No one is baffled anymore by the quantity of spam emails sent over the Internet because, unfortunately, hundreds of unwanted messages reach our Inbox regularly (especially if the email address is publicly available, on a blog for example). Because of this, all manner of scams and hoaxes have been invented, every new iteration being more cunning than before. I believe that most of us have built up a natural resistance to clicking strange links and so on, but even with a keen eye you can still be duped, so here are a couple of quick steps to take for a safer email experience.

1. Set up junk email options to prevent against a hoax or scam

This is really easy to do, and the best part is that it’s fully automated – so you’re protected (to some degree) for as long as you leave it on! In Outlook 2010, just go to your Home tab then click on Junk -> Junk Options (in the Delete section) and choose between the different options.

I suggest testing between the Low and High levels, which will offer you a decent protection against unwanted scam or hoax emails, and keeping the other settings as they are displayed above.

2. Set up safe senders/safe recipients/blocked senders lists to prevent email scams

If you’ve got access to the company email address list, then it’s a good idea to add it to the Safe Senders and Recipients list. This will ensure that emails from your co-workers will not be regarded as hoaxes or scams, and you can always add to the list by right-clicking an email -> Junk -> Never block sender.

Tip: if you’d like to extract safe addresses from a particular folder in Outlook, then look no further than Email Address Collector – you can filter and save a list of safe senders in just a few clicks!

3. Set up an anti-spam program on your email server

If you’re receiving your emails through a dedicated server, then it’s always a good idea to install a well-known anti-spam program on it. We here use SpamAssassin which works great at filtering out scam emails. Just make sure to create a rule in Outlook that deals with the emails flagged by your program as “spam” (for SpamAssassin, I have a rule that moves all emails with “X-Spam-Flag: YES” in their header to the Spam folder).

4. If you’re not sure if the email is a scam or hoax, always check the email header!

So, you’ve won the Spanish Lottery, right? You look at the email address and it is from the official website, so it’s not a scam, right? Well, one of the first things to do with emails that you aren’t really sure are hoaxes is to check the email header. Scammers can hide the origin of the message when viewed directly in Outlook, but if you open an email -> go to File -> Info -> Properties you can see the real info. In the newly opened window, just check and make sure that the email originated from a certain website and that it’s not just some hoax.

5. Always be suspicious of emails that look like hoaxes or scams

As I said above, in time, each of us develops a sort-of resistance to stuff like this… If it’s too good to be true, then it’s probably a scam! If you haven’t played in the Spanish Lottery, then it’s a hoax… the list goes on. Even so, not all scam emails are as clear as daylight – you may have an account with Bank of America and you may have recently had some issues with it, but that doesn’t mean that the message isn’t a hoax based on a lucky coincidence (that’s why you receive the same email scam over and over – sometimes, it just arrives at the perfect time for some).

Remember:

• no bank, payment service, online store will ask for private info over email;

• you should never send your account details to anyone;

• you can’t win contests that you haven’t applied to;

• there is no such thing as an Internet address draw, where your email was picked at random;

• there are no Nigerian princesses, Chinese businessmen, British attorneys that will send you half of a millionaire’s wealth;

• there are no respectable businesses that market their products by unsolicited emails;

• you should never click on links from unknown or dubious senders.

All of the above are email scams of course, and you should delete the messages as soon as possible. Clicking on links, downloading or opening attachments can compromise your privacy (and maybe even bank account), so take care! For an added level of security, Outlook automatically disables links in the messages it considers as spam, so you’re pretty safe from hoaxes while those emails are in that folder.

Unfortunately, as we all know, many will still wind up in your Inbox, with their links and attachments intact. And what happens in cases where someone else is using your computer, someone not as well versed in these things as yourself?

For your peace of mind, one of our best-selling add-ins, Bells&Whistles for Outlook, comes with a pre-defined list of attachments that it will block… and when we say block, we mean it! While Outlook just pops up a warning (which can be permanently turned off) when opening dubious attachments, Bells&Whistles will only display its name – and that’s all! The attachment can’t be downloaded, ran or anything else, no matter the folder it resides in! So, you can leave home and not worry that grandpa fell for on email scam and your hard-earned dollars are used to buying who-knows-what. You can define the types of attachments Bells&Whistles will block by their extension – the predefined list comes with all of the most used extensions used in email hoaxes, so you’re protected right away! Additionally, we have included the extensions for files that are known for spreading viruses, so you’ll be safe from email scams and malware as well!

If you want to give Bells&Whistles a try, then just download the latest version from here and take it for a spin (all features are working, so you get to test it out to the fullest), or go ahead and buy a full license for only $29.95 here (30 day money back guarantee, so no scam here ).

If you have any tales about email scams, if you’ve been the victim of a hoax or just want to say hi, then you can contact us either at support@emailaddressmanager.com or in the comment section below.

If you’re like me, you want to present yourself well to all persons you come in contact with – whether that contact is face to face or over the Internet. Usually, we don’t consider emails as more than a tool for communication, but if you start to think about it, emails can help create and define the image we have about a person – who they are, how they behave. This isn’t restricted just to the people we haven’t met in real life, so I believe that creating a great looking email will strongly tip the balance in your favor. A thought-out email implies authority, professionalism, something usually reflected in the creation of the signature. It’s the same as John Hancock’s signature on the Declaration of Independence – you remember it both because of the self-confidence it conveyed and its aesthetics, right? So why not apply that same train of thought and use a signature creator for your emails?

While researching this article’s idea, I came across quite a number of signature creators on the web, standalone programs with varying prices. This actually baffled me, since I’ve always thought that designing is the difficult part, putting it into practice being only a second thought. Also, the need of a separate signature creator is something I’ve never considered and don’t find very practical.

Now, if you want some great tips on signature creation, what fonts to use and how it should look then just consult these past articles:

The DOs & DON’Ts of Email signatures

The best email fonts are the ones already included in Outlook! – the tips here can be used upon launching your signature creator, even if the article deals with a more general topic

I won’t repeat what’s already been said, and I’m sure that after zapping through the above links you’ll be able to design something great, this week I just want to present an unsung hero, the signature creator found in Bells&Whistles. For those who don’t know, Bells&Whistles for Outlook is a feature packed add-in for Outlook which provides more than 40 helpful tweaks for your daily email routine, one of which being a signature manager.

Not only can you attach hyperlinks and images, you can also define specific layouts and alignments in Bells&Whistles’ signature creator, all from this simple, user friendly screen:

Additionally, you can also insert a horizontal line (to better differentiate emails in a conversation), choose different fonts, sizes, colors and so on. One great thing about this signature creator is that it allows you to have an HTML signature, with hyperlinks, colors, images etc. and another signature for the cases when you are replying to a plain text email. We all know that the layout can get a bit jumbled upon transition, so we have added this feature at the request of our customers for quite some time.

My favorite thing about this signature creator is that it works alongside the rules defined in Bells&Whistles, so you can have a particular signature for your office emails, one for your friends, one for family and so on. You know how weird it feels when you receive an email from a close friend that ends with his business signature (detailing name of the company and position, slogan, web address, alternate email and so on)? Well, no more! Now you can have specific greetings, fonts, signatures, attachment behaviors and many, many more with the help of Bells&Whistles. Why not give it a try?

Just download the trial version from here (all features are present and working), or just purchase a full license from here and never copy/paste your signatures again! The full version costs just 29.95$ (30-day money back guarantee), and with it you manage all your future communications effortlessly forever!

Now, here’s a tip! You don’t have to use standalone signature creators if you want to add a “special something” to your emails. If you want to insert an image that displays your actual signature, just follow these easy steps:

1.Write your signature on a white piece of paper with a thick pen

2.Scan it

3.Download and install a free photo viewer named IrfanView

4.Open your signature image file and press Shift+G

5.Increase the contrast and decrease the gamma value until you’re left with a great looking signature on a pure white background.

It’s easy and you don’t need to use 3^rd party standalone signature creators to do it! Additionally, just press Ctrl+R and resize the image until you’re happy with the result, then save it as either a PNG or JPG file.

I was recently over at a friend’s house, fixing his broken computer… Unfortunately for him, I had to reinstall Windows from scratch, so all of his programs were gone afterwards (know that feeling?). I tried to lessen the impact by also installing his copy of Microsoft’s Office suite and setting it up so that everything would be as before. Configuring Outlook’s myriad options got me thinking… how many users do actually know about the Send/Receive options window (he sure didn’t)? I remembered that our support dept. also comes across issues caused by “weird” send/receive times, so here’s a quick run-down of what you’ll see, and why configuring the send/receive times is very important and can grant you a great degree of flexibility.

How do I access Outlook’s Send/Receive options?

As far as I can remember, the “quick-and-dirty” way of changing the send/receive times is by pressing Ctrl+Alt+S. This will work for Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010, and luckily for us, the window looks about the same, thus I’ll continue with screenshots from Outlook 2010. So… come on, press those keys!

OK, what do I see?

We’re in luck once again, and the send/receive options window is pretty straight-forward… seems like the guys that designed the general Options interface didn’t get their hands on this (personally, I think the last iteration of Outlook made a mess of things).

So, at the top of the window you will first see a group that includes all your email accounts from that Outlook session, followed by one representing the send/receive “rule” set up. If you have more than one group, you can create individual behaviors. See, it’s easy!

The flexibility of correctly set-up send/receive times in Outlook

This applies to people who are using more than one account in Outlook. Let’s say that you have one account with which you communicate with co-workers, a personal one and an RSS feed for news. Normally, Outlook includes all of these in the same group, and the send/receive time is set to 5 minutes. This would be OK for the personal one, but then you’ll be left with a 10 minute delay on your reply to your boss (5 min until received, 5 minutes until your reply is sent)… not very nice! Also, you don’t need to monitor the news constantly, just check them a few times a day – if you would leave the automatic send/receive time at 5 minutes this would both make Outlook delay important messages AND take up resources because of the RSS feeds!

So, just set-up different rules for each account: an automatic send/receive for your office email done at 1 minute (the minimum), a 5 or 10 minute send/receive time for your personal account and a 60/120 minute period for the RSS feeds for example. Even more, if you uncheck the “Schedule an automatic send/receive” option for the RSS feeds, they will only get updated when you manually press the F9 key or click the appropriate button in the Outlook interface.

The bottom part of the window refers to working with Outlook in offline mode (and I know some of you do), so you could change that behavior as well (say, an automated send/receive every hour while offline).

Please take note that all your future emails will be affected by what you do in that screen, so take a little time and tailor it to your exact needs.

I, for one, like my send/receive time set up to 2 minutes, so that if I reconsider an email and choose not to send it after all, I can still catch it in the Outbox folder and delete it. Also, I want to make sure that if I close Outlook all of my emails will get sent (and not remain in the Outbox folder until morning), so I have the “Perform an automatic send/receive when exiting” box checked.

One last thought…

Have you ever sent an email from the wrong account? I’m pretty sure that all of us did, and it was rather frustrating. Now, with different send times for each account, what if you send a reply to your boss from your personal account, which has a send/receive time of one hour?! To prevent such problems, one of our products (my favorite one actually) allows you to create rules tailored to each recipient or even specific groups. That product is Bells&Whistles for Outlook, and it’s a productivity tool that will surely energize your daily routine, all the while preventing any “rookie” mistakes! With it, you can quickly create a rule for your boss’ emails (or all the ones work-related) and force Outlook to only send them through your desired email address. You can do it either like this, or just have Outlook pop-up a window asking you from which account you want to send the email from each time.

As you can see, there are a couple more options present in the above screenshot (and loads more in Bells&Whistles), but I’ll explain each one separately in the future… some of them actually deserve a dedicated post, that’s how useful they are! So, why don’t you just download the trial version from our website and give it a go, or just purchase a full featured license for only 39.95$ (30-day money back guarantee)?
As always, we welcome user feedback so if you have any interesting stories to tell, tips or tricks or email-related questions be sure to drop us a line either in the comments section or at support@emailaddressmanager.com.

If you’re working in a corporate environment, then you must already be all-too familiar with some of the email laws and legal guidelines, disclaimers and so forth associated with any activity. Since there are a lot of myths regarding the use of an email in the courtroom and general email law, I will try to explain here what can and can’t be done with an email in the unfortunate case of a lawsuit.

Email law regarding disclaimers is sketchy

In one of our past articles, I have talked about the oh-so-common email disclaimer – Why should you use email disclaimers? – but does it really count? The idea behind them is mostly to prevent unwanted occurrences, but if you find yourself in a court of law it could help your case…

Companies usually rely on legal disclaimers or specific confidentiality agreements, but it’s really up to the person handing out the sentence to make the final decision. So, you can’t base a case on it or call someone to court because of it, since email law doesn’t actually specify how disclaimers should be composed, treated and used. The email disclaimer should be part of a company’s email policy, so even if it doesn’t cover all eventualities it will make the balance lean towards that company’s favor. Since it’s a part of a bigger and more comprehensive book of guidelines, its use will make the company seem more responsible. On the other hand, while the company will decrease its liability, the individual(s) involved will not be able to fall back on email “legal” disclaimers and so, will be charged to the full extent of the law.

Email laws regarding SPAM messages

This has also been discussed in a previous article – Anti spam acts from around the world. As opposed to the topic above, spam email laws exist for quite some time and there are many precedents where someone was sued because of spam. The CAN-SPAM Act of 2004 may not be perfect, but in one way or the other it exists in almost every country (the US, the E.U., Australia and South America all have specific email laws and guidelines regarding spam). The spam email laws usually treat problems such as: what is and isn’t spam, how to combat it and of course, the different rulings the judge can hand out. In the end, it’s also up to the person(s) dealing out the sentence, since there can be many variables – from what I know, these types of lawsuits usually end with hefty fines for the party charged with sending spam.

So, when dealing with spam and spammers, current email law lets you sue people or businesses and make them responsible for their actions, if they are doing them knowingly (in most cases though, viruses send out emails from infected computers and the users don’t even have a clue). If you’re worried, you can take a look at the above article article which gives you some email law guidelines. Also, take care to include unsubscribe options and not send out emails to people who haven’t given their consent, and always have an antivirus running in the background so that your PC isn’t used for unlawful purposes.

Email laws and guidelines regarding delivery/read notifications

Delivery and read notifications are like the Holy Grail of email marketers, businesses and users alike – we all would like to know when and who read what because knowledge, in the end, means power and control. With this in mind, there have been many-a-number of services boasting about their fail-proof method of delivering that control straight to your fingertips but, as we stated in a previous article (Why forcing a receipt on your emails doesn’t really work) none actually are able to make it happen. I agree, some can inform you with 99% accuracy of your recipient’s doings, but none are perfect.

Why, you ask? Because delivery/read notifications aren’t standardized – there is no default set of rules that all emails, servers and clients have to comply with, which leads to fragmentation, which in turn leads to unpredictable results. Because of this, notifications such as these cannot be used as evidence – even if both parties were sending through the same server, using the same email client. Email laws have nothing regarding deliveries or if the messages are read or not, so you shouldn’t take into account what Outlook says.

As a general guideline, think about delivery and read notifications like an added bonus for your peace of mind, not as a means to prove you’re right (both in a court of law and in an issue where emails are involved).

Emails and courts of law

Generally speaking, emails and the laws surrounding them are a tricky business. It’s actually pretty complicated to bring someone to court because of them, since usually claims regarding emails have to be backed up by server logs, by huge archives of messages that take forever to sift through, by correlated data between internet providers and server locations and many, many more. So, you shouldn’t worry too much – a little common sense will usually go a long way. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be informed, so please take a little time and read up – there are many interesting and well-documented articles regarding email laws and guidelines right here, on our blog!

Thank you for reading and please contact us if you have any questions, tips or ideas regarding emails, either in the comments section or at support@emailaddressmanager.com. We also have some very cool products that will help you in your daily email dealings, so why not go here and give them a try? We’re sure that you’ll like them!

With New Year’s Eve quickly approaching, all of us are working hard on our office jobs and trying to out due last year’s digits. On top of work, there’s running around for presents, confirming reservations and so on… all adding to the already hectic feel of the winter season. That’s why, when we finally get a couple of days out of office we like to spend them with our families, in a carefree and calm state of mind… we’re on vacation and the office is far away, so nothing related to it should disturb us, right?

Unfortunately, that isn’t usually the case. You know what I’m talking about… those people who demand your office answer their request at 7:00 PM on the 31^st, or send a dozen emails on Christmas Eve because they don’t know how to use their sprocket, no matter if everybody’s out of office and on vacation. You can, of course, ignore them (although it wouldn’t be very professional) or start training for the 100m dash by running to your PC every 15 minutes. In our book, this isn’t OK! You should relax, prepare for the coming year and spend some well-earned time with your loved ones, so we have developed a few tools to help out when you’re out of office and on vacation: Auto Reply Manager for Outlook and Auto Follow-Up for Outlook.

Most of your troubles will arise because you won’t be able to answer emails. Normally, the persons sending you the messages will get frustrated after a while, then re-send their emails and may even leave a bad review. All of this could be averted by just informing them that you’re out of office on vacation, with an automated email reply. Outlook does have a feature that allows you to set up an out of office response, but it’s very limited, kind of awkward to set-up and only usable in simple scenarios. That’s why we’d like you to try an add-in that’s build from the ground-up with ease of use and customization in mind, Auto Reply Manager for Outlook. With it, you can easily set-up any number of out of office response scenarios for your work-related emails, different ones for the emails from friends and anything else you can imagine. It can even scan your incoming emails for specific phrases and have only those important emails forwarded to your personal email address, so you’ll always be on top of things!

Further reading if you’re out of office and need an automated responder:

Funny vacation auto-replies for when you’re out-of-office!

Stop sounding like a robot and send friendlier emails!

Make your life easier with the “send on behalf of” feature of Auto Reply Manager

If you want to see how you can really leave the office behind and be email-free for a couple of days, just download the trial version from here, or give the full features a run by purchasing Auto Reply Manager for Outlook here, for only $39.95 (if you change your mind afterwards, then note that all purchases come with a 30 day money back guarantee, so it will be OK). Also, volume licenses are available, so everybody in the office can have a trouble-free vacation.

On the other hand, what if you really need a reply from someone? You have a big contract coming up, everybody in your office is on vacation, and you absolutely need to know if that factory in China can produce your type of sprocket? Well then, instead of composing and sending a dozen emails manually, you can just install Auto Follow-Up for Outlook and let it take care of the hassle, while you’re out of office and trouble free. You can quickly set-up automated follow-up emails for any message type (new, reply or forward) straight from the Outlook screen, so no cumbersome interfaces or weird layouts will distract you. What’s great about this add-in is that (just like Auto Reply Manager), it works alongside Outlook and all features that you are accustomed to are readily available. For example, you can impose read receipts on your follow ups and know if you’re being ignored and even attach the original messages automatically, so that your recipients don’t have to go search their Inboxes.

Auto Follow-Up for Outlook will provide you with peace of mind during your out of office days for only $29.95, so what are you waiting for? Just purchase the full version here and start nagging away (30 day money back guarantee)! If you just want to try it out, then there’s also a trial version available for download here.

If used in tandem, we believe that Auto Reply Manager for Outlook and Auto Follow-Up for Outlook will provide you with a full feature set for all your out of office responder and email follow-up needs, but you’re always invited to give us some tips – we love customer feedback, so just drop us a line or a cheer at support@emailaddressmanager.com.

We here at DS Development wish you the best for the following year and a trouble-free and peaceful holiday season!

Be it Christmas or Hanukkah, Bodhi Day or Samhain, in late December most people around the globe will be celebrating a special holiday, trying to be nicer to one another and spread good cheer.

Because the festive season is quickly approaching, you will surely need to send out quite a number of greeting cards – why not make them email greeting cards? Think about the environment (just the Christmas wrapping paper amounts to 50,000 trees cut down), about the poor postmen and, most of all, about your convenience!

Since all of us want to be nice and considerate, with the advent of computers also came the email greeting card (and later, the Christmas special offer sent by email). It’s easy, doesn’t cost anything and shows that you care, so why shouldn’t you send e-cards to everyone, right? No matter if you just want to send an email seasons greeting to your loved ones or if you’re a small business that has something special planned, you don’t want to spend time fiddling with lists of email addresses, nor with awkward programs or unintuitive interfaces as was the case a few years back. Another thing that could put you off this idea is that email greeting cards lack “soul” and almost always sound impersonal. This is because you have to write them in a very general manner, so that they can be sent to everyone: friends, colleagues , family (yes, I’m also talking about the email greeting card copy/pasting that goes on in larger offices).

This was OK 10 years ago, but I like to think that we, as people, users and consumers have evolved and now our tastes are much more refined (remember the Spice Girls or MySpace?). If you’re sending out a special offer to customers or an email card to your family, don’t fall into the routine of grabbing the first Christmas text you find on the web and pasting it into your email or reusing last year’s ones! Just think that your recipients will get quite a number of email greeting cards and if yours is identical to another one, then it will look like you sent it in a rush… it will also lack “that special something” that this season is so well known for. Let me put it like this: it’s like having a cheap plastic tree instead of a luscious, green one or receiving pajamas instead of that iPod you wanted.

Just remember: do your research and compose an email greeting card from the heart – I’m sure that your customers and loved ones will appreciate it and give something in return (’tis the season, after all).

To help you out, here are a few resources that we gathered up for your season email tasks:

Free Christmas graphics which you can use in your email greeting cards:

You can download them here: http://artdesigner.lv/archives/410, and in order to use them, just add the images to your email greeting card like you would do to a signature image.

Patterns for your email greeting card backgrounds:

Download here: http://www.psd-dude.com/tutorials/resources/photoshop-pattern-set-for-christmas-time.aspx.

Download here: http://www.colourlovers.com/pattern/1160912/white_christmas.

Download here: http://www.colourlovers.com/pattern/1203780/Christmas_wishin.

Download here: http://www.colourlovers.com/pattern/310016/White_Christmas.

You can also mix-and-match resources in a graphics program (even Paint will do) with a special font and create a customized header for your email greeting cards! Examples of good, Christmas-y fonts are:

Download here: Kingthings Christmas font.

Download here: Christmas Card font.

Wouldn’t that look nice? Now, just compose a short text (people are busy and won’t take the time to read a page-long email greeting card) and you’re all set!

The title of this week’s article says that you can send your email greeting cards in just 5 minutes… how so? With the help of elves, magic and good ol’ Outlook, of course! Since it’s designed specifically for tasks such as this, I strongly recommend that you try out our best-selling add-in, Easy Mail Merge for Outlook. I know I may seem biased, but believe me – it’s much better to concentrate your energy on the recipients and actual message than on how to send it, and our add-in will be of great help! It’s wonderfully simple: you just start it up, choose your friends and family that you want to send email greeting cards to, then compose and click on Send – the management, personalization and so on is done automatically by Easy Mail Merge. If you want to add a special touch and make your email cards seem like you’ve composed them manually with love and care, then our Outlook add-in lets you create complex custom scenarios and personalize the emails, so that each recipient gets a personal one. We’ve already described a few tricks to mail merges, just visit the following links to see how you can send a great email greeting card campaign:

• Personalize mass emails in Outlook

• How to add an attachment to a mail merge email in Outlook

But don’t take my word for it! Just download the trial version from our website and see for yourself, or just go ahead and beat the rush by buying a full license for only $29.95 (contact us at support@emailaddressmanager.com to receive your 10$-off Christmas coupon) from here (30-day money-back guarantee)!

We here at DS Development would like to thank you for the continuing support and wish you all the best this holiday season! We hope that Santa will bring you everything you wished for and a better world for us all.

Computers are expensive – that’s a fact! Any upgrade or new version of this hardware or that software will bring about a rapid decline in your financial status. That’s exactly the reason why all our articles detailing Outlook’s speed and optimizations until now have dealt with software tweaks (turn this thing off, disable that thing), but what if you’re on a budget and want to upgrade your PC so that it performs better in the daily tasks Outlook has lined up? What to upgrade first so that Outlook’s speed improves and how does each component benefit your email workhorse?

In the following article we will try to explain what a computer is made of and how the hardware interacts with Outlook, either giving it wings or putting it under a leash. So, if you’re an advanced PC user and already know the basics, just head on to one of our other posts and see how easy it is, with the help of a few tweaks, to significantly improve Outlook’s speed and responsiveness, or take a look at our product line – we’re sure you’ll find something to your liking!

5 quick fixes that help when Outlook is slow

Reduce your PST file size easily by sending email attachments to the cloud

Top 11 reasons for duplicate emails in your Outlook Inbox

Instead of deleting, move attachments from Outlook to a folder automatically!

The CPU – The brains behind the operation

Unless your last dealing with PCs was in the 1950s, you must have heard this acronym: CPU. CPU stands for Central Processing Unit, and it refers to those tiny metal squares (microprocessors) that Intel or AMD are releasing every year or so.

The CPU is actually the most important part of any computer (and usually the most expensive), its features influencing everything from games to Outlook’s speed, general loading times and so on. The CPU is responsible for all the operations and calculations that you do on the PC (just like the brain of any animal). So, the speedier it is (measured in Giga Hertz nowadays), the faster it will work – this is because the CPU contains only a small set of instructions and everything has to be performed by them. A real-life example would be clicking the “New E-Mail” button in Outlook – if you’re on an older system, you can take a sip of coffee in the time it takes to display the new window, on a newer one it being almost instantaneous.

Unfortunately, each new generation of CPUs brings with it a new socket, so normally you can’t install newer chips on your more-than-two-year-old PC (they won’t fit). Thus, if you want a cheap upgrade so that Outlook’s speed increases you will have to look elsewhere. Normally, by following the tips provided in an older article of ours you can get reasonable speeds for Outlook on even a 1GHz CPU, but don’t expect miracles. Anything in excess of 1.8 GHz will be enough for the job, but you should still tweak Outlook’s settings, just to make sure. You can check your CPU model and speed by right-clicking the My Computer icon, then selecting Properties.

Even if Outlook boasts of supporting CPUs with 500 MHz (1000 MHz = 1 GHz), Outlook’s speed and responsiveness will suffer greatly – it’s like taking the kids’ bike to visit some relatives in a different state. It gets the job done, but you’d better pack sandwiches, water and a blanket!

Hard-Disk-Drives – The place to be!

All your music, photos, games and programs, all the data that the CPU manipulates is stored on your hard-disk-drive.

Just like with all PC components, HDDs have come a long way – I still remember reading in 1996 about the next generation models, boasting 2 gigabytes of storage space (1 Gb = 1000 Mb; a song has around 5 Mb, a HD movie upwards of 10 Gb… you do the math ). Of course, you can’t ever have too much space for your pictures of the pets and kids, but always remember that Outlook’s speed is also related to the free space left on your HDD. When you open Outlook, it will take up some of that free space to load its files, so if you have only a few MB of free space Outlook’s speed will be awful or it will refuse to work whatsoever.

It’s quite easy to fix this: either burn a couple of DVDs and free up some space for Outlook or just buy another HDD – they’re easy to install, also come in the external USB variety, and you can use as many of them as you like at the same time (you don’t have to take the old one out, or reinstall everything and thus, lose time and data).

Outlook’s speed and operability will increase up to a point, so before you spend any money give it a run with at least 2 Gb of free space. Also, all new HDDs are backwards-compatible with PCs from even 7 years ago, so you should buy the one with the largest capacity that you can afford.

RAM Memory – The more the merrier!

If you’re on a budget, then this is the best way of obtaining a significant speed increase in Outlook!

When you launch a program (any program, not only Outlook), it first loads in a special place named RAM (Random-Access-Memory) – these are memory chips which deliver much faster speeds than your hard-drive, so that your CPU doesn’t have to wait as long to access its most used data. The more programs you have running, the more RAM is used; when there’s no more, the data is written to the HDD which will drag Outlook’s speed down and down, to a standstill.

The good news is that they’re separate components and can be taken out and exchanged for better ones easily, even by novices at home (here’s a short movie explaining just how – YouTube). RAM chips are very cheap, but you may need to search around a bit until you find one compatible with really old computers, but trust me – it’s worth it! Not only will Outlook perform faster, everything will load and work better!

You should have at least 1 Gb of RAM for all of Outlook’s speed improvements and features to work, but in order to actually use them in a timely manner you will need around 2 Gb. Just think that Outlook automatically disables stuff if you don’t have enough RAM!

Microsoft’s requirements page informs us that Outlook 2010 will actually function with only 256 Mb of RAM available, but there’s quite a big difference between functioning and you being able to get work done. With only 256 Mb of RAM, Outlook’s speed will be dreadfully slow and the graphics features, Outlook Instant Search, Outlook with Business Contact Manager, Communicator, and certain advanced functionality will just be unavailable. If you have 512 Mb, then all of the above will be turned on (to the detriment of Outlook’s general speed), but Outlook Instant Search and grammar and contextual spelling will not – this requires at least 1 Gb.

From the above three types of components, more RAM memory definitely comes out as the winner. There’s no other way to drastically improve both your system’s and Outlook’s speed for so little money!

Now, if you’re all set and Outlook still behaves slowly, then there may be other reasons in the background. In this case, I recommend taking a look at one of our feature-packed add-ins, Weight Diet for Outlook. No matter the PC, if you don’t take constant care of Outlook, its speed will decrease over time. What our add-in does is optimize its internal workings so it loads faster, performs quicker and lets you finish your work on time! All our purchases come with a 30-day money back guarantee, so why not give it a spin and see how speedy your emails can be?

My, time sure flies doesn’t it? It seems like only last month we were preparing for Outlook 2010 and both its new goodies (and quirks), and now we’re already looking at leaked versions of Microsoft’s newest implementation, Office 15 (or 2012). This week we’ll try to make some guesses about what the new version of Outlook will bring to the table and how it will change our work style.

First of all, let me begin by restating that I’m “guesstimating” here, since no official info regarding compatibility, availability and so on has been issued by Microsoft.*

*There was, however, a post on Chris Green’s MSDN blog which put the release date of RTM Office 2012 for Monday, July 2, 2012.Then again, Office 2012 should launch a year after Windows 8, which is yet to be available.

Earlier this year a Russian site (winreview.ru) got its hands on build 15.0.2703.1000 (Milestone 2) and tested it out a little – even with the frequent crashes (it was a pre-alpha version after all), they were pleasantly surprised by the new version and especially by Outlook 2012. But first…

Minimum System Requirements for Office 15 (Outlook 2012)

As you may know, Microsoft has dropped support for the mainstream versions of Windows XP as of 2009 (extended support still exists up until 2014 – [source]), so now you’re left with either a Vista installation (ugh!) or the choice OS of the moment, ever on the red carpet, Windows 7. All 3 come in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors, for all your computing requirements. With this in mind, I believe that Office 2012 will still be supported under XP – there are quite a few users that are using this OS and it would be bad business for Microsoft to just disregard so many loyal customers (PCs were still sold with XP preinstalled about an year ago – [source]). Office 2012 will surely be available on the 32-bit platform, since a 64-bit/128-bit exclusive OS will not exist until Windows 9.

Now, if you’re wondering about the minimum hardware requirements, then I’ve got some good news! If your PC can run Office 2010 (or 2007 for that matter, since their requirements are the same – [source]), then you’re all set for the newer version!

Keep in mind that as we speak, Microsoft is busy developing Windows 8, which alongside a new (or rather, improved) User Interface (the so-called Metro UI), will include many new and exciting additions and bridge the gap between mobile and desktop versions of its OS – all these on the same requirements that are currently in use for Win 7. I want to stress that when dealing with MS products, there are two types of computers:

1. Older PCs, with 500-1000 MHz CPUs, 256/512/1024 Mb of RAM memory, hard-drives of around 20 Gb that run Windows XP;
2. Newer PCs, with at least 1000 MHz CPUs, 1024 Mb or more RAM and larger hard-drives (40 Gb and up) that run Windows 7.

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So, as long as Office 2012 (and respectively, Word, Excel, Outlook and so on) will be able to run under XP, it will have to make do with:

CPU: at least 500 MHz;

RAM memory: 256/512;

HDD space: 3,5 Gb;

OS: Windows XP (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit) and all versions of Windows Server up to 2003 (32-bit and 64-bit).

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Of course, just as with Office 2010, if you have only 256 Mb of RAM memory you won’t be able to use Outlook Instant Search, for grammar and contextual spelling you will need at least 1 Gb of RAM and a dedicated graphics card with at least 64 Mb of memory for the “pretty graphics”.

Worst case scenario: the minimum RAM requirement gets bumped to 512 Mb and hard-drive space is increased by a few hundred megabytes (maybe reaching 4 Gb).Of course, this all depends on compatibility with XP – even worse scenario: if it’s dropped then we’ll be looking at much higher requirements.

What will Office 2012 (and especially Outlook 2012/Outlook 15) bring to the table?

One of the most visible changes is its redesigned look. Notice I didn’t say UI? That’s because the change from Office 2010 to 2012 will be relatively painless, unlike the one from 2003 to 2007, and even more so, from 2003 straight to 2010. If you’ve ever worked with Office 2010 then you’ll be glad to know all the buttons are where you expect them to be and all the options and menus are relatively the same. What is changed, though, is the visual appearance, Microsoft deciding to standardize to Metro UI, dropping all the glassy-glossy effects from Vista and 7 and adopting a “flatter”, matte look and different window transition effects (here’s a sneak peek at Word 2012 – YouTube). Is this better? Well, it depends on personal taste – I find it refreshing, but if you’ve never been bothered by transparencies you’ll barely notice it.

Regarding the UI, while the look and feel remains basically the same (so no more disgruntled users that can’t find the features they’re looking for), Metro UI will allow for dynamic application interfaces. This basically means that you will be able to change the layout easily to better suit your tastes, all the while allowing applications to update their presented features based on what you’re doing at one time or another (you will be able to create highly customized interfaces, suited to your exact needs).

At the beginning I stated that the Russian reviewer was pleased with the new version of Outlook. That is because, for the time being, Outlook has received the most changes – for example: better access to email, calendar and contacts. If you’re constantly dealing with schedules and tasks, then note that this interface also received a significant upgrade, both in user-friendliness and control options.

The new Office 2012 will include:

1. Microsoft Word 2012
2. Microsoft Excel 2012
3. Microsoft Outlook 2012
4. Microsoft PowerPoint 2012
5. Microsoft OneNote 2012
6. Microsoft Access 2012
7. Microsoft InfoPath 2012
8. Microsoft Publisher 2012
9. Microsoft Project 2012
10. Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2012
11. Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2012
12. Microsoft Visio 2012

Even with its host of quirks and critics, Microsoft Office is the standard business toolset and also a mature, well developed and indispensable companion. It’s now over 15 years from its launch, so you won’t find many mind-blowing changes in the next version – after all, once it was done right (2003) changes were minimal and consisted more in visual tweaks than hardcore revisions (that’s why 2003 is still actively used today). Even so, I’m anxious to see how Office 2012 will be received, what aces Microsoft has up its sleeve and also how the migration to cloud-based computing (and Office Live) will be dealt with.

If you have any inside tips, questions or suggestions then please leave a comment or send an email to support@emailaddressmanager.com – we’re always glad to receive feedback from our readers! Also, if you would like to make your dealings with Outlook easier and more efficient just have a look at one of our Outlook add-ins here – we’re sure you’ll find something to your liking!

We all know that working with Outlook each day can become frustrating quite quickly. Sometimes it decides to slow down, hang or stop responding for a time, other times it crashes and takes your whole system with it… in most people’s minds Outlook and “slow” have become notoriously associated with each other. What most forget, though, is that situations like these can be easily remedied by performing some simple things like:

1. Update to the latest version of Outlook.

I remember that about a year ago, Microsoft launched an update that caused many users to pull out their hair in frustration. Outlook was ridiculously slow and everything took up to 5 times as much to do (especially browsing folders)… The Outlook team very quickly launched a fix for this, but even 3 months afterwards we received emails regarding issues caused by that buggy patch – there were lots of users who simply didn’t install the latest updates. So, if you’re on Outlook 2003 or 2007 just go to the Help menu, then click on Check for Updates and follow the steps displayed; if you’re on 2010 you can achieve the same thing with the Windows Update entry in your Control Panel.

2. Repair your version of Outlook.

If you’ve installed the latest updates and Outlook is still slow then you can just perform a Detect & Repair procedure. This basically scans for and repairs any issues that may have arisen since you first installed it. It doesn’t erase any files, rules or accounts, so it’s a quick and safe procedure – one that you can perform even if not on an Admin account (note though, that it’s quite slow, so be sure you won’t have need of Outlook for about an hour). To do this, Outlook 2003 and 2007 have the option in the same Help menu, accessible from the main window. For 2010, go to your Control Panel -> Programs and Features -> in the newly-opened window, right click MS Office 2010 -> choose the Change function (not the Uninstall one) -> click Repair, then follow the steps displayed. If Outlook is still slow afterwards, you can also try reinstalling it (that is, if you have the original CD – those on corporate networks should consult their Administrator).

3. Run the trusty Inbox Repair Tool (ScanPST).

One thing that I’ve never understood is why a useful little program such as this doesn’t get its own shortcut in the Office folder from the Start menu, but rather you have to know about it in order to use it. I’m sure that at least once you have encountered a corrupt file on your hard-drive – be it a photo or a document. The same thing can happen with one of your emails, especially since your PST file is basically an archive that holds thousands of different files (one for each email). If just one of those files gets corrupted, it will slow down Outlook and all its operations. What ScanPST does is go through each byte of your PST and checks if “they fit together”. Once it detects a problem it either fixes it or puts the file away (if it can’t be fixed) so that it doesn’t slow down Outlook anymore. I recommend using it every 3 months, since even if Outlook isn’t slow errors may still be present. So, either go to the link above to see where you can find it or click here to run it straight away, from Microsoft’s servers.

4. It’s all in the micromanagement!

Usually, we install a program and expect it to perform as new for however long we will use it. This isn’t the case with Outlook, its complexity being its eventual downfall. With this in mind, from time to time you will have to perform the instructions detailed above, but if you want to squeeze every bit of performance and speed from it you will also have to remember these steps:

a)      Download full IMAP items. If you are working under an IMAP account (Gmail for example), then make sure that it behaves just like POP – meaning, it downloads whole emails and not only their headers. If not, every time you click on a new item Outlook will slow down. To find out how to do this, just go here for Outlook 2003 or here for 2007; by default, Outlook 2010 downloads IMAP items in full. Even easier, just press Ctrl+Alt+S and then Edit your IMAP account.

b)      Disable add-ins that you no longer use. This is self-explanatory, actually – Outlook will perform slower if there are a million other things running in the background, accessing its data. You can manage them either from the Outlook Options screen or with the free Add-in Utility that comes bundled with Bells&Whistles for Outlook (our performance add-in). You can download the trial version from here and keep the Utility afterwards – it’s absolutely free!

c)       Disable the RSS feature found in Outlook. Just go to the Options screen, then search and uncheck the option “Sync RSS Feeds to the Common Feeds List“. So that Outlook doesn’t slow up searching old RSS items, be sure to delete them all afterwards.

5. Keep your PST file size under control.

This one’s a doozy! Since your PST file is a database of all your emails, the larger it is – the slower Outlook will run. So, I found that it’s best to start a new PST every year or so (this is what I’m currently doing). In addition, you should also delete your duplicates (which can appear because of many factors) and your obsolete emails, compact your PST and archive old items. Another thing to remember is that by moving your attachments to your hard-drive instead of keeping them within the emails, Outlook will run much faster.

If Outlook is still slow or you would just like a program that effortlessly deals with all these options and more, then you can try our speed-improving add-in, Weight Diet for Outlook. Through a user-friendly interface you will be able to move & compress file attachments to disk, identify & eliminate obsolete emails, find & delete duplicated emails, automatically upload attachments to the cloud and compress your PST file. All these options will take less time than if you would do them manually and will make your Outlook installation run like a race horse (or, because we’re talking about Outlook here, at least as a regular horse J ). You can download the latest version from here or just go and buy a license for only $29.95 (30-day money back guarantee).

If we’ve missed anything, be sure to tell us in the comments section or at support@emailaddressmanager.com.

We know that most times, composing your emails and newsletters or setting-up your mailing list takes a lot of time and effort! We’ve been there! So, at the end of the day, when you’re just about to send your mass email you shouldn’t worry and spend additional time searching for free icons, email backgrounds, patterns, stock photos and whatnot. Of course, you could always find resources for emails on Google, but then you’d have to worry about copyrights, licenses and all manner of legal stuff… all for that tiny Facebook icon or email background pattern! Or, of course, you could just use Outlook’s bundled clipart or send out plain-text emails, but we think that you’d want to set yourself apart from the deluge of same-old, seen-it messages.

So that you can leave work with a clean conscience, our crack team of researchers here at DS Development has compiled a list of the best, free and easy-to-use email resources for all your future communications. It’s always a good idea to make your emails more personal and create a bond with your recipients (be they direct recipients, with whom you speak personally or indirect ones, which just receive your newsletters), a thing that’s easy to accomplish visually – so, save the following list of email resources to somewhere convenient and give your next batch a little more panache!

EMAIL RESOURCE #1: Free for commercial use email pattern backgrounds

A great email background is one that’s unobtrusive, simple and clean, and which also has a small file size. Even if you’d like to put that photo of you in the Bahamas on all your emails, just think how your recipients will react when they’ll have to download a few Mbs worth of data… So, the best idea is to use a seamless pattern (a tile-able pattern). While you can find many free patterns along with other resources on the web, only some are free for commercial use and even less are adequate for emails. Here are our hand-picked pattern resources, guaranteed to make your emails “sparkle”:

• light pixel pattern:

• waves pattern:

• paper-like pattern:

• a set of notepad-like patterns:

• a “noise” pattern:

If you want a specific pattern as your email’s background, then just open the archives above with 7-zip for example, then follow the steps provided here or here.

EMAIL RESOURCE #2: Free for commercial use icon sets

At one time or another, you’ll want to add social media icons to your emails or just a particular icon to link to your shopping cart, blog and so on.  There are many free for commercial use icon sets, so here are a couple of icon-specific search engines that allow you to browse entire collections:

-          Icon Finder – just enter what you’re looking for, click on search and then select “Allowed for commercial use (No link required)”;

-          Find Icons – as above, only this time choose “Both Above Two”.

Note that there are more resources like the above on the web, but as far as we could find, only these two allow you to easily choose a size and a particular license for your searches. The great thing is that they’re the best at what they do, so they provide almost all icon resources that others may have. Some of the others are:

http://www.veryicon.com/

http://www.iconlet.com/

http://www.iconseeker.com/

And here’s another great resource for your emails: a free set of social media icons that you can use anywhere (on your website, newsletters and so on):

Download

EMAIL RESOURCE #3: Fonts for your emails

Regarding email fonts, it’s best to use the classics like Arial, Times New Roman or Verdana, since these are the ones usually included on everyone’s computers. Even so, if you would like to design newsletters and emails with type, here are a couple of great resources for you:

Download

Download

Download

Download

Now, if you’d like to browse some more fonts for your emails, just check out these search engines which provide you with a plethora of useful resources:

http://abstractfonts.com/ – just select a category of fonts, then when you reach one that you like click on it and see if it’s free for commercial use:

http://fontspace.com – just like the above, browse categories then click on the font you like and look for this:

If you need to use specific fonts and resources for particular recipients, then you can take a look at our productivity add-in, Bells&Whistles for Outlook. It allows you to create custom scenarios for all your email communications and will surely speed up your day!

EMAIL RESOURCE #4: Free for commercial use stock images

Are you a restaurant patron in need of a good picture of a pizza? A florist who wants an image of a beautiful rose? Or maybe you would just like an inspiring sunset at the bottom of your emails… No matter the case, free image resources are pretty hard to find! Even so, we have tracked down some of the best sites that offer free for commercial use images and tried them out:

http://www.morguefile.com/archive/ – really great resource site for any image-related need (we have used it ourselves a couple of times and can vouch for its ease of use and quality);

http://www.sxc.hu/home – you will need to create an account, but other than that, Stock Exchange is one of the oldest and most complete free image resource sites;

http://freerangestock.com/ – loads of high quality images for any occasion, all you need to download is a free account;

http://www.adigitaldreamer.com/gallery/index.php – clear categories, tons of quality images, no sign-up… what’s not to love?

http://mayang.com/textures/ – more than 4250 free textures available for download;

As you may have seen, free and high quality don’t need to be exclusive. There are thousands of talented photographers, designers and artists on the web that don’t require you to pay an arm and a leg for a few images, so give them a try!

We have just scratched the surface in this post, but we hope that you will find here all the resources you’ll need for your future emails and designs. If we missed anything or if we have helped you out, then we welcome your feedback either here in the comments section, or at support@emailaddressmanager.com.

Lastly, if you need to send out periodic newsletters and want better control of both the content of the emails and your mailing lists then you can check out our products here. We’re sure that you’ll find something to your liking, so why not give them a try?