|
DAWN
Canada: DisAbled Women's Network Canada MS
Outlook Tips Outlook Express Quick Tips MS Outlook Express: Technology Quick Tips #10 - 19
10. Outlook - Changing Your Name If you have more than one e-mail account, you may not intuitively recognize each one by its proper name. Rather than trying to remember the difference between jdoe1345@isp.com and jdough987@isptoo.com, you can rename these accounts something like My Business Account and The Silly Walkers Club. Follow these steps to change an account name: 1. Choose Tools, Accounts. 2. Select the View or change existing e-mail accounts option, and then click Next. 3. In the account list, select the account you want to rename by clicking it. 4. Click the Change button. 5. Click More Settings. 6. Type a new name for the account in the text box. Go for something memorable this time. ~~~~~~~
Although the Outlook Express preview pane is very handy, in these days of e-mail virus contamination, many users believe that it's safer to do without the preview. To turn off the preview pane, choose View | Layout. When the dialog box opens, deselect the "Show preview pane" check box and click OK. Now, you can look at the "From" information and decide whether to open an e-mail or just delete it. ~~~~~
Want to add automatic signatures to all your e-mails? Here's how: - Click Tools-Options - Click the Mail Format tab - Click the Signature Picker button - Name your signature and click Next - Type in your signature block in the Signature Text section - Click Finish - Click OK twice ~~~~~~
Sometimes it's handy to look over your calendar and remind yourself of upcoming yearly events such as Mother's Day, Father's Day, your anniversary, or your best friend's birthday (oops, that was last month?). If you remember to enter important birthday and anniversary dates in your Outlook Calendar, you can call up a quick rundown any time by choosing View, Current View, Annual Events. Annual Events shows the list of items that last at least an entire day and return at the same time each year. If you want to separate your list of birthdays from the 14 annual general meetings and conferences you also listed as annual events, you can further filter the list by following these steps: 1. In the Annual Events view, choose View, Current View, Customize Current View. 2. In the View Summary dialog box, click the Filter button. 3. On the Appointments and Meetings tab, type birthday in the Search for the Word(s) text box. 4. Click the Advanced tab. 5. In the Define More Criteria section, click the Field button. 6. Choose All Appointment Fields, Recurrence. 7. From the Value dropdown list, select Yearly. 8. Click Add to List. 9. Click OK twice to return to Outlook. Voila! A list of everyone's birthdays for the year appears.
Although the Outlook Express preview pane is very handy, in these days of e-mail virus contamination, many users believe that it's safer to do without the preview. To turn off the preview pane, choose View | Layout. When the dialog box opens, deselect the "Show preview pane" check box and choose OK. Now, you can look at the "From" information and decide whether to open an e-mail or just delete it.
When you need to make an important e-mail message stand out in the recipient's inbox, you can set a message's priority in Outlook Express. Write your new message as you normally would and then click the arrow at the right side of the Priority button in the Outlook Express toolbar. Select High Priority (or Normal Priority or Low Priority) from the pop-up list, and click Send. ~~~~~
If you want to send a copy of a message to someone else but you don't want the other recipients to know about it, use the Bcc: (Blind Carbon Copy) filed instead of the Cc: or To: field. A copy of the message is sent to each person listed in the Bcc: field, but the people in the To: and Cc: fields can't see the names of the Bcc: recipients. If the Bcc: field doesn't appear in the New Message window, choose View, Bcc to enable this optional field. ~~~~~
Attaching files with your email outbound messages in Outlook Express is easy as creating a new message and dragging a file from Explorer right into your new message window. Of course, you can always click the Attach button in the new message toolbar, or choose the menu Insert/File Attachment. But once you mastered the finer art of attaching files, documents and images, those sent messages become archived in Outlook Express' SENT folder. Unfortunately, each of those SENT messages contain full blown copies of the attached files as part of the message information in your SENT messages folder. And over a very short time, sent messages containing attachments and documents can consume a HUGE amount of disk space. Unfortunately, Microsoft left out a much needed wizard for Outlook Express that would help to remove and delete unnecessary messages with file attachments. Why keep copies of sent messages and attached files, when the files probably already exist on your hard drive anyway? If we haven't convinced you of the benefits of deleting messages with attached files, you'll soon learn the impact of keeping a SENT folder message in OE with 100 MB of attached files. It will not only slow down Outlook Express's operation, but will also consume disk space, extend the time for defragging your PC's hard drive, and add seconds to every launch/exit of Outlook Express. ~~~~~
If you're away from your computer for a few days, you could find yourself with a full Outlook Express Inbox. One way to make a full Inbox less confusing is to tell Outlook Express to hide all the mail that you've already read. To do this, choose View / Current View / Hide Read Messages. Once you make this selection, all the already read mail will disappear from view. Your hidden messages aren't lost, however. All you have to do is choose View / Current View / Show All Messages to get them back again. ~~~~~
Do you have people in your Address Book that you don't know? If so, you probably have set Outlook Express to add the addresses of all incoming e-mail to your Address Book. To put a stop to this madness, choose Tools / Options. When the dialog box opens, select the Send tab. Now, deselect the check box labeled "Automatically put people I reply to in My Address Book" and select OK. To clear out the existing useless names, select Addresses in the Outlook Express toolbar and then delete each of the unnecessary addresses. Choose File / Exit when you finish deleting names. ~~~~~
|