microsoft outlook

Get organized with Outlook 2010

While the primary function of Microsoft Outlook 2010 is to send and receive e-mail, it offers a host of useful tools to manage tasks, meetings, contacts, and more.

The interface of Microsoft Outlook 2010 is nicely designed, but it is packed with options. Users new to Outlook should expect to spend some time with the Help file to take advantage of all it has to offer. For the basics, including e-mail, the calendar, and tasks, one-click access minimizes the learning curve. While it continues to allow users to receive e-mail from multiple accounts and easily switch from one to the … Read more

How to share contacts in Microsoft Outlook

Few resources on your computer are more valuable to your worklife than your list of contacts. Unfortunately, contacts are also among the most difficult assets to maintain.

Recently, a reader named Alan posed this question:

I and my two associates use Microsoft Outlook for our sales contacts. Right now we maintain three separate contact databases. We would like to merge our databases into one that all three of us can access, modify, and update as necessary. Is there a process/software you can recommend to accomplish this?

If you don't mind the manual approach, Outlook lets you export your … Read more

The world may be cloud-crazy, but Outlook for Mac is stuck on Earth

Store your data in the cloud and have it accessible to you from any computer, anywhere. That's the pitch we hear more and more from companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft. So how is it that all of these companies allow Outlook for Mac 2011 to remain absurdly earthbound?

I'm a long-time Outlook user on Windows, now working with Outlook full-time on the Mac. Even though Gmail is my email provider (the Google Apps version of it), I find Outlook a better way to interact with Gmail than using Gmail directly through the … Read more

Microsoft previews Hotmail successor, Outlook.com

Back in June, there were leaks about an alleged new Microsoft mail client -- "Newmail" -- something LiveSide.net described as a Metro-style Hotmail."

Today, Microsoft took the wraps off a preview version of that new client, which it is formally christening "Outlook.com." (The screen shot above is an example of what the new Outlook.com interface looks like.)Microsoft is billing Outlook.com as a new free mail service that pulls features from Hotmail and Exchange. It is designed for personal/consumer use; Microsoft continues to position Outlook as its business e-mail client. … Read more

The semi-automatic way to manage multiple contact lists

Few business resources are as valuable as your list of contacts. It's no wonder companies such as Twitter and iPad app vendor Path are trying to get their hands on their customers' contacts--with or without their express permission.

Contacts are like rabbits: they tend to multiply whenever they get together.

In the past year my Gmail contact list has grown by 50 percent, not to mention the many updates and changes to existing entries. Contact-sync programs promise to keep the information in multiple address books up-to-date, but the programs I've tried create so many duplicate records they'… Read more

Internet now active with 2.1 billion users

You're one of the 2.1 billion people actively using the Internet.

Looking at the state of the online world throughout 2011, traffic site Pingdom found that the number of Internet users has jumped from a mere 360 million at the end of 2000 and now accounts for 30 percent of the planet's population.

Sweeping across the continents, Asia holds 922 million Internet users, Europe has 476 million, and North America is in third place with 271 million. Drilling down to individual countries, China is on top with 485 million people using the Internet, more than 36 percent … Read more

Zendio tracks when e-mails are opened, clicked on

Who uses those receipts for e-mails read? Most people either block sending receipts altogether or ask to be notified before sending a read receipt (a default setting in Microsoft Outlook and other mail clients). So read receipts either don't work at all, or they require acceptance by the recipient--no sure thing.

That doesn't mean that we aren't curious about when the messages we send are opened, and when the links they include are followed. For most organizations, this information can be a valuable asset. The Zendio add-on for Microsoft Outlook tracks the messages you select and records … Read more

Sync Gmail and Outlook contacts automatically

A reader named Maribeth is migrating from Outlook to Gmail and asked about synchronizing her two accounts:

"I just read your blog about Outlook/Gmail [ Merge your Outlook and Gmail contacts]. I understand this is a fix to make them both the same, but do you know if there is a way to sync them continually? I still want to use Outlook on my desktop and also have IMAP movability on my Droidx2 phone and also on an iPad. Is it possible?"

In a July 2009 post I described how to "Sync contacts and calendars between Outlook, Gmail, and iPhone.&… Read more

Block senders, add notifications in Outlook, Thunderbird

A reader named Eddy contacted me the other day to ask how to block mail from specific people in Mozilla Thunderbird. Eddy also wants to be notified when mail comes from certain addresses.

While I am familiar with how to create rules in Microsoft Outlook to block senders and receive notifications when mail arrives from a particular person or address, I had never tried to do the same in Thunderbird. It turns out Thunderbird's filters make it easy to automatically block mail from a person or address, but there's no equivalent in Thunderbird to Outlook's ability to … Read more