The UsefulTechnology Blog : General IT Tips

The End: this blog leaps over to Windows Live Spaces

Allister_Frost — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 11:00:00 GMT

I've decided to move my blog to a new home on Windows Live Spaces. I hope you'll move with me.

My new blog URL is http://usefultechnologyblog.spaces.live.com/.

To subscribe to the new RSS feed, simply click this link: http://usefultechnologyblog.spaces.live.com/feed.rss.

Thanks for being with me on TechNet. See you on the other side.

UsefulGuides: Finding that well-loved feature in Microsoft Office 2007

Allister_Frost — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 16:01:00 GMT

There's no question about it, there's a bit of a learning curve before you get familiar with the new ribbon menu layout in the 2007 Microsoft Office system. And the learning curve will be steeper the more familiar you are with previous versions. If you count yourself as an advanced user, expect to find yourself gazing haphazardly around the screen from time to time trying to find that well-loved command that you used to be able to locate with nothing more than half a dozen mouse-clicks and three keystrokes. Chances are the feature you're looking for will be staring you in the face. So, for those times when you can't see the wood for the trees, there are some excellent online 'Command Reference Guides' that show you exactly where to locate your old friends. Keep these following links handy - you may well need them.

Online Command Reference Guides

Windows Media Player 11 - final release at last

Allister_Frost — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 10:09:00 GMT

Way back in May we released the Beta of Windows Media Player 11. Finally, after exhaustive testing and refinement, we released the final build earlier this week. You can download it now, for free, from here. If you're running Windows XP and have ears, this is a must-have application.

My Blogcasts on Soapbox

Allister_Frost — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 14:36:00 GMT

I've been playing with the new Soapbox on MSN Video service. It's pretty cool. I never really got into YouTube but I can see how useful it will be to be able to restrict access to my videos on Soapbox based on my existing Windows Live Messenger contact lists. I've uploaded 5 of my Outlook 2003 blogcasts as a test. You can find them by searching on Soapbox for "UsefulTechnology". Or by clicking any of the links that follow:

I've also embedded a player for the first blogcast below to make life easy. Let me know what you think.

Video: Outlook 2003 General Tips

Securing that wireless network

Allister_Frost — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 13:30:00 GMT

I stumbled across this helpful article from Connected Home that explains how to secure a wireless network: http://www.connectedhomemag.com/HomeControls/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=49176. The most important thing here is to enable WPA (or WPA2 if you have new hardware). Without this sort of encryption your network will remain as wide open as a crocodile at the dentist.

The Joy of Finding Big Things (in Outlook 2007)

Allister_Frost — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 22:42:00 GMT

My former boss, Bruce Lynn, asked me this weekend how he could locate all the large (>200kb) entries in his Outlook calendar so he could delete them to free up some space in his mailstore. He couldn't figure out how to do this but knew it must be easy. If you find your mailstore is running short on space it's well worth doing this every once in a while, even if just to delete any large attachments that are no longer needed inside historical calendar appointments.

To do this in Outlook 2003 you need to customise your calendar view as follows:

In your calendar, VIEW > CURRENT VIEW > ALL APPOINTMENTS
Right click on the column header row (where you see Subject, Location etc...) and choose Customize current view
Now add a filter where size is greater than 200 (under the more choices tab)
Optional: Add another filter if you want to see only appointments in the past (Advanced tab > End / on or before / today)
Click OK
Now delete what you don’t want
To return to your normal view choose VIEW > CURRENT VIEW > DAY/WEEK/MONTH

It's wonderfully simple in Outlook 2007 though:

In your calendar, type size:>200000 in the quick search box
Delete what you don’t want

Just one example of the power of the new search capabilities in the 2007 Office system. And, of course, this works in all views (mail, tasks, calendar etc) and is a beautifully simple way to cleanse your mailbox of unwanted big stuff.

Windows Live Insider Club

Allister_Frost — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 16:52:00 GMT

Confused by all this new Windows Live stuff? Yeah, me too. There's a lot of new gadgetry to get our heads around. I discovered an interesting new site at www.insiderclub.co.uk that aims to shed some light on the matter. Those talking bodies are a bit freaky - anyone who says '"click me" is just plain weird. But it's fairly useful to have so much Live stuff explained on one page. Take a peek inside.

Internet Explorer 7 is launched

Allister_Frost — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 11:40:00 GMT

The world's most popular browser just got better. Internet Explorer 7 was released just hours ago. You can get it from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.mspx.

Windows Vista Tipfest

Allister_Frost — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 13:39:00 GMT

Ah, I love the smell of a tip in the morning!

I'm in New York for Digital Life and to meet up with some of my colleagues from around the world. It's Friday 13th, I'm jetlagged and I've just run out of coffee. But all is well because I've just discovered a useful tips & tricks site for Windows Vista at http://www.windowsvistatnt.com/. Take a look and bookmark the site as there will be plenty more content hitting this site soon.

Is it any good? If you've used Windows Vista to any depth then it's pretty basic stuff. But if you're a trainer or you need to explain what Windows Vista is to colleagues then there's some helpful stuff in there.

Add some hyperlink action to your emails

Allister_Frost — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 02:14:00 GMT

Bloggers know how important it is to include relevant hyperlinks in their posts ;-)

They can come in pretty handy in emails too. Instead of pasting a lengthy and ugly URL into an email you can add a hyperlink to any part of your email text.

So, instead of this:

The UsefulTechnology blog (http://blogs.technet.com/UsefulTechnology/) is really quite useful.

...you can do this:

The UsefulTechnology blog is really quite useful.

Much neater. And it's fast too. Especially if you know the magic keyboard shortcut: CTRL+K. Just highlight your text (or place your cursor anywhere on a word you'd like to turn into a hyperlink) and press CTRL+K. Type your URL in the Address field, then press OK. Easy as pie.

Screen capture the easy way

Allister_Frost — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 20:17:00 GMT

I'm often asked what tools I use to make screengrabs to include in my blog. I used to use the Snipping Tool which is part of the Tablet PC Experience Pack for Windows XP. So you can imagine my disappointment when, after upgrading to Windows Vista, I discovered that the Experience Pack would not install.

Thankfully the answer (as is often the case) lay in the Search bar under the new Start menu. Simply typing 'snip' showed me that there's a snipping tool built right into Windows Vista allowing me to take and mess around with screengrabs to my heart's content!

Windows Live OneCare beta - free to 18 countries

Allister_Frost — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 16:26:00 GMT

Hurrah! At last, Windows Live OneCare 1.5 is now available for free download in 18 countries around the globe. Despite having a dangerous name for anyone with lazy pronunciation, OneCare is finally out of the blocks on its journey towards global availability.

What is it? "All-in-one PC care for people who have other things to think about" according to the site. And it is. I've been testing this on various computers for some time and have been very impressed to date. Give it a whirl from this site.

Get Safe Online (and Secure that Wireless Network)

Allister_Frost — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 17:28:00 GMT

So here I am blogging from inside Windows Vista RC1. And I've never felt safer. Which is handy because I've been working closely with the team at Get Safe Online over recent months and next week is officially Get Safe Online Week in the UK. I'll be in Nottingham on Tuesday helping out on the roadshow alongside some of my Microsoft colleagues. Stop by at the Get Safe Online Safety Zone in the Central Square in Victoria Shopping Centre to say hello. Some of the GSOL team are also posting to a new blog that you might want to check out.

Here's a really simple but effective safety tip for those of you with a wireless network at home. Your router's name is determined by its SSID (Service Set Identifier) which many people leave as the default. That's why people who travel around seem to find so many networks called things like Netgear, SMC and Belkin. Make a wired connection to your router and enter your router's IP address in your browser address bar (it's normally printed on the router and is often http://192.168.2.1/) to access your router's control panel. Change the SSID to something a little more useful (like DownstairsToiletNetwork). Now hide the SSID from broadcast. This will mean that other people won't be able to find your network unless they know what it's called. The downside, of course, is that you'll have to type in the network's SSID when configuring new devices onto the network. But this is a small price to pay for the extra security.

Stay safe online!

Append a post to an email in Outlook

Allister_Frost — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 14:19:00 GMT

Sometimes even the most disciplined time management gurus cannot cope with sheer volume of emails flooding into their Outlook Inbox. And while it's good practice to keep your Inbox as empty as possible (converting all those 'things to do' into tasks) there are some smaller jobs that are best left in the Inbox until they are completed.

To make this easier, there's a very simple way to append a post to any items in your Inbox. Simply make sure your Inbox is Arranged By Conversation, click on the email to which you wish to append a post and press CTRL+T. Outlook will create a new post containing the body copy and conversation header of your chosen email, to which you can add any notes about the outstanding things you must do relating to this email. And because your Inbox is arranged by conversation, your new post is effectively glued to its related email. Simple, eh?

Achieving your career goals with Outlook

Allister_Frost — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 11:00:00 GMT

Here at Microsoft, all full time employees have to sign up to personal commitments for their job. At the end of each financial year these are reviewed in a Performance Review on which all sorts of things depend including bonuses and promotion prospects. Some companies have similar schemes called MBOs (Management By Objectives), Personal Goals or simply Job Descriptions which outline what a specific job entails.

I've just completed writing up my personal commitments, and a mighty scary list it is too. The trouble with commitments is that they're easy to make and much harder to fulfil. So I was wondering how I could use Outlook to help me stay on top of my commitments and continually remind me of the things I should be doing to succeed in my job. Here's a tip I shared with some colleagues last week. I've had so much positive feedback that I thought I'd also share it here:

By now, most people should have their FY07 Personal Commitments in place. So here’s a quick Outlook tip to help you achieve them and allocate time to the things that are most important to you and your job.

TIP: Use the improved colour categories feature in Outlook 2007 to create a category for each item in your Commitment Execution Plan against which you will dedicate time. For instance if, like me, you have committed to spending more time with customer/partners, create a category called something like ‘Externally Facing’. Here’s how:

1.     To On the toolbar, click Categorize .

2.     Click All Categories.

3.     In the Name list, click the name of a colour category, and then click Rename.

4.     In the Name list, type the new name for the colour category, e.g. Externally Facing.

Now when you book time in your calendar for an activity like this, just categorise it as ‘Externally facing’ and Outlook will colour code it accordingly. Do this for all activities that relate directly to the major focus areas in your Personal Commitments and you can instantly see how you are spending your time to achieve them.

What’s more when it comes to your Annual Performance Review you can simply create a new calendar view that instantly shows you all the activities you did which related to each commitment. Cut and paste it into your review form and the job’s done! Bingo!

The real beauty of this approach is that now, every time I categorise something in Outlook, I see my personal commitments staring back at me. It's a good way to remind myself what I really should be doing so I stay focussed and increase my chances of a good Performance Review.