On Jan. 15, Microsoft will be releasing its first new version of Office for the Mac in nearly four years. It is called Office 2008, and it has two big changes from the current version, Office 2004.

For one, it is the first edition of Mac Office designed specifically for the new Intel-based Macs that Apple began rolling out two years ago. While the old Office ran adequately on the new Macs, it was slow to launch and slow to perform certain operations.

Second, the new Mac Office now reads and writes a new set of file formats Microsoft introduced a year ago in the latest Windows version of Office, called Office 2007. Mac owners receiving files in these new formats had been forced to employ separate and clumsy file converter programs.

Now, once again, the Mac version of Office can handle all the same Word, Excel and PowerPoint files — in both old and new formats — created in Windows and vice versa. No translation or conversion is necessary. The files just open and save as they do in the Windows version.

I’ve been testing the new Mac Office on two different Intel-based Macs: an early MacBook Pro laptop and a new iMac desktop. On both machines, Office 2008 launched and ran far more rapidly and smoothly than Office 2004 did.

I also tested Office 2008 with a variety of documents created in the Windows version using the new file formats, which can be identified by four-letter file name extensions that end in the letter “x.” All opened rapidly and perfectly in the new Mac version.

As in the latest Windows version, the new Mac Office 2008 allows you to opt to continue to save automatically all your files in the old, familiar formats-DOC for Word, XLS for Excel and PPT for PowerPoint. But, if you want to switch to the new formats, or need to use a file you receive that was created in them, you can now do so with ease.

Like its predecessors, the new Mac Office differs in one major respect from its Windows cousin: It lacks Outlook, the famed, if bloated, program for handling email, calendar and contacts. Instead, Office 2008 has a new version of Microsoft’s Mac counterpart to Outlook, called Entourage, which performs the same tasks but doesn’t use Outlook’s file format. Like Outlook, Entourage can work with the Microsoft Exchange servers used by corporations, as well as with consumer email systems.

Office 2008 for the Mac has some new features, but it isn’t nearly as radical an overhaul as the latest Windows version was. While the latter junked all the menus and traditional toolbars in Word, Excel and PowerPoint, the new Mac version retains the familiar menus and toolbars. It doesn’t use the so-called Ribbon, a band of icons that is the signature feature of Windows Office 2007.

The new Mac Office, however, does include a new user-interface feature called the Elements Gallery, a narrow strip across the top of the document that lets you easily summon and insert canned features for laying out documents. For example, in Word, you can quickly insert a handsome cover page. In Excel, you can rapidly add a specific type of chart or a spreadsheet preconfigured, for instance, as an invoice. In PowerPoint, you can quickly add customized slide themes and layouts.

There is also a Publishing Layout View in Word that speeds the creation of things like newsletters, and a Ledger Sheet feature in Excel for creating home and small-business budgets.

In my tests, I ran into a few minor glitches. I had to edit my rules for sorting email in Entourage to get them to work and, at first, I was unable to add new spellings to my custom dictionary in Word, though that problem went away. But, generally, the program worked well.

The standard edition of the new Office costs $400, or $240 to upgrade your current version. There is a deluxe edition, which includes a professional media-management program, for $500, or an upgrade price of $300.

For most average users, however, I recommend the Home and Student edition for just $150 that can be legally installed on up to three different Macs. This inexpensive edition has full versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage, but doesn’t work with Exchange servers.

Microsoft is also running a sale, through Jan. 14, under which anyone buying Office 2004 gets a coupon that allows them to receive the high-end version of Office 2008 for just a shipping and handling fee of $6.99.

Microsoft Office 2008 for the Mac is a solid program that I can recommend for anyone with a new Mac. It’s not revolutionary, but it does the job.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online, free, at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

You could, of course, automatically back up your files to an external hard disk, attached to your PC or to your home network. But that can get expensive, and it doesn’t store your backup remotely, so any disaster at your home or office could also wipe out your backup drive.

There’s another method: backing up over the Internet to a remote server somewhere. This is automated and solves the location issue, but in too many cases it has been costly and complicated, usually with quotas on how much you can back up.

Now, things are changing. I have been testing two online backup services that offer unlimited capacity — no quotas or limits at all — for around $50 a year.

One, called Carbonite, has been unlimited from the start, and Mozy, which previously had limits, is offering unlimited capacity as of today.

Mozy and Carbonite can be set to back up only a few key folders or types of files — say, all your work documents or music files — or, you can set them to back up nearly everything on your computer. If you have a loss, whether a single file, a folder, or everything, they allow you to recover it. Also, you can back up multiple computers with Mozy and Carbonite, but you have to pay extra for each additional machine.

The two services are easy to set up and easy to use. Each worked fine in my tests, both for backing up my key files and also for restoring them.

Carbonite can be downloaded at www.carbonite.com or purchased in stores. There is a 15-day free trial, after which it costs $50 a year, though some stores also sell a $15 version that lasts for three months. The trial version doesn’t back up music or videos by default.

Mozy can be downloaded from www.mozy.com and costs $4.95 a month, or $54.45 if you pay for a year in advance. Mozy also has a totally free version, which is limited to two gigabytes of data. (That is likely to be more than enough, by the way, to cover all of a typical consumer’s word processing, tax and budget files, and plenty of photos.)

Both services currently run only on Windows XP, but both expect to work on the new Windows Vista operating system. And both companies plan to release Macintosh versions next year.

Each installs a fairly small program on your PC that constantly works in the background to back up your data. When a file changes, or a new file is added, it is queued for backup. Carbonite backs up new or changed files 10 minutes after you save and close them, but only backs up each file once a day. Mozy checks the hard disk every two hours and backs up everything that is new or changed. With Mozy, but not with Carbonite, you can also opt for a scheduled backup at a time and interval of your choosing.

The biggest drawbacks of these two products are that backups can be very slow, especially the first backup, and you must have Internet access to do backups and to restore your files. In my tests, on a very fast Internet connection, it still took many hours to do a fairly small initial backup with each product, consisting of about five gigabytes in one case and under two gigabytes in another. A larger backup could take days, though subsequent backups would be much, much quicker.

Both companies encrypt the backed-up files and say they don’t view them. Both try to avoid overburdening or slowing down your computer and Internet connection by going idle or slowing down when you are using your computer for other tasks.

To restore files with Carbonite, you open a sort of virtual representation of your backed-up files and click on what you want restored. If your computer is stolen or not functioning, you can also go to a Web site to initiate a full restore to a new computer.

With Mozy, you can also restore files and folders via a virtual view of your backup that resides on your PC. But Mozy has a much richer Web interface for viewing your backup and for restoring files. From a Web site on any PC, you can log into Mozy and pick any file or folder to retrieve. I even logged in from a Mac, opened a Mozy backup of my Windows PC, and recovered a photo that was then downloaded to the Mac.

Of the two products, I prefer Mozy. Carbonite is a little quicker and simpler to set up, but it’s more limited. If you want to go beyond the default backup choice — your most common documents and settings — you have to troll through your hard disk to select additional folders and files for backup. Mozy also has a default setting, but makes it much easier to alter or customize it.

Mozy offers more-versatile restoring and scheduled backups, and unlike Carbonite, will back up an external hard disk. Mozy will also send you a DVD of all your files, for a fee. Carbonite won’t. Mozy also keeps multiple versions of any file for 30 days. Carbonite doesn’t.

Still, you won’t go wrong with either of these two services, and you’ll sleep better at night.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.

The Finnish cellphone giant is introducing a phone called the E62 that resembles, and is aimed at, the Palm Treo, the latest BlackBerry phones from Research In Motion and the Motorola Q.

Nokia’s E62

Like those other smart phones, the E62 has a full keyboard and is actually a little computer that is meant to be a serious email device as well as a phone. Like the Q and the Treo, it can play music and videos, surf the Web, and display photos.

Unlike the Treo and the Q, however, the Nokia E62 can run a service licensed by RIM that allows it to behave like a BlackBerry. It can send and receive email using either a corporate BlackBerry server or a consumer BlackBerry service offered by a cellphone carrier.

I’ve been testing the E62 and I like it. It’s fairly utilitarian-looking and won’t likely become an object of desire like the Q and the Treo. But it gets the job done and may well be the best bargain in its category.

In the past, Nokia has relied on a smart-phone design that was a thick, long device that flipped open to reveal a wide, horizontally aligned keyboard and screen. That design sold OK in Europe but flopped in the U.S. Now, with the E62, Nokia is adopting the American-type design pioneered by the BlackBerry and used by the Treo and the Q.

Nokia is being coy about the timing, pricing and wireless carrier for the E62. But I expect it to be available late next month from Cingular Wireless. And I expect it to cost even less than the Q, which at $199 is the least expensive product in this group. The latest Treo models, the 700p and 700w, are being sold by Verizon Wireless for $299 right now, after rebates.

The E62 works on the so-called GSM cellphone standard that’s universal in Europe, and used by Cingular and T-Mobile in the U.S. This means it can be used in both America and Europe, as well as in some other countries. The Treo 700 models, sold by Verizon and Sprint, and the Q, sold only by Verizon, use an American technology called CDMA that doesn’t work in Europe or in most places outside the U.S.

However, that GSM technology also saddles the E62 with its biggest drawback: It is much slower at receiving data such as email and Web pages than the Q or the Treo 700, or even certain BlackBerry models. That’s because it uses EDGE, a GSM variant that has been blown away by a technology called EVDO used by the Treo 700 and the Q. In my tests, EVDO has been up to seven times as fast as EDGE.

The E62 also lacks a camera, unlike the Q and the Treo 700. But, like them, it has Bluetooth wireless technology.

Nokia has built in a sharp, vivid screen with a resolution of 320 by 240. That’s better than the resolution on the Treo 700w and identical to the Q’s screen resolution — but inferior to the resolution on the Treo 700p.

The new Nokia is a bit larger than the Q — wider, thicker, longer and heavier. But it’s thinner and lighter than the Treo 700, albeit a bit wider and longer.

In my tests, the voice quality of the E62 was very good. Battery life was decent, with a talk time of between four and 5.5 hours. The phone accepts memory cards for storage of files and applications.

The BlackBerry Connect service and software, likely to cost around $45 a month, worked well. After I installed the BlackBerry software on the new Nokia and configured the service on the E62 and on an accompanying Web site, the service “pushed” all emails from my regular account to the E62 reliably. There’s no limit to how much email you can receive, though the carrier may intervene if it believes you are abusing the service.

The only downside of the BlackBerry Connect feature is that there’s a noticeable latency when you open an email before it displays on the screen.

In my tests, the N62 could open most major email attachment types, including Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and Adobe PDF files. It’s also supposed to work with PowerPoint presentations, but in my tests, this function failed.

The user interface on the E62 isn’t nearly as fast or slick as on the Palm operating system used by the Treo 700p. But I preferred it slightly over the Windows Mobile operating system used on the Treo 700w and some other smart phones. There were still too many menus and extra steps compared with the Palm system, but at least you can delete an email with one click. Turning on the speaker phone was also quick and easy.

I was able to synchronize the E62 with Microsoft Outlook, and bring over my contacts and calendar, using the separate Windows software that comes with the phone. And I was able to load up the memory card with pictures and songs from my computer and use them successfully on the E62.

All in all, the E62 is a solid and inexpensive smart phone.

• Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.

Like all other trends in technology, this one, sometimes called “Web 2.0,” is overhyped. It’s been happening quietly for years, but it’s a long way from replacing all the software you use.

Still, the biggest software company of all, Microsoft, has recently launched a major initiative to produce this kind of remote software. Its project, called Windows Live, is hardly unique. Google, Yahoo, America Online and many others are also offering new Web applications. But Microsoft’s Windows Live may be the biggest of these efforts.

Google Earth image of building housing Journal’s Washington bureau, top; the Microsoft image, below.

Why would Microsoft, or its rivals, want to make this switch? Well, theoretically at least, it allows them to write one program that can be used on multiple platforms — say, both Windows and Macintosh computers, or even cellphones. And it may allow them to sell subscriptions to their software, or to sell ads that could run inside the software. It will also make it easier to update programs, and to construct programs that can synchronize data among multiple PCs or users.

Some of this stuff would clearly benefit consumers. You could fire up your favorite program from any Internet-connected device, just as you can log onto Web-based email now from any PC. And you wouldn’t have to download or install updates.

But other features of this new world, like ads in software, may be annoying to many consumers. In the world of Web 2.0, people without fast, costly broadband connections would be able to do less and less with their computers.

To get an early look at this new approach, I’ve been poking around in Windows Live, which is a grab bag of mostly free programs. Some, like Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Mail, are renamed and revamped parts of the company’s MSN online service. Others, like the OneCare Live security service, are new ideas.

All of these programs are in the testing phase, and this column isn’t intended to be a full review of any of them. But here’s a quick, early look at three components of Windows Live.

Windows Live Local: This is a local search and mapping service, complete with aerial photos of cities and towns. Built on an earlier Microsoft project called Virtual Earth, it’s intended to compete with the local search and mapping features of Google and Yahoo. It’s also a competitor to Google Earth, a satellite mapping service that requires an installed program to use. By contrast, Windows Live Local works entirely from a Web browser, and it runs in both Internet Explorer and Firefox, and on both Windows and Macs.

The most startling feature of Windows Live Local is that it can display real 3D aerial images of buildings and houses in many U.S. cities and suburbs. These pictures don’t merely display the roofs of buildings, as Google’s do, but their sides. The difference is enormous. Instead of puzzling over roof shapes, you can easily identify buildings and get a much better feel for neighborhoods.

In its current form, however, Live Local has limitations. For large swaths of the country, 3D photos, which Microsoft calls “Bird’s Eye” views, aren’t available. In Bird’s Eye mode, panning and zooming are clumsy and limited, street names aren’t overlaid on the images, and there’s no easy way to save them. But it’s still a huge step forward. It’s at local.live.com.

Windows Live Mail: This is a massive upgrade of Microsoft’s popular free Hotmail email service. It is simultaneously much cleaner looking and more sophisticated. There’s now a preview pane to the right of the message list, just as in Outlook. Messages can be dragged into folders. When you right click on something, useful email options appear instead of just browser commands.

The new mail program auto-completes addresses and saves sent messages. There are various new security and editing features. Overall, it works much more like Outlook or Outlook Express, though currently many features don’t work on the Mac or Firefox. It will also offer two gigabytes of free storage. People with current Hotmail addresses will be able to keep them, but new addresses will look like “johndoe@livemail.com.” It will be available at mail.live.com soon.

Windows Live OneCare: This is a complete, managed security service, for Windows only, that will be available by paid subscription. The goal is to keep a computer constantly protected and updated with little or no intervention from the user. It does require locally installed software, but it’s managed remotely by Microsoft, the same way a corporate IT department remotely manages the security of all the computers at a company.

OneCare, which I will review in full later, also has features to keep a computer tuned up and backed up. As of now, it lacks a crucial feature: antispyware capability. But that is planned. It’s at onecare.com.

• Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.