Graphics can vastly improve how you digest Excel data. In Office 2010, great graphics get even better with Sparklines--an "executive summary" for each row of data in your data .-- Doug Thomas

Microsoft Office Web Apps are officially here. All you need is a free Windows Live ID, which comes with SkyDrive account (that’s 25GB of free storage) to use these robust online companions to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Create, edit, upload, share, even work with others in real time. Here’s my Office Casual take on how to use them. Below the video are some links to get you started.

Read the announcement post from the Windows Live team or just go to Office.live.com to start. We already have help and how-to articles on Web Apps at Office.com and will support these just like the software editions.

--Doug Thomas

Curious about the Office Web Apps? Afraid the sign-in process will be like finger nails on a chalk board? How about this: If you use Hotmail, Messenger, or even Xbox LIVE, you already have a what you need to start up the Office Web Apps. If you don’t, let me show you how fast and painless it is to sign-in and start. Stopwatches ready? Ready, set, watch:

You book travel, buy your tickets, pack your bags, go to the airport, and then panic begins: did I set my out-of-office reminders? OK, maybe not panic, but I have been on a beach, setting those suckers up because I forgot to before I traveled. With a new add-in, you can set your reminders when you buy the tickets. Nice. Now let me show you how the free add-in works in Outlook 2010 (and 2007) with this short video.

Download the Bing Travel Planner Beta for Outlook. 

--Doug Thomas

There are more than a dozen ways to follow Twitter, but TwInbox (formally known as OutTwit in its beta stages) places some powerful Outlook capabilities in the hands of us Twitters. Here's a short video on TwInbox.

You can find the free download (and more instructions) here. Need more reasons to see why Twitter matters to business? See Time Magazine's list. --Doug Thomas

Broadcasting has my vote as the coolest feature in Office 2010. Now anyone with an Internet connection can see your PowerPoint 2010 presentation. Simply press a button, have a URL generated you can email and start your slides.

To see and read more about Broadcasting, see this article at Office.com. To see how Broadcasting is another great tool to work from home, see an earlier Office Casual on WFH. Also read Crabby's take on PowerPoint 2010.

--Doug Thomas

Seeing something unexpected is a great way to hook your audience. When I showed this slide at a conference earlier this month, there were murmurs of “What’s that?” Granted, this is not ground-breaking, but  it’s different enough for folks to take notice. The cool thing is what people are going to do with this new way of showing slides.

I’m talking about video backgrounds in PowerPoint. It’s part of the updated photo and video tools in PowerPoint 2010 and something you will see more about in these blogs this year.

Let’s break it down. If this was a template you might use, it’s okay...

Free trials are a great way to see the latest and greatest in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and the other Office programs. However, here are a few things you want to consider before installing a free trial of Office (for personal use or for Office 365), especially if you are updating an older copy of Office. Let me show you in this short video.

This is an excerpt of the previous Office Casual titled Better PowerPoint presentations: The Office Casual Way. Here--in less than 90 seconds--I'll show you how you can do much more than view your slides as you present to an audience.

--Doug Thomas

Here is how to subtly change your “background” color in Office 2010 and Office 2007 products (you can do it in earlier versions too). A comment in this blog led to this video, and a confession about how—and why—you should change your color scheme in Office.