selecting slides)
3. Right-click any of the selected slides
4. Choose Copy from the Shortcut Menu
5. Click the Title Bar of the presentation that you will be copying to
6. Right-click anywhere in Slide Sorter view
7. Choose Paste from the Shortcut Menu

Inserting Slides Using Drag & Drop
1. Follow the steps above for arranging your PowerPoint Windows
2. Select any slides in the presentation that contains the slide(s) you want to copy
(You can select multiple slides by holding the [SHIFT] key while selecting slides)
3. Using your left mouse button, drag and drop the slides from one presentation to the other

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Steve Ballmer signed a gold DVD bearing the RTM version of Windows 7 on Wednesday, signaling that Microsoft has completed work on it’s newest operating system.

In an InformationWeek article, Paul McDougall covered the final, official sign-off on Windows 7 RTM. Below are the upcoming release dates for Windows 7 RTM.

• August 6: Available for download from Microsoft Connect or MSDN on August 6th for software and hardware vendors, as well as IT professionals and developers with MSDN or TechNet subscriptions.
• August 16: Windows 7 available to Microsoft Partner Program Gold/Certified members
• August 23: Windows 7 available to Microsoft Action Pack subscribers
• October 22: Windows 7 available to consumers on a new PC or standalone box from retailers

Pricing ranges from $199. for Home Premium (upgrade from Vista or XP is $119.) to $319. for Windows 7 Ultimate (upgrade price of $219.).

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Its easy to wonder about the future of Microsoft these days. Looking in to the future ten years from now, I think just about any direction is possible for the giant. Its completely feasible for Microsoft to be fading in to “Digital Age” history. Or on the complete opposite side, its not unreasonable to see them regain their footing, and take the high ground (strategically that is) after assaults from Google, Apple, and a myriad of smaller niche products who slowly eat away at Microsoft’s market share.

TechRepublic author Jason Hiner, recently wrote “Has Microsoft switched from defense back to offense?“, an article that analyzes Microsoft’s recent reactions to competition and asks whether the company has any big plays left. Hiner unfortunately (but wisely) gives no clear answer to this question, but his article clearly points to the fact that this is a pivotal time for Microsoft. The “plays” they make now will have a huge impact on whether or not they’ll be on top of the industry a decade from now.

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With over 500 Million people using Microsoft Office, it’s fair to say that Microsoft has done a great job keeping up with the ever changing needs of the desktop workforce. With office 2010 looming on the horizon, we can only assume it will be another hit.

In a great article, “A Quickie with Microsoft Office 2010,” Chelsi Nakano with CMS Wire lays out three steps for success that Microsoft has taken with this new suite.

Step 1: Become One with the Web. The success of online document management with some of Microsoft’s chief competitors has shown that this is an area to take seriously, and Microsoft is answering with a handful of free web browser versions of Office, including Excel, PowerPoint and Word.

Step 2: Up Your Sharing and Collaboration Game. Office 2010 will be filled with real time functionality, with a focus on SharePoint, enhanced video and image editing tools in PowerPoint (including the ability to compress slide shows for sharing), browser versions of Word and Excel (a new feature called Sparklines provides more intuitive interpretation of charts), and some UI improvements to Outlook.

Step 3: Hollywood, Baby! Finally, Microsoft has upped it’s marketing game, again, providing preview videos for each tool and a full blown Office 2010 Movie Trailer! Very entertaining, despite the gimmicky presentation. Check it out!

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Using the Organize Pane, you can apply conditional formatting to messages in your Inbox (and other mail folders). You can also access the Rules and Alerts Dialog Box from the Organize Pane.

Using Folders
Using Folders in the Organize Pane is an easy way to move messages from the selected folder to another existing folder.

1. Select a message in your Inbox (or another folder)
2. Choose Tools from the Menu Bar
3. Choose Organize (to open the Organize Pane)
4. Select the folder to move the selected message to
5. Click Move
6. When finished, click the Close button to hide the Organize Pane

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This week, Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit announced the release of SP2 for Mac Office 2008.

Service Pack 2 (Mac Office 12.2.0 – available from Mactopia or by Auto Update) will include standard stability, performance, and security updates among other improvements for PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. With the addition of Office Live Workspace access, users will be able to take advantage of Microsoft’s online space for collaboration and document storage as well.

Another new feature, Document Connection, will integrate with SharePoint and Office Live Workspace, and includes improved support for Apple’s Web browser, Safari.

MacBU warns however that users running Entourage for Web Services beta should wait to install SP2 until after a few final changes are made – but no dates were given.

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On a recent post from ZDNet.com, Larry Dignan, shares his experience of using Microsoft's new search engine, Bing instead of Google for one week. In the post Dignan includes his short diary from each day's usage of Bing and his findings. The goal was to test some theories;

Could I use Bing as my default search engine?
Would I miss Google?
Is search really just a commodity where loyalties are chosen by brand not necessarily functionality?

Interestingly the issue of whether Bing has the potential to replace Google, or even (more realistically) take a significant portion of the market share, seems to come down more to brand loyalty rather than functionality.
While both search engines have powerful searches with varying features, they both only find what you're looking for some and not all of the time. While Bing seems to have done a fair job thus far, for the average user there is no clear incentive to switch from Google. Additionally, Dignan points out, "However, there was a trust issue with Bing and I. I felt like I had to verify my Bing results with a Google search."

At the end of the day, the vast majority of users are going to stick with Google, and even those that switch to Bing now, will most likely go back to using Google after the hype has worn off. To be fair though, this is just one battle in a very long search engine war.

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Microsoft has introduced a new Professional-level certification for Windows 7 that requires candidates to pass one of two hardware-based exams from the Help Desk Institute.

Michael Domingo with Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine Online writes on the details.

The new MCITP: EDST7 title tests a candidates skills to implement Windows 7 as well as deliver those skills in a customer service environment.
Required Exams include 70-680 TS: Windows 7, Configuring and 70-685 Pro: Windows 7, Enterprise Desktop Support Technician, followed by one of HID Support Center Analyst (HDI-SCA) or HDI Desktop Support Technician (HDI-DST).

Michael writes, “What makes the MCITP; EDST7 certification unique is that it’s the first time Microsoft has made an external program’s certification exams a requirement for obtaining an MCP credential.”

Exam 70-680 went live last week and 70-685 is expected later this year.

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In less than three months, Windows 7 will be released to Enterprise customers, with the consumer version still slated for October 22nd.

Monday, Microsoft revealed that business customers would have access to the new operating system at least a month before the consumer version shipped. Microsoft senior Vice President Bill Veghte, during his keynote at the Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans, that enterprise customers with any of several Microsoft Volume Licensing programs will have access to Windows 7 as early as September 1st.

He went on to talk about Windows 7’s features, highlighting the systems ability to run Windows XP and Windows 2000 programs, and addressing many IT pros’ concerns over compatibility.

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Occasionally, you may have slides in your presentation that you won't show to certain groups, but you need to have in there for other groups. Or, you may want to be prepared for “unexpected” questions. Hiding slides is a good solution for this type of situation. When using hidden slides, you can choose mid-presentation if you'd like to display a particular slide. If not, your presentation runs as if a hidden slide doesn't even exist in your presentation.

Hiding a Slide
1. Right-click the slide you want to hide (You can be in Normal View or Slide Sorter View)
2. Choose Hide Slide from the Shortcut menu

Unhiding a Slide
1. Right-click a hidden slide (You can be in Normal View or Slide Sorter View)
2. Choose Hide Slide from the Shortcut menu

Displaying a Hidden Slide During a Presentation
1. In Slide Show View, right-click any slide
2. Choose Go to slide
3. Choose the slide you want to view from the list

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Microsoft plans to release six fixes in it’s July security update tomorrow.

Jabulani Leffall gives a detailed explanation in his RedmondMag article.

In summary, three “critical” patches will stave off RCE exploits, patch the DirectX multimedia control solution, and fix other RCE exploits. The “important” patches will include a virtualization fix for Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 and 2007 editions and Virtual Server 2005 R2 and R2 ×64, as well as address Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006 vulnerabilities and deal with 2007 Microsoft Office System SP1 and Microsoft Office Publisher 2007 SP1.

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While retail users will be able to buy PC’s preloaded with Windows 7 on October 22nd, Microsoft announced today that they are planning to released Windows 7 by the end of July to business users with volume licenses and Software Assurance contracts.

On another note: the Windows 7 retail discount pre-order program will end July 11th (tomorrow).

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This morning on digg.com I found a great Windows 7 review article.

Originally written for PCMAG, this is a great read with a lot of detail on what to expect.

I don’t know about you, but I’m excited and looking forward to the upcoming release.

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You can choose to sort your tables by one or more columns in either Ascending or Descending order. This command also works for sorting text not contained in a table.

1. Select the table
2. Click the Sort command in the Data group on the Table Tools Layout Contextual Tab

3. Set your sort options
4. Click OK

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