outlook

Microsoft is tying a ribbon around the next version of Office for Mac.

Due out later this year, Office for Mac 2011 will sport a version of the "ribbon" user interface that has adorned the PC version since Office 2007, Microsoft said Thursday. The new Office will also add support for Microsoft's new browser-based Office Web Apps as well as the first Mac OS X version of Outlook.

Microsoft had said last year that it was working on a new Mac version that would bring Outlook back to the Mac. The company says that version should indeed … Read more

Software developer 4Team specializes in add-in tools for Microsoft's Office and Outlook suites. Their ShareContacts lets users share and synchronize their all-important contacts folders and subfolders in Outlook, online or offline, without needing a server. You can specify which contacts to share with different individuals or groups, such as clients or project teams. You can customize shared forms and include imported data. Shared folders are automatically updated on each user's computer when you update your data. You can share just what you want with whom, all with a few mouse clicks. ShareContacts is also handy for keeping your … Read more

Software publisher Technocom offers numerous extraction utilities designed to seek and recover data from a wide range of applications. Their Email Extractor Outlook v3.2 pulls e-mail addresses from Microsoft Outlook, the most common e-mail client among business and professional users. It can extract e-mail messages from .pst files in all Outlook folders, including Inbox, Drafts, and Contacts. It can save the information it extracts as .csv and text files for wide compatibility with other software and platforms. It automates and simplifies what could be a frustrating, time-consuming chore, collecting and editing e-mail addresses from among what might be thousands … Read more

You never know when you're going to need an Outlook message that was archived long ago. In a comment on a previous post about moving Outlook mail to local folders, Cliff Brandt asked how to move a file from the archive to one of his main Outlook folders.

Doing so is a breeze, but keep in mind, an archive relocates only Outlook data of a specific age and is intended primarily to keep your Outlook.pst file a manageable size. A backup copies all your Outlook data and allows you to restore all your messages, contacts, tasks, and calendar … Read more

IT executives are feeling optimistic about a possible sector recovery this year, according to a new survey from CompTIA.

Following a wave of well-deserved pessimism that lasted most of 2009, executives were more upbeat when surveyed by the tech trade association in December. The new outlook prompted the rating for CompTIA's third IT Industry Business Confidence Index to jump 6.3 points to 56.6 out of 100.

With a rating higher than 50, the index now marks the first time positive sentiments outshone negative ones. The first two indexes from July and September of last year both scored … Read more

IQ medialabs' InLoox is a professional business utility that integrates sophisticated project management capabilities directly into Microsoft Outlook, the business world's standard e-mail client. It supports and enhances standard business-oriented Outlook features such as project planning, scheduling, and monitoring. Where it shines is in project management. It improves your ability to manage project resources, documents, and budgets with time, cost, and activity recording and enhanced team coordination capabilities.

Calling Outlook an "e-mail client" is a bit of an understatement since it's essential for planning as well as managing contacts and projects. Calling InLoox an Outlook Add-In … Read more

Microsoft's Outlook does a good job of retaining all kinds of useful information, but its power and complexity make it entirely too easy to end up with multiple entries for e-mail or addresses. Wisco's NoMoreDupes for Outlook add-on searches out and deletes duplicate entries throughout Outlook. It can help you keep your e-mail addresses and saved messages neat and orderly, but it does much more. It finds duplicate entries in your Contacts as well as duplicate e-mails, but it also searches through your Outlook Appointments, Notes, Tasks, and Journal entries, clearly identifying duplicates, some of which you may … Read more

We can all be thankful Facebook doesn't let you export your friends' e-mail addresses and telephone numbers. The export prohibition doesn't extend to other information about your friends, however. A new free service puts this data in a .csv file you can import to your Outlook and Gmail contacts. Unfortunately, the results leave much to be desired.

Export Friends to .csv wasn't developed by Facebook, but rather by J?rn Arild Anden?s. You can choose to export up to 11 different categories of information about your friends, including Facebook ID, name (full, first, and last), profile … Read more

In many markets, open source has played catch-up for years to the proprietary incumbents. Now, however, open source is taking the lead in areas as diverse as operating systems (Linux), browsers (Firefox), and databases (MySQL).

Oddly, given the ubiquity of e-mail, we've never seen a really good open-source e-mail client. Mozilla wants to change that with Thunderbird.

Mozilla's track record with its hugely popular Firefox Web browser suggests that it may have more than a sporting chance, despite a mostly unproductive history with e-mail. Thunderbird, Mozilla's e-mail client, has been around since 2003, with almost no market … Read more