Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Vista, Sharepoints, OneNote & Outlook

I read this article below and it pretty much says what I would have said.
However I now have a tablet - will write about that shortly and I find it very useful.

Windows Vista improves productivity, power management for mobile PC users

When I travel, it isn't always convenient to have both my laptop and my Smartphone with me at all times. That's why I like the capabilities of Sync Center in Windows Vista. I can work on whatever device is most convenient for me at the time, and Windows Vista ensures that the same information appears on both devices.

Windows SideShow is another feature getting attention from mobile PC users. It's a new technology that allows you to view important information from your computer on a secondary display, such as a small screen on the outside of a laptop's case.

Windows Vista improves the wireless networking experience by consolidating key information in the Network and Sharing Center. From there, I can check my connection status, signal strength, and other properties.

When I'm on the go, I'm always worried about how much battery life my laptop has left. How quickly your battery drains depends, in part, on which power plan you select. When I'm home, I use the Balanced power plan, with a few extra settings tweaked. One of the power management settings I've tweaked is what happens when I close my laptop's lid. I've changed the setting so that nothing happens when I close the lid. That way, my e‑mail continues to download and is instantly available when I reopen the lid.

One of the major purchases I plan to make within the next year is a Tablet PC—a mobile PC that allows interaction via a tablet pen or, if the computer has a touch-enabled screen, a fingertip. In Windows Vista you can perform specific actions with pen flicks or touch flicks on supported hardware. You can flick your pen in a certain direction and the selection is copied to the Clipboard. What's more, you can customize the pen flicks to perform the actions you choose.

I have to make a presentation in front of an audience several times a year. I turn on presentation settings from Windows Mobility Center, a dashboard of sorts for common mobile PC settings. Windows turns off the screen saver, turns off system notifications, and prevents the computer from going to sleep. I can also customize the presentation settings to change the desktop background and adjust the volume level.

Jerri Ledford


View and update a SharePoint calendar

You can view and update a SharePoint calendar, just as you do your Outlook calendar.

You can view a calendar from a SharePoint site side-by-side with an Outlook calendar, view an overlay of the calendars as if they were one single calendar, and even copy events among the calendars.

When you connect a SharePoint calendar to Outlook 2007, it appears under Other Calendars with your calendar folders. You can connect multiple calendars at the same time, such as a team vacation calendar and a project schedule. Depending on your needs, you can choose which calendars you want to work with: a single calendar from a SharePoint site, multiple SharePoint calendars (if you have them), or Outlook calendars.

If your team stores its project schedules, conferences, or vacations on a SharePoint calendar, you can view the team calendar simultaneously with your personal calendar and check for conflicts. Additionally, you can copy items back and forth, without leaving Outlook.


OneNote Table of Contents powertoy!

Nani Courten is another tester on the OneNote team and created an incredibly useful addin for OneNote. There is a group of people sharing a notebook. Each person edits a few pages here and there every so often. Now when I open the notebook, I want to quickly find the most recent changes. If a page was changed last night, I want to see it, and if a page has been unchanged for some amount of time, I'm not as interested in viewing it. Essentially, I want a list of most recently changed pages. Nani created an addin which creates a Table of Contents for the section I'm looking at with the most recently changed pages at the top of the list. Each page in the list is a link to the page: I can see what changed last night, click the link and go straight to that page.

You can also delete the column which shows the time the pages were changed and make a table of contents which lists only the page titles. This way the user who posted to the newsgroups about wanting a summary of the pages in a section can get his information as well.

Links:
The setup files (and remember to exit OneNote, run setup.exe as admin and select to install for all users):

http://johnguin.members.winisp.net/Shared%20Documents/TableOfContentsSetup.zip

The source (includes setup):

http://johnguin.members.winisp.net/Shared%20Documents/OneNote%20Table%20of%20Content.zip

John


Sharing a calendar via email

Did you know that you can easily create and share calendars with others in Outlook 2007? with Outlook 2007 this is an absolute joy!
I have created a “Bike Races” calendar which I can now use to store all these events. Updating my friends is as simple as clicking on ”Send a Calendar via E-mail…”, selecting the level on detail and choosing my recipients. Outlook is even smart enough to attach a “human friendly” text version of the calendar in the mail body (if I choose).
For my friends running Outlook 2007 it’s as simple as choosing to open the calendar when they receive my message. For those who aren’t running Outlook (and yes, there are a few out there), they can still see all the dates and times in the body of the email, and if they have an application that supports iCalender files (RFC 2445) they can also import them.
Create the calendar

1. Open Outlook

2. Select Calendar

3. Click File + New + Calendar...
4. Enter the calendar name (Bike Races)

5. Click on OK

One of my favorite features is overlaying calendars in Outlook. To view a calendar in Overlay mode, you can either click the left-arrow icon in the calendar’s tab at the top, or right-click on the calendar in the list and choose “View in overlay mode”.
Share the calendar.

1. Click on “Send a Calendar via E-Mail…”

A new message window will open and the “Send a Calendar via E-Mail” dialogue will be shown.
2. Select the “Bike Races” calendar in the Calendar drop down and select the visibility and detail that you want to send.
3. Click OK
4. Enter recipients
5. Click send

6. You’re done!

Benjamin Gay

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Posted by: Lena | 7:39 PM |

Friday, May 25, 2007

Tech Dispenser - geek blog

Here is a fantastic site for tech news Tech Dispenser
Here are some excerpts

The Computerworld Blog Network
Current Feature Stories

Business Benefits Behind Green Label

Data Center Knowledge – Chris Crosbys presentation at Fridays DataCenterDynamics Washington conference was titled A Common Sense Guide for Planning and Designing A Green Datacenter. “We put green in quotes because its so abused these days,” said Crosby, the senior VP of technical serviecs for Digital Realty.

Free Windows Powershell book, or why Powerscript would have been a better name

4sysops – For Windows Administrators – Actually, you could also say, it is an introduction into Windows Powershell from Microsoft. When I skimmed over the document, I came once again to the conclusion that Powershell is not really a shell, but just another scripting language...

Google Hot Trends: Hot or Not?

Googlified – First was Google Zeitgeist that publishes lists of popular queries, then the Google Trends that shows the amount of searches of a query over a period of time, now followed by Hot Trends, a nice little toy that was added to Google Trends today. Hot Trends, in Google’s word, is “a snapshot of what’s on...

More Office Document Formats

iface thoughts – So we have more formats United Office Format (UOF) is a XML-based document format that was developed by and for China, in addition to ODF and OOXML. It addresses all the office document types – word processing, spreadsheets and presentation. As I understand, the purpose of this format, like the others, is to bring compatibility...

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Posted by: Jethro | 9:30 AM |

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Outlook addins and Microsoft Office tips

Addintools

Classic Menu for Office 2007

  • bring back the Office 2003 menus and toolbars to your copy of Microsoft Office 2007
  • All new features items of Microsoft Office 2007 have been added into the classic menu and toolbars.
Addintools create for Excel

  • Use your own marketing analysis chart and a worksheet with a 1000 rows of data. Addintools Create generates a marketing analysis chart for each row. That’s 1000 new charts!
  • In just minutes, convert rows in a Microsoft Excel worksheet to Charts, Diagrams, AutoShapes, Drawings, WordArts, Reports, Cards, Labels, Forms and Sheets. You can decide how many data rows each result refers to!
Addintools assist for Excel

  • Convert data formats between Date, Numeric, or Text.
  • Will convert any number or date format to text: August 3, 2004, 08/03/2004 00:00:00, 12345678.90%, US$123,456.79, 1.23E+05…
  • Can safely merge cells or perform a smart Unmerge.
  • See Invalid Data Types quickly by viewing those cells in color!
  • View all locked or unlocked cells by color.
Addintools Mechanic

  • Clean, repair, defrag and compact the Windows Registry to increase PC overall performance immediately.
  • Enhances System Stability – regular maintenance helps stop system crashes and break-ups.
  • Easily undo any operation
  • The scanning is fast and smart

Microsoft Office Outlook
Copy Autocomplete name list to another computer

Important You must exit Outlook before starting the following procedure. The names will be included in AutoComplete when you restart Outlook.

  1. On the computer with the saved AutoComplete names, go to drive:\Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook.
    Note: Depending on your file settings, this folder might be hidden. To view the files in this folder, do one of the following:
    ShowMicrosoft Windows XP
    1. Click Start, and then click My Computer.
    2. On the Tools menu, click Folder Options.
    3. Click the View tab, and then, under Advanced settings, under Hidden files and folders, click Show hidden files and folders.

    ShowMicrosoft Windows 2000
    1. Double-click My Computer on your desktop.
    2. On the Tools menu, click Folder Options.
    3. Click the View tab, and then click Show hidden files and folders.
  2. Right-click profile name.nk2, and then click Copy.
    Tip You can copy the file to removable media, such as a floppy disk or a CD, and then copy the file to the correct location on the other computer. Or you can attach the file to an e-mail message and send the message to yourself. On the new computer, open the attachment in Outlook, and then save it to the correct location.
  3. On the computer where you want to populate the AutoComplete feature, copy the file to drive:\Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook.
  4. If the Outlook user profile name is different on the computer where you are moving the .nk2 file, you must rename the file with the same Outlook user profile name after you copy it to the correct folder. For example, if you move Kim Akers.nk2 from the original computer with an Outlook user profile name of Kim Akers, and you copy the Kim Akers.nk2 file to the new computer, you must rename it with the Outlook profile name being used on the new computer.
  5. When prompted about replacing the existing file, click Yes.
  6. Open Outlook to view changes.


Outlook Performance Update

Last Friday, we released an update to Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 that will help to address some performance issues that are discussed in Knowledge Base Article 932086. You can find a description of the update and a link to the appropriate download page for your version of the update in Knowledge Base Article 933493.

Davton Contact Synchroniser
The Davton Contact Synchroniser will synchronise contacts in one contact folder to another. It is designed to synchronise contacts from a shared Microsoft Outlook ‘Public Folder’ to a personal folder - so that the contacts can be synchronised to a PDA using ActiveSync.

It is a one way synchronization - changes made in the local folder or on the PDA will not be reflected back to the Public folder.

The synchroniser can filter the contacts it copies to your local folder, based on a categories. So for example if you just want the contacts with category 'Customer' to be moved to your local folder, Davton Contact Synchroniser can handle this.Download here (6.3MB installer file)

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Posted by: Jethro | 7:38 PM |

Friday, January 12, 2007

Finding the macro names and short cuts for toolbar icons in Microsoft Office applications

Doug Klippert has revealed how to locate the hidden shortcuts for toolbar icons in the Microsoft Office applications including Office 2007.

Word has built in macros to perform routine actions such as using the Format Painter to copy formatting.

Rather than trying to guess the name or look up the shortcut keys, use this seldom mentioned trick to find toolbar macro names.

Press the three key combination of Ctrl, Alt, and + (the plus sign on the Numbers keypad).

The mouse pointer changes to a 4-leaf clover.

Click on a toolbar icon. Word will display a form revealing the macro name and the assigned shortcuts.
Check his post out for screenshots..

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Posted by: Jethro | 12:32 AM |

Saturday, September 30, 2006

Outlook SMS Product

OutlookSMS enables people to send and receive SMS messages directly through Microsoft Outlook. Works with Outlook 97 to Outlook 2003. A Lotus Notes version, NotesSMS, is also available.

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Posted by: Jethro | 10:34 AM |

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Cleaar Context Inbox Manager

From Slipstick.com cmes this link to a pretty cool looking Outlook AddIn.

Now available in two versions, a free personal edition and a more powerful professional version, ClearContext Inbox Manager is an add-in for Microsoft Outlook that automatically prioritizes, organizes, and color-codes the e-mail in your inbox, placing the most important e-mails from the most important senders are at the top of the inbox, ready to be dealt with immediately. Less important e-mails, such as newsletters and correspondence from low priority senders, are placed further down in the inbox and junk/spam e-mails are moved to the bottom. Additionally, ClearContext Inbox Manager automates the e-mail filing process to help you keep your entire mailbox organized. All of this is done automatically by analyzing existing e-mail -no configuration or software "training" is required.

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Posted by: Jethro | 12:04 AM |

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Windows XP and Outlook goodies

Following is a collection of links I have bookmarked recently regarding Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Outlook tips and tricks.

J-Walk asked the question "Can I print the directory listing from Windows XP"?

Doug Klippert answers the question with "How to add the Print Directory feature back into Windows XP"

Doug, the source of all Unoffical Office Stuff, also supplies these goodies.
How to make your computer automatically log you on.
Using Digital Signatures
List Word and Excel Files
Office Toolbar Come Home
Towson University provides Self-Help Training Documents for many applications.
Creating Hyper links in Outlook. I may do some more on this in detail later.

From Slipstick comes a number of Outlook Specific tips and apps.
Outlook Duplicate Items Remover
Use OsaSync to share or synchronize your Outlook contacts, calendar, and tasks with one or more other computers on your network
GroupCalendar for Exchange
Support WebCast: Spam filters in Microsoft Exchange 2003
Support WebCast: Introduction to Desktop ActiveSync

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Posted by: Jethro | 1:43 PM |