Add a delay to sending your emails to prevent the Oh-No's

How many times have you sent an email and then realized a few seconds later that your snarky comment was sent to the entire mailing list, or left an embarrassing typo in an email to somebody you were trying to impress?

A 5min delay is usually enough time to fully process the email you were going to send.

Link:
http://.../use-outlook-rules-to-prevent-oh-no-after-sending-emails/

Microsoft Office Goes Online

Read the full story over at SarahInTampa's blog:
http://www.sarahintampa.com/sarah/2007/10/microsoft-offic.html

This is something I have been giving a lot of thought lately. What will the software world look like in 5 years? In 10 years? Will desktop application development be needed anymore for software built for the masses? Will everything move to the online world? Google and Microsoft think so.

The online world and online applications have so many benefits that it may be an inevitable future and the reason I have realigned myself to websites and online applications. Slowly the hurdles of online applications are being overcome, like offline work (see Google Gears) and as more are addresses, like security, the need for a local application will become less.

What are your thoughts? How would you like having you sensitive data processed online?

Excel 2007 Web Data Add-In

The Excel 2007 Web Data Add-In makes it easy to use a Web page as a data source in Excel. The add-in plugs into Excel 2007 seamlessly, its entry point located on the Data Tab under the From Web option. The system extracts data by learning from a user’s selection of data they wish to capture into Excel. The more selections, the more the system is trained. An example scenario: You wish to import and track data from MSN's weather page. Visit the site using the tool, enter Data Capture mode, and select a row or two of data from the table. Then click Select Similar, and the system will find similar data based on your previous selections. You then can click Import and leverage Excel's rich data-editing capabilities, including the Refresh command, which will revisit the Web page and extract potentially new, updated data.

Link:
http://research.microsoft.com/research/downloads...

VBA Macros get a productivity boost with MZ-Tools

MZ-Tools 3.0 is a freeware add-in for Visual Basic 6.0, Visual Basic 5.0 and the Visual Basic For Applications editor (provided by a VBA-enabled application such as those in Office 2000 and higher) which adds several productivity features to the IDE.

I have used MZ Tools since a very early release back in VB6 days. This is one of those things that if you work in a Visual Studio IDE or create macros in Word / Excel you will wonder how you ever did without.

Link:
http://www.mztools.com/v3/features.aspx

How to use Outlook as the interface to Gmail

1. Get your contacts into Gmail:

1. Open Outlook and select File -> Import and Export
2. Choose Export to a file and select Next
3. Choose Comma Separated Values (Windows) and select Next
4. Highlight the Contact folder to export and select Next
   
5. Select a filename and location to store the contacts and select Next
6. Select Finish
7. Now log into your Gmail account
8. Select Contacts from the left-hand navigation area
9. Click the Import link in the upper right of the contact area
10. Browse for the file you created in the first 6 steps and select Import Contacts

That's it. All your Outlook contacts will now be in your Gmail account. From Gmail you can click on any contact to fully edit their information. I know the purpose is to use Outlook as the main interface for Gmail but having your contacts duplicated in Gmail is to ensure that you are never without easy access to your email and contacts.

Next we have to setup how to check and send out emails through your Gmail account from Outlook.

2. Setup Outlook to check your Gmail account and use Gmail to send emails out:

Luckily Google has made this very easy by allowing users POP3 and SMTP access to Gmail.

First - Allow POP access to your Gmail account:
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=13273

Leave the email on Gmail and have it pushed into the Gmail archive. The reason is if your system ever crashes or your on the road you will have complete access to your emails.

Second - Get a new email account setup in Outlook to handle Gmail:
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=13278
(version of Outlook before 2003)

Gmail combined with Outlook is a powerful combination that ensures you're never without your email.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets makeover

Google Docs & Spreadsheets makeover: "The Google Docs & Spreadsheets beta is sporting a new look with a couple of slick new features, like folders.

In addition to a prettier interface with new icons and expandable trees on the left, the old tags have been replaced by good old-fashioned folders. Finally, the search box offers Google Suggest as-you-type docs and spreadsheets results suggestions for faster getting at what you need. Log in to your Google Account to check it out"

Link:
http://.../google-docs--spreadsheets-makeover-272706.php

Fix the sluggishness of Outlook 2007

Microsoft released a fix for the slowness that some users are experiencing with Outlook 2007. Kinda weird that it seems hidden in another patch as some kind of after thought.

This update fixes a problem in which a calendar item that is marked as private is opened if it is found by using the Search Desktop feature. The update also fixes performance issues that occur when you work with items in a large .pst file or .ost file.

Link:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...

Google “PowerPoint” coming

Google’s Office Suite Complete: Google “PowerPoint” Confirmed: "There’s no need for further speculation: Today at the Web 2.0 Expo Google CEO Eric Schmidt confirmed that Google will soon launch a PowerPoint clone, completing their basic office suite (they already have"

Link:
http://.../googles-office-suite-complete-google-powerpoint/

HELP: Looking for a local spam tool to run inside of Outlook

Must work with a Bayesian filter, just like SpamBayes, except support a white list of my contacts in Google - having the ability in Outlook to mark email as Spam and Not Spam is something I like. This gives me easy access to all incoming emails.

My current tool is SpamBayes.

Anyone know of such a application?

How to access Outlook Express Newsgroups from Outlook

1. On the Standard toolbar (toolbar: A bar with buttons and options that you use to carry out commands. To display a toolbar, press ALT and then SHIFT+F10.), click the Toolbar Options arrow .
2. Point to Add or Remove Buttons, and then click Customize.
3. Click the Commands tab.
4. In the Categories list, click Go.
5. In the Commands list, click News, and drag it, without releasing the mouse, until it rests over the Go menu. When the menu displays a list of commands, point to where you want the command to appear, and then release the mouse.

2007 time zone update for MS Windows operating systems

Be ready for the brand new daylight savings time change. You need to get Windows and Office ready.

Link:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928388

MS Word's HTML rendering engine used in Outlook 2007

Why on earth would MS not take advantage to all the improvements made in the IE7 engine with standards compliance and use Word's rendering engine? Just wait until users start complaining about newsletters and other HTML emails not looking right in the new Outlook.

Here's another fine mess you've gotten us into. Thanx Microsoft.

Link:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa338201.aspx

Vista and Office 2007 for Free?

Somthing just doesn't seem right about this offer to receive a fully licensed version of Vista and Office 2007 from Microsoft. Watch out with this one and before you enter ANY information search around on Google and see what people have to say.

Link to the offer:
http://www.powertogether.com/#

Whois on the domain:
http://whois.domaintools.com/powertogether.com

Could it actually be for real:
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=261550#261550

Seems it just may be.

Unprotect a protected Word document

1. Open a protected document in MS Word
2. Save as "Web Page (*.htm; *.html)", close Word
3. Open html-document in any Text-Editor
4. Search "-w:unprotectpassword-" tag, the line reads something like that: w:unprotectpassword-JSHDNW08-/w:unprotectpassword- (the dashes are used because HTML tag enclosures get removed from the blog posting)
   
5. Keep this "password" in mind
6. Open original document (.doc) with any hex-editor
7. search for hex-values of the password (reverse order!)
8. Overwrite all 4 double-bytes with 0x00, Save, Close
9. Open document with MS Word, Select "Tools / Unprotect Document" (password is blank)

Found this a long time ago so I'm not sure who to give credit to.

Add your folders to the Open / Save dialogbox

This is the Windows XP Pro way to customize the Places Bar (folders listed on the left of the dialogbox) in the standard Open / Save dialogbox.

1. Open the Group Policy Editor by opening the start menu -> run -> gpedit.msc
2. Drill down to Windows Explorer User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Common Open File Dialog
3. Double-click the Items displayed in Places Bar setting
4. Make sure the setting is Enabled
5. Customize the Place to display with your folders*.

* - You can use Common Shell Folders by using any of the following folders: CommonDocuments, CommonMusic, CommonPictures, Desktop, MyComputer, MyDocuments, MyFavorites, MyMusic, MyNetworkPlaces, MyPictures, Printers, ProgramFiles, Recent

Now you're saying what if I don't run WinXP Pro? Well you need to either use TweakUI or edit the registry directly.

Registry location:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER -Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\comdlg32\PlacesBar

String value (name will be Place0 to Place4):
"Place0"="c:\\temp"

The above will only work for the Windows dialogbox and not the Microsoft Dialogbox. The following can be followed to modify these dialogboxes too: Office 2000 | Office XP | Office 2003

...some additional hacks can be found in Veign's Registry Hacks...