Kurt Shintaku's Blog

GitHub today announced it was giving users of its free plan access to unlimited private repositories. (Private repositories on free accounts are limited to three collaborators apiece.)

Today we’re announcing two major updates to make GitHub more accessible to developers: unlimited free private repositories, and a simpler, unified Enterprise offering. We’re excited about these updates to our Free and Enterprise offerings:

• GitHub Free now includes unlimited private repositories. For the first time, developers can use GitHub for their private projects with up to three collaborators per repository for free. Many developers want to use private repos to apply for a job, work on a side project, or try something out in private before releasing it publicly. Starting today, those scenarios, and many more, are possible on GitHub at no cost. Public repositories are still free (of course—no changes there) and include unlimited collaborators.

  …

Read more about this announcement here:

• BLOG: New year, new GitHub: Announcing unlimited free private repos and unified Enterprise offering
  https://blog.github.com/2019-01-07-new-year-new-github/

UPDATE 2/4/19:
The rollout of the new Modern HUP has been staggered.  It was released to some countries in November 2018, with others coming later.  The US is slated to have the program launched sometime in Q1.

ORIGINAL POST:
Customers with 2000+ Office 365 E3/E5 licenses are now eligible for a new “Home Use Program” that delivers a 30% annual discount off ERP for a subscription license of:

• Office 365 Home – USD$69.99 (ERP USD$99.99, available starting 10/30/2018)
• Office 365 Personal – USD$48.99 (ERP USD$69.99, available starting 10/30/2018

Company Eligibility:

• Current Customers who have Software Assurance benefits with Microsoft.  For more information on the Software Assurance Program go here.
• Commercial and Government Customers who have purchased ≥ 2,000 licenses of O365 E3/E5 and/or M365 E3/E5
• Education and Non-profit Customers who have purchased ≥ 13,000 licenses of O365 Education A3/A5 and O365/M365 E3/E5
• Unlimited – all employees under the qualifying tenant will be eligible to purchase discounted O365 Home or O365 Personal through the Home Use Program.

Employees eligibility:

• Be an active employee of an organization that is eligible for Home Use Program
• Have an email address with a domain that has been approved by the company’s IT Administrator
• Purchase with an active Microsoft Account (MSA)

Implementation & Next Steps:
Clients of mine that are interested in the following information can reach out to me for details around:

• How do IT Admins access this offer and inform employees of the program?
• Where do IT administrators go to manage their Microsoft Home Use Program benefits?
• What do IT administrators need to do to allow employees to use the Microsoft Home Use Program offer?

To read the initial announcement, visit:

• Updates to Microsoft 365 Licensing
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Licensing/news/microsoft365-licensing-update
• Microsoft Licesning: Home Use Program/Office 365 Subscriptions
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/licensing-programs/software-assurance-by-benefits?activetab=software-assurance-by-benefits-tab:primaryr4
• Microsoft Home Use Program FAQ
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/home-use-program/frequently-asked-questions

With the availability of the October 2018 release of Windows 10, SwiftKey is now the keyboard technology incorporated into Windows softkeyboard.

PREDICTION TYPING… NOW AVAILABLE FOR PHYSICAL KEYBOARDS
One of the things that Richard Hay of the ObservedTech podcast highlighted however is that even if you’re not using the SwiftKey-powered softkeyboard to type on Windows 10, (i.e. you’re using a physical keyboard) you can still take advantage of SwiftKey’s AutoComplete suggestions & AutoCorrect spelling.

When AutoComplete & AutoCorrect are manually enabled for hardware/physical keyboards, suggestions for your next word will appear next to your newly typed words on the screen – just as Swiftkey for iOS/Android does on mobile devices. Additionally, misspelled words will automatically be corrected as you type.

TURNING ON AUTOCOMPLETE & AUTOCORRECT
If you have upgraded your system to Windows 10 release 1809, you need to turn on both AutoComplete suggestions & AutoCorrect spelling for hardware keyboards to take advantage of typing prediction.

1. Go to Settings – Devices – Typing
2. Scroll to the bottom & find “Hardware keyboard”
3. Turn on “Show text suggestions as I type”
4. Turn on “Autocorrect misspelled words I type”

When you go to anywhere in the operating system and you begin to type into your physical keyboard, you’ll see both AutoComplete & AutoCorrect kick in:

• providing AI-derived hints about what the next word is you’ll want to enter in a bubble near your cursor
• autocorrecting your spelling as you type in any application (not just Word or PowerPoint) or presenting you with the correct spelling of the word in a bubble near your cursor

TYPING INSIGHTS
Additionally, if you’re interested in the impact that Swiftkey AutoComplete & AutoCorrect is having on your time & accuracy, there is a linked called “Typing Insights” that provides you with statistics on how often SwiftKey has helped you.

1. Go to Settings – Devices – Typing
2. Click “Typing Insights”

The Office “dual use rights” policy will be retired as of August 1, 2019. The “dual use rights” policy provides Microsoft 365 customers with the ability to use a perpetual installation of Office (aka Office Professional Plus – the static .MSI version, in the case of Office 2016) in lieu of Office 365 ProPlus if they qualify for the “From SA” SKU.

From the announcement:

Beginning August 1, 2019, new and renewing agreements that include the “From SA” version of Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 will no longer have rights to deploy the perpetual Office client. Customers with active Enterprise Agreements will not be impacted by these changes until their current agreement expires. There are no changes to the use rights of Productivity Servers or Productivity Server CALs that are programmatically included for all Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 customers.

Read more about this retirement here:

• Updates to Microsoft 365 Licensing
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Licensing/news/microsoft365-licensing-update

We are happy to announce the addition of a new Power BI template, Manager Impact, for Office 365 Workplace Analytics. This template shows trends of manager behavior – how managers interact with their teams – within your organization.

Learn about the Manager Impact Power BI template in Workplace Analytics in this blog post here:

• Workplace Analytics – October 2018: Meeting costs, Manager impact, and more
  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Office-365-Analytics-Blog/Workplace-Analytics-October-2018-Meeting-costs-Manager-impact/ba-p/275910

PAST UPDATES FOR WORKPLACE ANALYTICS 
For past monthly updates on Workplace Analytics, visit the Office 365 Analytics blog:

• New Workplace Analytics Feature Releases – May 2018
• New Workplace Analytics Feature Releases – April 2018
• Workplace Analytics – June 2018: New metrics and person-to-group queries
• Workplace Analytics – July 2018: New meeting metrics and UI design
• Workplace Analytics – August 2018: New custom meeting metrics, space planning, and more
• Workplace Analytics – September 2018: Teamwork solution, Admin onboarding, and more
• Workplace Analytics – October 2018: Meeting costs, Manager impact, and more
• Workplace Analytics – November 2018: Meeting exclusion rules

For documentation for Workplace Analytics, visit:

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/workplace-analytics/

Microsoft open sourced WPF, Windows Forms and Windows UI XAML Library at Microsoft Connect(); 2018.

Read more about this announcement here:

• Announcing Open Source of WPF, Windows Forms, and WinUI at Microsoft Connect(); 2018
  https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2018/12/04/announcing-open-source-of-wpf-windows-forms-and-winui-at-microsoft-connect-2018/

For best practices around implementation, lessons learned, recommended approaches, visit our Instructor-led Training site for Microsoft Teams.

This site includes a set of webinars hosted by Microsoft’s Engineering Team for customers to learn more about the main features of Teams, or to discuss hot topics – E.g. Skype to Teams transition. 

Here’s a listing of what’s available now:

• #ThisIsTeams – Microsoft Teams Overview
• Getting started with Teams
• Teams tips & tricks
• Manage your upgrade from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams
• Switch from Skype for Business to Teams: End User Guidance
• Teams for Education – Webinars

Customers can enroll in the webpage at no charge.

• TRAINING: Microsoft Teams – Instructor-led Online Training
  http://aka.ms/TeamsLiveTraining

The Microsoft 365 Blog publishes the newly released services & features available to customers every month in a single blog post.

For review, here’s the 2018 year’s posts/updates: (Yes, September is missing.)

• New in January—enriching teamwork across devices
• New in February—advancing creativity, teamwork, and management in the modern workplace
• New in March—rich data types, intelligent search, and expanded datacenters
• New to Microsoft 365 in April—tools for the modern workplace
• New to Microsoft 365 in May—empowering and securing users
• New to Microsoft 365 in June—streamlining teamwork and security – Microsoft 365 Blog
• New to Microsoft 365 in July—integrating apps and empowering businesses – Microsoft 365 Blog
• New to Microsoft 365 in August—tools to achieve more in the modern workplace – Microsoft 365 Blog
• New to Microsoft 365 in October—tools to create impactful content and help transition to the cloud – Microsoft 365 Blog
• New to Microsoft 365 in November—tools to keep you in your workflow and fine-tune content – Microsoft 365 Blog
• New to Microsoft 365 in December—AI-powered tools to help you create your best work – Microsoft 365 Blog

Registration is open for Microsoft Business Applications Summit 2019.

Meet the engineers behind the tools you use every day and get a sneak peek at what’s new and next.

Microsoft Business Applications Summit
June 10-11, 2019
Georgia World Congress Center
Atlanta, GA

Registration:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/businessapplicationssummit

Check out last year’s sessions available on-demand:

Microsoft Business Applications 2018 included 200+ keynotes and sessions led by the experts behind Dynamics 365, Power BI, PowerApps, Mixed Reality, Microsoft Flow and Excel.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/businessapplicationssummit/sessionsondemand

We’ve announced the “Microsoft Edge Insider Program”, a program that will allow everyone’s voices to be heard as we adopt the Chromium open source project in the development of Microsoft Edge to create better web compatibility for our customers and less fragmentation of the web for all web developers.

Read more about this transition here:

• Microsoft Edge: Making the web better through more open source collaboration
  https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2018/12/06/microsoft-edge-making-the-web-better-through-more-open-source-collaboration/#t7t1PArxHczeLml7.97

Sign up for the Edge Insider program here:

• Microsoft Edge Insider Program
  https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/