Workers' Edge

If you followed the steps in my post from August on merging your Outlook and Gmail contacts, you may have ended up with duplicates in your contact lists. Microsoft's advice for deleting duplicate contacts is to sort them by the date modified, Ctrl-select the ones you want to remove, and press delete.

The problem is, the duplicate entries probably aren't identical, so you're almost certain to delete some data along with the dupe. What you need is a way to merge the information in the duplicate contacts. There's no such feature in Outlook, but if you're willing to spend $30, you can make short work of your extraneous Outlook entries by running 4Team's Duplicate Killer for Outlook.

The program deletes or merges duplicate e-mail messages, calendar entries, tasks, and notes in addition to contacts. I tested the program with Outlook 2007 but, according to the vendor, it works with Outlook 2000, XP, and 2003 as well. The new version, 3, is said to work with "Microsoft Exchange type folders including public folders," according to the vendor's Web site, but I ran it on a standalone Outlook installation.

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Last August, I described how to delay the messages you send from Microsoft Outlook. In that post, I bemoaned the lack of a similar feature in Gmail. Well, Google engineer Yuzo Fujishima comes to the rescue with a new tool called Undo Send, though unlike Outlook's send-delay feature, in Gmail, you have to act--or unact--fast.

To activate the feature, open Gmail, click Settings in the top-right corner, and choose the Labs tab. If you don't see a Labs tab, click more in the top-left menu, select even more, click the Labs link at the top right, choose Gmail Labs. Scroll to Undo Send, click Enable, and select Save Changes.

This feature isn't a miracle worker; it can pull back a message only in the first 5 seconds after you click Send. Still, many an e-mail "Oops!" comes to mind in that split second after you send it.

The Undo option appears for about 5 seconds in the "Your message has been sent" message at the top of your in-box.

If you click Undo in time, your message is yanked from the outbound queue and you see a message informing you that the send was undone.

Clearly, the Gmail Undo Send feature doesn't give you anywhere near the level of control you get when delaying sent messages in Outlook, but Gmail's version is much simpler to implement.

The Send Later extension for the Mozilla Foundation's Thunderbird e-mail client provides a similar function. Unfortunately, several people report problems using Send Later with the latest version 2.0.0.21 of Thunderbird. The extension appeared to work as advertised on my Vista PC, however.

To activate Send Later, press Ctrl-Shift-Enter when you've finishing composing the message. In the "Send this email later" dialog box that opens, select the time you want the message sent using the drop-down menus at the top of the window, or click one of the three preset delays: 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or 2 hours.

If only everything we do on a computer had a "do-over" button!

The first program I open every day is Firefox, and most days the first Web site I visit is Google. That's why I'm glad so many Firefox add-on developers have created tools that give me a new perspective on my Google search results. Here are three of my favorites.

Sharpen your searches with GoogleEnhancer
The primary reason I click Google's Advanced Search option is to limit the results to a specific date range. With NettiCat's GoogleEnhancer add-on I can narrow my searches by date as well as by file type and a handful of languages via drop-down menus that are placed to the right of the search box.

As nice as the search enhancements are, one of my favorite GoogleEnhancer features is the addition of icons to the left of the results for each link's site. The add-on also numbers the results, though these don't really add much to the results, in my opinion.

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A big reason for the growing popularity of the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser is the amazingly creative and abundantly useful add-ons that are being created for Firefox. My three new favorites let you ax the ads on a site, see the tracking pixels on the current page, and gain a wealth of options when you select and right-click text in your browser.

Browse faster by blocking ads
Wouldn't you like to watch TV and listen to the radio without having to sit through the ads that pay the freight? Or dismantle the billboards that line the freeways? I can't help you with TV spots or roadside distractions, but you can kiss Web ads good-bye. Just download and install Wladimir Palant's Adblock Plus extension for Firefox.

After browsing with Adblock Plus enabled for a while, I started to wonder how I ever managed to surf without it. I noticed an immediate increase in the load speed of many of the sites I visit frequently, such as ESPN.com and CNN.com. And it's so much easier to find the information I'm looking for on a crowded page without all the ads getting in the way.

When you restart Firefox after installing Adblock Plus, you're given the option to import a set of filter rules or create your own rules. I took the easy route and opted for the canned filters, which do a good job of removing the ads from the sites I frequent.

You can view the number of blocked items on the current page by hovering the mouse pointer over the "ABP" icon in the top-right corner of the Firefox window. Or click the down arrow to the right to access the extension's preferences and other options.

Some ads manage to slip past Adblock's filters, but you block them in the future by right-clicking the ad and choosing Adblock Image. There are a wealth of other options in the program; visit the developer's FAQ page for more information.

Know when you're being tracked
I'm usually not very curious about which of the Web-tracking services may have planted a pixel in the Web pages I visit, but knowing which sites use which tracking services gives me a little more information about what I can expect from the people behind the site.

Jan Bogutzki's Counterpixel detects the presence of tracking pixels from 19 different services, including Google Analytics, WebTrends, and Site Meter.

Counterpixel doesn't block the trackers; it merely alerts you to their presence on the current page. This might provide more information than the average Firefox user needs, but the add-on is a great way to find out a little bit more about the sites you frequent.

Get more right-click options for selected text
I've been using the Hyperwords extension for only a few days, which is not nearly enough time to learn all the text tricks this program performs. The first Hyperwords feature that caught my eye was the Translation option, which lets you convert the selected text into more than a dozen languages.

Other Hyperwords context-menu options let you search for the selected text at various reference sites and view other occurrences of the text on the page by sentence or paragraph, among other alternatives. You can also save the selection as a text file or send it directly to your printer.

It's a mystery to my why more people still use Internet Explorer than Firefox or any other competing browser. But I don't get the success of American Idol, either, so it must be me.

I have banished the Yahoo Toolbar from my PCs. It's not that I have anything against Yahoo. I use many of the company's services.

It's just that for me, the shortcuts on the Yahoo Toolbar don't justify the lost screen space, especially on my 13.3-inch laptop display.

So imagine my surprise when I happened to find the Yahoo Toolbar listed among Firefox's add-ons. (It snuck in when another user of the machine downloaded the Yahoo IM client.)

You might be surprised by the add-ons and extensions that have wormed their way into your copy of Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox 3.

You can work your way through the list of add-ons in your favorite browser, disabling and uninstalling those you don't need. Or you can save time by opening IE 7 and Firefox 3 with all add-ons and extensions disabled.

To open Internet Explorer with no add-ons or ActiveX controls working, click Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Internet Explorer (No-Add-ons). (In Vista, a faster way to open IE with no add-ons is by pressing the Windows key, typing Internet Explorer, and choosing Internet Explorer (No Add-ons) in the resulting list of shortcuts.)

To disable all of Firefox's add-ons, you have to open the browser in its Safe Mode (no relation to Windows' own Safe Mode) by clicking Start > All Programs > Mozilla Firefox > Mozilla Firefox (Safe Mode). A quicker way is to press the Windows key (in XP, follow this by pressing R), type Firefox -safe-mode, and press Enter.

In the Firefox Safe Mode dialog box that appears before Firefox opens, click "Disable all add-ons" and choose the Make Changes and Restart button to run the browser with no add-ons or extensions enabled.

I can't tell you for sure that every feature of every Web site you visit will work as designed, nor can I say unequivocally that you'll be browsing faster with no add-ons enabled. But I made the rounds of my favorite sites in each browser's no-add-ons mode and didn't feel like I was missing anything. In fact, the only way I knew my add-ons were disabled in IE was seeing the Manage Add-ons option grayed out on the Tools menu.

Disabling add-ons and extensions one at a time is a snap in both Firefox and IE. In the former, click Tools > Add-ons, select an entry under the Extensions tab, and click Disable. To toss an extension, click Uninstall. You can disable (but not uninstall) Firefox's plug-ins by clicking the Plug-ins tab, selecting an entry, and clicking Disable.

In IE, you can turn off add-ons one by one by clicking Tools > Manage Add-ons > Enable or Disable Add-ons. You have your choice of four views on the Show menu at the top of the Manage Add-ons dialog box (the default is "Add-ons currently loaded in Internet Explorer"). To disable an add-on, select it and choose Disable at the bottom of the dialog box.

One reason you may need to disable your browser's add-ons is to troubleshoot poor performance. Microsoft provides a step-by-step guide for fixing problems with Internet Explorer, and one of the steps is disabling your add-ons and re-enabling them individually until the problem recurs, at which time you've found the troublemaker.

You'll find more information about Firefox add-ons at the Firefox Support Knowledge Base.

Last May, I described the CallingID add-on for the Mozilla Firefox browser. It lets users see at a glance the address or location of the server hosting the site their visiting, and it even offers a color-coded security rating.

Unfortunately, the add-on doesn't work with Firefox 3, and the vendor's site doesn't offer any information on or help with this problem.

While looking for a solution to the CallingID glitch, I discovered Shazou, a Firefox add-on created by Chuck Durham at Seisan that goes one step further by showing the location of the site's server on a map that pops up when you click its icon in the bottom-right corner of the browser window.

Click either the "GeoIP: Server Location" or "WhoIs: Domain Owner" buttons to show this information in a small pop-up. The locations are also shown via icons on the map that Shazou generates. You can pan the map, or zoom it in and out (which is a handy feature for when the server and registrant are not located near each other) or switch to either a satellite view or a hybrid combining satellite and street views.

The add-on throws in a Submit as Phishing Site button, but when you click this, you see a pop-up window saying only "Submission Successful--Thank You." I couldn't find any information on the vendor's site about what happens to these submissions. I also noticed on the download page that the add-on appears not to work with the most recent versions of Firefox 3, though it worked OK for me.

Shazou can't match the CallingID toolbar's ability to show the domain registrant's location at a glance, nor do users get a color-coded indication of the site's security rating. What users do get is a series of Google ads at the bottom of the map, but the ads are unobtrusive.

Still, I like being able to find the location of the sites with which I do business. I also have a soft spot for maps, so Shazou's combination of the two works well enough for me, at least until CallingID starts working again.

You could create every document, spreadsheet, and presentation you work on from scratch, but if you're like me, you'll likely spend more time futzing with the file's layout and design than entering the data that comprises it.

That's why I rely on the many free templates and extensions for my favorite productivity apps. I've written in the past about places to find add-ons for Microsoft Office, but there's also a wealth of free extensions and templates for OpenOffice.org's Writer word processor, Calc spreadsheet, and Impress presentation program.

Start at OpenOffice.org's Extensions page. Click one of the options at the top left to list the extensions by application, category, popularity, or other criterion.

One extension that workgroups may find helpful is O3Spaces Workplace Community Edition, which offers version control, check in/check out, and other collaboration features for OpenOffice.org and StarOffice apps. The add-on combines an AJAX Web client with a desktop component that you can access via a system-tray icon. It even works in mixed Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org/StarOffice environments.

I'm less impressed with OpenOffice.org's templates for Writer, Calc, and Impress. Still, I have to admit that they're better layouts than I would be able to devise on my own. One compilation of OpenOffice.org templates that business people will likely find indispensable is Sun Microsystems' own Professional Template Pack, which provides an abundance of templates for business letters, presentation backgrounds, and worksheets.

Preview your templates in OpenOffice.org apps
Before you can select the right template for your needs, you need to be able to see it. Previewing templates in OpenOffice.org apps isn't as easy as you might think. If you click File > Templates > Organize, you see the templates installed on your system and can place them in new or different folders, but you can't see what they look like.

You can view some of the templates via the applications' wizards: click File > Wizards, and choose one of the top five categories. When the wizard opens, choose From template and select one of the templates listed in the window below the radio buttons.

Another way to get a glimpse of your templates is to click File > New > Templates and Documents. With Templates selected in the left pane (it should be highlighted automatically), double-click a folder in the middle pane to view the templates in that category. Select one to preview it in the right pane. When you find one you like, click Open and start entering your data.

A wonderful resource for OpenOffice.org templates, tips, and tutorials is Kaaredyret's all-purpose site.

Monday: customize Windows' context (right-click) menu.

I started e-mailing files to myself as a form of ad-hoc backup soon after I signed up for a Gmail account. I'm not affected by Gmail's 20MB limit on the size of individual attachments, and I'm nowhere near my storage cap of 6.6GB.

I decided to formalize the process a bit by using the Gspace extension for the Firefox browser. The add-on lets you send files from your local PC to a virtual Gmail folder and view them much like you would in Windows Explorer.

After you install the Gspace applet and restart Firefox, you find a Gspace shortcut on the browser's Tools menu. Click it to open a file-transfer "program" in a new tab. The top-left window shows your local folders and files. In the top-right window are the files in your Gspace virtual folder. Below these are two smaller panes displaying the progress of the current file transfer, and properties of the selected file (including a thumbnail of images).

Gspace's other three "modes" let you play audio files (though I couldn't get this feature to work), view image files, and download--but not upload--files to your Gmail Drive. The File Transfer windows is where you're likely to spend most of your time, however.

When you return to your Gmail inbox, you'll find one message for each file you transferred, with the file itself attached. You can unclutter your inbox by archiving the files. Create a Gmail filter using your e-mail address in the From and To fields, and "$d" in the subject field. Choose the "Skip the inbox (archive it)" option in the filter wizard.

Gspace works only with files you send via the service, not with files attached to e-mails sent to your Gmail account from anywhere else. One way to retrieve Gmail file attachments in bulk is by using the service's own search identifiers "has:attachment" and "filename:doc" (or any other file extension). You have to open the individual messages to view any information about the attachment, however.

Browser helpers such as Gspace make it easy to store your files online, but with a little bit more effort, you can get automatic encryption, scheduled backups of select folders, and 2GB of free storage with services such as IDrive, which I wrote about last month.

Monday: troubleshoot notebook-hibernation problems.

Browsers just naturally seem to slow down over time. Maybe it's because the add-ons start to accumulate, or because you forget to clear their cache and perform other standard maintenance via Windows Disk Cleanup app. But there are also some simple settings changes you can make to keep Internet Explorer and Firefox running at top speed.

Increase the number of simultaneous connections in Internet Explorer: This tip has been around for a while, but if you haven't implemented it yet, you can see a real boost to your browsing speed. It entails a Registry edit, so create a restore point before you begin, just in case. With your Registry backup in place, click Start > Run in XP, or press the Windows key in Vista, type regedit, and press Enter. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings, right-click in the right pane, and choose New > DWORD Value. Name the value MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server, double-click it, give it a value of 10, click Decimal, and then OK. Now create another new DWORD Value, name it MaxConnectionsPerServer, double-click it, give it a value of 10, choose Decimal, click OK again, and close the Registry Editor.

Browse without the add-ons: They're great tools for enhancing your Internet experience, but they can also bog things down tremendously, especially when they start to conflict with your browser or each other. To disable add-ons individually in IE, click Tools > Internet Options > Programs > Manage add-ons, select those you don't need one at a time, and choose Disable. When you're done, click OK twice.

You can also go the extreme route of removing them all at once by resetting IE to its defaults: Click Tools > Internet Options > Advanced > Reset. Keep in mind that this should be your last resort when IE has become too unstable to use.

To disable add-ons in Mozilla Firefox, click Tools > Add-ons > Extensions, select the one you want to disable, and choose Disable.

Open Firefox faster: Right-click the Firefox icon and choose Properties. In the Target field, add a space and /Prefetch:1 after "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe", and click OK.

Tweak Firefox's about:config settings: Type about:config in the address bar, and press Enter. Set each of these entries to "true" (double-click to change it):
network.http.pipelining
network.http.proxy.pipelining
Now set this entry to "8":
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests
Finally, right-click in the right pane, select New > Integer, enter nglayout.initialpaint.delay as the preference, and type 0 as the value. This sets Firefox to render pages immediately.

Monday: get the most out of Office's security features.