The upcoming iPhone 2.0 software is providing more document viewing capabilities in the form of readers for PowerPoint, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers, but Apple still isn't providing a way to edit docs on the run. Mariner Software announced at WWDC 2008 that they'll be resolving at least part of that dilemma with the release of Mariner Calc for iPhone. Mariner Calc is the software firm's popular Excel-compatible spreadsheet for the Mac.
Mariner Calc for iPhone is about 80% of the way to completion at this time and is expected to ship about the time the virtual doors open on the App Store. If you like to work on huge spreadsheets, you'll love this app since it sports a maximum of 1,000,000 rows and 32,000 columns.
Mariner Software President Mike Wray mentioned to Macworld.com's Dan Frakes that Mariner Calc for iPhone will support multiple sheets per document, charts, and objects. It's expected that the application will integrate with new versions of Mariner Calc for Mac. No price has been set for Mariner Calc for iPhone, but expect this little spreadsheet to be a popular purchase from the App Store.
[Via Macworld]

When Microsoft released Office 2008 for Mac, they did something that I must applaud -- they joined the ranks of Mac developers creating Automator-able applications. When you do a search in Automator for "Microsoft," it will reveal all of the Automator actions that ship with Microsoft Office 2008. There is lots of great stuff included, so we'll be covering some of it in this four part Mac Automation series. I will take you through how to automate each of the Microsoft Office applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage.
Happy Friday everyone! From Down Under it emerges (via 
If, for one reason or another, you don't have or don't want Microsoft Office installed, but you still need to view a doc, spreadsheet or presentation, the
Discovering Automator is a new book from Hanaan Rosenthal that delves into the many facets of making your Mac
do more work in less time for you with the power of Mac OS X Tiger's Automator. From
MacTech has
published what I am fairly certain are the comprehensive
Recently, I learned the importance of keeping old files current, and why it's helpful to keep a working vintage Mac around. The school I work for was audited by both the state and Federal Departments of Education earlier this summer (we passed with flying colors, by the way). They wanted to see everything we could hope to show them, and many of the faculty and directors were pulling out research they had conducted years ago to satisfy their demands. However, none of the files could be opened. This is how they landed on my desk.










