Microsoft Releases Office 2004, 2008 Updates

Microsoft Releases Office 2004, 2008 Updates. Microsoft on Tuesday issued updates for its venerable Office suite versions 2004 and 2008.

Office 2004 gets a security boost with the Mac 11.5.6 update, which corrects a vulnerability that could allow a remote baddie to overwrite your computer’s memory. The 2008 version sees the same security fix in its Mac 12.2.3 update, plus a host of other minor upgrades, such as resolving text spacing issues in documents that originated on Windows system. The update should also reduce some frustrations. Previously, Word was prone to closing unexpectedly when a user accepted tracked changes. Stability is similarly improved in Excel and PowerPoint, which have had unpredictable crashes in some circumstances. Entourage, Microsoft’s e-mail client for the Mac, also gets a better junk mail filter.

Bare Bones Software Releases Yojimbo 2.1 Update

Bare Bones Software Releases Yojimbo 2.1 Update. Bare Bones Software has announced an update to Yojimbo, its intuitive information organizer. Yojimbo 2.1 includes a few fixes and refinements to version 2.0, which was released in September.

Amazon Kindle for PC Now Available

Amazon Kindle for PC now available. (Free download for Windows 7, Vista & XP). Amazon has released a Kindle for PC app, available as a free 5.17MB download for Windows 7, Vista, and XP.

Much like the Kindle for iPhone app, Kindle for PC syncs your Amazon e-book downloads and shows them on your computer for convenient reading either when you’re away from your svelte e-book reader or if you chose not to buy it in the first place. A Mac version, Amazon says, is “coming soon”.

Snow Leopard Update Nukes Atom Support

Snow Leopard Update Nukes Atom Support. There had been some questions as to whether or not Apple would kill support for Intel’s Atom chips in today’s 10.6.2 release. Last week it was reported that the latest 10.6.2 builds had new kernels that wouldn’t work on Atom chips.

Apple Breaks Hackintosh Netbooks with Latest Update

Apple Breaks Hackintosh Netbooks with Latest Update. Users who want the Mac OS X experience on a netbook budget have figured out how to hack the Mac OS X operating system to force it to work on netbooks based on the Intel Atom processor. The latest update to the Snow Leopard update removes support for the Atom processor and puts an end to the ‘hackintosh’–at least for now.

New BlackBerry Developer Tools Will Benefit Users

New BlackBerry Developer Tools Will Benefit Users. At Research in Motion’s BlackBerry Developer Conference Monday, the company made a slew of announcements that aim to boost the platform’s appeal to developers. But more APIs, a better advertisement service and new Adobe and Eclipse toolsets don’t seem too exciting to the average consumer. Fear not, faithful BlackBerry user–there are some enhancements that will directly benefit you. Read on:

Environment-Friendly Mobile, the Samsung S7550 Blue Earth.

As it does with most trends, Samsung is pursuing eco-friendly cell phones with vigor. It already gave us the Samsung Reclaim, and now we finally have a chance to review the Samsung Blue Earth. Forgive us if we’re a bit excited, but Samsung has been holding this handset under lock and key for several months. Indeed, the last time we saw it at CTIA in April, we could only gaze from afar while it sat in a glass case.

Olympus SP-570 UZ Digital Camera The king of the high-zoom cameras

Olympus’s entry into the megazoom class delivers the greatest magnification rating of any of the products we tested for our roundup. At 20X, photos taken at a distance of up to 30 feet from the subject looked as though the photographer had been right up close to the subject.

LG Chocolate Touch VX8575

Perhaps the biggest letdown of the LG Chocolate Touch VX8575 from Verizon Wireless is that it’s not the LG Chocolate BL40. After getting teased for months by the sexy shots of the LG BL40, we thought there might be a chance we would see it stateside. Alas, the LG Chocolate Touch VX8575 looks nothing like its European cousin. In fact, the touch-screen interface reminds us a lot of previous LG touch screen handsets, like the LG enV Touch for example. The geometric shapes on the back of the phone and the bloblike buttons underneath the display are about the only things that are unique about the phone’s design.