Did you notice some downtime?

News

Well, I hope not! Today I changed the backend of my website, or in less technical terms; the stuff that keeps my website running ;-)

After years and years of managing separate htm-files, everything is now finally in a database and managed by a lot less template files. I’ve taken much care in making sure all the ‘old’ links still work and will continue to work since they are the ‘new’ links as well. However, there were a few links for which it wasn’t possible to transfer them but you should be automatically redirected for those. One of those links is for the RSS Feed of my website. If your RSS application is advanced enough, it will probably automatically update the subscription link and otherwise you’ll have to do it manually. If you come across some issues with my website, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Which reminds me; I have to update my About page! Last month I got my degree of “Master of Science in ICT in Business”. My thesis research was titled; “Bridging the gap between intra-organizational mobile collaboration scenarios and tools.”

I know things have been quiet on this website for a while but with the graduation and this backend change, I can finally focus again on the content part of this website. I’ve got a big list of ideas to write guides on but if you have some ideas too on things you want to see covered on this website you can contacts me.

I’ll also frequently post small tips and tricks on Outlook on my other Outlook website MSOutlook.info.

See you soon! :-)


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Office 2003 Service Pack 3 Released!

News

Today Office 2003 SP3 got released. In true Office tradition you can expect this to be the final Service Pack that we’ll see for Office 2003 (but I’m sure we’ll see some additional Hotfixes though). You can download Service Pack 3 here or of course use Microsoft Update or Office Update.

I’ve also updated the guide on how to create an Office 2003 CD (or installation point) with Service Pack 3 slipstreamed into it.


Sorting Outgoing E-mails

Move a Copy rule action for Sent Items buttonWhen you use Rules to sort your outgoing e-mails into folders you’ll notice that you can actually only “move a copy” to that folder. This rule is quite unclear and actually contradicts itself; does it move or does it copy?

Well it copies and when you use the rule by default, you’ll end up with duplicates which is probably not what you want; you want it to move! This is still achievable but it involves modifying another option and to carefully craft your e-mail rules.

Continue reading: Sorting Outgoing E-mails


Send Word Document As Email

Send to Mail Recipient buttonWhen writing in Word, you may sometimes want to send the contents in an email. While you could send it from Word as an attachment File-> Share menu or simply copy/paste the contents in a new email there are some more sophisticated means as well.

For instance, you could add the Send to Mail Recipient command to the Ribbon or Quick Access Toolbar.

However, you’d still be in the Word environment. The drawback of this, is that you are missing some Outlook features such as;

  • choosing the Sent Items folder
  • convenient access to your signatures if you only have 1 mail account
  • inserting Business Cards
  • inserting Quick Parts you saved in Outlook
  • custom VBA code
  • some add-ins that you have installed for Outlook won’t function properly

This guide will explain how you can mimic the “Send to Mail Recipient” feature by using VBA code and allow you to work in an Outlook environment, giving you access to the features you need.

Continue reading: Send Word Document As Email


Signing your own macros with SelfCert.exe

SelfCert buttonWhen you create a macro and are running Outlook with the default security settings, you are not able to run the macro at all or you’ll always get prompted first, unless you either tamper with the default security settings or sign your own code with a digital certificate.

Since it is not very common to have your own digital certificate, you probably set your macro security to a lower level to be able to run your macro.

There is no need for that; You can sign your own macros with SelfCert.exe so macros can run without lowering your Outlook security settings.

Continue reading: Signing your own macros with SelfCert.exe


Save embedded pictures in their original format

Pictures buttonYou’ve probably come across this at least once; You receive a nicely HTML formatted message with embedded pictures so the sender can tell the story with the pictures.

In this case, you can’t use the “Save All Attachments” command to quickly save all the images that are included in the email.

The macro in this guide allows you to save all the embedded pictures in their original file format to a selected folder.

Continue reading: Save embedded pictures in their original format


Setting Outlook Group Policies

Group Policy Editor buttonWhen you are in an Active Directory network environment, you can set Outlook policies to enforce settings on a specific or a group of users or computers.

This is mainly to be used to change or limit the default behavior of Outlook in a corporate environment but can also be useful in some home environments. For instance, as a home user you might want to set policies on what your children can and cannot do in Outlook.

This article explains how you can set Group Policies for Outlook and which tools are needed for it.

Continue reading: Setting Outlook Group Policies


Setting Permissions on a Mailbox

Setting the correct permissions on mailboxes and Outlook folders can be done in several ways when you are in an Exchange organization. The correct way for you depends on your needs. While some methods look quite the same the results can be very different. This guide explains in which way you can set permissions and what their results are.

Basically there are three ways of setting permissions;

Via Exchange

This is where it starts. To be able to set permissions you must have them yourself. When your administrator creates your account he/she will also create a mailbox with you as the owner of the mailbox giving you automatically full permissions. This enables you to create an Outlook mail profile so you can start Outlook with your mailbox as the Outlook Today folder and allows you to set permissions for others.

Exclusive permissions for this method;

  • Setting an owner for the mailbox so a mail profile with your mailbox as the Outlook Today mailbox. (full mailbox Exchange permissions required)
  • Set Send As Owner permissions (Send As mailbox permissions are required)
  • Set Send On Behalf Of Owner permissions. This can be controlled from within Outlook as well so your administrator doesn’t really have to be disturbed for this one.

Via the Permissions tab in Options

This is where you can set permissions on the mailbox shown as the Outlook Today mailbox. In Outlook choose Tools-> Options-> tab Delegates and the following screen will show;

Delegates tab

From within this interface you can add people from within your organization to the delegates list and set appropriate permissions for them on the following folders; Calendar, Tasks, Inbox, Contacts, Notes and Journal. Setting permissions this way is probably the easiest and fastest. It also allows you to set some permissions which can’t be set by any other way.

The following permissions can be set on the folders;

PermissionEffective setting
NoneNone
ReviewerCan read items
AuthorCan read and create items
EditorCan read, create and modify items

Note that you are only setting permissions on the folders that are listed and on not their subfolders.

Once these permissions have been set the delegate can open the folders they’ve got permissions to by File-> Open-> Other User’s Folder…

Exclusive permissions for this method;

  • All delegates will have Send On Behalf Of Permissions (also possible by Exchange permissions but since you can control it yourself it’s not needed to bother your administrator about it)
  • On the Delegates tab you can set the option that copies of invitations for meetings are also send to the delegate. This is handy when you have someone planning your appointments.
  • In the Delegates Permissions window you can set the option that the delegate can also see messages marked as private.

Via the Permissions tab on the folder

This method gives you the best control on how others can access your folders. This also makes this method the most time consuming one.

Besides from the Permissions you can set shown in the table above you can also make adjustments to them by selecting or deselecting the available options.

Inbox Permissions
Be careful with setting permissions for Anonymous cause you’ll end up giving those permissions to everyone in your Exchange organization.

This method can be used so that people can add your mailbox to their Folder List and makes accessing your folders just as quick and easy as accessing your own. If you do this you must make sure that you have at least Folder Visible permissions on that folder and on the one above to make travelling to that folder possible. If you don’t do this you won’t be able to expand the folders. So if you want to add a subfolder of someone else’s mailbox to your Folder List you’ll need to set permissions not only on that subfolder but also on the Inbox folder and the Outlook Today folder.

Once the permissions have been set you can add the mailbox by Tools-> E-mail Account-> button Next-> select Exchange Service-> button Change-> button More Options …-> tab Advanced-> button Add.

Add Mailbox
You can do this faster by right clicking Outlook Today-> Properties-> button Advanced-> tab Advanced-> button Add.

Exclusive permissions for this method;

  • The only method that enables you to set per folder permissions
  • Enables you to set permissions without giving the delegate Send On Behalf Of permissions
  • Allows you to set more specific permissions.