There's an update in town, and it's all about locking it down: the 12.1.7 update to Microsoft Office 2008 (available within the suite via the software update tool, or downloadable from Microsoft) closes two security holes present in multiple versions of Microsoft Excel and first acknowledged by the company in February. These vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to create a specially-configured Excel file that, when opened, would allow full control of the target machine.

The update package also bundles up all the previous patches to Office 2008, which lends it heft (it weighs in at over 150 MB) but simplifies matters if you're a few revs behind. Note that there is no 12.1.6 update in the sequence; the previous patch level was 12.1.5.

If you haven't made the leap to Office 2008 yet (perhaps you're on a PPC Mac; perhaps you feel that you get better interoperability with Office 2003 users on Windows; perhaps you have to have Visual Basic support for macros), Microsoft is giving you the chance to consider moving up with a full-featured 30-day demo of Office 2008, now available for download in the USA. The package includes all the Office apps and can be upgraded to a paid license in the field without purchasing a boxed copy and reinstalling. Upgrades from previous editions of Office start at $240... of course, there are some less expensive alternatives out there.

[h/t Ars Technica]

In the hustle and madness of yesterday's wayback machine activity, there were a couple of App Store introductions (and a notable upgrade) that might have slipped through...

First up: The long-awaited version of Quickoffice for iPhone that allows editing of Word and Excel files hit the store today and was demoed at CTIA. [Looks like the new Quicksheet is available now, but the full bundle and the Quickword standalone app aren't on sale yet as of Thursday morning.] While QO has had a 'mobile files' tool on the iPhone for a while now, this is the first build of the venerable portable office suite (which has been a favorite on Palm handhelds for years) that can do editing in both formats.

Quickoffice for iPhone can do font formatting and cut, copy and paste within Word documents -- presumably to be tied in with system-wide C/P in the OS 3.0 world-to-come. Both the Excel and Word tools will support landscape mode for extra editing area.

Files on the iPhone can be transferred off the device using WiFi to a local Mac, or straight to a MobileMe account. Quickoffice for iPhone is shipping now for an "introductory price" of $19.99, but if you just want the Excel spreadsheet editor (formerly MobileFiles Pro) you can have it for $12.99; the Word document editor is also $12.99. Quickoffice Files (previously known as MobileFiles 2.0) is $3.99 and offers similar file transfer capability to Readdle and other file managers. We're getting a review copy for a more thorough walkthrough later this week. It's worth noting that a Microsoft exec hinted at a version of Office itself for the iPhone that may be coming sometime in the not-too-distant future.

Second... who doesn't love a good robot game? For $4.99, you can now dive into Pangea's classic Otto Matic series with the company's new title for iPhone, Otto Matic: Alien Invasion. The B-movie style game pits Otto against the attacking Brain Aliens from Planet X; his job is to save as many humans as possible. Otto Matic: Alien Invasion features 10 levels and 25 different enemies, multiple weapons and activities, and quite a bit of fun.

Lastly, the TUAW top pick Evernote has been updated with a nifty landscape mode, thumbnail viewing, improved performance, favorites sorting, and an embedded web browser to reduce the tap a link --> Safari --> back to home screen --> scroll around --> relaunch Evernote loop-the-loop annoyances. Evernote 2.0 for iPhone remains a free download, and the basic Evernote service is also free; a year of pro-level service costs $45.

We had a lot of mail from users eager to let us know that the NeoOffice 3.0 is now available. NeoOffice is a Mac OS X native open-source office suite originally crafted from the code used for OpenOffice, and its developers are boasting about the following features not found in the current release of OpenOffice for Mac:

• OS X Services support
• Media Browser support
• Native floating tool windows
• Magnify and swipe trackpad gestures
• Menus available when no documents are open
• Import images from scanners and cameras
• Command-clicking on window titlebar
• Mac OS X Leopard grammar checking support

A more in-depth look at these features can be found here. The suite is a fantastic alternative to paying full price for Microsoft Office and has come a long way in the past few years.

NeoOffice 3.0 is a universal binary offers separate Intel and PPC packages, and it requires OS X 10.4 or higher, 512 MB of RAM and 400 MB of free disk space. Please note that Universal Access support from OpenOffice is not available on NeoOffice at this time, so using OpenOffice, Microsoft Office, or iWork is suggested to access that feature. A token donation is requested of all downloaders to help support the project.

According to the Washington Post, the incoming U.S. presidential administration has inherited quite the challenging IT environment: The White House.

President Obama's staff -- accustomed to Macs, social media, and having the latest equipment -- found Windows PCs with Microsoft Office 2003 in their new offices. Laptops were "scarce," apparently, and the team had trouble finding ways to update the redesigned White House website and add subtitles to web videos. Perhaps they were misled by the prominence of Mac hardware in the fictional-but-familiar West Wing version of the executive mansion.

Valleywag's Owen Thomas suggests that Obama's staff are "whiners." "Outside the Manhattan media bubble and Silicon Valley's startup cube farms, this is how most Americans work. Want a Macintosh? Sorry, IT hasn't approved it. Oh, you need to use Facebook to interact with customers? Sorry, that site's blocked -- and management suspects that 'social media' is a buzzword which means 'getting paid to waste time chatting with friends.'"

Part of the reason for the White House's legacy systems is related to the need to retain all computer records for the National Archives, and protect all kinds of communication (from emails to IMs to tweets) on the network for national security reasons. This task isn't impossible with a Mac -- some might say it's easier to accomplish with a Mac than with a PC -- but there will be a lot of sleepless nights for the White House's new IT staff while the new system is set up. Meanwhile, the tech-friendly new Commander in Chief appears to have won his first geek battle; he is going to get to keep his Blackberry [or something like it; Engadget clarifies that we don't know the details yet, but press secretary Robert Gibbs said it was indeed a BlackBerry during today's press briefing (his first) -Ed.] subject to a security overhaul by an unnamed federal agency (assumed to be the NSA).

With the new administration's focus on change, it seems as though a new tech infrastructure and business rules for the executive office of the President are in the cards. It remains to be seen if our favorite platform, though, makes the cut.

Thanks to Michael and Joe for sending this in.

How long is two weeks? If you're vacationing someplace warm and sunny, it might seem to pass in a flash; if you're in bed with the flu, it probably seems like a lifetime. For Office 2008 users who got bit by a bug in the recent 12.1.3 update, chances are the latter assessment is more on target. Those who ran the 12.1.3 update and met a particular set of criteria (Entourage users connected to Exchange + a secondary POP or IMAP account for personal email) found themselves unable to send calendar invitations or reply to meeting requests. The most straightforward fix was a rollback to the 12.1.2 version; otherwise, using a webmail client or Outlook was the best way to manage calendars. Not fun.

Two weeks, though, is what it took for the Mac Business Unit to get a tested patch out the door that resolves this problem. Today, Product Manager Andy Ruff announced on the Mactopia support forum that Office 2008 12.1.4 is now available for download (16 MB, requires 12.1.3 installed), billed as follows:

This update fixes a calendar issue in versions of Microsoft Entourage that were updated with the Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac 12.1.3 Update. The issue prevents Exchange accounts in Entourage from sending meeting invitations and responses. This issue can occur when an Entourage identity is configured with more than one mail account. We strongly recommend that all Entourage users who installed Office 2008 for Mac 12.1.3 Update install this update.

While this particular fortnight may have been difficult for Entourage users, I will say that this is definitely the fastest response to an Office bug that I have ever seen from the Mac BU; in terms of the development cycle on a suite as large as Office 2008, it's an eyeblink. Kudos to the MBU for its quick action; now, the next prudent PR step is a little bit of transparency about why this bug -- which should have been fairly obvious to anyone who tested with both Exchange and POP accounts configured in the same identity -- managed to make it through to the release.

Update: Wow, talk about your rapid response... Andy has posted an explanation of the issue and the testing circumstances at the Mac Mojo blog. The missing piece of the puzzle, apparently, was account creation order: if the Exchange account was added to Entourage after the POP or IMAP setup, the problem got triggered -- a condition that never made it onto the testing radar. Points for transparency: awarded.

Erik Schwiebert is one of the lead developers on the Mac Business Unit team under the Microsoft banner. I find their position constantly interesting -- even in these enlightened days of Safari for Windows, many dyed-in-the-wool Mac users still consider Microsoft the enemy, and yet the Mac BU has always been like a kind of diplomatic envoy. We have to use things like Office and Entourage, so we cautiously let them across the border, regarding them like strange visitors from the other side of the wall.

But maybe that's just all in my mind. Recently, the Mac BU released an update for Office 2008, and lots of users, apparently, have suffered from error problems while trying to install it. So many, in fact, that Schwiebert has responded to the problems on his blog, saying that the problems are most likely because users have deleted or otherwise messed with files inside the installation, causing the installer to abort. And that strange Mac BU/Mac users fragile truce comes into play here as well -- he specifically calls out Xslimmer and Monolingual, two programs that delete often-unnecessary files in OS X, for causing the issues.

There's a workaround floating around, but Schwiebert warns it leaves the application suite in a possibly unstable and unsupportable state. Unfortunately, Schwiebert doesn't really offer any solutions (other, we guess, than to reinstall the software so that it's back to the full install, and then apply the update). And the alliance between the Mac BU and their users remains fragile -- we've got to work together, but it seems that many are unhappy about it.

Earlier today, Microsoft released the 12.1.2 update to Microsoft Office 2008, downloadable via MS Software Update and from the MS website. The 160 MB update requires Office 12.1.1 and, in addition to security fixes, resolves several bugs. The hit list includes two of my personal annoyances: Word's sluggish launch speed and Entourage's insistence on truncating URLs after the ampersand character. The full list of changes is in the continuation of this post.

Installed the update? Let us know if you see any dramatic performance changes, gotchas or improvements.

Thanks to Erik Schwiebert for the heads-up (and best wishes from TUAW for a speedy recovery).

Microsoft has released a "critical" Office 2008 update, 12.1.1, which "contains several improvements to enhance stability and performance."

Several issues are fixed with the updates, including charting problems, Entourage crashing when the computer wakes from sleep, and issues regarding converting documents to and from the Open XML Format. A complete list of improvements is available in the Microsoft Knowledge Base.

The update can be installed via Microsoft AutoUpdate (accessible by choosing "Check for Updates" in any Office application's Help menu) or from Microsoft directly. The update is a 153MB DMG file, and is available in 11 languages.

Thanks, Tommy!

Macworld UK is reporting that Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac saw record sales since its release, becoming the best selling version ever. Of particular interest, however, is that Microsoft has announced the next version of Office will return Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) to the Mac platform.

You may recall that one of the big brouhahas connected with Office 2008 was the elimination of VBA, which was present in Office 2004 and earlier versions; Microsoft suggested that users rearchitect their macros and automation with AppleScript. While it's generally a good thing for third-party applications to support AppleScript thoroughly, in this case it created a lot of problems for cross-platform users since the Windows version of Office depends on VBA for macros. While it is possible to duplicate some (though not all) VBA functionality with AppleScript, cross-platform macros were completely broken, leaving some users, especially in corporate environments, unwilling to upgrade from Office 2004. In this light, it is good news that VBA will return, though no timeline is yet available.

In addition to the roadmap announcements, today Microsoft is also releasing Service Pack 1 for Office for Mac 2008 with a host of improvements, including improved compatibility with Windows versions and better printing support. It should available for download at noon PDT from Microsoft or via Auto Update in Office. Full change list in the continuation of this post.

Update: Mac BU developer Erik Schwiebert has a post up on the revitalization of VBA; he originally discussed the decision not to implement it for Office 2008 here.

If you've been cursing the big price tag and lack of VBA support in Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, OpenOffice.org is coming to your rescue. Last September, the OpenOffice.org dev team announced that they would be porting the suite to run natively on the Mac. Previous versions ran under the X11 environment, which not only hogged resources, but didn't have the Aqua look and feel we all love.

OpenOffice.org 3.0 is still beta, but a quick test-drive of the application showed that it is almost ready for prime time. OOo is a full-featured office suite, complete with word processor (Writer), spreadsheet (Calc), presentation package (Impress), drawing app (Draw), as well as database tools (Base) that are sadly lacking in other office suites.

The feature set of OpenOffice.org 3 is impressive:

• Imports Microsoft Office binary (.doc, .ppt, .xls) and Office 2007/Office 2008 for Mac (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx) files
• A solver component for solving optimization problems, something lacking in Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac
• Spreadsheet workbook sharing
• Display of multiple Writer pages while editing
• MS Office-like comments in Writer
• Limited VBA macro support -- which is still better than no support
• Extensibility with Mozilla Thunderbird and Lightning, Sun Wiki Publisher and Report Builder

The price of OpenOffice.org 3 is, as always, free! If you're up to test-driving beta ware that may not necessarily be as stable or fast as your other office suite(s), click here to be transported to the beta site.

Welcome to the 3rd Microsoft Office 2008 automation post. Previously we covered automating Excel 2008 and Word 2008, now we shine the spotlight on PowerPoint 2008. In this how-to, I will show you how to create an Automator workflow to automate the daunting task of applying animations to the slides and converting a presentation into a QuickTime movie file.

For this workflow, you'll need the following Automator actions (in the same order):

• Apply Animation to PowerPoint Slide Parts
• Convert PowerPoint Presentations to Movies
• Play Movies

Continue reading to learn how to create this workflow.

Mac lovers traveling to the UK may be able to leave their computers at home -- as long as they stay at a City Inn hotel.

Guests will find a shiny iMac in each room, with full access to the internet, iLife and Office apps. Plus, the hotel will let you use the iMac as a TV, internet radio and media player (DVDs and CDs).

"But will the hotel keep a history of what I do with that machine?" you ask. The answer is "No." They use Faronics Deep Freeze software to restore each machine to its factory settings every 24 hours, so you're safe (that also means you shouldn't save the article you're writing on the iMac's hard drive).

This isn't the first time we've seen hotels offer Apple products to guests. In 2004, several W hotels gave away iMacs, iPods and music on "iTunes Days," and just last year Pod Hotels offered an iPod dock in each room.

[Via Macenstein]

Kerio Technologies announced version 6.5 of the Kerio MailServer -- 2 years in the making -- yesterday. We talked about version 6 recently, but this is their largest update yet and clearly shows their readiness to take a bite out of the Microsoft Exchange market. With version 6.5, Kerio is providing the groupware platform and tools needed to completely replace Exchange within a collaboration-centric organization.

The release is compatible with both server and workstation flavors of OS X with full support for Leopard, in addition to being fully Microsoft certified for Vista and Redhat certified for Linux compatibility. 6.5 also includes enhanced support for Entourage 2008, making full use of message flags and "out of office" messages which are synced on both mobile and workstation clients.

The biggest change of interest to Mac users is the addition of CalDAV support. Kerio users can look up information, share and subscribe to calendars and achieve 2-way sync whether they're on a Mac, an iPhone, a Palm or Windows Mobile handheld, a PC ... you get the idea. The server can provide a bridge between open and proprietary standards, making sure that you see the same data everywhere and allowing for smooth cross-platform interoperability.

The other major improvement, definitely of interest to users in multi-platform environments, is an upgrade to the Outlook Connector with a complete rewrite of its underlying database structure. It allows for easy data access, online and offline, with current and older versions of Outlook. And its full-text search capabilities search across messages, contacts and calendar events with support for Google Desktop search.

Not surprisingly, a release this big resulted in a pricing change. The standard package (10 users) now starts at $499 and adding additional users costs $20 per user. A version with integrated McAfee Anti-Virus for bi-directional scanning of all email starts at $599 and additional users are $24 each. Both versions include anti-spam, user management with authentication against Active Directory and Open Directory. Visit Kerio for more information.

Update: The US Apple Store is now carrying a base server (10 user) license and install media for Kerio MailServer with McAfee.

Among the security patches delivered with Microsoft's 11.4.0 update to Office 2004 this week, there was a fix for a subtle and deeply irritating bug that's been nipping at Exchange users for a long time. Under certain rare circumstances, Entourage users could unexpectedly and unexplainedly lose days or weeks worth of email, poof! I've personally seen this happen a handful of times over the past three years, and it's always a challenging conversation when the affected user asks "What the hell happened?" and the official reply is "Um... let me check the backups for you, mmmkay?"

TUAW reader Vermyndax, who worked with Microsoft support to track down the bug, blogged about the cause and resolution of the issue today:

The bug occurs due to a bad logic assumption. Entourage 2004 treats its local database as authoritative to the mail stored in your mailbox. As such, if the Exchange server happens to be virus-scanning your mailbox when you synchronize your mail, Exchange will refuse to allow Entourage access to the items being scanned. Since Entourage receives no information on the existence of those items, it will mark them for deletion in its local database.

On the next sync, you lose all of those items in the mailbox too. In cases we noted, users were losing large swaths of email at once (on the order of 2-3 weeks' worth all at once).

Yech. While you could recover the mail from Outlook/OWA "Deleted Items," it was a pain -- and worse if you didn't notice the problem until after your retention deadline had passed. Upgrading to 11.4.0, assuming you aren't quite ready to make the leap to Office 2008, is sounding better all the time.

Thanks Vermyndax!

Microsoft releases patches for most of their products on a monthly schedule, on the second Tuesday of the month specifically. I'm telling you this because today is the second Tuesday of February and Microsoft has a gift for all you Office 2004 for the Mac users: a patch for a critical vulnerability (insert obligatory Microsoft joke here).

Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.4.0 Update addresses, 'a vulnerability that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code.' Nobody wants malicious code on their computer, so if you're running Office 2004 for Mac on your Mac, apply this update as soon as possible. Office 2008 for Mac does not have this vulnerability.