outlook

The bottom line: Microsoft Office 2010 is a worthy upgrade for businesses and individual users who need professional-level productivity apps, but it will take some time to get acclimated with the reworked interface. Users looking for bare-bones, dead-simple office software should stick with Google's and other online offerings or continue using older Office versions they have already mastered.

The world has changed plenty since Microsoft introduced Office 2007. In that time, Google has become a major player, with its suite of online tools, and even Apple has made inroads with its iWork office suite, though admittedly within a smaller … Read more

Microsoft Office 2010 is available today for business licenses, with the public release coming in June. According to Microsoft, the focus of this major overhaul was on three things: to make workflows more efficient; to effectively use Web applications to make your work available anywhere; and to make collaboration with others much easier. In this CNET First Take for Microsoft Office 2010, we'll take a look at some of the notable feature changes across many of the applications. Microsoft says Office 2010 will let you use your PC, smartphone, and the Web to make your projects come together more … Read more

Microsoft's Outlook does so much that few users need more, but there's always room for improvement, especially when it comes to productivity enhancements. Software Solutions' Aladdins Office Documents Pro is an Outlook add-in that makes it easy to create specialized Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and customized, predefined Outlook emails that save time and increase accuracy over individually prepared Office documents.

Office Documents is an Outlook add-in, so its "main interface" is two small buttons the program adds to the Outlook toolbar, one for the main menu and another for the Aladdins Contacts List. Right-clicking the main … Read more

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