Microsoft to launch next Office for Mac in second half of 2014

Computerworld - Microsoft today said that it would launch a new version of Office for Mac before the end of the year, but won't discuss details until the second half of 2014.

In an interview with Computerwoche -- literally, "Computerweek" -- a Microsoft Germany official said that Office for Mac had been delayed because the development team, dubbed the Macintosh Business Unit (MacBU), had been folded into the larger Microsoft Business Unit (MBU), the division responsible for Office on Windows, in the first quarter of 2011.

Thorsten Hübschen, business group lead for Microsoft Office in Germany, spoke to Computerwoche -- like Computerworld owned by IDG -- at CeBit 2014, the massive computer trade show running this week in Hanover, Germany.

Hübschen said Microsoft would reveal more information about Office for Mac in the second half of this year.

The next Office for Mac is already late by past Microsoft practice. The average timespan between Office for Mac editions -- going back as far as Office v. X -- has been 1,088 days. But as of today, it has been 1,232 days since the launch of Office for Mac 2011.

Historically, Microsoft has hewn to a three-year development cycle for both Office on the Mac and the far-more-popular Office suite for Windows, with a new version of the former following the newest of the latter by several months at a minimum.

Office for Mac 2011, for instance, followed Office 2010 on Windows by 134 days, or just over four months. Office for Mac 2008, however, came 351 days, or nearly a year, after the debut of its Windows sibling, Office 2007. But even the longer lag time of the latter has been exceeded: Office 2013 for Windows launched Jan. 29, 2013, 406 days ago.

It's likely that the next Office for Apple's OS X will be titled "Office for Mac 2015," as Microsoft typically slaps the next year's date on an Office edition that launches in the second half of a calendar year.

If Microsoft waits until later this year to ship Office for Mac 2015, it will be cutting it close: The Redmond, Wash., company supports Mac editions of Office for just five years, half the support lifecycle of the Windows' suite, and Office for Mac 2011's retirement date is set for Jan. 12, 2016. Customers may have little more than a year to migrate to the newest edition before Microsoft stops patching Office for Mac 2011.

Microsoft also shuttered the Mac Office-specific blog it maintained for years at the site where it touts and sells the productivity suite. "As of today, no new posts will appear," the blog stated Monday. Future posts will be published on the more inclusive Office Blogs website, where Office on Windows and Office 365 dominate.

The MacBU blog shutdown was part of a January refresh of all Microsoft's blogs that focused on Office topics, a company spokeswoman said.

Microsoft neither confirmed nor denied Hübschen's comments on Office for Mac release timing. "The team is hard at work on the next version of Office for Mac," the spokeswoman said in an emailed reply to questions.

This article, Microsoft to launch next Office for Mac in second half of 2014, was originally published at Computerworld.com.

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer, on Google+ or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His email address is gkeizer@computerworld.com.

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Major browsers fall during second day at Pwn2Own hacking contest

IDG News Service - Security researchers demonstrated zero-day exploits against Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Apple Safari, Mozilla Firefox and Adobe Flash Player during the second day of the Pwn2Own hacking competition Thursday, racking up total prizes of $450,000.

A team from French vulnerability research firm Vupen hacked Google Chrome by exploiting a use-after-free vulnerability that affects both the WebKit and Blink rendering engines. The researchers then successfully bypassed Chrome's sandbox protection to execute arbitrary code on the underlying system.

On Wednesday, the first day of the contest that takes place every year at the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver, researchers from the same team hacked Internet Explorer 11, Firefox, Flash Player and Adobe Reader.

Another anonymous researcher presented a Chrome remote code execution exploit Thursday, but the contest judges declared it only a partial win because some details of the hack were similar to those of an exploit presented earlier at Pwnium, Google's own hacking contest that runs aside Pwn2Own.

Well-known iPhone and PlayStation 3 hacker George Hotz, known online as geohot, demonstrated a remote code execution exploit against Firefox, making it the competition's fourth successful hack against Mozilla's browser. Aside from Team Vupen, security researchers Jüri Aedla and Mariusz Mlynski had also compromised Firefox during the first day of the contest by exploiting different vulnerabilities.

On Thursday, researchers Sebastian Apelt and Andreas Schmidt demonstrated a browser-based exploit against Microsoft Internet Explorer that chained together two use-after-free vulnerabilities and a Windows kernel bug to open the Windows calculator application, proving remote code execution.

Another researcher, Liang Chen of the Chinese Keen Team, combined a heap overflow vulnerability with a sandbox bypass to achieve remote code execution through Apple Safari. He and fellow researcher Zeguang Zhou of team 509 then demonstrated a remote code execution exploit for Adobe Flash Player.

All the vulnerabilities exploited during Pwn2Own were shared with the vendors of the affected products.

The prizes won during the second and final day of the competition put the total contest payout to a record $850,000, not including charitable donations or the value of the test laptops won by the researchers after their successful hacks.

During a side challenge dubbed Pwn4Fun, security researchers from Google competed against researchers from Hewlett-Packard's DVLabs Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) who organize the Pwn2Own contest. The Google team hacked Apple Safari and the ZDI team hacked IE11 by combining multiple exploits. The challenge raised $82,500 for the Canadian Red Cross.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2014 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Network Maintenance and Troubleshooting Guide, Second Edition

By Neal Allen
Published Oct 18, 2009 by Addison-Wesley Professional

ISBN-10: 0-321-64741-6
ISBN-13: 978-0-321-64741-2

Fluke Networks' Neal Allen provides a practical, real-world guide to anticipating, finding, and solving network problems before they impact users. The indispensable hands-on complement to every other network primer or certification guide, Network Maintenance and Troubleshooting Guide, Second Edition, covers all the technologies network professionals are likely to encounter—including fiber optic cabling and up to a TCP connection—all in a helpful handbook format for easy reference.

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Getting a second bachelor degree in Germany

Germany is a country of universities, some of which are centuries old. The universities of Tübingen, Freiburg, Heidelberg, Jena, Marburg, Göttingen have a significant advantage compared with other European universities: training fees in Germany don’t exceed € 600 per semester and are often reduced up to € 150 of administrative fee. To study in Germany you don’t need to invest “a fortune” but you have to arrange it properly and put some effort.

First of all, you have to learn German. Preparing for the entrance test takes about 900 hours. It means that you have to dedicate to language lessons 270 minutes (6 academical hours) a week. For example, you can do it in parallel with studies in your country. Also it can be organized in the mode of distance learning – via Skype or any other similar instant messaging application. Individual lessons take place at any convenient location, that allows you to achieve the same results with good language courses, and costs less.

For admission to the undergraduate program at a German university you need to have finished 2 semesters (full time) in your country. In this case chances of a student depend not only on the reputation of his university but more on his average academic score. So you can continue education in Germany just after the first year of study in your country.

Those who have already finished 3-4 years had better complete their studies. It opens to them additional opportunities to enter a German university – a free choice of speciality (those who have finished one year can only continue their education in the same field). If the program of study at your university doesn’t differ too much from the German one, you won’t have to pass all the exams, and the training period may be reduced to two years. So, in this case you will win twice, since you will receive a diploma of your university and get a bachelor degree in Germany.

It’s clear that getting a second academical degree requires substantial investment of time. But these efforts are repaid when you get a diploma of a prestigious European university, become fluent in one of the most important European languages, and have an experience of living abroad. Finally, a possession of two academic degrees gives you a status of specialist of international level and will certainly give you better chances for a successful career.

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Kaplan Higher Education Campuses to Take Part in Second National Serve-a-Thon on April 26

    CHICAGO, IL, April 25, 2013 /24-7PressRelease/ -- On Friday, April 26, more than 1,000 team members from Kaplan Higher Education Campuses will participate in a nationwide Serve-a-thon to help make a collective difference at its nearly 50 locations in 15 states. From sorting, cooking and serving food to those in need to cleaning up area parks and natural resources to helping young and old smile, thousands of man hours will be invested in giving back and showing a commitment to each local community.

Each campus and administrative office selected its own organization to support to ensure a meaningful contribution and lasting impression. Many of the supported organizations rely on the efforts of local volunteers such as those from KHEC to successfully run their programs and achieve their respective missions.

While KHEC schools and administrative offices support their communities throughout the year, in October 2012, the organization held its first national Serve-a-thon with every location devoting the same day to service. As a result of the impactful event, KHEC's Serve-a-thon now is scheduled to occur twice a year and the next one is planned for the fall of 2013.

About Kaplan Higher Education Campuses
Kaplan Higher Education Campuses provides career-focused education to more than 21,000 students and helps prepare them to enter the workforce in some of the fastest-growing industries. Its nearly 50 locations in 15 states offer certificates, diplomas and degrees in allied health, business, criminal justice, information technology, legal, nursing and other in-demand fields. KHEC includes Kaplan College, Kaplan Career Institute, Bauder College, TESST College of Technology and Texas School of Business campuses and is owned by Kaplan, Inc. Kaplan, Inc., a leading international provider of educational and career services for individuals, schools and businesses, is a subsidiary of The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO) and its largest division. For more information, visit www.kaplan.edu.

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Canadian Language Benchmarks — English as a Second Language for Adults

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