Really need good integrated e-mail/contacts/calendar integration.

would rather not go all M$ but no one else has it integrated!!!

(had hoped that thrid parties would build on and extend Apple's stuff but nobody ever does)

Does MSO2004 offer anything new? New compatibilites?

that is the only app from M$ that i will ever be interested in. so, is there anything new and exciting in terms of formulae and such in excel?

TRO

No one in corporate or higher-ed will buy this update if it doesn't offer REAL M$ Exchange support. Any word on whether it does?

My wife got onto the beta testing program and I tried out the new version. On her 1.25 GHz Aluminum PowerBook, it lagged bad… We then tried it on my Sawtooth with a 1.4 GHz upgrade card, a Radeon 8500, and 1 GB or RAM. It lagged just as bad.

If the performance of the final version isn't improved, there are going to be a lot of dissatisfied people out there…

I want to know what the widgets are at the top right of John Kheit's screen. (On the menu bar.)

Got a link to it? The little glimses look super.

The question that will determine whether I will order this:

Does it have Product Activation?

> No one in corporate or higher-ed will buy this update if it doesn't offer
> REAL M$ Exchange support. Any word on whether it does?

No it doesn't (Microsoft will of course lie and claim it does).

Yes you can send/receive mail, yes you can send/receive calendar appointments (allegedly this FINALLY works), yes you can see/use the global address list.

No you cannot use .PST files, no you cannot use the same archive facilities as Outlook, no it has none of the clever synchronisation features of Outlook, no it is NOT a MAPI client, no you cannot access other Exchange users inboxes and calendars (the same way Outlook can).

In this scenario Entourage 2004 is basically an IMAP client with a few extras, it is far from being Outlook for Macintosh.

You can do all the above using Apple's own Mail client with the addition of Snerdware's GroupCal & Address X and Apple's iCal & Address Book. What's more arguably this solution will be BETTER than Entourage 2004.

Hi All:

Some of the readers asked about what was on my menubar.

Anyway here's a list with links:

My menu bar has the following items in it:

Synergy (controls iTunes):
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/10042

Jon's Phone Tool:
http://homepage.mac.com/jonn8/jpt/

AppleScript Menu:
/Applications/AppleScript/Install\ Script\ Menu.app

Text/Language Input:
/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/TextInput.menu

(Just navigate to the "secret" or well hidden Menu Extras directory by following the above path and just double-click on the item and it will appear in your menu. This is nice for things like the DiscEject Menu Extra, that is otherwise not available to singe drive users.

MenuMeters (my favorite):
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/10451

Bluetooth:
/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/Bluetooth.menu

Displays:
/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/Displays.menu

DiscEject:
/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/Eject.menu

Battery:
/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/Battery.menu

Clock:
/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/Clock.menu

WinSwitch:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14580


I have everything I can set to black/white/grey so as not to clash too much.

As for my desktop image, a friend modified some Nasa satellite composite images (smoothed them out), so I cannot post links as it was done as part of some project. However, the composites are great themselves, and you can find them here:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueMarble/

My Dock is rather vanilla because I've mostly been using LaunchBar (and now QuickSilver):
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/7354
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14831

" (had hoped that thrid parties would build on and extend Apple's stuff but nobody ever does) "

Check out http://www.snerdware.com for exactly that.

I hate bundling.