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June 2006 - Posts

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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Sample Add-Ins for Outlook 2007 Beta 2

posted Tuesday, June 20, 2006 4:11 PM by Allister_Frost
There are some nice new sample add-ins for Outlook 2007 Beta 2 from MSDN at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/ms778811(office.12).aspx which demonstrate the additional power available to developers in the new product. If you're running the Beta 2 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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It's Friday...

posted Friday, June 16, 2006 5:35 PM by Allister_Frost
...and Frost is all over the news. So now you know what to do on Monday. Stay at home and get some work done! Have a nice weekend. 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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Move or copy - you decide!

posted Thursday, June 15, 2006 6:03 AM by Allister_Frost
As my regular reader knows (if he's still conscious), I'm a big fan of Microsoft Outlook's CTRL+SHIFT+V shortcut which calls up the 'Move to Folder' dialog box. I use this a gazillion times each day to convert emails to tasks and calendar items using Read More
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Stylish Printing from Outlook

posted Wednesday, June 14, 2006 4:44 PM by Allister_Frost
Are you one of those people who like to print out emails? Nothing wrong with that, of course, as long as you only print them out for good reasons and not because you're too bone-idle to read them from the screen! Here's how to get more out of printing Read More
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How to reduce the size of your Outlook Personal Folders

posted Wednesday, June 14, 2006 9:38 AM by Allister_Frost
If you use Personal Folders (.pst files) in Outlook, most of the time you simply add more stuff making them bigger. But if you delete items from a Personal Folder file to save storage space, you may not realise there are 2 very important things to do Read More
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Bringing websites into Outlook

posted Tuesday, June 13, 2006 6:35 AM by Allister_Frost
Did you know that you can change any folder in Outlook to display a web home page by default instead of its normal contents? For example you could change a mail folder to show a web page relating to a work project. The big downside of doing this is that Read More
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Useful Technology for Sport Spectators

posted Monday, June 12, 2006 8:07 AM by Allister_Frost
I had the privilege of watching the British Grand Prix at Silverstone as a guest of Vodafone/Ferrari yesterday. It was a great day with excellent hospitality, some star appearances, oh, and a bit of racing thrown in as well. The race itself was a bit Read More
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How to never miss a weekend party

posted Friday, June 09, 2006 1:30 PM by Allister_Frost
Eileen recently posted about the ALT+1, ALT+2 etc shortcuts you can use to change the number of days that your Outlook calendar shows. That's a neat shortcut. One of my favourite related tips is to head into Tools > Options and click Calendar Read More
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Print, Don't Forget

posted Friday, June 09, 2006 12:39 PM by Allister_Frost
You can customise a bucketful of things in Microsoft Word, like shortcut keys and autotext entries. Trouble is, while it's easy to create shortcut keys, it's much harder to remember them. Thankfully, help is at hand. Word makes it really easy to make Read More
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Give impact to the important bits in your email

posted Friday, June 09, 2006 9:02 AM by Allister_Frost
Careful formatting of your email messages can make a world of difference to the impact they have on their recipients. THING TO DO:One simple but underused technique is to centre align your main call to action on the page This simple technique can give Read More
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See Windows Vista

posted Thursday, June 08, 2006 10:06 AM by Allister_Frost
Keith Combs' blog points out a nice link that gives an overview of some of the goodies coming in Windows Vista. I'm not sure what that guy's doing with his left arm. Contrary to my first suspicion though he does have one; as you'll discover Read More
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Opening Outlook in the folder you want

posted Thursday, June 08, 2006 8:17 AM by Allister_Frost
By default, Microsoft Outlook opens to the folder view you specify in the top setting in the Tools > Options > Other tab > Advanced Options... window. But you can also open Outlook to whichever folder you like by adding shortcuts to places like Read More
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More Windows Live Local collections for the UK

posted Wednesday, June 07, 2006 3:49 PM by Allister_Frost
Microsoft recently invited employees to submit their favourite Windows Live Local map collections for the UK. Here are some of my favourites: UK Premiership Football Stadia (figure out how far from your seat to the hot dog stand) UK Hedge Mazes (print Read More
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Spot the rotten fruit in your Inbox

posted Wednesday, June 07, 2006 3:06 PM by Allister_Frost
As a follow-up to my earlier post about message expiry settings, you might also like to customise your Inbox view to alert you to expired messages you have received. Here's what I do: In Outlook go to the Inbox Either right-click on an empty Read More
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Expire your email messages

posted Wednesday, June 07, 2006 12:35 PM by Allister_Frost
Like fruit, communication is best when it's fresh. While you can't quite add a 'best before date' to your emails you can set a date after which they will expire (kind of like telling your words how long they have to live). This is handy if, for example, Read More
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Hallelujah! At last: an intelligent spell checker

posted Wednesday, June 07, 2006 10:31 AM by Allister_Frost
Great news for fast-fingered slow-brained writers everywhere: the 2007 Microsoft Office System features a new contextual spelling feature that detects many of the glaring errors that traditional spell checkers miss. This could be the cure I've been looking Read More
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New Microsoft Application Transporter 2006 for Lotus Domino

posted Wednesday, June 07, 2006 9:40 AM by Allister_Frost
Just released and shipping now: brand new free tools to help customers transfer data from Lotus Notes applications to Windows SharePoint Services. The new tools comprise the Application Transporter a new Application Analyzer and improved Exchange-Lotus Read More
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Adding multiple contacts from the same company into Outlook

posted Tuesday, June 06, 2006 10:30 PM by Allister_Frost
Quick tip: save time inputting new contacts from the same company into Outlook. Open one of your existing contacts from that company then choosing the New Contact from Same Company option in the Actions menu. Outlook creates a new contact for you, Read More
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Sending an email about a task

posted Tuesday, June 06, 2006 11:41 AM by Allister_Frost
Advanced users of Outlook make good use of Tasks to manage their day to day 'to do' list. As I work through my tasks I often find that I need to email someone about the task I'm working on. There's a natty shortcut in Outlook that can speed up this process. Read More
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Outlook Signatures - tips for the perfect sign-off

posted Tuesday, June 06, 2006 9:01 AM by Allister_Frost
Since the days of yore (whenever that was) Outlook has allowed you to add a signature at the end of each email message you compose. This saves you having to repeatedly type in your name, telephone number, vital statistics etc. But you may not have realised Read More
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Good blog entry: Working in Outlook 2007

posted Friday, June 02, 2006 1:21 PM by Allister_Frost
I enjoyed reading this post on Melissa Macbeth's blog. It's always interesting to learn how others cope with emails and Melissa, a program manager in the Microsoft Office team, has some useful tips on her blog that we can all learn from. While my Read More
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Get your suduko fix

posted Friday, June 02, 2006 11:58 AM by Allister_Frost
I don't know what it is about the magical 81 square grid but I'm hooked. Microsoft has a couple of free applications available to help you get your Sudoku fix even when in front of your computer. Check these out: For tablet PC only:http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/technologies/mobilepc/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dntablet/html/tbconsudokusamplefinal.asp Read More
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