Entries tagged with email - Channel 10

Now You Can Get All Your Mail in Hotmail

sarahintampa — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:50:00 GMT

One of the most critical features needed to get people to switch over from one email account to another is the ability to still easily access email from their old accounts. Sometimes, this can be accomplished by forwarding the old account (if that’s an option of your webmail service), other times it can be done by import. Now (at last!), Windows Live Hotmail has added a feature that lets you import other email account into your Hotmail.

For users in the US, Canada, and Brazil, you can now import any POP-enabled email account – a list which happens to include Yahoo! Mail Plus, AOL Mail, and Gmail. (The feature was already available in the UK, France, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Japan, and Germany).

To access this option, click on “Add an e-mail account” on the left side of you inbox. Type in the email address and password for the account you want to forward then click “Next.” Choose where you want the messages to go (for example, a separate folder instead of your inbox) and click “Save.”

In order for this to work, POP has to be turned on in the POP-enabled email service you’re adding. This is usually found in your webmail settings.

Check Your Outlook Stats Online

sarahintampa — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:46:00 GMT

ClearContext, the Outlook plugin that helps you better organize and control your inbox, has released a new online service called ClearContext Online. With this new offering, now currently in beta, users of both the free Personal and paid Professional ClearContext for Outlook products can access online stats about their email inboxes in the form of charts, graphs, other other detailed analytics.

Once signed up, you can see an overall snapshot of your email activity, you can compare and contrast your stats with friends and colleagues, and you can evaluate how efficient you are at working that inbox of yours. The online service will even provide you with personalized tips on how you can improve your email effectiveness.

If you’re a already a ClearContext for Outlook user, you can get started by clicking the “Compare your stats online” link in Outlook. If you want to try ClearContext for free, you can download it here.

Microsoft Vine: A Tool to Connect People in Crisis (or Any Other Time, Too)

sarahintampa — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:31:00 GMT

Microsoft has just launched a new product called Vine into private beta. The service connects Facebook, Twitter, text messages, phone calls, email, and other forms of communication into one system for the purpose of keeping people connected during a crisis situation. The idea came to Microsoft manager Tammy Savage back after Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. She realized we needed more tools that would allow communities and people to communicate with each other during emergencies. After spending years on its development, the end result is Vine, although today the application’s current status is private beta because they’re now hoping to get feedback on the product while improvements are still being made.

How Vine Works

What Vine does is gather news from 20,000 local and national sources, including public safety announcements from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. It then displays those news items to you on a map of your area.

In addition, Vine displays the Facebook status updates of your friends and family, including their location if they permit that info to be shared. Twitter and other social networking sites will be added as well, but are not currently present at launch time. Also planned for the future is traditional phone integration. Once added, people will be able to send and receive messages using automated voice technology.

In the event of an emergency, a Vine user could send out an alert to a specific contact list (e.g. “Family,” “Friends,” etc.). Those receiving the alert would do so using whatever format they had chosen – an email or text message for example. Another option for sharing alerts involves linking Vine to Facebook to send the alerts as a Facebook status updates that everyone can see. There’s also a desktop software component that could be used – it currently works on Vista or XP computers, but future integrations are planned, including Mac and Silverlight platforms. Recipients can then reply to the alert using that same format, if desired.

Users can also post longer reports than the simple alerts described above. At launch time, there are four pre-designated report types available: check in safe and well, report upcoming plans, report a situation, or general information. These reports are posted to the dashboards of the contacts you shared with.

Although originally designed for sharing critical information in a crisis, Vine would not be limited to just that. It’s easy to imagine how it could be used for non-emergency types of information sharing, too. For example, a team coach could alert team members of the date and time of their next practice. A parent could alert other family members that they had to work late that day.

Vine is Not a New Form of Twitter

The new service isn’t being designed to compete with the social networks that are already in place – it’s designed to augment and embrace them by connecting them all together for communication purposes.

While in beta, Seattle area organizations including Citizen Corps, AmeriCorps, Neighborhood Watch groups and others will help test the system. Security departments at Boeing and Microsoft will be involved in the private beta, too.

Love TweetDeck? Try OutlookDeck

sarahintampa — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:49:00 GMT

If you’re a fan of the columnar, grid-like interface for watching Twitter that is encompassed by the desktop application TweetDeck, then you might be interested in trying out a new spin on that app – this time for your Outlook email. OutlookDeck, a Windows only desktop application, lets you perform searches of your Outlook email putting each search query into its own column. All the emails from your boss? That could be column, for example. Email containing a particular keyword? Another column. And so forth and so on.

I’m not entirely convinced that this interface is really any more useful than when you create a rule to move mail to a folder or assign some other action to it (categorize it, flag it, etc.), but it definitely is creative. And I guess columns are the new hotness right now for organizing your information flow. If that appeals to you, OutlookDeck will be right up your alley.

If you want to use OutlookDeck, you’ll need to run the .NET Framework 3.5 and have Windows Search enabled. You can grab the download from here.

(via Techie Buzz)

Microsoft Outlook Thread Compressor Now Available to All

sarahintampa — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:49:00 GMT

An internally used tool at Microsoft called the Microsoft Outlook Thread Compressor has by finally made available to the general public by its creator, Ewan Dalton. The Thread Compressor (or “TC” for short) is an add-in for Outlook 2000/XP/2003/2007 which removes unnecessary emails from your inbox. The tool basically looks at the body of your email and removes those that have redundant data. This is most useful when you’re dealing with a long chain of emails and replies – such as those found in discussion lists. You see, in those cases, the person replying often leaves the body of the email to which they’re replying intact. Since each new email on the thread includes the entire conversation history, there’s no need to have every individual email saved. And by deleting the ones you don’t need, you can save a ton of space in your inbox and archives.

Since the tool was originally built back in 1999, it may look a little…uhhh…retro by modern standards, but don’t let the appearance fool you – this may easily be the most useful Outlook plugin you’ve installed in a long time.

Of course, anyone choosing to use the tool must do so at their own risk because – be warned! – it does delete email. That’s its purpose. For that reason alone, the legal department at Microsoft was hesitant about it being released to the public.

Note that Microsoft does not support the tool nor can they be held responsible for what it does.

That said, you can get the Microsoft Outlook Thread Compressor for free from here: http://threadcompressor.co.uk/default.aspx. You’ll find installation instructions and more information on that site, too.

Silverlight-Powered AOL Mail Updated

sarahintampa — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:40:00 GMT

AOL's Web mail beta, a rich internet application (RIA) which is powered by Microsoft Silverlight, has just been updated with a number of new features. Now, AOL Mail beta users can print out emails, add signatures to outgoing messages, flag and filter emails, open calendar and To Do items in a new windows, and get to turn on sounds, if desired, including the classic “You’ve Got Mail.” However, one of the best features – and one that really takes advantage of Silverlight – is the feature which lets users watch WMV-formatted videos received as email attachments in a Full Screen overlay that pops up right in the browser.

The AOL Mail Beta is expected to launch as an optional replacement for their standard email service later this year.

PIFEM: A New Getting Things Done System for Outlook

sarahintampa — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:55:00 GMT

Do you get a lot of email? I’ll bet almost everyone out there said “yes.” If you’re drowning in information overload, you have to check out a new email management system that Angus Logan, Ian Palangio, and Johann Kruse have been developing. It’s called PIFEM, or Pay it Forward Email Management, and it’s loosely based on David Allen’s methodology called “Getting Things Done.”

The PIFEM system takes the best practices from GTD – that is, the 4 D’s of Email Management – and combined those with time management skills. Then, the system is integrated with the workflow options present in Outlook 2007 and Exchange Server. The end result is what they’re calling PIFEM.

PIFEM uses the Outlook 2007 features of flagging and categories to manage the emails that you don’t want to (or can’t) take action on immediately. Every day your emails in your “Not Flagged” folder are processed and categorized based on importance and urgency. Flags are used to designate when the emails must be dealt with (today, tomorrow, later). All incoming emails are “actioned” (processed) at least a couple of times per day.

Once processed, the majority of the day’s work is spent in the “Follow Up – Today” folder. Here are the items that have to be dealt with today – and they’re already in order of importance. When individual items are completed, they’re checked off in Outlook which makes them disappear from the current view.

There’s a lot more to it, of course, and you can get some additional details on Johann's blog. Or better yet, if you’re really intrigued, you need to check out the complete instructions. Ian documented the whole process and the online package is available in his SkyDrive in a OneNote document. (If you don't have OneNote you can download a free trial. OneNote was used for its multi-dimensional document format and was developed collaboratively within Microsoft.)

As to why it’s called “Pay it Forward,” that’s because if the system helps you out, they want you to pay it forward and tell 3 other people about it. If it’s actually useful, then the concept will spread thanks to your help.

Have Outlook Remind You of Forgotten Attachments

sarahintampa — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:35:00 GMT

The latest thing in email add-ons seems to be programs that help you to not look stupid when sending email. What do I mean by that? I mean sending out messages saying “see attachment” when clearly, there is no attachment present. Not only does this make you feel a little silly, it also wastes your time and that of your recipients as you have to resend the email with your attachment included.

Since Microsoft Outlook is still heavily used by corporate emailers, it’s in this program where forgotten attachments are probably the most common and burdensome for others. How nice it is that there’s now an option to check for forgotten attachments in Outlook. And setting it up is as easy as copying and pasting a little script.

This Outlook VB script was originally created by LifeHacker commenter Jack Stowage then was later modified by another reader, Troy (no last name provided). Thanks to both of you guys for making our lives easier.

Want to install this script yourself? Here’s how.

1. Copy and Paste the following text (don’t worry, you don’t need to understand it):

Private Sub Application_ItemSend(ByVal Item As Object, Cancel As Boolean)
Dim m As Variant
Dim strBody As String
Dim intIn As Long
Dim intAttachCount As Integer, intStandardAttachCount As Integer

On Error GoTo handleError

'Edit the following line if you have a signature on your email that includes images or other files. Make intStandardAttachCount equal the number of files in your signature.
intStandardAttachCount = 0

strBody = LCase(Item.Body)

intIn = InStr(1, strBody, "original message")

If intIn = 0 Then intIn = Len(strBody)

intIn = InStr(1, Left(strBody, intIn), "attach")

intAttachCount = Item.Attachments.Count

If intIn > 0 And intAttachCount <= intStandardAttachCount Then
    m = MsgBox("It appears that you mean to send an attachment," & vbCrLf & "but there is no attachment to this message." & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "Do you still want to send?", vbQuestion + vbYesNo + vbMsgBoxSetForeground)

    If m = vbNo Then Cancel = True
End If

handleError:

If Err.Number <> 0 Then
    MsgBox "Outlook Attachment Reminder Error: " & Err.Description, vbExclamation, "Outlook Attachment Reminder Error"
End If

End Sub

2. In Outlook, go to Tools –> Macro –> Visual Basic Editor in the menu options. (You may need to expand the project by clicking the plus (+) sign under Project1 until you see ThisOutlookSession.)

3. Expand ThisOutlookSession by double-clicking it.

4. Paste the code into the big white empty space like so:

5. Click “Save”

Using IMAP in Windows Live Mail

sarahintampa — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:26:00 GMT

Do you want to configure Windows Live Mail to use IMAP? If so, all you have to do is use the auto-configuration feature when you set up your mail for the first time. That’s right – in Windows Live Mail, the desktop mail app that’s part of the Windows Live Essentials, IMAP is used by default instead of POP3. In case you don’t know what the difference is or why that’s cool, read on. With POP (Post Office Protocol), your email downloads from the mail server to your computer. However, IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) keeps everything, including your sent mail, on the server. That means when you’re at your main computer, you could use Windows Live Mail to enjoy the richness and familiarity of a desktop application, but when you were away from your computer, you could log into the web interface for your email without missing any of your messages…like your sent email, for example. In the past, your sent items would have gone missing unless you configured your POP settings to “leave messages on the server,” as most email programs will allow you to do. That’s a great setting for those of you whose ISP or email provider doesn’t offer IMAP, but for everyone else, having to configure settings like that is a real pain. So it’s great that IMAP is now the default – it’s definitely the better option. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Windows Live Hotmail supports IMAP, of course!

YouSendIt Now Integrates With Microsoft Office

sarahintampa — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:38:00 GMT

Although many of today’s email programs allow for large attachments, you never know if the person on the receiving end is using an email program that can receive them. This is especially true if you’re trying to send a file to a corporate email account, as most email admins put limits on attachment sizes that can be both sent and received. If you’re unsure, you’re better off simply using an online service to send the large file instead of trying to email it yourself…especially if the file is time-sensitive.

The online service YouSendIt is a favorite for sending large files over the internet. The service offers three versions: a free personal account that allows sending of files up to 2 GB, plus Business and Corporate accounts that offer additional file security, tracking, and deployment tools.

Today, YouSendIt offers a variety of plugins that integrate with the applications you use everyday, including Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Office. With these plugins installed, you can seamlessly send files from within the program itself, without having to go online and browse to the yousendit.com web site.

The Outlook plugin has been around for awhile now, having made its debut back in March 2008. Since then, the plugin has been downloaded 261,209 times. IT admins love the plugin because it deploys easily, reduces strain on email servers, and users tend to adopt it right away with little training required.

The Outlook plugin offers a resumable upload feature that handles network interruptions – so even if you’re on a flaky Wi-Fi connection, a timeout won’t mean you have to start all over – your upload will just continue where it left off.

The YouSendIt Microsoft Office plugin is new. This plugin also handles network interruptions while offering 25% faster uploads than the web application. It even lets you add additional files and folders to one upload batch to save you time when you need to send multiple files. The plugin includes all standard YouSendIt features like password protection, certified delivery, and file expiration control, too.

YouSendIt AddIn In Office 2007

Once installed, the plugin provides a new option from the “Send” menu of Microsoft Office - “Send by YouSendIt.”

Registered YouSendIt users can download this plugin for free from here.

How To Recover Lost Email Passwords

sarahintampa — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 19:23:00 GMT

I’ll bet you can already think of a handful of times when you could have used this next tool: Mail PassView. I recently came across Mail PassView when surfing through my techie RSS feeds. The program is a freeware utility that helps you recover passwords from both Outlook and Outlook Express as well as other mail clients like Eudora, Thunderbird, Yahoo!, Gmail, Hotmail, IncrediMail, and Windows Live Mail. When I first saw the application, I thought that the interface looked a lot like that other incredibly handy password recovery tool: WirelessKeyView. As it turns out, they’re both from the same developer, Nir Sofer. Although on the one hand, these sort of tools make me nervous as they so easily expose the passwords you think are safe and secure, on the other I’m very grateful that they exist. I can’t even count the number of times I helped others move their files, email, and apps from one PC to another and the biggest stumbling block was always that they didn’t remember their passwords for their ISP-assigned email addresses. If only I had known about Mail PassView then…I could have saved so much time! You can download Mail PassView from here.

Outlook Connector Version 12.1 Beta Released

sarahintampa — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:52:00 GMT

The Microsoft Office Outlook Team have just announced a new beta version of the Outlook Connector - the add-in that lets you sync your Windows Live Hotmail data in Outlook. In the past, email and contacts syncing was available for free, but syncing your calendar was only available with a subscription service. No more! Calendar sync is free! Not only that, but the calendar syncing service now also syncs with the Windows Live Calendar Beta service, too! That means you can sync your work calendar in Outlook to your personal calendar in Hotmail to your family calendar in Windows Live Calendar and vice versa. And since Windows Live Calendar supports calendar sharing, other shared calendars that you have access to will also sync back to Outlook. The new Outlook connector is faster, more reliable, and, as always, free. You can download it from here.

Have Urgent Emails Find You With AwayFind

sarahintampa — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:24:00 GMT

Recently, I wrote about an email overload solution that did not impress me, but here’s one that does: AwayFind. While it’s not necessarily the absolute be-all end-all solution to today’s information overload situation, it certainly has more usefulness than Attent’s virtual economy where emails are given prices.

What AwayFind offers instead is the ability to step away from your email without missing the really important items – the “emailed emergencies,” so to speak. The service works via an auto-responder which simply states something like:

Messaging me about something I need to know today (like a canceled meeting)? Please click here to get my attention:

http://awayfind.com/username

You can, of course, edit this message to include other details like when you plan on checking email, whether you’re on vacation, or the phone number to someone else who’s available to help.

If the email was indeed very urgent, the sender will (hopefully) click the link to get in touch with you. This takes them to a web page where they fill in their contact info and the message (which they will likely copy-and-paste from the original email).

The form is not too cumbersome to fill out, but has just enough fields that people will consider whether or not it’s worth their effort. This should help address the slew of email senders who tend to think that their emergencies are your emergencies. If anything, they’ll just go find someone else to get them through their current crisis.

The AwayFind service comes in two variations: a basic, free service and a professional version for $5/month. Most people will need the professional version, as the free service only offers 5 text messages per month. Of course, even the Professional version is somewhat lacking in that department, too, as it only provides 30 texts per month. Then again, hopefully, you don’t have 30 emergencies every month – that’s one emergency per day! Still, it would be nice not to be limited considering that you’re paying for the service.

You can also have email notifications sent to you when someone fills out a form. Ideally, these would be sent to an alternate address (like your personal address), so you’re not tempted to read your other work emails when you receive these alerts. The service actually supports as many different email addresses as you would like.

Whether you’re on vacation, on the road, really busy, or simply overloaded with email, AwayFind can help the most important messages reach you. To try the service for yourself, you can sign up here.

Email Overload: Band-Aids Are Not Solutions

sarahintampa — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:57:00 GMT

A company called Seriosity has introduced a new tool for email productivity, Attent, which attacks what they say is the main source of information overload: SENDERS! Yes, it’s the people sending email that are the real problem that need to be addressed, according to Attent, so they’ve come up with a system for businesses to implement which is supposed to make people stop and consider if something is worth emailing.

With Attent, each employee is given a set amount of “Serios” per week, which are basically like virtual dollars. For each email you send, you can attach a certain number of Serios to it, depending on importance. More important emails are sent using more Serios. The system works as an Outlook plugin, and, since it only works with other people who also use Attent, the company would have to roll this out to everyone to make it an effective tool.

While this is an interesting idea, the reasoning behind this idea is that you can force people to email less by forcing them to calculate how much they can “afford” to email, and that seems to me a pretty much a knee-jerk reaction to dealing with info overload.

For one thing, Attent can’t stop people outside the company from emailing, so it only forces internal employees to turn to phone calls and face-to-face requests which may be even more disruptive than emails.

From personal experience, I found that a lot of people chose to email simply because email was the absolute fastest way to send out a request for help, a question, or to share a message with a large number of people. When this became a burden, such as it was at one of my I.T. jobs, the real cause that should have been addressed was why were people turning to email instead of using the tools to them at hand? Why were people sending emails instead of logging help desk tickets? Why were people sending emails instead of referring to online documentation? Why were people sending emails instead of doing the job themselves – which they had the ability and permissions to do, but not the know-how?

The problem that must be addressed in every company are the underlying causes that lead some people to use email far more than necessary – and use it first, without thinking things through. This tool, Attent, aims to do that, but without deeper understanding about what’s wrong in the particular company.

For example, in my situation, implementing a I.T. support email address that directly posted items to the helpdesk instead of arriving in my inbox would have been a big help. Training people where to find the answers they need and how to use the tools we had in house would also have cut down on the emails. (Unfortunately, I didn’t have the authority to implement changes, because believe me, I would have!)

At another job of mine, where I did have authority to make changes, I spent a good part of a day out of the new hires’ week of training teaching the new employees about our in-house web resources – one of which was a SharePoint site. Even for those who had never been exposed to SharePoint, the majority were able to understand pretty quickly how they could use it and it definitely helped cut down on requests in the future as people weren’t emailing in basic questions like where to find a certain file or bit of information. They already knew where it was online.

Often businesses tend to overlook the value of training, but then they end up working harder due to the lack of training of their new employees. The value of real, instructor-led training is something every business needs to understand because, once in the thick of things, employees will never find the time to study user manuals or do research – everything becomes “I need an answer now.” The best time to reach employees and set out what the expectations are for them is at the very beginning of employment before they become reliant on using their preferred tools and processes that result in increased efficiency for them, but that decrease the overall efficiency of the company as a whole since they put the burden on other people who have mastered the use of the company’s informational systems.

Of course, training isn’t a panacea for the entirety of the information overload problem, but it’s certainly a better use of a company’s money that setting up a virtual economy where emails have a price tag associated with them, in my opinion.

For dealing with the remainder of the email, tools that add efficiency to the process of sorting through your inbox - like my business email add-on of choice, ClearContext - are really the way to go. Heavy use of filters, rules, and informational auto-responders can also help cut down on the flood. However, real solutions to today’s information overload problem are going to much more in-depth and complex than an Outlook plugin. Maybe IORG will come up with some answers for us.

(Image courtesy of Seriosity)

ClearContext Personal Launches Beta

sarahintampa — Thu, 29 May 2008 11:09:00 GMT

If you're swamped by email in your Outlook inbox, you have to try ClearContext, an Outlook add-in that helps analyze and organize your mail. The company has just launched a new product called ClearContext Personal, available as a free download that everyone can use (currently in private beta according to their product page, but a sign up list is available).

You may remember some of our earlier coverage of ClearContext (click here for 7 Outlook Tips). Now the company is rebranding their product naming conventions a bit along with the launch of several new features. The previous professional (paid) version of the software was called ClearContext IMS v4. Now, it's a much more understandable "ClearContext Professional." Registered users of IMS can upgrade and get access to the new features for free.

For everyone else, ClearContext Personal edition is offering some great tools which include the ability to see attachments and contacts from emails in each folder, the ability to save, sort, and forward those attachments, the ability to create distribution lists, meeting requests, etc. from those contacts, and more.

Back when I was a regular ClearContext user at my I.T. job, one of my favorite features were the buttons that let me instantly file either individual emails or entire conversations with one click. Once I had everything set up properly, email came in already categorized, so I wouldn't even need to tell it what folder it belonged in. Of course, for the times I did need to categorize the email, it was only a matter of typing the first letter of the folder's name and hitting "Enter" to assign the category. (Love keyboard shortcuts!)

However, it looks like the next version of ClearContext Personal is offering a feature that can even trump that - the ability to explore and preview your attachments within Outlook just like you were browsing a folder on your desktop. (You have to see the screenshot). That looks extremely useful.

Other ClearContext Personal features include threaded conversations, highlighting of the most important messages in your inbox, and "Notifications Managers" that automatically move what we fondly refer to as "bacn" out of your inbox. (What's bacn? click here to find out. Short answer is "email you want, but not right now").

The new features should certainly help heavy Outlook users get a better reign on their inboxes if they can take a break from their email long enough to install and configure the add-in!

PCWorld Tells You How To Do Everything Faster

sarahintampa — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:05:00 GMT

A new article over at PCWorld.com offers up 22 tips on more efficient ways to perform common tech tasks - things like reinstalling Windows, backing up your data, creating a podcast, making a web site, sharing photos, and more. Here are a few sample tips from the article:

Add a Folder to Your Favorites: Drag the beloved folder from Windows Explorer to the Start button, and from there to the Favorites menu. In Windows XP, you also have the option of opening the folder and then clicking Favorites, Add to Favorites from inside the Explorer window.

Fix a Photo's Exposure: Microsoft's Windows Live Photo Gallery app improves on Vista's Photo Gallery program. Select Fix, Adjust Exposure In Windows Live Photo Gallery (which runs in both Vista and XP), and you'll get both Highlights and Shadows sliders and a histogram, as well as the familiar old Brightness and Contrast options.

Read the News: A number of free services can send you RSS feeds over e-mail. My favorite is SendMeRSS.com, which is so easy that you don't even have to register with the site, although doing so will make adding feeds simpler. Just enter the URL for the RSS feed you want, type in your e-mail address, and click Feed. From then on, new items will automatically appear in your inbox.

Email Large Files: My rule of thumb: Never e-mail more than 1MB of content without the express permission of the recipient. As an alternative, try YouSendIt, a brain-dead-simple take on the FTP transfer. The service is free for any file under 100MB, and individual files can be downloaded up to 100 times. You don't even have to sign up and enter a password (though the service offers additional features if you do, and even more if you pay). Just enter both e-mail addresses, point to the file, and click the Send button.

There are eighteen other great tips like those above, so you're sure to discover some tip, idea, or software app to use that you didn't already know about before.

i'm Making a Difference - Now in Your Email, Too!

sarahintampa — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:12:00 GMT

You've heard about the i'm initiative before - it's the charitable movement that allows you to donate to your favorite causes just by using IM. Now, you can participate in both Windows Live Messenger or Hotmail or both. You can choose to support the same organization in both places or pick a different one for each service. To get started, go to http://im.live.com to join. This program is currently available only in the U.S. and benefits organizations like the American Red Cross, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, the National AIDS Fund, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, ninemillion.org, Sierra Club, StopGlobalWarming.org, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, The Humane Society of the United States and the U.S Fund for UNICEF. (via LiveSide)

Twitter+Email+Flickr+Virtual Earth = Twisney.com!

sarahintampa — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 21:35:00 GMT

What do you get when you combine Disney World, Twitter, Flickr, and Microsoft's Virtual Earth? You get the awesome site Twisney.com! The site lets you send in email, IMs, text messages, or tweets in order to update the Virtual Earth map with your photos and news. When you send in your status update to Twisney.com, they match it to a location on the map by looking at the first few words of your message. You can use an abbreviation, a paraphrased name, or the location's full name as found on your map of Disney.

Examples:

btmr, on the front car of the train, let 'er rip!
thunder mountain, on the front car of the train, let 'er rip!
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, on the front car of the train, let 'er rip!
thunder mountain rr, on the front car of the train, let 'er rip!

If you're emailing in your update from a mobile phone, just attach the picture to the email, and send it to these instructions. That way, all your photos will be available from one page: www.twisney.com/username, which you can then share with your family and friends.

You can keep tabs on other Twisney users from your mobile phone from the mobile version of the site: http://www.twisney.com/mobile/overview

All the photos sent in to Twisney are uploaded to the Twisney group on flickr. You can also see them on a map here.

How To Search Your PSTs with Vista's Built-In Search

sarahintampa — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 15:32:00 GMT

Do you archive your email to PST files (maybe due to a corporate policy limiting your mailbox size)? If so, you know that even though it's archived, you will still need to access those old emails from time to time. If you don't want to keep all your archives open in your Outlook, there is another way...if you use Windows Vista. With Vista's built-in search option, you can specify that you want PSTs to be indexed (this is not turned on by default). It's pretty easy to set this up, just follow these steps:

Go to the Control Panel
Choose "Indexing Options"
Click on the "Advanced" button
Click on the "File Types" tab
Check the checkbox next to "PST" to include it in the search
Select the bullet next to the option "Index Properties and File Contents"
Click OK and OK again on the message that appears.

You're done! Now you can use Vista's built-in search to find that email you need!

Get a yourname@live.com email now!

MaxPowerhouse7 — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 22:23:00 GMT

Ever since we came out with live.com I have been a huge fan of the domain name. You say "Google it" I say "Live it!" To each his own.

Either way, for a long time I have been asking the product teams to use username@live.com instead of user@hotmail.com as my email address... and today they have delivered! Starting right now you can go here and register a name, like clownmember.f4r7@live.com.

Sign Into Hotmail With One Click

sarahintampa — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 07:27:00 GMT

Did you know that you can sign into Hotmail with just one click? Neither did I, until I saw this post on Windows Live Chronicles blog. Here's how it works:

Install the "Windows Live Sign In Assistant." Currently, this comes with Windows Live Messenger if you check the option to "Install Windows Live Sign-in Assistant."
Go to http://mail.live.com instead of http://www.hotmail.com
Check "Remember on this computer", and "Remember my password," then click "Login."
Repeat process if you have more than one account. (For details on those steps, see their blog post.)
From now on, you can access your mailbox from mail.live.com with one click!

Outlook 2007 Tip: Preview PDFs Automatically

sarahintampa — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 18:48:00 GMT

Did you know that Outlook 2007 can be configured to allow you to preview PDF attachments automatically? With this handy tip from the Living-With-Outlook blog, you can easily set up your Outlook to allow PDF previewing right in the Outlook's Preview Pane. To get started, you first need to download the latest version of Adobe's Acrobat Reader (currently version 8.1). After it's installed, restart Outlook, and locate an email that has a PDF attached. You should now be able to preview the file just like you would any other previewable file - just click the PDF icon in the Reading Pane and your PDF will display to the right of your message list. Longer PDFs will be scrollable using the scroll bar or arrow keys. When you're finished previewing the attachment, one more click will easily return you to the email message.

Windows Live Custom Domains

sarahintampa — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:13:00 GMT

At the Windows Live Custom Domains site, you can sign up to receive unlimited domain name email addresses for a domain name that you already own or you can purchase a domain through one of the site's partners. The free service is hosted and managed by Microsoft, so you don't have to worry with equipment or scale issues and can just focus on running your business.

The Custom Domains service also lets you manage your domain accounts online using the provided web tools or you can allow your site's visitors to create their own accounts using open membership. These custom domain name email addresses work out-of-the-box with Windows Live and MSN services, like Messenger and Spaces and have 2 GB of storage per mailbox. The service is initially limited to 100 email addresses at first but can be upgraded for free to an unlimited number by completing a short questionnaire.

Customized Outlook Conversations View

sarahintampa — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 09:02:00 GMT

Would you like a way to keep track of all the conversations that you initiated in your Outlook email? This can be done by combining an Outlook view with a search folder. Follow the steps below and you will have a folder that shows your email as conversation threads:

Create a new search folder (New -> Search Folder)
Specify Inbox and Sent items as the only folders to include in the search, but don't specify any search criteria. The search folder will show all items from the Inbox and the Sent Items folder.
Create a new view by copying the "Messages" view (In Outlook 2003 - View, Arrange By, Current View, Define Views, then copy the "Messages" view)
In the view, select the option to Group by "Conversation" and Sort by "Conversation index."
Click the Filter button and go to the SQL tab.
Check the "Edit these criteria directly" checkbox.
Copy and paste the DASL filter from below, changing the text "your name" to your actual name:

"urn:schemas:httpmail:fromname" = 'Your Name' OR(("urn:schemas:httpmail:displayto" LIKE '%Your Name%' OR"urn:schemas:httpmail:displaycc" LIKE '%Your Name%') AND("urn:schemas:httpmail:subject" LIKE 'RE:%' OR "urn:schemas:httpmail:subject" LIKE 'AW:%'))

8. Apply the new view on the newly created search folder

Thanks to Carsten Kinder for this tip!

Get Your Webmail in Your Outlook

sarahintampa — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 23:52:00 GMT

Do you want to use Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007 to check your Windows Live Mail (formerly known as Hotmail)? You used to be able to configure HTTP through Outlook, but then need a paid subscription to do so. However, with the new Microsoft Office Outlook Connector Beta, you can now download, read, and compose Windows Live Mail emails for free.

If you do not have a paid subscription, the Outlook Connector Beta enables you to use your Live accounts within Outlook to read and send your Office Live Mail/Windows Live Hotmail e-mail messages, manage your Live Mail contacts, use advanced options for blocking junk email messages, and manage multiple email accounts in one place.

With a paid subscription, the Outlook Connector Beta also enables the ability to manage, share, and synchronize your Windows Live Calendar in Outlook and access your Tasks and Notes. The beta is available for download here.