outlook

I always think twice or even three times before I enter my e-mail address in a Web form. Even when the site gives me the option not to have any messages sent to the address (usually by unchecking the Web form's "Notify me" entry that's checked by default), I can't help but think somehow, somewhere, some snake-oil salesman is going to get hold of my address.

Now I register at such sites using a separate e-mail account whose mail I filter out of my in-box. When I have to click a link in a confirmation … Read more

Microsoft today released its July 2008 security bulletin highlighting items all considered important but not critical. They are for Domain Name Service in Windows, Windows Explorer within Windows Vista, Outlook Web Access (OWA), and Microsoft SQL servers. All Microsoft security patches for both Windows and Office software are available via Microsoft Update or via the individual bulletins detailed below.

MS08-037: Important

Entitled "Vulnerabilities in DNS Could Allow Spoofing (953230)," this bulletin is for users of Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003; not affected are users of Windows Vista (both 32-bit and 64-bit editions) and Windows Server … Read more

Microsoft detailed on Tuesday its road map and pricing for Web-based software suites built for big companies and growing businesses.

Enabling telecommuting, which many employers and workers increasingly favor, is likely to be a selling point for the productivity and "deskless worker" tools within the Microsoft Online Services lineup.

The move is part of Redmond's push to integrate online and desktop software, shifting much of the heavy lifting to the "cloud."

"Microsoft Online Services is a key component of the software plus services initiative, and we're seeing customers, partners and even competitors embrace … Read more

Xobni integrates into your Outlook installation and shows you more about your e-mails than Outlook ever could. For each person who sends you e-mail, it shows you who else they communicate with a lot--their de facto social networks--and it finds their phone number from inside their e-mails. It also shows you all conversation threads you've participated in with the person, and all the attachments they've sent you. You can drill into message threads, and it has an admittedly redundant but snappy e-mail search engine built-in.

Unlike many Outlook add-ons, Xobni seems to add its functionality without dragging down … Read more

On Monday, I described Vaita's free Outlook Duplicate Items Remover, an add-on that finds duplicate copies of Outlook messages, contacts, calendar entries, and tasks. Now, I'll continue to trim my bloated Outlook in-box by using another freebie: the Kopf Outlook Attachment Remover created by Bruno Marotta.

After you download the program and restart Outlook, you see a floating Attachment Remover toolbar that you can drag and dock at the top of the screen along with all the other toolbars to keep it from blocking your view. Click the toolbar's one-and-only button to open the program's one-and-only … Read more

Sometimes I wish I was one of those people who manages to keep their e-mail inbox empty by assigning the messages they need to keep appropriately named folders and deleting the mail they don't need.

Most of my inboxes have thousands of entries dating back years. And since I've combined my ISP's POP mail account with my Gmail account, the inbox-overflow problem has gotten out of hand.

Rather than spending half a day manually removing the duplicates, I installed Vaita's free Outlook Duplicate Items Remover. The program places an "ODIR" entry on Outlook's … Read more

Update! I forgot to mention that you can get access to the ClearContext beta by using the invite code webware on the ClearContext site.

The Outlook plug-in Xobni (download) has been getting a lot of press recently, but it's not the only Outlook helper out there.

On Monday, ClearContext, which has had a paid, enterprise-level e-mail organizer for a while now (download), is releasing ClearContext Personal, a free, de-featured version of the product (download). ClearContext isn't Webware, but since I've covered Xobni here, I'd be remiss to ignore it.

CEO Deva Hazarika acknowledged to me that … Read more

Mozilla's Thunderbird has come into its own with version 2 for Windows, Mac, and in a portable edition. Starring features and innovations that take aim at both Web e-mail clients and industry standards such as Microsoft's Outlook, open-source Thunderbird offers the best of both worlds.

Back and forward buttons, like the ones you have in your Web browser, let you jump through messages in the order that you viewed them. Keep your e-mails organized with tags, even across dozens of message folders. Configuration is as simple as entering your e-mail address and password. Search results can be saved, … Read more

Smart e-mail may be a contradiction in terms, but let's get a show of hands: how many of you believe Microsoft is going to supply the answer?

I didn't think so.

When the company brain trust repairs to the Ballmer Bunker to chew over its next big idea, post-Yahoo, I've got a suggestion: how about doing something to deal with e-mail and its discontents? Something grand--like bringing Microsoft Outlook into the 21st century. I don't mean a tweak here and there; I'm talking about a top-to-bottom overhaul.

The product debuted in 1997 and has improved … Read more