For all the people out there with a love-hate relationship of the new Office ribbon, here's something to grab your attention. Despite, the fact that the "experts" spent 10 years studying people's interaction with Office applications in order to come up with the magic ribbon, more than a few people are extremely frustrated on first contact with it! So, we now have help videos, a sort of multi-media, social office assistant.

The Office team have come up with Microsoft Office Labs in an effort to ease the learning curve of their Office "power users"... I'm keeping a straight face, honest :-| In short, the Office Labs umbrella site has two new projects which Microsoft has just gone live with: Community Clips and Search Commands.

Given the pace with which Microsoft have been releasing new products lately, this is a welcome source of information. I may be a developer, but I put mastering Office tools right up there with programming the VCR... one day I'll master it...

I just noticed a new link when checking my hotmail this morning, to "Windows SkyDrive". Microsoft are offering 5GB worth of free online storage. It works with Windows or Mac with Firefox or Internet Explorer.

There are personal, shared and world folder options. File transfers are SSL-protected. What I found particularly interesting is that you can use the shared folders to colloborate with colleagues and set permissions for each person on a folder level. Nice angle :-)

I'm getting tired of emailing stuff between work and home. I'm also tired of getting down under my desk fumbling with a flash stick, so I think I'll give this a test drive for a while.

You can learn more here.

Up until today, CodersBarn was based on BlogEngine 1.1. using XML. I was having ongoing problems with the comments system, and honestly believe that without feedback from readers, nobody gains. So, for the past week, I have been working on porting it to the new 1.3 version using SQL Server. 

The comments system is now up and running :-) Please feel free to comment on any existing posts or to make suggestions on what content you would like to see from an ASP.NET point of view. Use the contact form to ask questions or to request code snippets. I will attempt to respond to all emails. Over time, the goal for this blog is to move closer to a real community, a community that shares the knowledge rather than guarding it like some trade secret known only to the few.

The CodersBarn blog only began last summer and is already receiving over 5,000 page views per month, roughly 2,300 unique hits. It takes a little time to find a niche that needs to be filled. In the future, I see this blog offering up more and more practical, "How To" articles and code samples. It's not a news blog and doesn't attempt to create traffic by throwing up cheap links to other people's work. The original idea was to create a place for students of software and professionals alike, to speak candidly about this great profession and where it's heading.

Hats off to Mads Kristensen and his colleagues who put BlogEngine.Net together. It's an amazing piece of blogging software and was sorely needed. Prior to the launch of this free blog engine I was already procrastinating for over a year on coding my own engine... a case of the mechanic's car? The availability of this software and the ease of installation saw this blog designed, a name chosen and registered, and the first post published, all in a single weekend. This migration to a databased version was made particularly easier by the availability of intructional installation videos from Al Nyveldt.

Add this to your Christmas list! Neuro-engineering company Emotiv Systems have developed a headset that will allow you to control your electronic games using your thoughts alone. It's expected to market for around $299 next Christmas.

According to company president Tan Le, Emotiv's software algorithm "unfolds the cortex and takes us closer to the source of the signal." According to their website company overview: "while Emotiv Systems is currently focusing on the electronic gaming industry, the applications for the Emotiv technology and interface span an amazing variety of potential industries -- interactive television, accessibility design, market research, medicine, even security -- and plans for introducing Emotiv into these realms and more are already in the works".

All I can say is that if this communication channel is fully duplex, do not buy one for the wife!

Check the full story on Discovery.