The Extend Mode in Microsoft Word is an artefact of the early computing era before the mouse was invented (and the natural evolution of that gunky stuff that builds up on your mouse's bottom ). Few computer users make use of this feature today because...

What is that stuff that keeps building up on my mouse's bottom? No matter how many times I clean it off and scrub the surrounding desk area it keeps coming back. I don't use a mouse mat because the Health & Safety Police told me it's better to use...

That is, without doubt, the most boring and uninspiring title that I've ever come up with for a blog entry. Sorry. I just couldn't think of a better way of describing this fairly ordinary, but still rather useful, tip. As you may know, when inviting...

Earlier this week I blogged about Outlook 2007's new 'Send a Calendar via Email' feature. An even more powerful calendar feature allows you to Publish your Calendar to the Microsoft Office Online Beta* service. After you first use this feature Outlook...

I enjoy following Matthew Stibbe 's blog at badlanguage.net . Matthew used to run a computer gaming company and now flies planes. He's also a writer. His freelance writing company handles assignments from several big companies including Microsoft. It...

I'm busy testing the latest dogfood version of the new 2007 Microsoft Office system. As I journey ever deeper into the new applications in the system I'm uncovering some really neat features. One of my favourites is Outlook 2007's new Send a Calendar...

If, like me, you regularly find yourself on your hind legs in front of an audience wondering how to make the next 30 minutes a pleasurable experience, check out this outstanding example of public speaking from the very brilliant Sir Ken Robinson . And...

The default calendar view in the Microsoft Outlook shows the day broken up into 30 minute chunks. This make is really easy to add appointments of 30, 60, 90 etc minutes duration but don't feel constrained by this convention. For example, it's good practice...

Jonny_Day has posted a great follow-up comment to my Best Tip Ever posting in which he suggests a neat way to use Search Folders in conjunction with the Conversation View. Check it out here . That's one of the things I love about Microsoft Outlook...

Education Corner: Today's word is AUTOSCHEDIASTIC. This is an adjective used to describe something that is done on the spur of the moment or improvised. Much like this blog entry.

If you travel a lot or work internationally it's very easily to tie your brain up in knots trying to make sense of different time zones. Outlook has a useful feature that allows you to show two different time zones on your calendar so you always know...

Well, not quite. But I did just stumble completely by chance on a website that tells me that today is the last day of Microsoft support for Windows 98 and (everybody's favourite) Windows Me. Windows XP SP1 will also no longer be supported after today...

If you've ever had the "pleasure" of working for an international company the size of Microsoft, this short film parody will almost certainly raise a wry, if somewhat vexatious, smile. Enjoy!

There are some things in life that we all wish would just be that little bit bigger. Now, I can't help you in every department but I know I can satisfy your text enlargement requirements with this natty little Microsoft Word keyboard shortcut. So, make...

Every so often a tip comes along that you really want to memorise. And The Beatles would have called this tip the 'Get Back To Where You Once Belonged" Tip. While editing a document in Microsoft Word (or while composing an email using Word as your...

Want to know if your PC is up to the job of running Windows Vista? Or should you start saving your spare change to ensure you have enough pennies to buy a new PC when Vista reaches general availability early next year? Head to this website where you...

I received a lot of communication since my last blog posting in which I explained how the Skype client can start behaving as a supernode and using your bandwidth to facilitate communications between other Skype users. Several people thanked me for bringing...

I've used Skype. And I like it. It has a really simple user interface and does what it promises very well. The call quality is generally great, but I've now uninstalled it from all my PCs preferring instead to use the new Windows Live Messenger client...

In this, my final posting as Exchange/Outlook Product Manager for the UK, I would like to share with you the most powerful productivity tool in Outlook: the delete key . I'll also share a simple workflow you can use right away to help maintain an empty...

I'm moving to a new role at Microsoft on Monday. Which, of course, means new things to learn, new tasks to work on and new people to get to know. Because I'll no longer need to email many of my existing contacts, now is a great time to spring clean...

If you routinely send similar emails to the same people (like a sales report every morning) you can speed up the process by adding a button to one of your toolbars that creates a new email message and pre-populates the address field and subject line....

Useful Technology news for Microsoft Office users who create documents that they share with others. Microsoft and Creative Commons have just released a new feature for Microsoft Office that makes it really easy to add a Creative Commons copyright notice...

Windows Live Messenger, the brilliant successor to MSN Messenger, is now available for download. This great new product came out of Beta just yesterday and we've already notched up more than 2 million downloads in just 36 hours! There are loads of unique...

My Outlook 2007 RSS Feed brings me news today that the Crabby Office Lady is on her soapbox again with some more email etiquette techniques. And quite right too. As my regular reader knows, I too am a big fan of being nice to people, whether that's face...

While Outlook 2007 will provide some fantastic new features that enable you to view RSS feeds directly inside Outlook, Outlook 2003 provides no such capability without an additional add-on like the free RSS Popper . Another source of great information...