Microsoft Excel

Have you come to Microsoft Excel 2010 by way of Excel 2007, or did you skip directly from Excel 2003 or an earlier version? Those in the former group are likely to have a very different upgrade experience from those in the latter group.

If you've got a whopper of a spreadsheet, with thousands or more of rows, you've got a big problem if you want to make sure the spreadsheet doesn't contain duplicate entries. Excel simply doesn't have good tools for finding them. That's where Duplicate Remover for Excel ($30, 15-day free trial), an add-in from AbleBits, makes its name.

Microsoft Excel spreadsheets hold more than a million rows of data and automate number crunching, but they can do so much more. Excel's simple interface lends itself to uses well beyond those that its designers ever imagined.

Microsoft Excel 2011 is packed with new features, but three areas in particular are worth taking some time to learn.

For once, Microsoft does a better job than Apple in just getting out of the way.

Microsoft today said it will deliver 10 security updates next week to patch serious bugs in Windows, Internet Explorer (IE), Word and Excel.