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  James Evans, one of our friends from EduTech at EduGeek, has written a blog around Windows Live SkyDrive and the benefits he feels it has for students. Windows Live SkyDrive, is a free-of-charge file hosting service that allows you to upload files to a cloud storage and then access them from a...

If you are a developer looking to take advantage of cloud computing, but you haven’t yet taken the plunge, this free day of training is the quickest way to get up-to-speed with Microsoft’s offering; Windows Azure. We’ll take you from knowing nothing about the cloud to actually having written some code...

  We’re running a free webcast series between now and Christmas that we’d like you to be a part of! Over three sessions we’ll be talking about what Microsoft Live@edu is, how you can deploy and migrate to it, and how you can promote it at your institution. There will be lots of opportunities to...

The Microsoft IT Academy Programme and  Prometric have teamed up to offer 25 FREE Microsoft Technical exam vouchers (Value Over £1000) to organisations who are not existing Prometric Exam Centres when they sign up. Becoming an exam centre is FREE and can be a great additional source of revenue....

I read this article in the Guardian and thought it made for interesting reading. Here you can find some good cost saving examples. Take a read and see what you think. Why HE institutions should invest in technology

The Office Platform Team released two new Microsoft Office 2010 Accessibility Add-ins on March 17 th . While comparatively small add-ins, they enable big things! Try them yourself by downloading via the below links. The Subtitling Add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint (STAMP) helps Microsoft PowerPoint 2010...

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the free Virtualisation ebook . I'm still working my way through it on my Kindle - I've got to page 156 of 480, and am currently in the detail of desktop virtualisation. It's been really useful to help me understand some of the technical things I'd never understood about...

Let me make it absolutely clear - I am not a virtualisation expert. But I have heard enough network managers in schools, colleges and universities talking about their virtualisation projects to know that it's very important to their ICT infrastructure - whether that's reducing cost, cutting carbon emissions...

Did you know that we run a worldwide 'local language programme' which provides language packs for a range of our software? And that if you're in Wales, you can use them to run Windows and Office in Welsh natively? Welsh is one of Europe's oldest languages, and is growing, with over half a million speakers...

Am I the only one who gets bored with a document format after a few months, and then wants a completely different design? That PowerPoint that looked so smart last year looks a bit clichéd this term. A document which looked professional when you first published it, doesn’t look quite so good when it...

Have you heard of the free Microsoft Learning Content Development System? We’ve just updated it to version 2.5, which now supports more complex content, and is Firefox and Silverlight 4 compatible. It is a free tool that lets you create high-quality, interactive, online courses, and publish them in SCORM...

Sometimes we publish so much information on a subject, in so many different places, that it’s tricky to find the wood from the trees – and that problem is as big for me as it is for people outside of Microsoft. So I’m always happy to find a resource where somebody applies an editorial approach – making...

Do you remember a couple of weeks ago I mentioned WebMatrix , which gives you an easy way to install a bunch of web applications – like WordPress, Moodle and Joomla! – on a standard Microsoft platform (which means you can more easily fit into the rest of your ICT infrastructure). Well, I just read an...

Let’s start by getting the jokes out of the way. Yes, the ‘…for Dummies’ books are my kind of books. And, No, that’s not me on the front cover. Now, that’s over with… I’ve got my hands on 30 copies of the ‘Desktop Virtualisation for Dummies’ booklet to give away. And, let’s face it, desktop virtualisation...

I noticed last week that Scott Guthrie announced the release of the beta of WebMatrix . Basically, it’s an easy and free way to get started building Web sites on Windows. WebMatrix is a tool for building, customising and deploying your Web sites in one common, straightforward way. The idea is that WebMatrix...

I know that many colleges get involved in activities with charities, and staff are often involved in charities in their private lives. Did you know that we run a scheme that allows UK charities to obtain Microsoft software free? ( Well, almost free, as there is an administration charge from CTX who handle...

With such a diverse community across FE today, there are plenty of good reasons to make college websites and portals as accessible as possible to students and parents from outside of the UK, or for whom English is a second language. When I saw the new version of the Microsoft Translator tool, I realised...

Are you rolling out Office 2010 this summer? Well, here’s some good news: We’ve just had the new Office 2010 posters delivered, to replenish our stock of Office 2007 posters that had dwindled to zero in the last few weeks. The last set had four different posters, whereas this time we’ve...

The Microsoft Research (MSR) teams around the world are always cooking up clever new bits of code, and many of them get incorporated into new products as they roll off production lines in the future. However, they aren’t part of the product teams in the conventional sense – they have much more latitude...

The Microsoft Education Labs team have just launched the Office Add-in for Moodle (or should it be the Moodle Add-in for Office?). This launch builds upon the success of the availability of the Microsoft Live Services Plug-in for Moodle which launched last July.  The idea behind the add-in is simple...

Every day is a day closer to the Office 2010 release (due on 12th May for volume licence customers , and June for consumers ). And I know of quite a few UK education institutions that are widely using the free Office 2010 beta in teaching already. If you’re preparing for a rapid roll out of Office 2010...

We’ve just issued the third edition of our accessibility guide for education, and it’s available as a download from our accessibility site . The site also includes a number of accessibility video case studies . The Accessibility: A Guide for Educators has been updated to include information on Windows...

I was suprised to discover I hadn’t blogged this before. So if you’ve renewed an anti-virus subscription for your home computer since last October, when this was launched, then I’m sorry! We have launched a free anti-virus programme, Microsoft Security Essentials , which is for Windows XP, Windows Vista...

When I started working at Microsoft, I hadn’t been in such an open, technology rich culture before. And with so many IT systems around, and so many different software resources, my head was buzzing. In fact, I remember that at the end of the first week, the number of links in my Favourites was massive...

The Office 2010 Beta is available for free download from the Microsoft website , and it’s something that you could install on some of your campus computers to see what’s in it, and how it helps your staff and students. Remember how sometimes you felt smug when you were running Windows 7 Beta at least...