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Outlook Express

Clean your inbox

stuffed inboxEmail truly revolutionized communication. The ability to retrieve a message from anywhere in the world in a matter of seconds is mind boggling. However, judging by the size of your inboxes (see this week’s poll), you could benefit from some tips on how to keep your inbox clean.

I used to keep as many as many as 50 or so email stacked up in my inbox, but I always felt that I was behind in my work and consequently much of the email went unread and unanswered. A little more than a year ago, it all changed after I read an article that struck a chord with me called Email Zen. I immediately started practicing the techniques and suggestions in the article and found myself with a cleaner inbox and a better overall outlook (no pun intended) about email and my email communication. I continue to strive for the empty inbox and find that if i get more than 10, I start to get a little jumpy.

From reading that article and my own experience over the past eighteen months, here are my suggestions for reaching harmony with email:

Print only what you want – Multi-tip

If you use either of these programs, then you will find yourself using this tip often. How many times do you curse at your printer when you print a joke from email or some web page information and get two or more extra sheets of paper with useless information?

Follow this tip and experience printing bliss from email or Internet.

On the Web (using Microsoft Internet Explorer), if you first select the text (by clicking and dragging with your mouse) that you would like to print and then click on File and Print, you will have the option to print all pages, certain pages or only your selected text.

Backup Outlook Express Email – Video Tip

This week’s tip also applies to Windows Vista users who use Windows Mail…which is basically Outlook Express with a new name.

I still recommend that emailers save their important pictures and documents sent to them via email to a folder on their computer for easier backup (see my video tip on how to do this by clicking here), but many people also save a great deal of email and don’t want to lose it. Outlook Express (Windows Mail) saves all email in files with a .dbx extension. The files are named for the folders you have created in your email, so you will see files like inbox.dbx, saved.dbx, family.dbx, etc. Whatever email folders you have created will have a corresponding .dbx file.

These files, unfortunately, are buried in the Windows files system. This week’s video tip demonstrates how to locate these files on your computer so you can then copy them to flash drive (best idea) or CD/DVD.

Opening PPS (PowerPoint) files in Outlook Express

PPS files are PowerPoint presentation slide shows that have been saved as a file that can be viewed by anyone. If you get a PPS file and can’t see the slideshow, then click here for our tip on where to find the free PowerPoint viewer.

Once you get the viewer, however, some people still can’t see the slideshows without first saving the attachment to the desktop then double-clicking it from there. It works, but requires a few more steps. Today, I had a call from a customer who was in this situation and really wanted to avoid having to first save the attachment, close email, look for the file and then double-click it to view the slideshow.

Lost Outlook Express toolbar – Video Tip

I’m not sure why, but I’ve seen a rash of lost toolbars in Outlook Express and Windows Mail. If you lost your main toolbar with reply, print, new message, etc and you need to know how to get it back, watch this video. If you know other people with this infliction, please pass the video on to them.

Rick’s Answers his email Videocast – 018

Many good questions this week ranging from Cameroon Pet Scams to using Outlook vs. Outlook Express, Picasa printing, sound card problems, and much more. Questions this are brought to you by: Don, Irv, Margie, Rosie, David, Dave, Dave, Marcel, and Tom. Take a look!

Import Outlook Contacts into Gmail WITH Street Addresses

Old Gmail Link

After running into this issue one to many times lately, I finally found a fast solution. Problem: Outlook users who want to export their address books (contacts) and import them into Gmail can get almost everything imported except street addresses. It’s maddening. Madness be gone, the solution is now just a few steps away.

Exporting your contacts from Outlook:

  1. Open Outlook (note this is NOT Outlook Express)
  2. Click File –> Import/Export
  3. Click Export to a file
  4. Click Next
  5. Click Comma Separated Values (Windows) option
  6. Click Next
  7. Click Contacts from the list of your

My first year with Gmail

MailboxI closed Outlook and started using Gmail exclusively one year ago. At first, I thought it would be a good experiment to see what Gmail was really all about, but I was also fed up with Outlook and its limitations. It took me two or three weeks to wean myself of thinking of my email in the same way that I used to with Outlook. For the experiment to work, Gmail had to satisfactorily accomplish 3 key functions of email that I handled pretty well with Outlook:

  1. Spam filtering (I used Cloudmark Desktop with Outlook for years and am convinced that for Outlook/Outlook Express or Thunderbird users there is no equal).
  2. Aggregate all of my email addresses (5) in one system.
  3. Organize my email with categories (folders) and automated filtering for shifting email to their appropriate category/folder.

If Gmail could equal or exceed what I could do with Outlook, then I would consider it a success. Gmail’s spam filtering quickly impressed me. In fact, one year later, I can say confidently that Gmail’s spam filtering is superior to that of the Cloudmark system that kept me sane for years with Outlook. Feature #1, check!

I learned to use the Accounts feature in Gmail to successfully and seamlessly pull all my email addresses (and sort them) into my Gmail account. Beautiful; Feature #2, check!

Organizing my email, without the use of folders, proved to be the

Create a Permanent Email Address for Yourself

Are you tired of having to change your email address when your Internet provider goes out of business or gets gobbled up by another provider, or you move, or you just want to change Internet providers?

Informing everyone in your address book that you have changed email addresses doesn’t take a great deal of time, but it is annoying nonetheless. In today’s Shotgun article, I explain how you can create an address that is permanently yours regardless of who you use for an Internet provider.