More on How I Work (and Lookout's now available!)

Tristan K

22 Jul 2004 8:48 PM

Comments 8

[Updated 23/07/04 with public Lookout download]

A couple of people internally and externally asked about a couple of aspects of the array of software I use to do my job, so I thought I'd expand on it.

As a Support Professional, my key tasks involve information retrieval, evaluation and dissemination. I have an array of software configured to help me work more effectively, and I thought I'd share that here.

Outlook 2003
I live and breathe email. I have a reasonably straightforward but large ruleset to help me manage the email away into categorized PST files and folders.

The email that's most important to me gets flagged for follow-up and moved to my Case Email folder, with accompanying loud sound effects.

+ an Outlook-based RSS Aggregator
I like reading information in Outlook, and find that Outlook-based aggregators are best for reading blogs, as I'm not constantly app-switching.
I use one I wrote to get the hang of Outlook add-in programming and XML (I never did really get the hang of it, but it's just good enough that I can live with it. Just.) Others use Newsgator.

I use Outlook 2003's Search Folders feature with a list of keywords ("Microsoft", "Windows", "Intel", "AMD", "C#", "Doom", "exploit" and so on) to keep track of interesting things that come in via RSS feeds (which are dumped into subfolders of News and Blogs folders, making it easier to target the Search Folders), and the “RSS Interesting Topics” Search Folder is in my Outlook Favourite Mail Folders area at the top of the mail pane.

I also have an RSS Unread Topics Search Folder that allows me to skim for any new posts that don't fit the predefined category.

Autoarchive is configured to clear out all the RSS-driven folders every 6 months.

+ an Insta-Search Mod (Lookout)
Lookout (MSN Sandbox/free 1.2 beta linked). Being able to search all my email instantly makes me more likely to search it (and to hoard it), which means that I can find things I've already seen but only have a vague memory of, much faster, or even pseudo-ignore them: I know I can find them later if I need to.
(a long-time colleague uses a slightly different technique - he won't read an email unless there's a discussion about it first, which seems to be a highly effective filtering technique).
If you don't already have some type of instantaneous search for Outlook, I highly recommend this.

Internet Explorer
(Of course.) I've played around with Avant Browser on and off, but since a recent update seems to have effectively broken intranet use (type in an address with no dots in it and it tries to search for it), I've been toying with Firefox a bit - tabbed browsing appeals to me, and they have some other cool features too
(if anyone has a suggestion for an alternative tabbed browser that uses the IE engine, I'm interested). [Update] I'm currently playing with Maxthon.

OneNote
I talked about this last time - this is now my secondary holding area for just about any information I think might be useful at some point, and scratch notes, etc.

LOB Apps
From my perspective, almost universally terrible, so I won't go into them.

Extra Bits Of A Personal Nature

Comments

Miguel Garrido

22 Jul 2004 9:17 PM

Maxthon (MyIE2) is a very good tabbed browser that uses the IE (and even Gecko) browsing engine. It seems to be the only browser I've gone back to after trying different ones. You can find it at www.maxthon.com
TristanK

22 Jul 2004 9:20 PM

Thanks for the tip - I'll give it a try and see how it goes. I also dug up SlimBrowser while noodling about, so I have some research to do at home tonight!
TristanK

22 Jul 2004 9:32 PM

OK, having played a little with Slimbrowser so far, I have to ask:
What is it with you tabbed browser author people? Do that few people use intranet websites that they don't mind the address bar doing a "search" operation? (I mean, if it doesn't actually connect, fair enough, search away, but if there's a site called hostname, and I type "hostname" into the address bar, I really just want to go there!). (I found out where to turn this off in the options (couldn't find such an option for AB), but *really*!).
Slimbrowser's pretty nice so far. I'll try Maxthon later!
TristanK

23 Jul 2004 1:14 AM

Maxthon looks pretty good, but it doesn't seem as polished as Avant or Slim Browser.

For the time being, I'll keep working with Slim.
Laurent Kempé

23 Jul 2004 2:26 AM

I was using MyIE2 but I have to say that I changed now to FireFox with some pluggins to be able to work like under MyIE2. Would it be possible to get an access to your blog tool integrated in Outlook 2003, would be really great. Thanks.
Brad C.

23 Jul 2004 2:58 AM

I'll second the vote for MyIE2/Maxthon. I started using it about a year ago after trying a few other IE alternatives and it's still my browser of choice. It has terrible defaults, but if you can turn off enough of the toolbars and adjust the options, it's pretty much IE + tabs.

Too many rendering issues keep me from moving to Firefox.
jayson knight

23 Jul 2004 3:28 AM

what, you don't like clarify? :-)
TristanK

23 Jul 2004 2:25 PM

Laurent, I'm basically embarrassed by the sheer lack of quality of my Rss Add-in for Outlook - I'm also not sure what the legalities are of releasing it - so I'll have to say no for the time being.

A rewrite is on the cards at some stage.

Blog du Tristank

More on How I Work (and Lookout's now available!)

More on How I Work (and Lookout's now available!)