Maria’s Guides

• A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection
  From the document: “The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history.” By Peter Gutman, University of Auckland.
  (tags: article copyright Microsoft reference security software technology vista Windows drm)
• Scrivener Gold
  Mac OS X software to help you organize your thoughts and write. In beta.
  (tags: apple Mac Macintosh OSX productivity writing software free applications apps)

Information from the Microsoft Office Web Site

This update contains several improvements to enhance security and stability, including fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer’s memory with malicious code. In addition, this update includes all of the improvements released in all previous Office 2004 updates.

System requirements

To install this update, your computer must meet the following minimum requirements:

Operating system: Mac OS X 10.2.8 (Jaguar) or a later version of Mac OS; if you want to use Spotlight, Sync Services, or smart cards, you must be running Mac OS X 10.4.3 (Tiger) or a later version.

Note: To verify that your computer meets these minimum requirements, on the Apple menu, click About This Mac, and then click More Info.

Important note about Exchange mailbox synchronization

This update fixes a synchronization issue in versions of Entourage that were updated with Office 2004 SP2 (11.2.0). The issue might cause data loss when Entourage attempts to synchronize with an Exchange mailbox that was moved to a different Exchange server (by your system administrator, for example). Without this update, folders might appear to be duplicated, and messages, events, and contacts might be deleted the first time Entourage attempts to synchronize with the moved mailbox.

If you notice that your mailbox contains duplicate folders or is missing messages, events, or contacts, your mailbox might be affected by a synchronization issue. Quit Entourage immediately and do not install this update or open Entourage again until after you read Knowledge Base (KB) article KB 909574 on the Microsoft Web site at support.microsoft.com, which contains specific instructions for this situation. In addition, contact your system administrator for assistance. If you do not have these issues in your Exchange mailbox, you can install the update now.

Improvements

The following improvements fix numerous security and stability issues in Office 2004.

Improvements for all Office 2004 applications

• Security is improved.
  This update fixes vulnerabilities in Office 2004 that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer’s memory with malicious code.

Improvements for Word 2004

• Compatibility with RTF documents is improved.
  This update improves compatibility with recent changes to the way Rich Text Format (RTF) documents are created by Microsoft Office Word 2003 for Windows.

Improvements for Excel 2004

• Standard deviation is calculated correctly in PivotTable reports.
  This update fixes an issue that causes standard deviation calculations to produce inaccurate results when the calculations are used in PivotTable reports.

Improvements for Entourage 2004

• Calendar events scheduled on or after March 11, 2007 display correctly in all calendar views.
  This update fixes an issue for users of Mac OS X 10.4.5 or later that causes any calendar event scheduled on or after March 11, 2007 to display on a time slot that is one hour ahead of its original start time. This issue affects all meetings that occur on or after March 11, 2007, including recurring meetings.
• Japanese postal code dictionary is updated.
  The Japanese postal code dictionary is updated with the latest information as of June 2006.

For more information, visit http://www.microsoft.com/mac/autoupdate/description/AUOffice20041133EN.htm

Another very minor correction to my Excel 2003 VQS for Windows book.

As I continue to revise the book for Excel 2007 on Windows Vista, I continue to find tiny errors in the existing book.

Today’s error is on page 118, in the caption for Figure 38. The caption states that gridlines have been turned off for the illustration. In reality, they have not. But I do explain how to turn gridlines off in Chapter 15.