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Disclaimer. Although I was asked to review this product and received the Black and Decker VPX tools for doing so, I was not influenced by PowerPivot or Ignite Social Media in any way. The following review is entirely my own and not influenced or edited by Power Pivot in anyway.

What is Power Pivot?

First of all, PowerPivot is only available to work with Office 2010, and specifically Excel 2010 and SharePoint 2010. I have the Beta Office 2010 suite running on a test machine and a test user account so as to not interfere with my production environment.

In their own words:

PowerPivot for Excel is a data analysis tool that delivers unmatched computational power directly within the application users already know and love—Microsoft Excel. It’s the user-friendly way to perform data analysis using familiar Excel features you already know, such as the Office Fluent user interface, PivotTable and, PivotChart views, and slicers. It’s the fast way to generate rich and interactive analysis tools, easily mistaken for IT solutions after weeks of effort. It’s the right way to achieve deeper business insight and shorter decision cycles.

Specific features:

• Take advantage of familiar Excel tools and features
• Process massive amounts of data in seconds
• Load even the largest data sets from virtually any source
• Use powerful new analytical capabilities, such as Data Analysis Expressions (DAX)
• Make the most of multi-core processors and gigabytes of memory

The following set of screenshots takes you through the installation, data connection and using the tool.

Power point techniques and templates from Doug Klippert:

You are not limited to a flat PowerPoint slide. You can add a 3-D look to your shows. Rolling 3D images and PowerPoint Drawing for 3D objects

Download some free PowerPoint templates

Best practices for Outlook 2007 from the Outlook Team Blog.

• how to set up Outlook (layout, rules, folders, etc.),
• how to best process e-mail messages to “tame your Inbox”
• the importance of doing a daily review of your calendar and tasks
• how best to get work done in Outlook
• doing effective searches
• the do’s and don’ts of writing great messages
• how to best manage your calendar and set up meetings

Microsoft Pages

Special Offers on Training and Certifications from Microsoft - Microsoft helps you become a key contributor within your organization by providing some of the best training available. Take advantage of these great offers that can help you turn your job into a career.

Running Windows 7 in Mixed Environments – technet discussion on interoperability issues

Migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7 - Guidance for IT pros

Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor - To see if your PC is ready for Windows 7, download the free Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. It scans your PC for potential issues with your hardware, devices, and installed programs, and recommends what to do before you upgrade.

Syncing Recorded TV to your Media Device – great tutorial with screenshots.

Getting started with Office 2010 – use this page as a starting point for transitioning help in each of the Office 2010 products.

Office 2010 Tool: Office Environment Assessment Tool This is a comprehensive environment scanning tool for use in deploying Microsoft Office 2010.

Office 2010 Tool: Compatibility Inspector The Compatibility Inspector compares existing (legacy) code against the Microsoft Office 2010 object model to identify possible code issues.

Get more from Windows 7 – top things to do after you upgrade

There has been so much Excel and Office related info come over my desk the last couple of weeks I don't have time to do it all justice, but I will try and share it with you in an organised way as possible.

Office 2007 and earlier

Create conditional drop-down lists. In Excel 2007 (and earlier), it’s possible to create a drop-down list. By using the INDIRECT function, you can then create additional drop-down lists that are conditional to the first drop-down list.

From J-Walk, run some code that runs 1 million random numbers and see how fast your computer is compared with others.

So I was all excited. Office DevCon 2009 was in Brisbane this year. We develop in Excel and VBA. I was looking forward to networking with others who do the same, and learning some new techniques and tricks.  The session track précis hinted at new reporting techniques, building reports for excel-centric clients, new VBA forms and more. I skipped the first day because there was only 1 session I wanted to go to. I was all excited about the second day because I thought (wrongly) my desires would be met. But no. I should have read the presenter profiles page first!.

These guys were all Access gurus. And they seemed to know what they were doing, but when it came to Excel they ignored the massive functionality of Excel, and treated it primarily as a report display system.

I think I am going to offer to present next year.

Windows Phone Website – if you use a windows mobile then there are plenty of resources here. If you don’t you probably should!

Insert the date and time in your OneNote notes. Shortcuts are:

• To insert the current date and time, press ALT+SHIFT+F.
• To insert only the date, press ALT+SHIFT+D.
• To insert only the time, press ALT+SHIFT+T.

Explanation of trusted documents feature in Office 2010

Outlook 2010 has some cool calendar features

Windows Media Centre Hints and tips from Missing remote