Now I'm not just saying this because I'm about to pitch to you a sponsored post about the latest Microsoft Office 365. I am telling you the truth. I love it.
I was crap at academic subjects at school but then in year 10 I got to choose 'computing' as an elective. We learnt the programing language Quick Basic and I actually enjoyed it. In year 11 we moved to Melbourne. I chose a school that had a huge focus on information technology. Now you might say, so what? But this was back in 1991 and "IT" subjects were all pretty new to the school curriculum.
I did Information Processing and Management, Information Technology in Society and Document Production. In the latter we learnt DOS based programs WordPerfect 5.1 which was a word processing application and Lotus 1-2-3 which was for spreadsheets. In the first two subjects we learnt Microsoft Works which was the precursor software to Microsoft Office and ran on Windows. Compared to the DOS programs this WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) operating system was AMAZING to my little 16 year old self. Right from the beginning I was hooked and I aced all three subjects.
In 1993 I started working in an office that only had that old fashioned blue screen of WordPerfect 5.1. Next I moved on to a job with Windows running Word 2.0 and in that same year we upgraded to Word 6.0. I can't tell you how exciting it was to get the latest version! All the new features: Autocorrect! Wingdings, autoformat, that red squiggly line under misspelled words that we now take for granted. Oh, so good.
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| This is the only photo of me that I could find from when I started working. The year was 1993 or 94 and you can see I was really excited about something. Not. |
With each new version more features were added (Wordart! Different bullet shapes!) to what started out to be a very basic program. Fast forward, ahem, 20 years and now we have Microsoft Office 365. Oh, how far we have come.
It has been five years since I have worked in an office but I still love using Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook for my everyday life as a mum and a blogger and soon to be Virtual Assistant:
- I type my blog posts, university assignments, letters, invoices, media kit, CV in Word.
- Keep track of my budget, weight and passwords in Excel.
- Create birthday cards and blog infographics in PowerPoint.
- My many doctor's appointments, manicures, playdates, man-dates and babysitting duties are tracked in my Outlook calendar.
- Outlook also manages my way too numerous email accounts and blog subscriptions.
I guess you can imagine how excited I was when the Digital Parents Collective gave me a free 12 month subscription for Office 365 to play with and tell you about. Very excited.
There are many cool new features. I don't have enough time to go through them with you now but if you want to find out some of the #OMGtips from users all over the world check out this site here.
Giveaway
I have five 12 month subscriptions to Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium to giveaway. Each subscription can be used on 5 different devices around your home. How cool is that?
All you have to do is give me your best #OMGtip on how you would use Microsoft Office 365 to make your busy life a little easier. I'll get my dad, who fancies himself as a bit of an Office wizz, to judge.
The rules
- Comment below with your best #OMGtip on how Microsoft Office 365 might make your life a little easier
- Subscribe to babblingbandit.me (see form below if you haven't already)
- Like the babblingbandit.me Facebook page
- This competition is only open to Australian residents
- Competition opens Wednesday 3 April 2013 and closes midnight Wednesday 10 April 2013
- Winners will be notified by email on Thursday 11 April 2013
- Judge's decision is final
Good luck!
V.
Disclaimer: I have received a complimentary subscription to facilitate this review. Digital Parents Collective covered the administration fee to host the giveaway. As always, all opinions expressed are purely my own in accordance with my disclosure policy.
