outlook

Your Microsoft Outlook 2007 in-box is one of those apps that's underappreciated and easily overlooked, yet for business professionals and home users alike, it often bears the brunt of most e-mail exchange.

It's time to give Outlook--and yourself--a hand with some free, and free-to-try, add-ons that could very well smooth out your workflow. We've rounded up five time-saving Outlook add-ons for you to take on a spin. Just don't get too add-on-happy, since, as with browser extensions, a surplus of running Outlook extras can drag down the pace.

If you frequently use Outlook on your desktop and Google Docs for Web-based documents, the Harmony Outlook add-on for Google Docs offers the best of both worlds by pinning the "cloud" to your desktop. When in Outlook, Harmony will display your Google Docs in a sidebar. From here, you can open, read, edit, share, and create new documents. There are other benefits, too, like turning desktop files into new Google Docs from the Harmony sidebar, and dragging and dropping a Google Doc into an e-mail as either a link (the regular dragging action) or as a physical attachment (… Read more

The Google Docs Web-based productivity suite blossomed thanks to its virtue of efficiency. We recently got to know a tool that layers on the convenience by giving you ways to manage Google Docs from a desktop app you already use--your Outlook in-box.  By installing the free Harmony for Google Docs beta Outlook add-on, your Google Docs show up in a sidebar, from which they can be opened and edited right in Outlook's reading pane. Clicking the Harmony button in the navigation ribbon surfaces your Google Docs in new messages as well.

Harmony is essentially inserting a browser into … Read more

The free Outlook add-on Xobni beats the pants off Outlook's built-in e-mail search. While Xobni's core talent lays in rapidly finding e-mails and contacts based on any keyword search, it also excels at surfacing meetings and file attachments, hyperlinks, and even personal information extracted from social networks, like photos and phone numbers.

Visually, Xobni displays a sidebar that slides in an out from the right and over the reading pane. From there, you'll be able to search for contacts and messages, and interact with the profile, message, or files from there. When at rest, Xobni displays the … Read more

Microsoft Outlook 2010 beta may still be weeks away from making the jump to general release, but that hasn't stopped Xobni from creating a new version of its e-mail search tool that's compatible with Outlook 2010. We tested out Xobni's version 1.9.2 e-mail search assistant on Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 beta with good results.

For those who are new to it, Xobni (in-box spelled backward) is a free Outlook add-on that beats the pants off Outlook's built-in e-mail search. While Xobni's core talent lays in rapidly finding e-mails and contacts based on … Read more

The contact manager service Xobni has gone mobile with an application and plug-in for BlackBerry smartphones.

Xobni Mobile, launched Wednesday, offers rich contact profiles in both a standalone application and within the native BlackBerry e-mail client. The product also uses a new service from the company, Xobni One, which links information between Microsoft Outlook and the mobile versions of Xobni.

Wednesday's move is the first time that Xobni has been available in any other form than a plug-in for Outlook, where it adds search, threading, and relevance functionality.

Read more of "Xobni Mobile launched for BlackBerry smartphones" … Read more

If you use both Outlook and MySpace, you are part of an interesting demographic. But you are also in luck.

Microsoft and MySpace said on Wednesday that they are ready with the beta version of a tool that lets Outlook users see their MySpace connections within the e-mail and calendaring program. A new "social connector" feature for Outlook lets users connect to social networks, including MySpace, LinkedIn, and soon Facebook, too.

In a blog posting, Microsoft said the connector for MySpace is now ready.

"MySpace for Outlook enables you to view activity updates for friends and colleagues … Read more

Few PC glitches are more frustrating and more difficult to troubleshoot than your e-mail program failing to connect to a mail server. Recently, a family member told me about the enervating problems he experienced trying to figure out why his new Vista notebook wouldn't link to his office's mail server.

"I have Office 2007. Our firm uses Exchange Server 2003. I was having the damnedest time getting Outlook on my new laptop to sync with the server away from the office. I was at this for hours and hours reading through a bunch of 'fixes' until I … Read more

I miss my PalmPilot. Not so much the way it kept breaking every 12 months, but the effortless way it synchronized my to-do lists with Outlook.

Ever since trading my Palm-powered Centro for my iPhone, I've lived without a decent task-management solution. That's because, for better or worse, I'm entrenched in Outlook, and the iPhone can't sync with the program's task list (eye roll).

For a while there I was reasonably happy with Chapura's KeyTasks, a decent enough task manager that delivered the "missing sync" between iPhone and Outlook. But wouldn't … Read more