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pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/word-online.png” align=”left” hspace=”4″ vspace=”2″ width=”494″ height=”279″ style=”display:block;float:none;” /Microsoft’s a href=”http://www.microsoftpdc.com/”Professional Developers Conference/a continues to roll out exciting new announcements; this time, Microsoft announces the next version of Microsoft Office will include a web component that will allow users to create, view, edit, and collaborate on Office documents over the web. With robust online editing already available with Google Docs, Zoho, and a handful of other tools, the question is: Is it too late for Microsoft Office to head to the web? Keep reading for a quick screenshot tour of the “Office Web Applications.”/p pYou can see Microsoft Word above, so let’s take a quick look at the other online apps below./p h3 style=”font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;”Microsoft Excel Online/h3 pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/excel-online.png” class=”center” width=”500″ height=”366″ style=”display:block;float:none;” //p h3 style=”font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;”Microsoft PowerPoint Online/h3 pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/ppt-online_03.png” class=”center” width=”500″ height=”384″ style=”display:block;float:none;” //p h3 style=”font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;”Microsoft OneNote Online/h3 pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/onenote-online.png” class=”center” width=”500″ height=”318″ style=”display:block;float:none;” //p h3 style=”font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;”Too Little Too Late?/h3 pMy guess is that Microsoft still has plenty of time to lure users to the new Office Web Applications, as they’re being called. Despite its popularity, Google Docs still doesn’t exactly compete with Microsoft Office, if only because many users still aren’t ready to make the full move to the web. The advantage that Microsoft has is that their offering doesn’t require users to change anything. Online availability will be there as an option so your docs are available online if you need themmdash;but it’s not your only option. So while Microsoft took its sweet time, I think Office online has plenty of potential for engaging new users./p pFor more, be sure to check out the a href=”http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/PDCNews/First-Look-Office-14-for-Web/”video interview and quick demo at MSDN/a. Let’s hear what you think about the movemdash;including whether or not you think you’ll adopt the new techmdash;in the comments./p div class=”related”a href=”http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/microsoft_office_comes_to_browser.php”Microsoft Office Comes to the Browser (Finally)/a [ReadWriteWeb]/div br style=”clear: both;”/
img alt=”" style=”border: 0; height:1px; width:1px;” border=”0″ src=”http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=a1978e93876573899fe085b1d75c74d6″ height=”1″ width=”1″/
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a href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=RwPFACce”img src=”http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=120″ border=”0″/img/a a href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=vVqAmpMB”img src=”http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=41″ border=”0″/img/a a href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=o1Uo51ED”img src=”http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=o1Uo51ED” border=”0″/img/a a href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=hSvBi2aT”img src=”http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=hSvBi2aT” border=”0″/img/a
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pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/2008-10-28_000413.jpg” align=”left” hspace=”4″ vspace=”2″ width=”494″ height=”300″ style=”display:block;float:none;” /br Web application MeetInBetweenUs takes the guess work out of locating a good place for two distance parties to meet. For a trial run I used it to see where Gina and I would meet between San Diego, CA and Kalamazoo, MI. We’ve covered two prior Google Maps midway point mashups, a href=”http://lifehacker.com/352899/find-the-perfect-meet+up-point-with-mezzoman”Mezzoman/a and a href=”http://lifehacker.com/5061709/meetways-finds-a-meeting-place-in-the-middle”Meetways/a. Interestingly, given that all three are working off the same Google Maps data, MeetInBetweenUs provided a slightly different meeting place as a middle ground between us. I’m not going to complain since the MeetInBetweenUs query put us meeting about 30 miles closer to me at a href=”http://www.patrickdugans.com/”Patrick Dugan’s Coffee House/a, which according to their web site promises “velvety smooth cappuccinos.” I’m in! Both Mezzoman and Meetways supplied the same four results when queried with “coffee” as a search term. MeetInBetweenUs lacks a query-based search for potential locations, but has a host of defaults like food, coffee shop, golf course, bar, hotel, etc. While you can’t search for specific terms, searching for coffee shop in MeetInBetweenUs yielded more plentiful results than the other two meetup mashups./p div class=”related”a href=”http://meetinbetween.us”MeetInBetweenUs/a [via a href="http://Waxy.org"Waxy/a]/div br style=”clear: both;”/
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a href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=Dz50PzTZ”img src=”http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=120″ border=”0″/img/a a href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=89arQqhg”img src=”http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=41″ border=”0″/img/a a href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=aqVKPzKs”img src=”http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=aqVKPzKs” border=”0″/img/a a href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=96Ho7yQO”img src=”http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=96Ho7yQO” border=”0″/img/a
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OpenOffice.org only (Windows/Mac/Linux): The Sun PDF Import extension imports and edits PDFs with the free Microsoft Office alternative OO.org. Rather than import the PDFs into the Writer program, the extension works with OO.org’s Draw application. Once imported, you can still edit text or other portions of the document. The extension isn’t perfect, but it appears to be under active development and could come in really handy under the right circumstances. The Sun PDF Import extension is free, works wherever OpenOffice.org 3.0 does. If you’re looking to add more great functionality to OpenOffice.org, check out previously mentioned extensions like OpenOffice.org2GoogleDocs, Writer’s Tools, and LanguageTool. Want to learn more about whether OO.org can replace Office, check out our first look at the latest release.

Mac OS X only: Free application EyeSight takes time-lapse photos with your Mac’s built-in iSight camera. EyeSight is very customizable, so you can set your photo intervals anywhere between 10 seconds to 999 days, save the images in whatever format you like, and upload the results to an FTP server of your choosing (or just save them in a local folder). If you want to eventually turn the results into a video, I’d recommend previously mentioned Gawker, but if you’re more interested in something like a web-enabled security camera, EyeSight is the way to go. EyeSight is freeware, Mac OS X only. Windows users, check out previously mentioned YawCam. If what you really want is to beef up your laptop’s security, we’ve got you covered there, too.

Web site US Hospital Finder is a Google Maps mashup that finds the nearest hospital based on your address. Frankly, at first glance the results of the Hospital Finder don’t net you all that much more information than searching for “hospital” on Google Maps proper. If you click on a specific hospital, though, you’re greeted with an overview of all kinds of fascinating information, like mortality rates, number of beds, and patient ratings. It may not be a web site you’ll use every day, but it’s certainly interesting to learn more about your current hospital, and it may be worth a look next time you need to pick a new hospital.

Windows only: Free application SpeedFan monitors the fan speed, temperature, voltage, and more of the components inside your computer. That’s all fine and dandy, but the marquee feature of SpeedFan is that you can actually adjust the speed of your fans by tweaking the desired temperatures on supported systems. Keep in mind that SpeedFan is a power-users tool, and the temp inside your computer isn’t to be taken lightly. However, if you’re comfortable tweaking hardware settings, an app like SpeedFan can help keep your computer running quieter and give you a little more control over what’s happening with your computer’s innards. If you’ve used SpeedFan in the past, share your experience in the comments. Mac users, check out previously mentioned smcFanControl.