If you’re running any version of Windows, you’ve probably dealt with setting how you want your Windows Security and other updates handled. I’ve got mine set to download important updates but to let me choose when to install them (this is using Windows 7).

Deleting Downloaded, But Not Installed Updates

I was running Office 2007, but upgraded to 2010. However, I’d been getting this persistent and annoying notification that Windows Update wanted to install an important PowerPoint 2007 update. I thought it would go away, but it never did (because the update was downloaded).

Here’s how I found and deleted the download. I found that all the Windows updates are downloaded to

C:\WINDOWS and/or
C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution

or C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download   Mine was in the Download folder and I just opened up the folders until I saw ‘powerpoint’. I knew (by searching the Microsoft KB (knowledge base), that this update came out in July, 2008, so I was pretty certain that was the right one. I deleted it and the folder it came in. Now there are no more notifications!

I found another way to do this that involves additional steps. It involves running some commands from  File>Run that involve first stopping the automatic updates. The next command finds the folder containing the downloads (same as the one I have above). They instruct you to delete everything in the downloads folder and then to restart the automatic updates. So the end result is that you delete all contents instead of searching for a particular one. I suppose if all your updates are installed, you don’t really need the contents of the download folder any more.

Hide a Particular Windows Update

If your Update Settings are such that you’ve told Microsoft that you’ll go and decide which updates to download, then you could see some updates that you’ll never need (like language packs for languages you don’t speak).

You can hide these so you’ll not see them again. It was so easy, but I didn’t know about it until I researched it. Simply right-click the update you don’t want and you’ll see a pop-up where you can select  the ‘hide update’ choice and you’re done!

If for some reason, you want to see the updates you’ve hidden, the update manager knows you’ve hidden then because you’ll see the below links when you first come to Microsoft Updates. Click on ‘Restore hidden updates’, then you’ll be taken to the place where you can choose to restore an update.

I procrastinated doing this for months because I didn’t know these simple commands. I hope this will be helpful to someone.

• Smart Screen Technology (new & improved spam filter)
• Mail sorting/viewing options
• View Office documents in your browser – and you don’t have to have Office installed
• Integrate Gmail, Yahoo Plus, AOL mail & POP mail in your Live/Hotmail account
• Contact duplicate eliminator

Smart Screen Technology (Spam Filter)

This is something I’m hoping really works. All mail I receive is verified by this Smart Screen. It’s supposed to be smart enough to figure out if an email I get is from a spam source AND if I’m thinking about opening up a particular email that’s marked as spam, it’ll tell me in a message at the top of my email.  It warns that the source has been marked as ‘spammy’, and to be careful about opening it.

Have you ever told your mail client that something is not spam, but you continue to find messages from that sender in your spam folder? We’ll see if this is fixed.

One other important thing about the new spam filter – after 10 days, anything in the spam folder is automatically deleted. So when you do get the new Hotmail/Live Mail, watch and train your email diligently and be sure to check your spam folder regularly.

Mail Sorting and Viewing Options

Both Outlook and Gmail have enhanced sorting options for your mail. You can choose to view messages by conversation, or threads. Now Live Mail/Hotmail has this feature as well. Threading/conversation view was a ‘big thing’ when Gmail first came out, so adding this feature was a smart move for Microsoft.

View Office Documents In Your Browser

With the new Live Mail, office documents can be opened and viewed without having to open Office on your computer. This is because of the new Microsoft Web Apps recently rolled out. Simply click on the icon and the document will open up in your browser. What I was reading didn’t say, but I’m assuming that you could revise and save the document to your Office Docs in the clouds if you choose to.

Enhanced Picture Sharing Via Live/Hotmail -

Sending and sharing pictures will be easier and more elegant with the new mail. When uploading photos, do remember to set your permission level after each upload – the default is to share with everyone.

Integrate Gmail, Yahoo Plus Mail and POP accounts

With Live/Hotmail, you’ve had the ability to bring in all these accounts to one place for some time, but they are still promoting that. They did not mention that you can also add POP accounts into Hotmail/Live Mail. Here’s an article I wrote that tells how this works. It should be noted that you must have the Yahoo Plus mail in order to import it into Hotmail/Live Mail. The free Yahoo mail does not import.

Manage Your Contacts

A great feature of Live/Hotmail is the ability to clean up your contact list. Perhaps you have imported contacts from other mail accounts or sources and you have multiples of some people. Simply click on contacts and then click on the drop-down ‘Manage’ button and choose to clean up your contacts. You’ll be presented with options for all duplicates found.

This feature is in Outlook (but harder to manage). I didn’t see it in either Gmail or Yahoo mail. I know Plaxo offers it, but it is a paid service there.

Summary

I think there’s a lot to look forward to when we all get the new Mail. I like the interface much better than Gmail, having the easy access to my photos, documents and Microsoft Web Apps is very useful for me. One thing about Hotmail on the web are the large, annoying ads that are on my home page. When they flash and change, it’s even more annoying. I’m considering upgrading to the $20/year premium mail where I won’t have to see those. Yahoo’s ads are rather bothersome too. I think Gmail has the least offensive ads and they are smaller.

I’ve read that Messenger is the top IM client in the world – used even more than Facebook chat. This is probably because its been around longer than Facebook. I don’t chat a whole lot, but from what I was reading, I saw it had the capability of bringing in updates from all your friends from Facebook, Twitter, etc. all in one place.

Starting today (June 24), Microsoft released its Wave 4 of Windows Live Essentials. Included in this is a new and improved Messenger. Above is what the new Messenger IM interface looks like. Not pictured was a warning from Messenger to not send anyone credit card, pin or other sensitive information (that’s good).

Some of the features

• video chat in hi def
• voice chat
• watch a slide show together, share pictures in real time (pictures can be from your hard drive, or an on-line photo album
• explore links together
• organize your contacts into groups and make yourself visible or invisible to certain groups of people
• see when your friends add a status update, new pictures, a blog posting to their social sites (to do this you have to walk through a few steps while in Messenger to connect to your Facebook or MySpace account(s)
• tabs at the top for each person you’re chatting with – this did work

The download of the new Messenger took awhile. This is because if you have any other Live components on your computer, the download manager automatically updates those along with your download of Messenger. This is annoying because it took longer and it didn’t give me the choice of whether or not I wanted to upgrade my other services.

So I finally got the installation finished and started Messenger. Yes, there are ways to customize how Messenger looks and there are new emoticons you can get. You can make groups and favorites to keep the people you most want to be in touch with on top.

One of the ‘big things’ with the new Messenger is the social stream feature. Your windows live contacts’ social commenting in Facebook, Twitter and other services will appear in your Messenger (they scroll by). I tried connecting with Facebook and put my credentials in a couple of times, but the service wasn’t working at the time – oh well, first day bugs.

When I went through some of my contacts and thought it would be nice to add them into my ‘social stream’, I found I had to send them an invitation – even though I’m already their ‘friend’ on Facebook or follow them on Twitter, I have to send a request – again – not happy about that, but it protects their privacy. I also found that Windows Live knew who of my contacts, were Windows Live members and it gave me that group to contact first.

As you’re going through the steps to get set up, you’ll be directed to a page where you can set multiple privacy settings. Take the time to do this, you can always go back later and revise them.

You can take the time to make your profile very open by putting the details in to show your friends your Facebook updates, Twitter updates, your blog postings and many other social sites. This way, when you are a friend with someone else on Messenger, they’ll be able to see all your updates in one place.

There are still the ads that show up in Messenger – some of which are loud and annoying, Then some ads are way off target. So you have to decide whether it’s worth using Messenger or not.

I do like the new look of Messenger better than the old one. The HD video chat feature and the picture and link sharing features are nice to have too. The social part is OK, but you do have to get people you’ve already ‘friended’ another chance to friend you again before you can start seeing their updates.

What are Web Apps? Microsoft has made available, for free, an on-line version of Word, Excel PowerPoint and OneNote. All you need to get this is a Windows Live ID. If you have a Hotmail or Live email account, or if you are already using some of Microsoft’s Live Essentials (photo gallery, messenger, movie maker), then you have a Live ID. Follow this link and get started.

The Microsoft Web Apps aren’t the full-fledged Microsoft desktop applications, but you can do your basic editing in a familiar web interface. If you open up a document in your SkyDrive, you can decide to do more detailed editing on your desktop with one click. This article will tell you what you can edit/change/do with web apps vs. the desktop application. For example, in the Excel web app, you can not highlight a cell and move it, you have to do a cut and paste function.

Benefit of Using Web Apps – SkyDrive (free cloud storage)

But let’s back up a bit and talk about SkyDrive – what’s this? Think of the Microsoft SkyDrive as your storage in the clouds, a kind of external hard drive. Below is a snapshot of my Office SkyDrive. This section contains only my Office documents. There is another section of the SkyDrive that contains my photo albums and other things. Microsoft gives an extremely generous 25GB of storage per account.

A great reason to sign up for Web Apps is the ability you’ll get to share your documents or folders with groups, just a few people, everyone, or just you. You can see in my folder list that I have a folder I share. The sharing feature is wonderful for using for work, clubs, groups or for family. You can share documents, photos or videos with people. You can put controls on sharing and let people only view your stuff, or you can let them have editing privileges. There is a history of who viewed/changed anything and also a place for people to leave comments on documents, i.e. changes, questions, instructions. Instead of emailing documents to yourself or someone else, put it in SkyDrive and only have one document instead of wondering if what you have is the last revision of your document! If you want to work on something at home from the office, put it in your SkyDrive folder and access it from home.

How Does It All Work?

So you have a Windows Live ID and you have documents on your computer you want to put in your SkyDrive. How do you get them from one place to the other?

I have an example below of one of my documents I’m saving to my SkyDrive. In this example, I’m using Office 2010, but I want to point out that Web Apps works with Office 2003 and 2007 as well. If you have Office 2003, your screen may look different from this one. When you’re ready, click the File>Save and then look for something referring to SkyDrive or Web. With 2010, you would click ‘Save to Web’, and then select the folder you want to put it in and the software does the rest.

To access your documents put in SkyDrive, simply go to office.live.com and log in with your Windows ID. Then you’ll see the below–click on ‘Office’ to be taken to your SkyDrive.

So now you see the document you put in SkyDrive and then you decide you want to add more documents. Using SkyDrive for a backup is a great idea. It’s smart to have 3 copies of each document/photo/presentation. One on your hard drive, one in the clouds (SkyDrive), and one on an external drive.

Microsoft first prompts you to select a folder to put the docs in, or to create a new folder. Then you’ll see the screen below. You can either open a windows explorer window and select multiple documents and drag them over, or you can click the ‘select documents from your computer’ hyperlink and add them that way. If you want to back up an entire folder, open the folder, select all the documents and click to start the upload or drag them over. Depending on the number and your connection speed, it might take a few minutes. At this time there isn’t a way to add a folder to SkyDrive.

After you’ve put some documents in your SkyDrive, take a look around at your options. You’ll be able to share them, download them back to your computer, open for editing either on the web or on your computer, rename or delete.

If you’re thinking of getting Microsoft Office 2010, you can download a free trial. Here’s where you can read about what’s new in Office 2010 and compare features with Office 2007 & 2003.

Many believe Microsoft released the free Web Apps to compete with Google Apps and it’s most likely true. If you’re an experienced Office user, you probably found Google Apps interface and features lacking. If you’ve ever opened a  Microsoft Office document with a table or header/footer or other specific formatting in Google Apps, you quickly realized your formatting either disappeared or looked different than it did previously. Two different platforms and Google trumped your formatting with its own. Although Microsoft Web Apps is not meant for intense editing, it will display and retain your document’s formatting.

Features & Comparisons With Google Docs

• Web Apps allow docs up to 50MG to be uploaded — Google has a smaller size limit
• With Web Apps, your document formatting is preserved when viewing and editing in Web Apps. In Google, the nice formatting, pictures, etc. don’t show up
• If you upload a PowerPoint presentation with animation and transition effects into Google Docs, then realize the effects are not showing up and you decide to download the presentation back to your computer to edit, the transition and animation effects are lost forever
• Google doesn’t support the .pptx format which Office 2007 & 2010 uses
• Documents can be downloaded as a zip file with Office Web Apps
• Printing is not available from Office Web Apps. I saw that there is a print feature in Google Docs, but it never did go to my printer

Give Microsoft Web Apps a spin and see what you think. Even if you find yourself not using the editing features, using the SkyDrive as a backup source will give you peace of mind.

This week, I want to talk about OSC (Outlook Social Connector), and the Screen Clipper.

Outlook 2010 Social Connector (Linked In & My Space)

I was very interested to see how Outlook was going to integrate with Linked In. After installing Outlook 2010, I went to  the download area and downloaded the connector.  Before running/installing, I exited Outlook. Next, I reopened Outlook and I connected my Outlook to my Linked In account (see screenshot below). I’m only interested in Linked In, although My Space is available right now. They will be adding Facebook and others later, but no dates have been posted.

You’ll see the ‘My Site’ right above. I haven’t figured this one out yet!

After you’re connected with your Linked In account, check the settings. Mine defaulted to the ‘update without prompting’, and I left it at that. You can also choose how long you want updates to show in Outlook.

So after you’re set up, then you’ll need to adjust your Outlook ‘view’ settings. I have mine set so I have a reading pane over on the right. With this view, you can then expand the window (see below), to show what comes up in the social connector part as you scroll through your emails.

Besides getting any Linked In updates from your contact, Outlook 2010 will pull in all emails and appointments you’ve had with your contact. You can even click on a little paperclip and have it sort all your emails from someone by attachment.  If I set my view where it does not have a right or left reading pane, then I don’t see the below ‘social and email’ windows.

I also noticed that I had a new category in my contacts that was labeled, ‘LinkedIn’. When I scrolled through this list, I saw that all my Linked In contacts were put in here. If my ‘connection’ had a picture on Linked In, it was in here too. I’m still waiting for the pictures to appear in my Outlook. I read this can take about a day to show up. I’m not sure why I need another set of contacts and wonder if this  will mess something else up. When I add Facebook in later – will I get another set of contacts? Hope we get some input on this.

Benefits of Using Outlook 2010 and the ‘Social Connector’

• Your contacts updates will sync seamlessly with LinkedIn, so if a colleague changes jobs or email, it’s taken care of.
• If there’s someone you receive emails from regularly, but aren’t connected via Linked In, check the ‘connect’ box while you’re in your Outlook and a request will be sent.
• As you scroll through your in-box, it’s nice to have all emails, status updates & appointments from a  person all collected and organized neatly for you.
• If you want more Linked In information on your contact, just one click from Outlook will take you to Linked In.
• Privacy settings (taken from msdn blog – the design of the OSC is such that your privacy and permissions settings on each of the networks you use are represented and respected within this experience. For example, if your profile photo and job title are publicly listed on a given network, then OSC users will see your photo and job title when receiving an e-mail from you (if they use that same network). Similarly, if you choose to restrict profile access on a given network, the OSC will respect that privacy. The goal of the OSC is not to create another social network or set of privacy settings for you to manage, but rather to bring the networks you already value and use to the Outlook experience.

Caution: Read the Outlook Blog Comments – I scrolled through the comments and saw quite a few people had problems with the installation and use of the beta connector (released Feb. 2010). The Connector still is a beta product and I’d use caution before installing on your production machine.

Outlook 2010 Screen Clipper

If you enjoy the Microsoft Snipping Tool, you’ll really appreciate the Screenshot Clipper automatically built into Outlook 2010.

I sometimes send screenshots via email from Facebook to my sister who is not on Facebook. With the built-in clipper, all I have to do is click on the “insert’ tab and then click on the ‘Screenshot’ drop down. This is where it gets a little tricky if you want to capture part of a screen. If you want to capture a picture and some text, then you will first have to have the window up and not minimized. So, after you click the ‘screenshot’, then click on the ‘screenclip’ button at the bottom of the popup. The maximized window will then appear, it will appear to ‘frost over’ and then a tool will appear to cut out what you want. It’s then inserted into your email.

If you want to capture an entire screen and you have multiple browsers or office programs open, you’ll see a list from which to choose. Simply navigate to and click on that window and the entire screen will be inserted into your email. Your captures can then be adjusted and you can even use the nifty built-in picture tools to add effects, borders, etc. to your snip.

Microsoft took it and it’s now a part of Office 2007 – the more upscale versions. If you don’t care to spend hundreds on the whole suite, you can buy a stand-alone version for $150 at Amazon.

So what is it and what will Groove do for you?

Groove is a pretty complete team sharing collaboration tool that brings documents, pictures, videos, chat and discussions together in a desktop workspace that can be shared with just one or many people. For large companies, workspaces are usually shared through servers or Microsoft SharePoint. For those without a server, new workspaces can be created using the ‘Groove Workspace’ feature. This will create a ?? The third choice when creating a workspace is to create a folder somewhere on your local drive that will be shared and synced with others.

Create a workspace with 2 clicks – then invite someone, or many people to share in your space. Adding contacts is not very intuitive, so here are instructions for adding the contacts from various sources into Groove so you don’t have to retype them.

Below is a screenshot of menu items available to you after you set up a workspace.

Tools/Features to Keep You Up-To-Date

• the leader of the workspace assigns members to appropriate levels of authority and the leader makes the decision to accept any revisions that members make
• each member has their own private space in which to edit documents
• after a member completes an edit, the document is synced for all members
• Groove keeps track of who made the last changes and version histories
• ability to work off-line
• data is encrypted with 192-bit AES encryption
• Groove 2007 is only available for 32-bit versions of Windows.

But Wait – Groove is Changing to Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010

This is pretty fresh news (April, 2010), and I would direct you to Mary Jo Foley’s article on the subject. In typical Microsoft fashion, there are few details available now. Mary Jo does note two items that businesses/people with older computers should take note of:

1. Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010 is 64-bit only. This means any workstation and servers too.
2. SharePoint Workspace 2010 will not support IE version 6.To most of us, this doesn’t seem like a big deal, but I hear there are large corporations out there who amazingly have NOT upgraded workstation browsers because of the conflicts that would arise from workers using proprietary software.

Difference Between OneNote & Groove

It seems to me that the usefulness of Groove is chiefly for document editing/collaborating. There are version histories and the ability to track who edited what and when. Then there is the ‘editor’ who decides what changes will stick.

With OneNote, documents can still be put in notebooks and shared and edited, but the controls aren’t as tight. OneNote can be used by one individual and highly personalized to contain snippets, recordings, documents, etc. However, notebooks can be shared with others, so collaboration is easy and effective.

A deciding factor for many might be cost. OneNote is packaged with Microsoft Office Home & Student Version for only $150 (includes Excel, Word, PowerPoint, but NOT Outlook). Adding Outlook to the package would still be less than buying the Professional or Ultimate versions of Office 2010.

Trial versions of Office 2010 can be downloaded for free at the Microsoft site. I think it’s free to use until October of this year.

Things changed when a client of mine brought OneNote up and said she thought it could really help her  bring many snippets of information together in one place. She also thought we could use it to maintain her ‘to do’ list—a list that has had several formats over the years and none altogether successful.

So this week, I’ve been doing some tutorials and research on OneNote and I’m ready to start using it for both business and personal use.

I already had OneNote with my Office 2007, so I was ready to go. Microsoft offers a free 60-day trial if you’d like to try it out. The first thing I did was watch a couple videos and then went to Microsoft to do their tutorial. This will be enough to get a firm foundation. If you want a list of all the features, check out this wiki. If you learn better visually, go to YouTube and do a search for OneNote videos. Finally, here’s a Quick Reference Guide from Microsoft that summarizes many features and commands.

Some reasons to use Microsoft OneNote:

• if you are an Outlook user, it integrates well with OneNote – put emails, calendar events or tasks into OneNote with 1-click. It’s an add-on in Outlook. You can also take a note from within OneNote and send it to Outlook as a task.
• Organize your notes—or not. You can be the super-efficient kind of person by labeling your notebooks and sections and being proactive by planning out future notebooks and sections that will be needed in each notebook. OR, you can just dig right in and start putting notes on a page.
• Organize your notes later. Just have OneNote open and start typing anywhere on a page. Perhaps you just got a phone call and need to take notes, but don’t have time to name or start a section. Use this feature and then you’ll see an ‘unfiled notes’ tab. When you’re ready to organize them, simply go there and drag your note to where you want it.
• Don’t worry about saving your notes – anything you type into OneNote automatically gets saved, so if you get called away or have to navigate to another windows, your stuff will be waiting for you.
• Insert files from Word, Excel and PowerPoint
• Tag notes, pictures, etc. for easy finding later. View all your tags periodically from the menu and organize them.
• Insert audio files OR record a meeting and put it in OneNote. Audio notes are searchable too (you’ll need to use a quality microphone for this).
• Scan in documents, business cards- anything. These documents are also searchable.
• Sharing – real time sharing with others
• Share with others – this one is a little trickier because you have to store it in a shared location. A shared location could be a shared folder on your computer or a network location. So you’ll need to know how to set up file sharing, or if you have a server or use Sharepoint, this could work for you. If you decide to share a notebook, start it out right by selecting ‘Shared Notebook templates’, when starting your new notebook.
• Use OneNote with multiple computers – make a change on one computer and it will sync with your other computer (be sure to select ‘I will use it on multiple computers’ when setting up your notebook. Wonder if your notebooks are synced? You’ll see notification icons anytime you sign in.

These are just a few of the many advantages of OneNote. While reading other people’s impressions of OneNote, just about all of them said wish they’d realized the power of OneNote much earlier. If you have it, try it out. In addition to the links I’ve posted, just opening up OneNote will give you a wealth of information. Just choose a couple of things to try out and get started!

Here are great step-by-step instructions from Microsoft, so I won’t go into that level of detail here. These instructions assume you have WLM (Windows Live Mail) already downloaded to your computer and installed. Windows Live Mail has replaced Outlook Express as a desktop client for those of us using Vista or Windows 7. You can also choose to access your Windows Live or Hotmail from any web browser by going to http://home.live.com and signing in with your Windows Live ID.

Why would you want to bring all your email accounts to one location? Most of us tire of logging into all of our email accounts or keeping multiple browser windows open all day. So using Windows Live Mail or Gmail makes a lot of sense.

Let’s take a look at the features, benefits, and limits of each:

Windows Live

• Supports 3 types of servers for importing mail accounts
  • POP (typical of most personal email account users. If you have an ISP mail account (like Cox), that will be a POP account
  • IMAP – these servers let you work with mail without downloading them to your computer first. If you want to import your Gmail account into Windows Live, you’ll first need to change your Gmail settings to enable IMAP. There is a link to these instructions in the WLM link above.
  • SMTP – this server handles outgoing mail only and works with POP3 or IMAP incoming servers
• About upgrading to Windows Live Mail from Outlook Express (I’ve duplicated this information below) “Windows Live Mail is the successor to Microsoft Outlook Express 6, Windows Mail, and Windows Live Mail desktop Beta. If you have Microsoft Outlook Express 6, Windows Mail, or Windows Live Mail desktop Beta installed on your computer, when you install Windows Live Mail, all of your existing accounts, settings, and e-mail messages are automatically imported into Windows Live Mail. Any contacts in your Microsoft Windows address book (A list of contacts, that contains the names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of each of your contacts. If you’re signed in with a Windows Live ID, Windows Live Mail uses the contacts list associated with your Windows Live ID.) are also imported when you install Windows Live Mail.You can’t create Microsoft Outlook Express e-mail identities (A method used in Outlook Express that allows multiple people sharing the same computer to keep their e-mail separate. Identities aren’t used in Windows Live Mail.) in Windows Live Mail. Instead, to protect each user’s e-mail with a password, create a separate Windows user account and password for each person who wants to use Windows Live Mail on the computer. If you upgrade to Windows Live Mail from an Outlook Express account that contains multiple e-mail identities, you can import the e-mail messages and account information from the identities by clicking Identities on the Windows Live Mail File menu.”
• If you have multiple accounts, each is separated into its own folder to keep them separated
• If you import your Gmail account, you’ll be prompted to choose which folders/labels you want to be able to see. This is nice if all you will still use your Gmail web access from time to time and just want to see your inbox from within Windows Live.
• easily export your email messages or your entire folder to your hard drive to back up your mail.
• the only popular web based email account that won’t work with this is Yahoo. If you upgrade to their premium ($20/yr) service, then it’ll basically be a POP account and you can import into WLM.
• You can work in offline mode with your mail.
• No easy way to import Outlook mail into Windows Live Mail-strange, but true. I’ve seen some give advice to export your Outlook into Outlook Express and then import it into Windows Live. I think this would work, but now it’s hard to find Outlook Express.
• You can send mail from one of your imported addresses (a Gmail account, for example). Just click the drop down to the right of the ‘To’ box to select which account.

Gmail

For all the hype and buzz around Gmail, Hotmail & Live Mail still have more users than Gmail. But Gmail is a powerful and useful mail client. Multitudes are flocking to it, leaving Microsoft Outlook behind. I’ve had a Gmail account for several years and have recommended clients get one to alleviate access problems – especially when travelling. It’s reassuring and convenient to know you can get to your email from anywhere.

I find the Gmail web interface cluttered and quite frankly, ugly. Yes, I have changed my theme and I still don’t like my user experience. If you want the convenience of Gmail and the comforting interface of Outlook, here’s how you can import, view and manage your Gmail from Outlook.  Some features, benefits and limits of bringing your mail accounts into Gmail:

• With Gmail, you can work with your mail offline – you’ll need to go to the ‘Settings’ tab and click on ‘use offline’. You’ll be prompted to download ‘Gears’ in order to do this.
• People rave about the ability to filter and label email. With filters (accessed from ‘Settings’, you follow the ‘create filter’ guidelines to sort your incoming mail into particular folders. For people with huge amounts of incoming mail, this is valuable. Labels are really folders and you can make as many labels as you wish and file your mail into them.
• Ability to import Outlook mail into Gmail (difficult to do with Windows Live)
• Gmail supports the same type servers as WLM. You’ll just need to have all your settings handy during the process (this is usually the sticky point-sometimes you don’t know a server setting or remember a password).
• Gmail does not import Yahoo mail either – unless it’s the premium Yahoo Mail.
• There are ways to backup your Gmail, but it’s not an easy File>Export process as in WLM. We’re not covering it here, but it’s certainly something to address. If you’re using Gmail for business, what would you do if there was an extended outage? Very rarely, accounts have been deleted by mistake. You need a backup plan!
• You can respond to messages from within Gmail using one of your imported addresses. You can set up a default, but then you’ll need to remember to use the drop down to select which address you want before sending.

Conclusion

Comparing the lists, it seems both programs share many of the same features. With Gmail, you can import your Outlook mail, but it’s very difficult with WLM. It’s easy to export and backup your WLM folders and messages, however, it’s not as easy with Gmail. Both can be used off-line. Rules can be set up to filter mail with both.

It seems to me if you like the Google culture and all of the things that accompany Gmail (calendaring, contacts, plus access to new software that Google develops, then go with Gmail. If you like and already use Microsoft products, then it might make sense to go with Windows Live Mail as it integrates well with other Microsoft products and services.

This open source program is hosted at Sourceforge, a reliable source for innovative and free software. GO Contact Sync supports categories, so if you have set up groups of categories, it will find and keep them categorized. If you use contact photos, it will sync those too. However, if you have different photos for the same contact, it will not do a sync.

The best thing are the number of sync options available.

Sync options from the website…

• Merge Prompt: This will ask you which contact to overwrite if both have been updated.
• Merge Outlook Wins: If both contacts have been updated, the Google contact will be overwritten.
• Merge Google Wins: If both contacts have been updated, the Outlook contact will be overwritten.
• Outlook To Google Only: Only updates Google contacts based on Outlook contacts.
• Google To Outlook Only: Only updates Outlook contacts based on Google contacts.

Once the program is installed, you’ll have an icon in the system tray. Here you can click to sync your contacts on the fly. However, you can choose during the setup process how often to sync, or to sync upon startup.

I just found this program and haven’t decided if I’ll use it yet since I have different sets of contacts in my Outlook and Google contacts and I’m not sure if I want to merge them or not. The program is in beta, so they do say to use at your own risk! It’s always good to do a backup before trying something new.

Ribbon Hero works with Excel, PowerPoint and Word 2007 and 2010 only. During the install process, you may be prompted to download and install Microsoft VSTO, so for most of us, there will be two downloads. After the install, pull up one of the office programs and you’ll notice a ribbon hero button over to the right on your ribbon. Simply click to open and get started. After you’ve achieved some points, you’ll be asked if you want to connect with Facebook in a friendly competition with other RH users. There’s also a Facebook fan page if you’d like to join.  It was nice to see that Ribbon Hero scores will be shared with your friends only if they are Ribbon Hero players as well.

Ribbon Hero is an interactive game where points can be achieved by simply doing your usual work, or you can ‘take the challenge’ and  choose from a wide variety of tasks to perform. Below you’ll see the interface for working in Excel. There are three ‘Challenge’ categories and then specific challenges/tasks to accomplish within these categories. Simply click on one of the challenge tasks, complete it and you’ll hear a congratulatory tone, a couple balloons will rise and you’ll be awarded points.

If you choose a task that you’re not familiar with, there are hints and articles right there to refer to. I did the conditional formatting challenge – something I’d never heard of  – and learned something new.

Most people will learn faster and retain longer using this hand-on, practical interface. The examples are down-to-earth and the student can easily apply these examples to real-world work and accomplish tasks faster.

I’m using RH on two computers – one with the beta Office 2010 and one with Office 2007. I wondered if the software would be smart enough to know I was using it on two computers and combine my score. When I did the Facebook connect, I was pleasantly surprised that it did recognize that and it asked if it would be OK to combine the two scores – very nice.

I know Ribbon Hero’s only been out a couple of weeks at this writing, (2-5-10), but here are a couple questions:

1.   I’m wondering if they will develop the game for other Office apps.
2.  Will the ‘challenge tasks’, be changed and refreshed? Right now, I’m seeing about 8 or so tasks to complete under each category. Realistically, that won’t take too long for someone to complete and then what? I’ll ask these questions on the Facebook page and see what I get.

Interactive training with immediate feedback and having the social aspects (with Facebook), is very progressive for Microsoft. I haven’t seen anything as innovative as this with Google, Open Office or Zimbra. If you or your company is thinking about upgrading to Office 2007, take advantage of this free and innovative training.