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Microsoft announced on it’s pricing for the Office 2010 suites on the Office Development Group blog on Monday. There will be four different versions this time around (Home and Student, Home and Business, Professional, and Professional Academic), and two different prices depending on how you want to get the software. There will be a boxed version of the software that will include the installation CD and license, and there will be the alternative Product Key Card version. The Product Key Card version is just a small plastic card (credit card size) with a product key sticker on it. The software will come on new systems pre-installed with the Office starter/trial. For anyone that has an OEM version of Office 2007, you will most likely be familiar with the Product Key Card.

The Home and Student will have Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Home and Business adds Outlook to the software. Professional and Professional Academic will be the full suite containing Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Publisher and Access.

Home and  Student will cost $149 for the boxed version and $119 for the Product Key Card version. The boxed version can be installed on up to 3 PC’s. Home and Business will run $279/$199, Professional $499/$349. Both of which (boxed version) can be installed on 2 PC’s. Professional Academic will go for $99 and will only be available in boxed form and only to students, teachers, and academic faculty. The Product Key Card versions and Professional Academic version only allow for a single installation.

I’ve been playing with the beta version of Office 2010 for the past week, and I can’t really see all that much functionally, that they’ve changed from Office 2007. There are some nice additions though. The “minimize ribbon” button/widget, the “Background Removal Tool” and a 5:1 contrast ratio added into the silver theme. They also did away with the Office 2007 Button, and replaced it with a ribbon tab. Nifty, but hardly a reason to upgrade from 2007.

That’s something else they did away with. There is no upgrade option from previous versions of Office. So, for most people, that will mean having to buy the full boxed version of the software.

Something interesting to note, was that they mentioned that “Office Home and Student was one of Amazon.com’s top 3 Hot Holiday Bestseller software products in 2009.”. That just points out the amount of people that most likely won’t be buying the 2010 version.

Came across an application for your iPod and iPhone users via Chris Pirillo’s site (  http://chris.pirillo.com ).

It’s called CopyTrans® Manager. It’s apparently much faster than iTunes and easier to use. Hey, for a free download, give it a try here.

I figured that might catch some people’s attention. Hey, I’m like just about everyone else. I like free stuff too! Over the years I’ve amassed a plethora of free applications that make living a digital life much easier. Some you may already know of, some you may not. Now, although the software is free, the authors actually do need to eat. So if you really like any of the applications, please send in a donation to support them. Even a small donation helps. Not only does it put food on their table and a roof over their heads, it also gives them a reason to keep updating the software, and writing more great applications. I’m not going to list all of them all at once, because that would take forever. So, check back frequently, because I’ll constantly be adding to the list.

 The first on the list, is 7-Zip. Although Windows natively supports uncompressing files, it’s still a bit clunky how it does it. 7-zip has a very small installation, and doesn’t eat up system resources like WinZip which, if you don’t do a custom installation will put something called “Quick Pick” in your task bar. It also doesn’t have any annoying “Buy the full version!” splash screens, or popups. It just plain works, and works well. They’re even working on a version for Windows mobile. You can give it a try by downloading it here.

 Next up, is Opera. Some of you may already be familiar  with it on your mobile phone. Opera is a web browser that’s much faster than Internet Explorer, and even Firefox. It has all the features you would expect nowadays in a browser, and even some more. What I particularly like is when you open a new tab, it opens what they call “speed dial”.  In their own words,

“Speed Dial gives you quick access to your favorite Web sites. Every time a new tab is opened, you are presented with a 3×3 grid of thumbnails, each representing a Web address.”

It’s so much more intuitive and useful than having to look through your bookmarks for the websites you access the most. But, the bad part? Not everyone recognizes it as a standard web browser, so some websites just won’t allow you access with it. Windows update for instance (if you’re still running windows XP or earlier), some banks won’t allow you to use anything other than Firefox or Internet Explorer, etc… But, for all the rest of your browsing needs, I suggest you give it a whirl. Check it out here.