Enabling/Disabling Cached Exchange Mode through the Registry (July 25)
Alright, so after I saw 2 guys getting arrested for not having a valid train ticked (and then still refuse to buy a ticked and cause a lot of trouble in the train) I got a bit bored in the train this weekend. So I took a deep dive into the registry and tried to find out which key determines whether Cached Exchange Mode is enabled or disabled. Great new; I’ve found it! 
View: Enabling/Disabling Cached Exchange Mode through the Registry
Add-In listing added: ABC Amber Outlook Converter (July 24)
From the Author;
ABC Amber Outlook Converter is intended to help you keep your important messages organized in one file (as hypertext system). It is a very useful tool that converts your e-mails from MS Outlook to any document format (CHM, PDF, HTML, RTF, HLP, TXT Ansi, TXT Unicode, DOC, MCW, WPS, SAM, RFT, WS4, WS7, WRI, etc.) easily and quickly. All you have to do is select required messages, choose document format to convert and click Save As button. Currently our software supports more than 50 languages. With ABC Amber Outlook Converter you won’t ever waste your time to organize your messages!
View: screenshot
View: homepage
Order: ABC Amber Outlook Converter
Microsoft to Enforce Antispam Plan (July 24)
Sender ID will be used with Hotmail, MSN, and Microsoft.com e-mail addresses.
Microsoft will soon put some bite into its Sender ID antispam plans. The software giant will check e-mail messages sent to its Hotmail, MSN, and Microsoft.com mail accounts to see if they come from valid e-mail servers, as identified by the Sender ID, according to a company executive.
The company is strongly urging e-mail providers and Internet service providers to publish, by mid-September, Sender Policy Framework records that identify their e-mail servers in the domain name system. Microsoft will begin matching the source of inbound e-mail to the Internet Protocol addresses of e-mail servers listed in that sending domain’s SPF record by October 1.
Messages that fail the check will not be rejected but will be further scrutinized and filtered, says Craig Spiezle, director of Microsoft’s Safety Technology and Strategy Group.
View full article: Microsoft to Enforce Antispam Plan
Lookout Available as Free Download from Microsoft! (July 23)
Lookout is lightning-fast search for your email, files, and desktop integrated with Microsoft Outlook™. Built on top of a powerful search engine, Lookout is the only personal search engine that can search all of your email from directly within Outlook – in seconds…
You can use Lookout to search your:
Email messages
Contacts, calendar, notes, tasks, etc.
Data from exchange, POP, IMAP, PST files, Public Folders
Files on your computer or other computers
… Very soul (okay, not true)
Just enter your search and press enter. Results are instant. Lookout will find your search terms hiding nearly anywhere in your Outlook mailbox – subjects, bodies, phone numbers, addresses, etc.
Supports Outlook 2000, 2002/XP and 2003
Download: Lookout
Spam sender settles N.Y. case (July 20)
New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has reached a settlement with Scott Richter, a prominent Internet marketer who was sued in December on accusations of sending deceptive junk e-mail.
Richter and his company, OptInRealBig.com, agreed to pay a $40,000 fine and $10,000 toward the investigative cost. That is far smaller than the millions in penalties that Spitzer said he would seek when he filed the case.
“We will drive them into bankruptcy, and therefore others will not come into the marketplace to take their place,” Spitzer said in December. “If we’re going to succeed, we not only have to shut down those who are there now but make it evident that there is no viable business model here.”
Brad Maione, a spokesman for Spitzer, declined to comment on the discrepancy between Spitzer’s comment in December and the amount of the ultimate fine.
View full article: Spam sender settles N.Y. case
Updated: Producer for Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 (July 20)
Microsoft Producer 2003 for PowerPoint 2003 is the next release of this very popular add-in for PowerPoint 2003 and PowerPoint 2002. Producer 2003 provides users with many powerful new features that make it easier to synchronize audio, video, slides, and images to create engaging and effective rich-media presentations. Producer 2003 gives content and media professionals, as well as everyday PowerPoint users a host of new content authoring features.
Download: Producer for Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003
How To: Navigation Pane Tips & Tricks (July 17)
The Navigation Pane is new in Outlook 2003. It is designed for easier management of the same type of folders like Mail, Calendar and Contacts folders. The Navigation Pane also holds the Folder List and the Outlook Bar has been replaced with the Shortcuts Navigation. These enhancements are great especially when you must manage a lot of Calendar and Contacts folders of other people or Public Folders. This is one of the reasons we started our upgrade to from Office 2002 to Office 2003 with the secretaries. They really loved the enhancements as some of them were managing a Folder List of several meters long (managers are real mail collectors and love to organize by putting every mail in their own folder :-D).
With the enhancements of the Navigation Pane also came quite a lot of options but not all of them are really easy to notice or to work with right from the start. This is why I wrote the Navigation Pane Tips & Tricks guide. Click the link below for the Tips & Tricks.
View: Navigation Pane Tips & Tricks
Worried firms consider email boycott (July 17)
Six out of 10 companies claim they will give up email if the threat posed by viruses, spam and other unwanted content is not contained and a viable alternative emerges.
Responding to an email security survey carried out by MessageLabs a further 40 per cent said they feel ‘worried’ by the current email security threat to their business, with only 29 per cent feeling ‘optimistic’.
The survey shows that few (15 per cent) think email will remain the same application over the next decade, while two thirds think it will merge with other messaging applications, such as wireless and instant messaging. But only 14 per cent of respondents think it will become completely obsolete.
Over 20 per cent of firms responding to the research indicated that online fraud such as phishing and identity theft will be the greatest threat. Viruses achieved a similar rating (21 per cent).
View full article: Worried firms consider email boycott
Microsoft buys Lookout to boost search (July 17)
Microsoft’s MSN division announced Thursday that it has acquired Lookout Software, a firm whose technology searches messages in the software giant’s Outlook e-mail client.
Details of the acquisition remain murky, as Microsoft did not disclose financial terms and did not describe how Lookout will be integrated. What the company did say was the acquisition builds on MSN Search’s ongoing efforts to refurbish itself through a series of changes.
“Our vision is to take search beyond today’s basic Internet search services to deliver direct answers to people’s questions, and help them find information from a broad range of sources,” Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president of MSN, said in a statement.
View full article: Microsoft buys Lookout to boost search
View Press Release from Microsoft: MSN Announces Investment in Search Technology
Office File Converter Pack (July 17)
Additional file and image filters for Office applications. These additional converters and filters are for older or seldom used documents or image formats.
Download: Office File Converter Pack
Microsoft wins $4 million spam verdict (July 17)
Microsoft Corp. said on Thursday that it won an almost $4 million verdict against a California man for trademark infringement, false advertising and “cybersquatting” stemming from an unsolicited commercial e-mail campaign to distribute a desktop toolbar program on recipients’ Windows desktops.
Daniel Khoshnood of Canoga Park, California, was ordered to pay $3.95 million after the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California found in favor of Microsoft in the civil case, which Microsoft filed in June 2003, after receiving a flood of spam on its MSN and MSN Hotmail e-mail services from Khoshnood. The e-mail messages claimed to offer a toolbar that, once installed, would automatically update recipients’ Windows systems with security patches, Microsoft said in a statement.
Microsoft won a summary judgement against Khoshnood and his companies, Pointcom Inc. and Joshuathan Investments, in January. That judgement ordered Khoshnood to stop using Microsoft’s trademarks and name, refrain from spamming, and pay damages to and legal fees for the Redmond, Washington software company, according to a court document.
View full article: Microsoft wins $4 million spam verdict
The Microsoft Office Information Bridge Framework 1.0 Resource Kit – Documentation (July 17)
The Microsoft Office Information Bridge Framework 1.0 Resource Kit includes a set of tools, documentation, and sample solutions. The Resource Kit is a useful aid for new or experienced Information Bridge Framework solution developers.
The resource kit is divided into three distinct sets of downloads: Tools, Documentation, and Sample Solutions.
Download: The Microsoft Office Information Bridge Framework 1.0 Resource Kit – Documentation
New Hampshire: E-mail free or die…for now (July 13)
New Hampshire’s tax commissioner has temporarily abandoned plans to tax a broad swath of online services, including Internet phone calls, chat rooms, Web mail and instant messaging.
A representative of the Department of Revenue Administration said Tuesday that after encountering criticism of the proposal at a public hearing the day before, Commissioner G. Philip Blatsos had decided to leave any Internet tax decisions to the state legislature.
“Because this is a tremendously important policy issue, rather than go through the rulemaking process at this point, we should defer to the legislative study committee,” said Val Berghaus, an assistant to Blatsos. “At the request of legislative leaders of the Ways and Means committee, (Blatsos) is going to defer to that request.” The legislative committee is scheduled to convene Aug. 4.
View full article: New Hampshire: E-mail free or die…for now
Microsoft Security Bulletins (July 13)
- MS04-018 Cumulative Security Update for Outlook Express (823353)
- MS04-019 Vulnerability in Utility Manager Could Allow Code Execution (842526)
- MS04-020 Vulnerability in POSIX Could Allow Code Execution (841872)
- MS04-021 Security Update for IIS 4.0 (841373)
- MS04-022 Vulnerability in Task Scheduler Could Allow Code Execution (841873)
- MS04-023 Vulnerability in HTML Help Could Allow Code Execution (840315)
- MS04-024 Vulnerability in Windows Shell Could Allow Remote Code Execution (839645)
View: Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for July, 2004
Postini: Half of all e-mail requests rejected (July 13)
Antispam company Postini Inc. is now rejecting more than half of all attempts to send e-mail to its customers, in part because of increased activity from compromised home computers that have been turned into “zombies” for sending unsolicited commercial e-mail.
The company is dropping 53% of all e-mail connections that use the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) without reading the content of the e-mail messages. That’s a sharp increase since the company began aggregating information about troublesome Internet addresses from across its customer base, said Andrew Lochart, director of product marketing at Postini.
The Redwood City, Calif.-based company manages e-mail for about 3,300 companies and 5 million e-mail users. Postini uses its own algorithms to spot spam, denial-of-service attacks and other threats by analyzing the behavior of Internet-connected machines that send e-mail and, after that, the message content.
View full article: Postini: Half of all e-mail requests rejected
