Here is a little known way to add a list of holidays to your calendar or the calendar of multiple people.

This is also useful if you need to let people know the dates you will be on vacation by looking at their own calendar.

( sending a meeting request will result in their free/busy information being marked as busy. ( unless of course they manually modify that )

I will demonstrate creating 6 holidays across two months

Create a text file

The structure inside should be of the following format:

[Description] #

Holiday Description, Date

Description	Can be any string to describe the list. ( typically a category )
#	Number of Holiday listed below
Holiday Description	any string of text to describe the date
Date	Date in YYYY/DD/MM format

===================== Example would be below =====================

[January Holidays] 2

New Year's Day, 2009/1/1

Holiday 2, 2009/1/15

[February Holidays] 4

Holiday 5, 2009/2/1

Holiday 6, 2009/2/10

Holiday 7, 2009/2/15

Holiday 8, 2009/2/20

=================================================================

Save the text file with an .HOL extension.

Double click the file and import to see the results.

Warning ! Don’t import the calendar more than once. It will result in duplicate entries in your calendar.

More details can be found at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HP012304061033.aspx

Finally on TechNet & Here goes my first blog using OneNote. Although I am not new to blogging, I have a blog which is updated quite irregularly with random technical and non-technical stuff on msn.

So what took me so long to get on board ? Besides the laziness it was just the fact of having to maintain & update another front. I plan to keep updating this one at regular intervals.

Why do I use OneNote?

Top Reasons: Type anywhere in the document then randomly move it around &the nice look and feel of OneNote. Rest: No need of saving half-written blogs- just close it, light on resources, etc, etc.

The configuration part can be a little pain though.

Okay I have not tried out other applications for blogging :)

If there is something I am most passionate about around what I do in my work is efficiency, utilizing potential capabilities, cutting the flab and simplification. What I utterly hate is Jargon, and having to re-invent the wheel when somebody has already broken his or her head over it.

Given the fact that applications, programs, platforms & tools we use today keep getting more complex, a statement I once read truly makes sense ‘we are born and brought up in a world of complexity.’

So the next few blogs I would be writing, would attempt to simplify and uncover some of the built-in features we could use on our computers.

Some ground rules I intend to follow:

The topic will be well researched. I will double check, sometimes triple-check everything I write about.
The information will be Practical & comprehendible by end-users / power users.
IT slang will be avoided as much as possible. ( IT bad words as well-known doctor I once worked for said)

Disclaimer: All postings are provided AS IS with no warranties, and confer no rights. Additionally, views expressed herein are my own and not those of my employer, Microsoft.

Update: Spent a considerable amount of time trying to configure word / OneNote for blogging directly to TechNet. But it seems like its not possible. So here I had to do a copy-paste.

Creating holidays in outlook

My First Blog On Technet.