If you've ever upgraded Outlook, tried to keep your contacts and calendar when migrating to a new computer, or plugged a PDA into your PC, odds are you've got a few duplicate items in Outlook. Outlook Duplicate Items Remover can help you find and remove those duplicates.
ODIR is a free Windows utility that integrates itself with Outlook. Once installed, you should notice a new ODIR menu in Outlook. When you click Remove Duplicate items, you can choose any Outlook folder to scan. ODIR can handle contacts, calendar items, tasks, notes, or emails.
The utility scans contacts to find identical first and last names, email addresses and company names. If you've got two items that are similar, but not identical, ODIR may still try to move one to a new folder. Becuase the program isolates your duplicates instead of deleting them, you can always go into the new folder and move them back.
Xobni is one of those services that you kind of have to see to understand its value, which is why we've included the promotional video above. But in a nutshell, it's a Microsoft Outlook add-on that gives you detailed information about the people you email most often and help you organize your communications.
The program adds a sidebar to Outlook and creates a profile for people you communicate with by pulling information from your email messages even if you haven't created a contact profile in Outlook. Here are a few of the things Xobni can show you:
The phone numbers of people you email are automatically extracted from messages
You can see a graph of the times of day when a contact typically emails you, so you will know if they're less likely to respond to a message after business hours
Xobni automatically displays all attachments a contact has sent you
See statistics about your contacts, easily find the people you email the most often, and identify contacts you've lost touch with
Xobni has been available as a private beta for a few months now, but this morning the company took down the private sign and opened the beta up to everyone who wants to download and install the utility. Well, everyone who uses Windows and Outlook anyway.
While the ability to send SMS is built directly into Microsoft Office 2007, users are always on the lookout for an affordable way to use the service.
SMSOfficer is one of the SMS services that has answered the call. SMSOfficer allows you to easily send SMS to any mobile phone using Microsoft Outlook 2007. No installation is required, which is an instant plus in these dark times of worm-infested installers.
First, you need to register for your free SMSOfficer account. They'll send you a text message (natch) with a password, and a link to introduce the service to Microsoft Outlook. That's all for the setup.
Sending messages is a no-brainer. In Outlook, go to File-New-Text Message, type in your contact, type in your message, and hit send. Easy like Sunday morning.
10 free messages are yours when you sign up. After that, you have to pay to play. And while we like the service, we don't necessarily like the cost (if you've been reading Download Squad for a while, you'll know that we like free best of all).
So we'll ask you, constant reader: are there any similar services that offer this type of Outlook integration that are less expensive, or free?
Looking for another alternative to Microsoft Outlook? While Mozilla Thunderbird offers many of the same features as Microsoft's email client, you need to install plugins to add calendar and task management features. eM Client, on the other hand, comes equipped with a full featured email client and contact, task, and calendar managers.
eM Client is a Windows only application that has been in development since 2006. Version 1.1 beta of eM Client already offers a pretty robust Outlook clone, with support for IMAP and POP email and CalDAV calendars. While it's not exactly an Outlook killer yet, eM Client's developers are working on a few killer features:
Google Calendar and Contacts Sync
ActiveSync support
Universal translation tool
Facebook integration
IM integration
Anti-virus integration
eM Client also has a highly customizable interface, which is always nice.
If you've ever been through the hassle of moving an Outlook account to a new computer, or restoring an Outlook account that had been deleted or corrupted, then you need to take a long look at OutlookBackupPro.
OutlookBackupPro will backup everything associated with your email account, including signature files, customized stationary, templates, OutNote notes, and all registry entries and system settings associated with Outlook. It will also backup your Outlook PST files. For those among us that can't even remember our wedding anniversary, the program also offers set-and-forget automated backups.
Once the files are backed up, OutlookBackupPro can upload your files to any FTP server for safekeeping. Restoration is as simple as a mouse click.
OutlookBackupPro also allows you to backup any files or folders along with your Outlook backup, so you can back up whatever you want without leaving the program interface.
OutlookBackupPro is available as a 14 day demo, and costs $39.99 to register. OutlookBackupPro works with Outlook 2003 or 2007, and requires 2000, XP, or Vista.
Google today released a piece of software that may just be the holy grail of calendar synchronization. Well, if you use Windows and Outlook, anyway. Google Calendar Sync is a utility that automatically synchronizes your Outlook and Google Calendar appointments.
You can configure Google Calendar Sync for 2 way sync, meaning that any time you update either calendar, the changes will be copied to the other. Or you can choose a 1-way sync which will only copy changes made from one calendar to the other and not vice versa.
What's really exciting about Google Calendar Sync is it gives you a way to synchronize your calendar across multiple devices easily. Just install Google Calendar Sync on multiple computers and now when you update your laptop calendar it will automatically sync with Google Calendar, which will automatically sync with your desktop PC, which will sync with your Windows Mobile PDA. Pretty cool, huh?
Google Calendar Sync is hardly the first tool for synchronizing Outlook and Google Calendar, but it's free and it performs automatic synchronization at regularly scheduled interviews while most other programs cost money and/or require you to activate them manually.
Now if Google would just release a version that works with Thunderbird (with the Lightning extension) and iCal.
Have you got an iPhone and a Gmail account? If so, you're probably using IMAP, and you may not even realize it. What's IMAP? It's an email protocol that has been around for many years, but is not nearly as well known as its counterpart, POP.
First, the definitions:
POP, or POP3: Post Office Protocol 3, the most commonly used email protocol for retrieving remote email to a local client over a TCP/IP connection.
IMAP, or IMAP4: Internet Message Access Protocol, an email protocol for accessing email on a remote server using a local client over a TCP/IP connection.
While the two definitions seem very similar, take note of the difference. POP is used for retrieving email to the local client, whereas IMAP is used to access email located on a remote server.
When you use POP, your email comes in to you local client, and typically the remote version is purged. There is no concept of multiple clients having identical synchronized versions of your inbox and email folders.
When you use IMAP, your email actually lives on a remote server, and is not purged. You can access it with a local client, which downloads a copy of your messages, and synchronizes the contents of your local mail store to that of the server's. Changes that you make locally are reflected on the server, and if you wanted to you could connect with another device or email client that is capable of IMAP, and you will see exactly the same thing - all of your messages in your inbox and other folders will reflect exactly what is on the server.
Sounds pretty great, right? Well, yes. Most of us probably have some hardcore geek friend that has been extolling the virtues of IMAP for years, only to have it fall on deaf ears. Most of us have either never had the need for such synchronization, or have not had an IMAP capable mail provider.
It's late Friday afternoon, and the FedEx driver is due any moment for the last pickup before the weekend. Suddenly, without warning, an urgent email pops into your Microsoft Outlook inbox. A customer needs three widgets, and they need them yesterday.
But you don't even flinch. You click the "ship" button on your FedEx QuickShip toolbar, choose the customer's name from your Outlook address book, and create the shipment. Disaster averted. World saved.
Or something like that.
The FedEx QuickShip toolbar is a free toolbar that integrates into your Outlook 2003 or 2007 inbox. The belief is that the integration of these two entities will lead to saved time and increased productivity. To be fair, you can do plenty with the FedEx QuickShip toolbar: create and track U.S. shipments, get rates, schedule pickups, and find the nearest staffed FedEx location – all without leaving your Office Outlook application. And that's a plus.
However, we think the "integration" between FedEx and Outlook isn't nearly integrated enough. It seems that the only integration is a new toolbar and the ability to ship to any address in your Outlook address book. Otherwise, the act like they don't know each other. Want to track a package in your Outlook inbox? You'll need to copy the tracking number, choose track from your toolbar, and paste it into the tracking field. Of course this might save a little time...but how is this much different than pasting that same number into a web browser?
For you who use Outlook and FedEx as your main weapons, this should be a boon. For all others...we'd wait for a more integrated solution.
You'll need Outlook 2003 or 2007 and a FedEx shipping account.
Is your email inbox overflowing with thousands of messages, or is it virtually empty, with only the few messages that have come in since the last time you checked it? It seems like a simple personal preference, but the answer to the question of whether you are an email "filer" or "piler" says a lot more about you than you might think it does.
While nobody can see into your inbox, the fact is that if you simply leave everything there and let it get pushed down by new messages that are coming in, you're almost certainly not giving enough thought to the things that hit your inbox. For pilers, the only clue as to whether an email has been dealt with is whether it is marked as read or unread. But all too often we read emails when we are not currently in a position to do anything about them. Even if we're careful about going back and marking messages as unread, they still get pushed down, out of sight, out of mind.
Right now, many of you with overflowing inboxes are probably screaming at your screen. How can we be so bold as to assume that we know if you're on top of your email or not based on this simple criteria? And plus, just last week we were writing about the virtues of Gmail. Gmail! You know, the email client made by that internet search juggernaut, Google! Surely if you need to find an email, it's only a search away. So why bother filing things at all?
Okay, we hear you, and understand your position. But there's really no gentle way to say this, so we're just going to come out and say it.
You're wrong.
Okay, there, we've said it. Everyone take a deep breath! Now let's look at how we can take such a controversial position in complete and utter knowledge that we are right, with not even the remotest possibility that we could be wrong. Alright then.
Yes, you read the title line correctly. Outsync is a small, simple application that imports photos, and only photos, of your contacts from your Facebook account into Outlook.
With Outsync, you can easily replace old photos in your Outlook contacts list with shiny new pictures from Facebook, or add pictures to those contacts who previously had no image. Those shiny new pictures are then synced to your Windows Mobile device via Exchange server or ActiveSync, and displayed every time you make a call (or anytime your contacts are used).
The download is tiny, and setup is flawless. Of course it would be nice if Outsync would copy information such as email addresses or phone numbers, but apparently that kind of activity might get you banned from Facebook. Though some would use Outsync for good, others would use it for evil: i.e., downloading everyone's email address in order to bury them under a spam avalanche.
OutSync is compatible with Windows XP, Vista and Server 2003, and requires Outlook 2003 or 2007.
Continuing their unmatched success in offering products with gargantuan, hard-to-remember names, Microsoft today announced that they will sell Microsoft Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager as a stand-alone offering. This is good news for people who want Outlook but don't need Microsoft's other office solutions.
Microsoft Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager combines all the functionality of Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 with the extended benefits of a contact management application. This combined application also shares the same customer database as Office Accounting 2008, so that changes to customer information in one application are automatically reflected in the other.
If any of you survived that last paragraph, we offer you a picture to help your understanding: think of the various, multi-colored spacecraft coming together to form the behemoth Voltron. Now you've got the right idea.
Microsoft Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager will be offered at a stand-alone price of $149.95.
This post's subtitle could be "Why Gmail rocks". If you're already a Gmail user, you probably already understand Gmail's unique way of grouping messages from the same conversation together and presenting them in one unified view. If that's the case, this article is probably not of much interest to you. But if you've never tried Gmail, and have never understood why your friends keep saying it's the best thing since sliced bread, hopefully we can help you out (and provide some alternatives if Gmail is not an option for you).
Grouping threads
Virtually all email clients have a view that presents a list of messages. The traditional way to handle this (and the way virtually all email clients and webmail interfaces do it) is to treat each individual message separately. The onus is on the user to keep various conversations (threads, in email parlance) straight in their head. This works fine when you receive only 20 or 30 emails in a day, but when you get up above 60 or 70, this model starts to fall apart. It completely fails when you get up into hundreds of messages per day or more.
The unique feature that Gmail brings to the table is the ability to intelligently group messages from a common email thread together, so that in your list of messages you will only see one entry per thread. Right off the bat this will take an inbox with 70 actual messages in it, and make it appear as if there are only 20 or 30, since you're only seeing one row per thread.
While more and more people (including most of the staff at DLS) are starting to keep all of their e-mail online, using services like GMail, Windows Live Mail or an Exchange hosted account, there are still plenty of people who prefer using an offline mail client.
While the advantage of storing mail locally is that you can access messages at any time -- whether you are connected to the Internet or not -- that also means that, well, all your mail is on your hard drive. Depending on how much e-mail you get, that can add up to quite a bit of space.
Boing Boing posted a great reminder/tip for all Thunderbird users, make sure you run File --> Compact Folders from time to time. You might not save 20 GB like Cory Doctorow, but you can still claim some space.
Outlook 2007 users can save space/clean up their e-mail boxes by selecting Tools --> Mailbox Cleanup. From there you can choose to archive old messages, empty deleted items folders, find messages of a certain age/size and delete duplicate or alternative versions of messages.
When was the last time you cleaned-up your mail program? If you can't remember, now might be a good time to archive old messages and clear out those deleted items.
If you were born before 1980, odds are you've used the Eudora email client at one point or another. While Outlook, Thunderbird, and online email services like Gmail and Yahoo! Mail get all the attention these days, once upon a time Eudora was the bomb.
Well, digg up the parachute pants, because Eudora is back, this time as a Mozilla project. The new Eudora is based on the open-source Thunderbird email client, but has the familiar look and feel of Eudora.
Eudora 8.0.0 beta includes Eudora's toolbar icons, keyboard shortcuts, and menu structure, among other things.
You can easily import mailboxes and messages from Eudora or from Thunderbird. There's also an option to import filters from Eudora, although this won't work with every filter as Thunderbird doesn't use the same structure as Eudora.
In blatant disregard of password security, the governor's office of Nevada uses a surprisingly predictable Outlook login and password. How do we know? Because the information was posted in a Word document available for download from the state website.
Apparently the document was intended for gubernatorial aides responsible for sending out emails from the governor's office. The document has since been removed from the website.
The password, "kennyc" appears to be a reference to former governor Kenny C. Guinn, showing both that the governor's office lacks creativity and that the password may not have been updated in some time. The current governor is Jim A. Gibbons. Now that the snafu has been uncovered it's almost certainly the case that the password has been updated, although it's not clear wither the new password is more secure than "JimA."
This post's subtitle could be "Why 
