Attention Uni Students – Office 2010 Pro for under £70!

This is a bit of a bargain for University Students. You can get Microsoft Office 2010 University Edition, which is basically the same as Professional Edition for £69.99! That is a bargain considering it usually retails at around £340!!

Microsoft Office University Edition, is as you would guess for University Students and also Lecturers, so if you are either of those, head over to Amazon pretty quick before Microsoft go out of business for giving away their premium bit of kit!

This version includes Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, Publisher, Access and Onenote. Tell me, does anyone actually use Onenote? I like this idea and it is a nice piece of software, but in real-life situations I haven’t found it usable.

There we go, top tip for Uni students from Graham at Brandstar UK Limited.

[Please note, this is for Microsoft Windows computers only and not Apple Mac's ... sorry!]

Tags: 2010, Access, discount, Excel, microsoft, office, Outlook, Powerpoint, Professional, Publisher, University, Word

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Video Streaming – Netflix Review

Many of us will know YouTube for videos that home and business users have made. Video’s are now commonplace on websites throughout the world. To update a well known phrase “A picture says a thousand words but a video says a million”! TV Catchup sites such as BBC iPlayer and ITV Player have been around for a while and are becoming more part of the way we watch television. Now we have the next big thing, streaming of movies and tv shows from websites such as LoveFilm and Netflix. We will talk about LoveFilm another day but now let’s have a look at Netflix.

Netflix has only recently been launched in the UK but has been in America for a while. We decided to give it a quick trial and thought we would share our thoughts.

Vital Info

• £5.99 per month
• Over 6000 titles to choose from
• Free trial for 30days and if you do it through quidco they currently are offering £15 cashback
• Technology used is Microsoft Silverlight
• You can use it on a number of devices such as Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Nintendo’s Wii and Sony’s PS3 consoles; an array of Blu-ray disc players, internet-connected TVs, home theatre systems, digital video recorders and internet video players; Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod touch; Android and Windows tablets and phones; and Apple TV and Google TV
• Film quality – excellent!

Usability

We have used Netflix on Windows PC’s in a number of different browsers and also on an iPad which works brilliantly. We were really surprised when we closed a browser half way through a Top Gear episode and then went back to watch it on the iPad Netflix had rememebered where we had got to. That is excellent. Other features are simple, easy to use and intuitive.

Search

The best way I can describe the search feature is with a school report … “tries hard but could do better”! If you really know what you are looking for and the title of the film then it works great. Otherwise it is a bit hit and miss. The problem is that we are all too used to Google’s fantastic search abilities.

However, over and above the search facility you can run through some questions that help personalise your choice in films. These then generate recommendations and they are pretty good.

Social Network Interactions

Netflix closely links with Facebook if you want it to. It draws in what other facebook users are watching and what is popular on facebook at that time. It also shares what you have been watching so you can recommend it to your friends and family.

Final Thoughts…

In conclusion, Netflix is a great service, well thought out, it works brilliantly. The only thing that really lets it down right now is the choice of films and TV shows, missing some recent films and choices we were hoping for. We think it needs to be better before you start paying your £6 a month. That said, is it better than LoveFilm’s selection .. as yet we can’t be sure!

Tags: films, netflix, streaming, tv show

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How to activate a new AVG license on version 2012

When you renew you AVG you’ll be given a new license to activate your software with.  Here are some simple steps to activate the new license…

1. Double click on the AVG icon.  This will be found on your desktop or in the bottom right-hand of your screen.

2. How do I know which version I have?

When AVG is open, click ‘Help‘ and select ‘About AVG‘.

The number shown will tell you which version you have:

This tutorial is for AVG 2012 – if you are using an older version see How to activate a new AVG license or upgrade to AVG 2012 here.

3. Click ‘Help’ and select ‘Reactivate’.

4. Insert your new license into the ‘License Number’ box and press Activate.

Any queries please get in touch if we supplied you AVG.

Tags: AVG, AVG 2012, AVG License, licence, License, reactivate AVG, reactivate AVG license

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GMail top tips – Undo undo undo…

We have all hit send a bit too quick sometimes, and all we need is a few seconds to realise and click UNDO SEND!  Well with Gmail you can …

Go to ‘Mail Settings’ in the tip right hand corner drop bar:

Click on ‘Labs’ along the tab bar.

Then find the ‘Undo Send’ feature, click ‘Enable’ and then ‘Save Changes’!

Now every time you send an email, once it has been sent you get a sign like the one below which will stay there for a short period of time.  So if needs be you can click ‘Undo’ to prevent the email to go any further… Nifty!

Tags: GMail features, GMail top tips, GMail Undo Send

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GMail top tips – Download other email accounts into your Gmail account

It is always nice to have things in one place.  With Gmail you can do that, you can download your POP emails right into Gmail, for example if you have a john.smith@btinternet.com type address you can download that into Google, niiiice!  And what’s more, label those accounts with some brightly colored labels so they really stand out!

As you can see here, I have downloaded my personal home email account to my work emails – so now I have one big mail box for all of my email accounts without having to log in and out of each one!

Here are the steps to do this:

1) Go to the cog symbol in the top right-hand corner and click on ‘Mail Settings’

2) Next, click on the ‘Accounts’ tab at the top

3) Then simply click on ‘Add POP mail account you own’ in the middle section

4) Write in your POP email address, follow the instructions and there you go!

Tags: Download email accounts to GMail, GMail features, GMail TopTips

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GMail top tips – Send and Archive

One of our first posts in this series was about archiving.  Well there is a cool feature that will allow you to archive an email as you send it, brilliant!  Saves a mouse click with each message you send using this feature but to borrow a well known phrase and amend it slightly – “Every little click helps!”  :-)

Go to ‘Mail Settings’ in the tip right hand corner drop bar:

Click on ‘Labs’ along the tab bar.

Then find the ‘Send & Archive’  feature, select ‘Enable’ and then ‘Save Changes’!

You will then get a ‘Send and Archive’ button next to the Send button when composing or replying to an email.

Tags: GMail account, GMail features, Send and Archive

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GMail top tips – Labelling

Organise with labels not folders! Colours galore and multiple labels for improved filing.

This is effective… and fun!  So when an email comes through, you can clearly see what category of emails they belong to – for example, your emails specifically work based, hobbies, other email accounts coming through etc can can be filed together and labelled.

You can place new emails into categories.  Simply select the email you want by ticking the box on the left hand side

Then click on the labels symbol along the top 

This will present a drop down which will allow you to select which label you want to place your chosen email into, or create a new label by clicking on ‘create new’.

To create colours for your labels, select the arrow next to your labels along the left-hand side of your emails where this drop-down will appear -

From here you can customize labels with colours! Like I said – fun and effective

Tags: GMail labelling emails, GMail top tips, Organising your emails

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GMail top tips – Archive

Sometimes your inbox can get a little jam packed, but you don’t want to necessarily delete emails in case for future reference.

By archiving emails (click on the archive symbol shown above)  they are removed from your inbox HOWEVER you can still fully access them by putting in the key details of the email into the search box, as shown below…

So you won’t loose your emails by archiving, they’ll simply be stored safely and out of sight. Tidy

Tags: Archiving emails, GMail Archive, GMail top tips

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Computer Software on a USB Key

Last month Graham wrote about it being the end of the line for Optical Drives (and Hard Disk Drives, but we’re not talking about that today!). Browsing the Apple store this week for software I came across Apple’s latest version of their operating system OS X Lion on a USB Thumb Drive!! This is the way forwards and Apple are setting it by the looks of it … come on Microsoft! I am looking forwards to the day I don’t have to worry about CD’s or DVD’s…using a USB Key is much easier, smaller and I don’t have to lug around a laptop with a DVD drive or in my current case an external one!

With more and more people relying on the internet we will soon be downloading software to install rather than using DVD’s, it is becoming more and more common already but just like Floppy Disks are a thing of the past I think CD’s and DVD’s will be soon too. Actually, there is no think about it, they will be a thing of the past … question is how soon, will Windows 8 be on Thumb Drive?

A thought for 2012 for sure!

Tags: apple, dvd, microsoft, the future, thumb drive, usb

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GMail Top Tips

We have decided throughout this month to do a short series of posts briefly discussing our favourite features of GMail and how to use them.  Such features including the purpose of archiving emails and downloading other email accounts into your GMail account.  All very practical!

Look out for our GMail top tip posts!

Tags: GMail account, GMail features, GMail top tips, Google

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