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General computing productivity tips

Why Skype is Bad (part 2)

posted Thursday, June 29, 2006 9:04 AM by Allister_Frost
I received a lot of communication since my last blog posting in which I explained how the Skype client can start behaving as a supernode and using your bandwidth to facilitate communications between other Skype users. Several people thanked me for bringing Read More
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Why Skype is Bad

posted Tuesday, June 27, 2006 7:41 AM by Allister_Frost
I've used Skype. And I like it. It has a really simple user interface and does what it promises very well. The call quality is generally great, but I've now uninstalled it from all my PCs preferring instead to use the new Windows Live Messenger client. Read More
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The Best Microsoft Outlook Tip in the World... ever!

posted Friday, June 23, 2006 1:00 PM by Allister_Frost
In this, my final posting as Exchange/Outlook Product Manager for the UK, I would like to share with you the most powerful productivity tool in Outlook: the delete key. I'll also share a simple workflow you can use right away to help maintain an empty Read More
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New job? Start afresh!

posted Friday, June 23, 2006 10:11 AM by Allister_Frost
I'm moving to a new role at Microsoft on Monday. Which, of course, means new things to learn, new tasks to work on and new people to get to know. Because I'll no longer need to email many of my existing contacts, now is a great time to spring clean Read More
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Do you often send the same emails?

posted Thursday, June 22, 2006 1:10 PM by Allister_Frost
If you routinely send similar emails to the same people (like a sales report every morning) you can speed up the process by adding a button to one of your toolbars that creates a new email message and pre-populates the address field and subject line. Read More
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Creative Commons Licensing comes to Microsoft Office

posted Thursday, June 22, 2006 9:21 AM by Allister_Frost
Useful Technology news for Microsoft Office users who create documents that they share with others. Microsoft and Creative Commons have just released a new feature for Microsoft Office that makes it really easy to add a Creative Commons copyright notice Read More
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Windows Live Messenger - just launched!

posted Thursday, June 22, 2006 6:08 AM by Allister_Frost
Windows Live Messenger, the brilliant successor to MSN Messenger, is now available for download. This great new product came out of Beta just yesterday and we've already notched up more than 2 million downloads in just 36 hours! There are loads Read More
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Crabby on the Rampage

posted Wednesday, June 21, 2006 9:29 AM by Allister_Frost
My Outlook 2007 RSS Feed brings me news today that the Crabby Office Lady is on her soapbox again with some more email etiquette techniques. And quite right too. As my regular reader knows, I too am a big fan of being nice to people, whether that's Read More
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Getting Outlook help from Newsgroups

posted Wednesday, June 21, 2006 7:50 AM by Allister_Frost
While Outlook 2007 will provide some fantastic new features that enable you to view RSS feeds directly inside Outlook, Outlook 2003 provides no such capability without an additional add-on like the free RSS Popper. Another source of great information Read More
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Send a letter from Outlook

posted Tuesday, June 20, 2006 3:03 PM by Allister_Frost
Yes, it's true! Even though email now rules the communication world Outlook provides some speedy shortcuts to allow you to send a letter to your contacts (you remember; a letter is one of those things you put in an envelope with an overpriced stamp Read More
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Adding contact pictures to Outlook

posted Tuesday, June 20, 2006 3:22 AM by Allister_Frost
Anyone with a Windows Mobile 5 device (SmartPhone or PDA) will have seen how incredibly useful Contact pictures become. Each time you receive an email from someone on your contact list for whom you have a contact picture, a thumbnail of their photo will Read More
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Coping with Email Overload: 20 ideas

posted Monday, June 19, 2006 2:00 PM by Allister_Frost
I was recently asked to share some thoughts on how organisations can help their employees cope with their email overload and become better email citizens. In response I compiled the '20 ideas' below as food for thought for messaging administrators Read More
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Still using paper and pen and Outlook??

posted Monday, June 19, 2006 8:09 AM by Allister_Frost
I come across this so often when meeting with customers and friends. Some people continue to use both a paper-based personal information manager (or a 'little black book' as some like to call it) and Outlook even though this is clearly highly inefficient. Read More
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Replying to an email with modified attachments

posted Friday, June 16, 2006 1:38 PM by Allister_Frost
On a related subject to my previous post (Saving emails without Attachments) one other Microsoft Outlook attachment challenge I frequently come across is how best to respond to an email which asks me to review and make changes to an enclosed file. If Read More
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Saving emails without attachments

posted Friday, June 16, 2006 10:43 AM by Allister_Frost
Jeanie D asks: "Do you know of any method for saving an email without its attachment? Something simpler than my current work-around of Reply, address the reply to myself, send it, and save that "copy" (which loses the benefit of the "from" field)?" Saving Read More
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