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How to Tweak Outlook Email To Work for You

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:26:03 +0000

If you have a job, chances are you use Microsoft Outlook.

But are you using it to your best advantage?

Despite the popularity of Microsoft Outlook, several of its functions aren’t noticeable unless you dig around in menus or try out keystroke shortcuts. Many of these tricks can be found by reading a user manual, but users would rather be spending their time in Outlook responding to or writing emails.

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In last week’s column I reviewed a program called Postbox, which displays email and its contents in unique ways. In that review I mentioned that Outlook, too, has extra functions, but that these aren’t always as obvious as they should be. Below, I’ve compiled a list of what I consider to be some of Outlook’s lesser-known talents. I focused on Outlook 2007, which many people currently use, and I also included a handful of notes about what Outlook 2010—due out late spring or early summer—will include. With any luck, you’ll find a few tips here that make your time in Outlook better spent.

Search Me

Rather than simply entering a word into the Outlook search box, you can help the search engine narrow its results by giving it specific parameters. For example, if I remember that my friend sent an email with “LSU tickets” in the subject line, I can type “subject: LSU” to pull out all emails about the Louisiana university. Or if I want to find all emails from Molly, I can write, “from: Molly.” This works with several other terms including “to,” “sent,” “cc” and “message size.”

Search Folders, shown in the folder list with a magnifying glass icon beside them, offer a way of saving the searches you perform most often. If, for example, you often search for flight confirmation emails, you could make a Search Folder called “Travel” that would contain a constantly updated list of emails containing the names of airlines.

New folders can be set up by right clicking on the Search Folders icon, selecting New Search Folder and following steps to select a type of folder from one of many pre-set types of folders—such as “mail sent directly to me,” “large mail” or “mail flagged for follow up.” Or you can create a custom Search Folder by telling it to search for certain words that appear within specific message fields.

Color Coding

To make certain emails stand out in a large list—like emails from your boss or messages addressed only to you—you can set up a rule that makes the email show up in a specific color. Or you can set certain emails to appear in bold font, or in a specific font type and size. Just think of all the emails from your mom that will never go unnoticed again thanks to red type, 14-point font and underlined text.

Setting up the way emails are displayed can be done by going to the Tools menu, selecting Organize, Using Colors and then choosing specific colors for emails from specific people. More advanced automatic settings for applying font type and size to emails can be added by selecting Automatic Formatting in the top right corner of the Using Colors screen. Click “Add” to create more rules.

Souped-Up Calendar

The Outlook Calendar can be organized to look the way you want it rather than the way it’s set up by default. For example, if you like looking at your day in hourly intervals rather than Outlook’s default 30-minute blocks, you can right click anywhere you see hours shown and select 60 minutes. Other increments are also available, like five, 10 and 15 minutes.

Outlook can also display other time zones right beside your own time zone by right clicking on the listed meeting hours, selecting Change Time Zone and checking the box labeled Show an Additional Time Zone. This is helpful for people who often work with distant colleagues, saving them from making a mistake and not factoring the right time zone for the other person. A Swap Time Zone button here quickly changes from one set zone to another, which could be a boon for people who regularly travel to different places and want their Outlook settings to reflect that they’re working from there.

Like color-coded emails, calendar events can be automatically sorted into pre-set categories like Personal, Travel and Family by setting formatting to look for certain words like Tennis (Personal), United (Travel) and Mom, Dad or Allison (Family). Added events that use these words automatically get labeled with a designated color to give your calendar a visual way of distinguishing different types of activities.

Another useful calendar tip: You can hold Control while selecting certain dates on the small view of the calendar and you’ll see only the schedules for those dates. So if I want to see Sept. 19, 22 and 24, I hold Control while selecting each date to see the three days’ activities displayed in the right viewing panel.

Visual Contacts

All Contacts in Outlook can be labeled with a photo of the person, which you add by double clicking on the small head icon in someone’s contact card and then choosing a photo from your collection. People who work in the same company and use Outlook can add their own photo to their contact and it will show up with their emails.

The top right corner of each contact card shows what a person’s digital business card would look like; this is an image that can be edited and copied using a right click, and then it can be copied and pasted to any email signature.

Looking Ahead

In Outlook 2010, due out next year, Microsoft (MSFT) says it hopes to streamline work in Outlook, creating smarter rules that do more with less manual work.

One example of this approach is that emails in the next version of Outlook will be, by default, sorted into conversations—a little like Gmail’s current system. An Ignore button will move all future emails related to the same conversation into the Deleted Items folder. That will include those with changed subject lines because Microsoft uses a special identifier to know which emails are associated with one another. A Clean Up button moves all redundant replies to the Deleted Items folder, leaving just the most recent message in the conversation.

Another feature is Reply with Meeting, a button in Outlook 2010 that will let users create a meeting out of an email. Selecting Reply with Meeting automatically invites those included in the email to attend a meeting.

The title of the meeting is the same as the subject of the email. If the users are in the same corporate network and they all use Outlook Calendar, this tool also looks for the next available time and date on everyone’s calendar.

Quick Steps, another streamlined feature of Outlook 2010, are one-click shortcuts that simultaneously perform several common actions that people take when handling email. If you select a Quick Step called Reply and Delete, it replies to an email and deletes the original. Users can create their own personalized Quick Steps like one labeled Social that, when selected, marks the email as read, moves it to a special folder and labels it under a certain category.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

Write to
Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

A Kick Start to the Sidekick's Social Side

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 06 May 2009 00:14:02 +0000

If you’re tired of the basic BlackBerry design (small keyboard with a small screen) or the iPhone design (a virtual keyboard on a large touch screen) you might prefer a device with a roomy physical keyboard that stays out of your way, hiding under a large screen until you need it. Over six years ago, a small company called Danger introduced just such a device, called the Sidekick.

Since then, Danger has been acquired by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), and there have been many iterations of the Sidekick. This Monday, yet another version of the Sidekick will be released: the Sidekick LX. Its swing-out screen design hasn’t changed much over the years, but competitors have since produced several other devices that also have screens that move to reveal QWERTY keyboards — including the Google (GOOG) Android G1 phone, whose chief designer also helped create the Sidekick.

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This week, I tested the T-Mobile Sidekick LX to see how this old chestnut fared with some new polishing inside and out. It still bears the flashy, hip features that distinguished older Sidekicks, and newly integrated social-networking apps for Facebook, MySpace and Twitter enhance these traits. A Download Catalog works like Apple’s (AAPL) popular App Store by bringing games, apps, themes and sounds directly to the device.

But this Sidekick’s pricing doesn’t make much sense in our current recession: It will cost $250 after a mail-in rebate for new T-Mobile customers who sign up for a two-year contract; current T-Mobile customers who are eligible for an upgrade will pay $200 after the same discounts.

For $200, you could buy Apple’s iPhone or Research In Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry Storm, which both have touch screens and come with Microsoft Exchange support that synchronizes the device with corporate email accounts. (T-Mobile says the Sidekick LX should be able to get Exchange support from the device’s Download Catalog “in the coming months,” but wouldn’t be more specific.) The Sidekick also lacks Wi-Fi capability, which is also true for the BlackBerry Storm but not so for the iPhone, which works with 3G or Wi-Fi networks.

The absence of a touch screen is glaring on such an expensive device, especially one with a screen this large. It’s easy to imagine using a finger to flick and spin the Sidekick’s on-screen menu wheel, tapping on one to open it. Instead, you’re stuck using a trackball to repeatedly scroll through a crowded, 15-menu wheel.

The T-Mobile Sidekick LX has the device’s traditional swing-out screen but is the thinnest Sidekick yet.

The LX is the thinnest Sidekick yet, but it still looked rather large lying next to my BlackBerry Curve 8300 and an iPhone; it measures 1.3 and 2.16 cubic inches larger than each, respectively. Compared with past Sidekicks, this one has a design that feels flatter thanks to a thin flip-out screen that smoothly blends into the device in its closed position. You have to lift up the nestled-in screen before it turns to flip out, and I found it a little harder to open with just a push of my left thumb.

The Sidekick LX, however, has some hearty extras including a generous 3.2-inch display, a 3G connection that makes it easy to use for quickly browsing the Web, built-in GPS and a 3.2-megapixel camera (like the BlackBerry Storm and new BlackBerry Curve 8900 cameras). It comes with a 1-gigabyte microSD card, but this memory card can be accessed only by pulling off the device’s back panel instead of via a card slot on the side.

I brought the Sidekick LX with me for a weekend in Boston and its good-quality camera came in handy as I wandered Copley Square and snapped photos of still-blooming tulips in bright colors. I signed into my Facebook and Twitter accounts, and updates from these networks flashed across the top of the screen in banner-like news flashes.

The Sidekick LX can play YouTube videos, and can record its own videos for uploading and sharing to Web sites. Its colorful screen has over twice the resolution of its predecessor and is 0.6-inch larger.

But a few awkward software designs left me scratching my head. After I uploaded a photo from the Sidekick LX to Facebook, I was left in the Facebook app, rather than my device’s photo album, where I started and wanted to be. MySpace updates are pushed to the Sidekick LX as they happen, but Facebook automatically updates only once an hour. Twitter can be set to check tweets as often as every five minutes, but, by default, it’s set to check only every 30 minutes — a glacial pace for Twitter fans.

I used the Download Catalog to buy a few apps, games and ringtones for my Sidekick, including a $6.99 game of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire 2009″; a $2.99 flashlight app; and a $2.49 ringtone that played 15 seconds of Katy Perry’s song “Thinking of You.” T-Mobile says there are thousands of items in this catalog.

Calls placed and received on the Sidekick were remarkably clear-sounding to me and the friends I spoke with. Dialing numbers could be a little frustrating because, as was the case with former Sidekicks, you’ll need to open the flip-out screen to dial the number and then close it so you can hold the phone up to your ear. But most people will call friends in their address books and won’t need to use the number keypad.

The Sidekick’s 15 menus are simply too many to scroll through. I would prefer it if several categories were combined into one, such as Phone, myFaves (T-Mobile’s list of five friends you call), Phone Messaging and Address Book. Currently, these are listed as four separate menus. Simultaneously pressing the Sidekick’s Jump and Cancel buttons brings up a Quick Access view of recently opened menus and unread messages, and this eases navigation.

For its price, the Sidekick LX should be shipped with Microsoft Exchange already working, and all of its social-networking apps should have better updating capabilities. But most of all, the Sidekick’s big screen is just begging for multitouch in place of a trackball. If these features were part of the Sidekick LX 2009, it might be worth its price.

Edited By Walter S. Mossberg

Email us at mossbergsolution@wsj.com. Find this and other columns and videos online free at the All Things Digital Web site: http://solution.allthingsd.com

Getting Mobile Novices to Check Email

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 01:00:02 +0000

Are you a member of the “I-check-my-email-constantly-even-when-I-know-no-one-has-emailed-me” club? If so, your mobile email device is never far and you’ve found yourself wondering how other people can leave unread emails sitting in their inboxes all day. On the other hand, those seemingly unplugged people are likely puzzled by BlackBerry addicts, wondering what could possibly be so urgent that they need to know about it the second it happens.

This week, I tested Peek, a device that might bridge the gap between these two camps. It’s made for those who don’t intend to become consumed with mobile email, and don’t need a combination phone, Internet, digital camera and email gadget. Yet from time to time, these people wish they had a better way to check emails without going home and turning on their computers.

The $100 Peek (GetPeek.com) sends and receives emails for $20 a month.

Since I fit the constantly-checking-email description, I enlisted the help of someone who falls squarely into the category that Peek is targeting: my mother. Mom is constantly on the go, working on one project or another, and she doesn’t have time to consistently check her email. On more than one occasion, I’ve had to call her to talk about emails I sent that she didn’t yet read.

Stylish and Simple

Peek is a stylishly thin device that, to a mobile email novice, could pass for a BlackBerry. It receives and sends email, period. Peek doesn’t have a Web browser, phone or built-in digital camera. It’s sold for $100 at Target and GetPeek.com, and costs $20 monthly for contract-free service. Most email accounts work with this gadget, including Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail and AOL, and up to three accounts can be set to work on each device.

Peek Inc., a New York company that was started by former Virgin Mobile USA (VM) employees, mailed a Peek to my mom in Pennsylvania, and she has been using it for about a week with positive results.

I, too, tested a Peek, but I was more interested in my mom’s feedback since, prior to this test, she hadn’t used a mobile email device and I use two different ones — regularly. Overall, I’d suggest waiting until November to buy a Peek due to a handful of improvements that the company plans to add by then.

Winning Over a Novice

My mom got the hang of Peek almost instantly and found it both helpful and relatively easy to use. She liked its full keyboard and the way most of its keys lit up and were familiarly placed like those on a computer keyboard — a feature I take for granted on my BlackBerry. Its price and stylish, thin look appealed to her, too. She tested an Aqua Blue Peek — though the device also comes in Black Cherry and Charcoal Gray. I knew Mom was catching on when she casually sent a message from her Peek late one night using the subject line, “What’s Up?”

My mom suggested a few improvements, and I agreed with all of them. The Peek can vibrate, chime and glow blue when new emails are received, but none of these indicators are particularly noticeable. For example, the chime sounds only once and neither my mom nor I could always hear it — even at its loudest setting — especially if it was in a purse. A blue indicator light on the Peek glows once every 10 seconds for 10 minutes after an email is received, but goes idle after that.

The font used on the Peek’s screen could stand to be a little bigger. My mom found words typed in all capital letters were easier and faster to read than the regular font, but she thought most people wouldn’t have too much trouble while using their glasses.

Peek Inc. says that by November, it will have added a louder chime, a constantly blinking indicator light and a larger font to the device. Also in November, people who purchase 12 months of service at once will get an extra month free.

Compared with my BlackBerry Curve, the Peek was thinner but I found its buttons and side scroll wheel a bit stiff. And Mom and I both found that the oft-used Space bar key was too tough to press down.

One Inbox, Three Accounts

The Peek’s straightforward system uses one inbox view (in which up to three email accounts are combined), one menu and a side scroll wheel for selecting commands. And though my mom didn’t seem to mind, the device’s overall navigation system came off as a bit clumsy to me. For example, rather than selecting an email to read it, I had to select an email, and then choose “Open Email” from a menu list. On most other devices, this can be done with one step.

But some BlackBerry tricks are built into the Peek, such as touching “T” to automatically go to the top of an email or inbox; “B” to go to the bottom; or “N” to move to the next email without navigating back to the inbox list. Likewise, the space bar serves as a built-in Page Down button. And holding a letter down will capitalize it.

Photo attachments can be easily opened on the Peek, though attached documents from programs like Word and Excel won’t open up.

Synching Contacts

A simple step lets users synchronize their email account’s contact list with the Peek. My mom did this with an AOL account, and I did it with Hotmail, Gmail and .Mac accounts. Peek devices automatically check for email every two to five minutes, or if users can’t wait two minutes, they can initiate a Send/Receive manually and see an up-to-date queue of emails.

Peeks each have eight megabytes of usable memory, which can hold about 5,000 emails. Once a device reaches capacity, an on-screen prompt asks permission to delete the 500 oldest emails. Peek Inc. says a full battery charge will last about five days if a device handles around 10 to 15 emails a day; power users who send and receive 200 to 300 emails a day will get about two days of use from a full charge.

When asked, my mom concluded that she would probably buy a Peek, but said she still wasn’t sure that she had an urgent need to see email all that often. She also noted that Peek could become a Pandora’s box of sorts for people who, as they use it more often, might want to get more out of it — such as Google searches or other Web browsing.

Peek serves a purpose: It gives those who don’t belong to the “I-check-my-email-constantly” club a way to “peek” in on their emails and not feel so unplugged from friends and family. That alone, is reason enough to buy my mom one of these devices.

– Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email us at mossbergsolution@wsj.com. Find this and other columns and videos online free at the All Things Digital Web site: http://walt.allthingsd.com

Navigating the Web to Purchase a Car

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:01:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, I received a dreaded phone call at 8:30 a.m. telling me he wasn’t going to make it. The “he” in this case was my car, and the bearer of bad news was my mechanic. My 1994 Saab bit the dust when its timing belt broke, and after discussions about the cost of the repair versus the value of the car, I accepted the fact that I’d need to start looking at buying another vehicle.

I headed online to start researching (I was looking for a used car) but was overwhelmed by an avalanche of information. Everyone seemed to have something to say about cars, whether in blogs, community forums, editorial reviews, Kelley Blue Book values, Carfax reports or local dealer sites. As I discussed my findings with friends and family, more people than not were surprised to hear about the variety of research and price comparisons available online.

This week’s column is an overview of sites that may help you or someone you know browse for a new or used car on the Web. I used sites ranging from trusted resources like ConsumerReports.org to search engine tools like Yahoo Autos. This column can’t possibly mention every car-searching resource on the Web; rather, it’s just a taste of what’s available.

Edmunds.com and ConsumerReports.org both feature informative data on a number of new and used vehicles. Edmunds is a free site specifically geared toward cars, including an online magazine for enthusiasts called Inside Line and a Web forum for discussions about automobiles called CarSpace. I used various tools on Edmunds.com, including one that estimates the true cost to own a specific car over time. I especially enjoyed reading an article titled “Confessions of a Car Salesman,” which proved uncanny in predicting a range of tricks and techniques the salespeople used when I first visited a car dealership.

Edmunds offers a four-step pricing system, which includes getting quotes from dealers, and a payment calculator, which estimates monthly payments. Edmunds teams up with AutoTrader.com to help perform searches for certified pre-owned or used cars online.

Consumer Reports covers products as well as cars but keeps much of its most useful data behind a Web-site subscription, which costs $26 annually or $5.95 monthly (magazine subscribers can pay a discounted price of $19 a year). You need this subscription to access CR’s respected ratings and certain sections of its Web forums. These ratings were helpful to me, as they assessed numerous aspects of specific car models, including trouble spots by year, performance, safety and fuel economy.

CR also offers valuable lists such as “All Recommended Cars,” “Best and Worst Used Cars” and “Reliable Used Cars by Price.” A car-buying calculator is an asset to this site that helps you decide whether it would be smarter to buy or lease a vehicle.

Google, Yahoo and AOL all present special search-results pages when you search for a specific car for sale, using drop-down menus and various ways to sort results. Google Base for automobiles, found by selecting “Vehicles” from www.google.com/base, is a list of data submitted to Google. Drop-down menus help broaden or narrow results by sorting the data according to certain attributes, such as make or price. Vehicle-search results can be viewed in one of three formats: List View, Table View or Map View — an illustration of each car’s location in relationship to a Zip Code. I found Table View most useful because it organized data in smart, spreadsheet-like displays so I could quickly skim through columns listing price, color, amenities and mileage.

But not all car searches within Google Base returned the same drop-down-menu options for sorting. In a few instances, I couldn’t sort my search results by model year. Google Base does show the date on which each car was listed.

Yahoo Autos, found at www.autos.yahoo.com, teamed up with Cars.com to offer richer content, including a Car Finder feature that helps people narrow down what type of new car they might like according to price, driving style and fuel (type and economy). Yahoo even tries to answer car questions with its Yahoo Answers Q&A tool, which lets people submit questions. I found user reviews on this site, as well as expert reviews provided by NewCarTestDrive.com, an auto-review site.

The used-car section in Yahoo Autos reminded me of Google with its drop-down menus and results that displayed in list or map views. List view shows plenty of information in one glance, including an image of the car for sale and the number of additional available photos. From this list, users can link directly to view or order Carfax reports or email the dealer, saving time wasted on excess mouse clicks and browsing.

AOL Autos, found at http://autos.aol.com, does a nice job of integrating Web 2.0 features such as pop-up menus that appear within a page rather than in an entirely new Web page. Vehicle-search results are found by entering a few criteria for a new or used car, and used-car results can be further narrowed by adding or subtracting desired specifics listed on the far left of the screen. Some specs include model type, engine, year or extras like heated seats or a sunroof.

This site can also condense numerous used-car listings into one graph that illustrates car prices in relationship to mileage or year. Selecting any point on the graph reveals a short description of a vehicle’s location, price and mileage. For new cars, AOL Autos offers lengthy expert reviews from NewCarTestDrive.com, as well as user reviews.

Both Yahoo Autos and AOL Autos walk users through steps to get price quotes from dealers for new cars.

Carfax.com provides car-history reports using vehicle-identification numbers, or VINs. For a $30 fee, used-car buyers can use Carfax.com for 30 days. This report shows a vehicle’s history such as if it was a rental or not, how many different owners it had, how long each owner possessed the vehicle and where it came from. Tips pop up within these reports, including one that warned me about “curbstoning,” a term that describes an individual without a dealer’s license looking to sell a number of cars by posing as a private seller.

As can be expected, many newspaper Web sites offer automobile sections that display digitized classified ads, so be sure to check your local paper’s Web site.

At the end of the day, test-driving a car will be a true test as to whether or not you like it — no matter how much research you’ve done online. But knowing your stuff before you visit a dealership can save money and time.

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com.