Wednesday, May 30th, 2007

Are you free? Add a calendar to an Outlook 2007 email

I need to meet with you. I know when I’m free I don’t know when you are. To avoid the “Can you do it this time?” “No. What about?” discussion you can send an outgoing email with your calendar in it so your recipient can see when you’re free and plan accordingly.

The proviso for this is you need to be using Microsoft Exchange so it’s the sort of thing you can do at work but unlikely you will be running exchange at home. To do this, in a new message dialog, click the Insert tab and select Calendar. You can then choose just how much calendar to send, just your available spaces or everything… it’s up to you.

Helen Bradley

Monday, May 14th, 2007

Never miss a trick with Outlook 2007

I often get emails that need attention such as a tip that a reader sends in for an column I write in the Sydney Morning Herald that I like and plan to use in an upcoming column – just not now. I flag it by right clicking and choose Follow Up and then a flag, like this week, next week, no date etc..

Having done that, the item appears automatically in my Outlook 2007 to do list so, provided the To do bar is showing, it’s there and I can check the items and find the tip whenever I need it. Combine follow up with color categories and you’re set. When you’re done with an item, right click it in the To Do bar and mark it as complete and it disappears.

Seriously, the To Do bar has the ability at last to be some use in Outlook 2007 so it’s time to begin using some behaviors that will make it work for you.

Helen Bradley

Wednesday, May 9th, 2007

Speed up slow ol’ Outlook 2007

Ok, so Outlook 2007 is running like a dog. It’s slow and cumbersome to use. Microsoft has admitted it and pointed a finger at overlarge .PST files. One wonders why Microsoft persists in forcing hapless users to jam all their emails (plus attachments) and RSS feeds into one .PST file anyway. Heaven help the new user who plain doesn’t understand what a .PST file is anyway, much less why it affects their system performance.

Until the folks at Redmond come to their collective senses and offer us an alternative solution, your options are to work around it. Split your emails into multiple .PST files by archiving them and keep your main .PST file at a small size.

Here are Microsoft’s current series of recommendations for speeding up Outlook 2007, it’s a KnowledgeBase article, and here’s a link to an update for Outlook that promises to fix some of the speed issues: Microsoft Outlook 2007 update download site.

I just have to have the final word here… why, in 2007, should are we still bothered by this stuff?

Helen Bradley

Page 4 of 41234