While working on a new eBook, I needed an easy way to get Microsoft Office Word 2007 to export my writings as a PDF file.  After doing a little searching around, I found an add-in that will do just that.

This simple download allows you to export and save files in the PDF format in Microsoft Office 2007.

This download works with the following Office programs:

• Microsoft Office Access 2007
• Microsoft Office Excel 2007
• Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007
• Microsoft Office OneNote 2007
• Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007
• Microsoft Office Publisher 2007
• Microsoft Office Visio 2007
• Microsoft Office Word 2007

You can download the add-in here.

After you install this download open the document you want to publish and then, depending on the program you are using, select Save to PDF from the Office or File menu.  Hope this comes in handy for anybody else looking for an easy way to save files from Microsoft Office Word 2007 to the PDF format.

When you go to set up your first blog though it, you will notice that it supports a wide variety of services. You can blog through Windows Live Spaces or set it up to work with an external service – like an installation of WordPress on your web hosting account.

The fact that it downloads part of your theme to show you how your blog post will look on the Web (via the Preview tab) is also a really nice touch.

Here are some of the other features worth mentioning:

• Image border treatments (including Instant Photo)
• Crop and tilt photos
• Insert multiple photos
• Toolbar alignment commands enabled for images
• Insert and upload Windows Live photo albums
• Insert and publish video to YouTube
• Server-side tagging (for supported blogs)
• Type-down filtering in the Open dialog
• Twitter, Digg and Flickr Plug-ins
• Improved blog account setup

If you are using Windows, there really is no better blogging tool out there.  I have tried a lot of them, and time after time I keep coming back to Windows Live Writer.

Pick up Windows Live Writer today and give it a shot.  If you have a better suggestion, I’d also love to hear about it in the comments.

Sony’s Best – ModNation Racers looked like the most fun thing they had to show, I really like the mix of the Mario-style kart racing with the do it yourself track building.

Sony’s Worst – Final Fantasy XIV was one of those moments of the show where you get really excited, till they say the word Online then you get sad again.  I never played the first “online” Final Fantasy, so maybe I should give it a fare shake first – however I am more of a fan of the more traditional Final Fantasy series.

Nintendo’s Best – It would have to be a tie, because I am really excited about Super Mario Galaxy 2, New Super Mario Bros Wii (horrible name though) and Metroid: Other M. 

Nintendo’s Worst – Wii Vitality Sensor is really weird.  Being somebody that owns 4 nun-chucks, 2 classic controllers, a Wii Wheel, the Wii Zapper, and 4 Wii-motes – I am running out of places to store all these accessories.  Also, why do I need a biorhythm sensor to play games?

Microsoft’s Best (and Worst) – Project Natal.  Now I don’t have an Xbox 360, so I am not a fair judge here – however I see this full body motion control to be a real winner or a really big loser.  Now, I understand where kicking a ball might be fun with this, but what about shooting a gun?  Are they expecting me to yell, “pew! pew!” at the screen? 

Overall, I think this year’s e3 show, from the point of view of the big three consoles will be, “Oh, you know that motion control stuff we made fun of from the Wii, we do that too… but better!”. 

I am damned impressed with the entire product. I hate to sound like an anti-Microsoft goon, but it is a little hard to believe they developed such a nice product. (Just in case any of the Microsoft guys are reading, really don’t mean that as a back handed compliment) It worked with WordPress right off the bat too with no problems at all.

Inserting pictures into posts is as easy as dragging the image from the desktop of folder into the main editing window of Live Writer. It gets automatically uploaded, just as any other image would to my hosting account. The in-dept draft feature is nice too. I can save as a draft here on my machine, or on the server.

The only downside I have found (and this might be more my fault than Microsoft’s) is the Web Layout preview doesn’t work that well with all of the various places I write. Other than that though I would highly encourage any and all to go check it out if you haven’t. Windows Live Writer is definitely worth your time for sure and won’t cost you any money.

That is when I stumbled upon this neat tool provided by Microsoft. Get read for this name… the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats.

(Try to say that ten times fast!)

I downloaded and installed it, now I can right-click the oddball files, pick “Open With…” and choose this new download. When you do it pops up with a box asking you what you would like to convert it to. With my .docx file I just turned it into a regular .doc file and I was done.

The start menu is kinda like shoving everything in a junk drawer and leaving the most important stuff on top. I don’t say that as a bad thing, personally I like my junk drawers. I’ve used search on Vista in the past week more than I probably ever used it in Windows XP ever.

The Favorite Links in the folder view is probably my next favorite feature. I like keeping more than a few folders handy at all times and this does beat the left side menus that the previous version of the OS had.

While we are in my profile folder, the saved searches is nice too. As I said before, this is the first OS I’ve actually bothered to use search with all that much and I like it.

I thought that not having the menu bar would bug the heck out of me – but I can say that I was wrong. I don’t really miss it at all as far as the folder view and some of the default Vista applications go.

Haven’t had much time to play with it, but from what I’ve seen Windows Media Center is pretty cool too. Hard to believe that it is a Microsoft product from the look, feel, design and usability of it all.

I like Windows Photo Gallery. If I had to choose between it and Picasa (Google’s Photo App) I would probably choose it just because it is already here on the PC.

All in all, I might not upgrade to Vista just for the sake of upgrading to Vista – but I can’t say I am totally disappointed in the product either. The thing that will make Vista better is not the miles and miles of folks ready to bash it at a drop of a hat. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not exactly a Microsoft fanboy.

I’d like to see people stop whinnying and get to work when it comes to making the Vista view look a little brighter.

…now go check out the negatives I’ve encountered with Vista!

User Account Control in Vista is annoying, but not driving me crazy yet.

The only device I had trouble with getting to work with Vista was my old Logitech keyboard. Other than that though, all my other gadgets seem to have worked the first time around.

Had to finally upgrade my old version of NoteTab Pro to the newest version (actually ended up buying NoteTab Std cause it got the job done for me.

I don’t like it that Vista sometimes forgets how I want my folder options to be set as. Some I want to keep in one view type and others at a different view type. Shouldn’t be that hard to do.

I’m miffed that they couldn’t be bothered to update some of the old traditional Windows apps – like the calculator, sound recorder or even add a spell checker to notepad (or WordPad).

I finally figured it out, but it took about three hours to find the best way to network the Vista and XP machines in my house to talk to one another. They’re now good friends.

Next time, I’ll tackle some of things I actually like and enjoy about Vista.

…now read about the good things about Windows Vista!

Another five or ten years down the road, it will not matter if you are running Windows, Apple or a flavor of Linux. With the way everything is moving to the Web – all you will need is a good browser to access it all from. Need a few examples?

How Can I Check My E-mail Online?

Personally I use Yahoo! Mail to do this, but there are a number of other choices out there. If I wasn’t using Yahoo! Mail – I would probably be using Gmail. Maybe if Google rolls out a premium service – I might switch. Now Webmail is great because it allows you to keep track of, respond to and check your E-mail no matter what computer you are using. As long as you have a browser and a Internet connection – you should be OK.

How Can I Write Documents or Edit Text Online?

Google Docs and Spreadsheets comes into play here. It is a very nice and basic backbone of an office suit. Sure you might not get all the bells and whistles just yet, but who needs ‘em? Since Firefox 2 came out I have been using the spell checker like nobody’s business as well. No need for a text editor to make sure I spelled things correctly before I post. Running my Web sites with WordPress, I can also save drafts of articles that I am not yet ready to make public yet too.

Need a Calendar to Keep Up With Dates?

There are a slew of Online calenders to help you keep up with important dates and schedules. I was trying to decide myself a few weeks back about which one to use, but I finally decided to go with Google’s calendar application.

How Can I Read my RSS Feeds Online?

Oh man, when it comes to ways to read your RSS feeds Online there is no end. There are countless start pages that can do this for you and dedicated RSS feed reader services like Bloglines and Rojo. I have tried just about all of them – and found myself most happy with the Google Reader. There is just so much that you can do with it to make it your own.

What About All My Other Tasks?

Now that I have all of the basic tasks that one might need to do on a day to day basis, I’ll talk about some of the other applications that you can move Online to use.

Need Online Instant Messaging? Try Meebo!

Need Saved Links and Bookmarks? Try Del.icio.us!

Need Remote PC Access? Try Log Me In!

Need Something to Watch? Try YouTube!

Have any other suggestions for Online application replacement? Leave a comment and let me know!

Now what I am really waiting on pins and needles for right now is for us to get out of this “Vista is wonderful and great and pretty and will change your life” phase and get into the Vista sucks phase.

Back when Windows XP first came out, it didn’t take too long for people to go from saying:

“The interface is a welcome change from the colorless existence we once had…”

to

“The interface looks like a children’s toy. Where is the mature look and design I want?”

This time around though (or maybe I am not paying as much attention) it seems like the “this sucks” phase is taking a little longer to roll out into the mainstream conversation.