You can use your favorite social network to register or link an existing account:
Or use your email address to register without a social network:
Sign in with these social networks:
Or enter your username and password
Forgot your password?
Yes, please link my existing account with for quick, secure access.
No, I would like to create a new account with my profile information.
Tips
How-to
News
Videos
Stories
Everything deserves an upgrade now and then, so we've just unveiled a fresh new design for the Office Blogs. Here are some of the changes you'll notice if you look around.
Each of the 13 blogs in the Office Blogs family (7 product blogs, 5 Perspectives blogs, plus the Office Blogs home page that all of the blogs feed into) has a new layout, new fonts, new headers, the works.
We got rid of everything in the left nav so there's more room to work with.
We also simplified the navigation. Now you can jump to any of the Product or Perspectives blogs from the dropdown list near the top of every page.
And at the bottom of each page you'll find links to other leading Microsoft blogs, Product blogs, and Office blogs.
You can use the tags clouds on each page to see every post on the topics that interest you.
The expanded 'filmstrip' of featured posts at the top of the Office Blogs home page keeps more posts where you can find them fast. If you're looking for high-priority info, check the carousel first.
If you're running Internet Explorer 9, you can pin any of the blogs to your Windows taskbar and open it any time without opening your browser first. (Here's more about pinning sites in IE 9.)
With the new "Office in the News" feature we can include posts on hot topics from independent (non-Microsoft) blogs.
And--not innovative, but useful--now you can sort posts by most viewed, most recent, or most commented.
This is just the first round of upgrades. Over the next few months you'll see new ways to comment and connect to social media. And a few key blogs will move to Office Blogs this summer and fall, so you'll be able to track all the news from here.
We're still breaking in this new design, so if you see anything weird, please leave a comment to let us know. "Weird" means missing videos, missing images, mixed-up fonts, or anything else that doesn't work the way you'd expect it to.
What do you think?
--Holly Thomas
Comments: (15) Collapse
I am using IE8.0 on Windows XP Professional screen resolution 1024x768 at work and the fonts appear very difficult to read, this may be the choice of font or the shade of grey you have chosen .As this is a work computer I like many of your readers am unable to upgrade the OS or the version of IE.
I don't believe it - one day after I post a comment about the office blogs being a mess, they get a makeover!! I'm not sure if I've ever timed a post so badly before, even by accident.
I think that the new design looks great, and the additional tools that you've provided to track down content (generally cleaner look, drop-down lists, tag cloud, ie9 pinning) are all excellent. I look forward to exploring these and seeing if they have the desired effect on functionality.
But - there is just one thing. Under '[T]hings to come', you say that there are even more blogs planned. One of the issues that has only partly been addressed (IMO) in this update is the over-abundance of blogs about the office suite. Partly addressed, however, because some have been relegated to the 'other Office Blogs' list at the bottom of the page and do not feature on the drop down list at the top - this is good. But I think you muust be really clear that any additional blogs have content which is clearly differentiated from those already here, or else things will start to get confusing again. Sometimes more is less (and vice versa), as they say.
Oh, and thanks for clearing out all of that spam - looks much better.
One more thing - while you're at it, do you think you could clean up all of the hundreds of other MS websites that are out there?
@aldousr: are you still having trouble reading the page?
@Huw Jones,
I think your timing was perfect! Your earlier comments on the Excel blog travelled pretty far here, in a very short time. You couldn't have known that the new design was just about to launch. Thank you for providing such thorough and thoughtful feedback. Please also check back to the Excel blog, because I've just been waiting to thank you there as well. (it's been a crazy busy week). I'm so glad you like the new design.
As for your reaction to 'more blogs planned,' I agree. We're not planning to create new blogs, but to bring under this "Office Blogs" roof any it makes sense to have together here. And a few others that have outlived their usefulness--will stop. We're doing all this in stages, but we're doing it. As for the humdreds of other MS websites.......if only.
Please keep letting us know what you think. I'm the managing editor, so it's my job to see how everything does or doesn't fit together, and to keep the blog improving. So anytime a reader takes the time to let us know what they think of a post, a blog, or the whole blog site, it truly helps.
@Huw Jones--one more thing. I edited the "things to come" section to clarify that we're not talking about creating more blogs, but instead about consolidating the key blogs under the Office Blogs roof. Thanks for your input.
Holly - many thanks for making me feel a bit better about posting critical comments just before your big re-launch day! For anyone else reading this, I really had no idea that a site redesign was about to go live - it was just a freakish coincidence.
You've asked for comments, so, I'll add a few quick observations about some 'weird' things that I've noticed.
Firstly, when I'm logged in on the home page (and only that page) a 'customise' button partly obscures the 'sign out' link. Clicking the button leads to a rather odd strip near the top of the page which refers to 'widgets' and 'page layout' options. This may be deliberate, but looks more like a leftover link to a design tool that you have used in setting out the page.
Secondly, to echo aldousr's comment, some fonts are a little hard to read. Specifically the 'tag cloud' box has some entries that look tiny to me (for reference I'm currently using a laptop with 1366x768 resolution - I'll check later on a desktop with higher resolution). Also, any alteration to the font size which I make under the 'site options' section of the settings area appears to have little or no effect on the actual font sizes. They are good to look at though - another step towards a 'metro'-style look?
Apart from that I so far really like the new layout, which is very clean and clear. So I think it's only right for me to congratulate you and the rest of your team on all of the excellent work which has gone into the re-design!
@Huw Jones
I'll pass your new feedback to the team that's tracking and fixing lingering weirdnesses. Anything we can correct easily will probably be corrected within a week. If you see anything else, be my guest!
I agree that the team did a great job. I know they'll all appreciate your comments. Thanks again!
Hi,
I am brand new to this site, so still finding me feet here. I can't find a "contact us" link anywhere. I entered all my profile information, but there's no save button. How do I get my profile saved? I also left the screen to look at the rest of the site, now I can't seem to get back to it again. I can find my basic info page, but not the actual profile editing block.
Hope you can assist.
Thanks and Regards,
>V<
Oh, I meant the biography / About Me thing.
Life is too beautiful to utter neglect
@Veronique, let me check on the profile/biography entry process. We're still making some updates and that process may be one that's being changed. Thanks, and in the meantime, welcome to the Office Blogs!
@Veronique
Here's what I've found out since my first response: Looks like you’ve stumbled upon a bug with the Save button, and it's in our queue to look at. We were already planning to improve profiles and comment features in the next few months, but the bug was new to us, so thank you!
Feel free to look around, chime in with comments, and let us know if you have any other thoughts and suggestions.
Another more general suggestion - I've just realised that the Windows Blog doesn't allow openID sign-in. After signing-in there I realised that I have a separate ID over there, so cross-blog comments can 't be tracked. This is a bit inconsistent - isn't there a wider company web-policy on the use of these technlogies? I personally find the openID very helpful (and secure, as I have it set up wiith YubiKey authentication.)
@HUW Jones, I'll pass your comment along and see what I can find out.
Sorry for taking so long to check back, yes the fonts are fine now, either I have more power than I thought or I wasn't the only one to mention it (I noticed Huw Jones echoed my comment later in the post). ;)
Hi everyone is my first time here, I have microsoft 2010 since June, and now I found this blog,what I think is great anyway I can not find the blog in microsoft anywhere, why is that?
Comments: (loading) Collapse