The Office Engineering blog has been talking about Mobility in Office 2010 , introducing us to Microsoft® Office Mobile 2010 for Windows® phones, and briefly describing the Office applications that are designed to keep you productive on the move.  They take a detailed look at PowerPoint Mobile, which now features the ability to review and edit slides.  It even works as a companion to assist you in delivering that big presentation! Check out the full post here .

When you open presentations downloaded from the Internet in PowerPoint 2010, you’ll enter into the new Protected View . While in this mode, PowerPoint runs in a “sandbox,” which means that you are now better isolated from any malicious code that could be contained within the file. In the past, you had to decide if you trusted the author/origin of the document before viewing the contents. Now, with Protected View, you can make a more informed decision before exposing your computer to potential vulnerabilities...

Here's a great video that shows one of the coolest new features in PowerPoint 2010 -- the ability to compare two presentations and merge them together:

...

The quasi-notorious outlaw known as Clippy is back, in a fun new game designed to help you learn PowerPoint (and also Excel, Word, and OneNote). It's free, it's called Ribbon Hero 2, and you can download it today.

...

Happy New Year to all you lovers of Images and more! 

My name is Natalie, and I have the fun job of supplying free images, photos, clip art and sounds for you to use in your Office programs. And today I wanted to let you know about a very special video offering, especially for PowerPoint 2010, from one of our partners - Fotolia. Videos are perfect for illustrating your key points, creating transitions, or backgrounds.

...

My name is Christopher Maloney, and I joined the PowerPoint team in August.  I will be taking over day-to-day management of the PowerPoint Team blog following the long and distinguished stewardship of Ric Bretschneider. Ric isn’t going anywhere, of course, and he will still post.  I’ll just be handling the daily operations of the weblog. Over the next few months you’ll see posts from myself and from many of the other members of the PowerPoint team. I’ve been using PowerPoint for years,...

As Nick just posted on the Office Web Apps blog, we’re expanding access to the technical preview! For a limited time, you can sign-up for a Technical Preview account here: http://skydrive.live.com/acceptpreview.aspx/.documents?aobrp=browse . Note: if you’re already in the technical preview, or you’re not in the US or Japan, you’ll get an error message, if you click the link. So click away, and check out our previous blog posts on the PowerPoint Web app: Overview of the PowerPoint Web App Viewing...

Last week, we looked at project plans, and before that class presentations. This week, we're taking a look at marketing plans as the last in our 3-part 5-minute makeover series for PowerPoint 2010.

Easily add themes, masters, and SmartArt graphics to make your presentation really pop. It's pretty cool to see just how much more professional, colorful, and interesting you can make a standard text-heavy presentation. And the best part? Your audience will love it -- they'll be more engaged with what you're saying, and will be much more likely to remember what you talked about and how you presented it.

Watch the video below, and then get the template used in the makeover.

-- Erik Jensen

...

Even your holiday-indifferent friends have got to love the novelty of the year's shortest day. 

December 21, 2010, marks the day of the year with the fewest hours of daylight for those living north of the Tropic of Cancer. Less daylight, naturally, means more time for nightlife! That's something to celebrate, in my book. To commemorate the day, I made a fun, twinkly card to email to my friends. And I'll guide you, step-by-step, to show you how to make it. Here's a video of how it will look when you're done:

...

There are a lot of ways to become a better presenter. Really, there are.  And some are simple and fun. One of the more fun ones is to watch a really good presenter... Friday the PowerPoint team had the pleasure of bringing Nancy Duarte to the Microsoft Silicon Valley Campus to reprise her keynote address: A Personal Journey . Duarte is the CEO and founder of Duarte Design a presentation focused design firm that counts some of the biggest technology companies as clients. They're the group that...