Advantages: Well paid and varied role
Disadvantages: Can't really become an "Office Director"

...An Office Manager can sometimes be seen as the most important person in a company. You may not agree with that statement but you can't disagree that a good Office Manager will help to run a business more smoothly. To summarise an Office Manager's role one could say that their main function is to supervise or manage the administrative functions to make an office run more efficiently. WHAT DOES ONE DO? There is no real job description set in stone for this role as duties vary greatly depending on size of company and industry sector you're working in. A typical Office Manager will have some key functions which can include most of the following areas of responsibility: • Ordering and monitoring stationery • Liaising with landlords • Looking after incoming and outgoing post (not specifically dealing... Read review

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Advantages: Cheap as chips
Disadvantages: it's not Office

...According to our friends at Amazon, a copy of Microsoft Office costs a cool 416 quid (at time of writing) while the professional version costs over 500! That is a lot of money to write letters and run the odd spreadsheet. Until very recently the only competitor to Office was IBM's Lotus Smartsuite product. Having used both, I personally don’t think that Smartsuite is as good a product as Office, however the latest IBM version still retails at around 400 pounds! Both companies do a 'cut down' version, mainly for OEM computer resellers. However, these versions tend to be delivered net of manuals or any other assists. Enter SUN Microsystems allegorically dressed in shimmering silver armor astride a milk-white charger... Please don't misunderstand my apparent hero worship here; while I consider what SUN has done to be a 'good thing', I do... Read review

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Advantages: funny, different, great performances from cast
Disadvantages: an acquired taste

..."Those of you who think you know everything are annoying to those of us who do. " When Ricky Gervais first appeared on "The Eleven O'Clock Show", I thought he was occasionally funny but mostly offensive. As far as I know, he was playing a character when he was on the show, but my overall impression was "fat, racist git". I didn't find him particularly hilarious. When I heard about "The Office", the comedy set in the office of a Slough-based paper merchants, I wasn't particularly interested in ever watching it. Co-written by Gervais and Stephen Marchant, and co-starring Gervais, I just didn't expect much from it. Then, one night, there was nothing else on tv apart from an episode of "The Office". Reluctantly, I sat down to watch it - and within about five minutes, I was completely hooked. A convert to "The Office" cause, I would... Read review

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Advantages: Excellent range, excellent prices.
Disadvantages: Only delivers to mainland UK

...www.office-world.co.uk Whether you are a large business, sole trader, work from home, student or a parent sorting the kids out for school, Office World have something for everyone. Office World to date has approximately 60 stores throughout the mainland UK, telephone and fax ordering facilities and recently has launched their website office-world.co.uk. EASE OF USE All products can be located either by visiting the relevant department or by using the search facility. The search facility will bring up results by subdividing each category allowing you choose the best option for you. Should browsing through web pages not be the thing for you, you can either pick up a catalogue in store or request one to be sent out to you free online. You can then order over the phone or online using catalogue numbers. The My Account facility allows... Read review

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Advantages: looks good, they have ironed out little 'niggles'
Disadvantages: none really, probably price!

...I have just been shown Microsoft’s newest version of ‘Office’ – Office XP which will be released to the general public on May 31st 2001. The XP stands for eXPerience, or so we were told. Cheesiness aside, it all looked rather good. This opinion is written for people with a working knowledge of Office already, as if I described the Office suite and also said what’s new in XP you would still be reading at Christmas! So here is what’s new to tempt you into Microsoft Office XP. Firstly, they have been rather clever in the anti-piracy stakes. As you purchase your Office package, install it on your PC, you then need to ‘activate’ it. It will allow you to get started immediately and not activate if you wish but you only have 50 launches, so as you are nearing your deadline it prompts... Read review

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Advantages: free, easy to use, great for produce PDF document
Disadvantages: none for me

...Do you fancy a good, free office software suite? If you answer "yes", OpenOffice.org might be one you can have a look. I'm using the latest version of OpenOffice.org 2.1, which you can download free from www.openoffice.org. It includes OpenOffice.org Base, Calc, Draw, Impress, Math and Writer. OpenOffice.org combines its 6 tool suites very well. You can easily open a new window for spreadsheet when you are in Writer environment. ~~~~ Writer ~~~~ OpenOffice.org writer is a word processor. There are several good points of it. 1.Compatible with Microsoft Word format. The default text save format is OpenOffice document, however, you are able to save them as other formats such as .doc, or .txt, etc. So it's compatible with Microsoft Word, but you may find the text lost formatting or style when you transfer between them... Read review

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Advantages: Web integration, cross program functionality
Disadvantages: Price

.... PowerPoint and FrontPage followed the track of other competition programs and there was always something in the market that just had to be watched, copied and made tiny little bit better to hit the market. When Sun’s Star Office was released for almost no money to invest as a user (free downloads and upgrades available for this office suite) it became clear that Microsoft had to come up with a real benefit for their pretty expensive product. And they did! 2. Experience background I have been using Microsoft Office products for almost 10 years for a wide variety of tasks and projects. Privately I tried to use competing products because I really did not like MS’s strategy too much how they copied and afterwards smashed their competition. Sadly they succeeded with most of them and eventually there are not too many competing... Read review

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Advantages: Funniest British comedy in years
Disadvantages: Only two series and two specials long

...Nearly two years after the demise of the office it remains a relevant and still much talked about televisual phenomenon. Nothing about this DVD collection is spectacular, from the mundane packaging to the fairly standard extras. But these are minor qualms and quibbles, the genius of this collection does not lie in mere aesthetics like so many others out there (naming no names, I don't know any), the joy is in the 7 ½ of epic comedy hours contained on the 4 DVD's. The multi-award winning internationally acclaimed series about a paper merchants in Slough, herein lies the genius of The Office. The office headed by the hapless David Brent (Ricky Gervais) is an incongruous mix of everyday folk with more than slightly exaggerated personality traits. Gareth (Mackenzie Crook) the typically over anxious TA lieutenant with delusions... Read review

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Advantages: Erm pretty pink logo?
Disadvantages: Unprofessional conduct on several counts...

...ABOUT THEM ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Office Angels was set up in 1986 and they have about 80 branches across the UK dealing with different sized businesses. They specialise in supplying office support staff at varying levels such as secretaries, administrators, HR staff, accounts staff and call centre agents. Office Angels is owned by the Ajilon Group of Companies. They are number 8 this year in the Sunday Times best 100 companies to work for. That's the 2nd year running they've made the top 10. Office Angels has a pretty blue and pink logo. The word "angels" in the logo has a halo above the angels to indicate its angelic qualities. This is quoted directly from their website, "At Office Angels, we're dedicated to ensuring that we provide a truly personal and tailored service to our candidates. This guarantees that whatever role you... Read review

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Advantages: Price, Opens and saves Microsoft formats
Disadvantages: No Grammar checker (if you need it)

...Many new computers come with either Microsoft Works or a time limited version of Microsoft Office pre-installed. So most users will have tried the Microsoft products and not even thought about using a similar package from another company. OK, I was as guilty of this as everyone else. Until, that is I was sent a copy of StarOffice 6 as part of my Open University Course Software. As it was free, I thought, what the heck and installed it, and can honestly say, I haven't used the Microsoft equivalent since. So What Is StarOffice? ************************* StarOffice is an open source office suite, that consists of : * Word Processor * Presentation Program * A Drawing Tool * Spread Sheet In fact almost the same applications as you would get in the Microsoft version. The really nice thing about Star Office... Read review

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