Spam & Outlook 2003
What to do with all that spam Applies to: Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 http://office.microsoft.com/en-ca/outlook/HA011590551033.aspx
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This article was adapted from Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Inside Out by Jim Boyce. Visit Microsoft Learning to buy this book. |
Not too many people like spam - at least not the e-mail kind (Monty Python skits aside). If you’re like most people, the majority of the e-mail headed toward your Inbox is junk. Dealing with all of that junk can take a big bite out of your day and leave you wishing for a big spam hammer! That’s when Outlook comes to the rescue.
The best way to deal with spam is to block it before it gets to your Inbox. A good first line of defense is a spam filter at your Internet gateway or at your e-mail server. Even with filters in place there, however, it’s still a great idea to use the Outlook spam-blocking filters to help keep your Inbox uncluttered.
Outlook 2003 adds some great spam-blocking features, building on the spam filter that was included in previous versions. To configure the Outlook spam filter settings, on the Tools menu, click Options, and then click Junk E-mail on the Preferences tab, which opens the Junk E-mail Options dialog box.
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Business Productivity Online Standard Suite
Business Productivity Online Standard Suite
Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite is a set of messaging and collaboration solutions hosted by Microsoft, and consists of Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Live Meeting, and Office Communications Online (coming soon). These online services are designed to give your business streamlined communication with high availability, comprehensive security, and simplified IT management. Your business benefits from always up-to-date technologies that are deployed rapidly, maximizing your valuable IT resources and reducing your need for infrastructure investments.
Why choose the Business Productivity Online Standard Suite?
For customers who need more than one standalone service, the Business Productivity Online Standard Suite provides the best value to customers by bundling multiple services at a discounted price.
Exchange Online offers 5GB mailbox storage per standard licence, configurable up to 25GB per mailbox.
Download Datasheet: Word | XPS
Learn more about hosted solutions with Microsoft Exchange Server
More Information
Read the technical requirements for Business Productivity Online Standard Suite.
Migrating to Business Productivity Online Standard Suite
Use the Microsoft Online Administration Center, the Migration Tool, and Active Directory Synchronization Tool to synchronize Active Directory users easily, and migrate Exchange Server mailboxes or POP3/IMAP4 mailboxes to Exchange Online.
- How to migrate on-premise Exchange Server mailboxes and POP3 and IMAP4 mailboxes to Exchange Online
- Migration Toolkit: sample planning materials
Other Products
Business Productivity Online Deskless Worker Suite
Ideal for segments of an organization who do not have messaging and collaboration capabilities today. The suite includes Exchange Online Deskless Worker and SharePoint Online Deskless Worker. Each standalone offer is priced at $2.55 per user per month; the deskless suite is priced at $3.82 per user per month-a 25% discount.
- Exchange Online Deskless Worker includes a 500MB mailbox for e-mail, calendar, contacts and Outlook Web Access Light along with anti-virus and anti-spam capabilities.
- SharePoint Online Deskless Worker gives users read-only access to portals along with the capability to fill out forms.
Try
Trial requirements
- Valid Microsoft Live ID account
Continue a current trial by signing into the Microsoft Online Customer Portal.
Top 5 Accounting Software for Small Business
Filed under: Accounting, Intuit, Microsoft, QuickBooks, Small Business, Software
Top 5 Accounting Software for Small Business
By Susan Ward, About.com
Every small business needs to know where the money went – and is going. These top selling accounting software programs simplify your small business accounting tasks, and provide all the reports and tools you need to effectively use your financial data. Simply Accounting and QuickBooks are available for Windows, NT, and Mac platforms.
Internet Explorer Add-ons Gallery: Most Popular
Add-ons Gallery: Most Popular
Download Internet Explorer 8
Accelerators – Web Slices - Search Providers
Hands-on with IE 8: A giant step for Microsoft
March 19, 2009 5:55 PM PDT
Hands-on with IE 8: A giant step for Microsoft
by Seth Rosenblatt
It’s no secret that when judged by several popular Web browser speed tests, Internet Explorer 8 doesn’t hold up well. Beta versions of IE 8 have been available to the general public for more than a year, and today’s release of the stable build didn’t include anything revolutionary. 
Web slices bring recently updated content to your Favorites bar.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)
Using the SunSpider JavaScript test, the official IE 8 scored 9849.4 ms on a Windows Vista machine with 2 GB of RAM and a 3.00 Ghz clock. This is significantly slower than most other major browsers. Not surprisingly, Microsoft claims (scroll down to Case Study Videos) that these kind of speed tests aren’t relevant to how most people use their browser, and there may be some legitimacy to that.
Setting aside the issue of speed for a moment, some of the features in Internet Explorer bring it up to what we’ve come to expect from a browser, and some of them forge ahead. Many of these are borrowed from other browsers, and at least in the case of Firefox, the features can be imported using extensions. Indeed, some of Microsoft’s bigger innovations like Web slices and Accelerators were replicated via Firefox extensions a while back.
IEAddons.com is Microsoft’s answer to Firefox’s add-ons site, sort of.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)
If you’re new to IE 8, Web Slices lets you save predefined sections of a Web page for at-a-glance viewing. Instead of going to a traffic Web site for updates, the latest commuting news comes to you. Web slices are not an automatic feature, so you’ll need to install them by clicking on the Get more add-ons option on the Favorites bar, going to the IE Add-ons site, or choosing Manage Add-ons under Tools on the menubar.
To install a Web slice, you must click the Add button from IE Add-ons site. That will open up the site in a new window, and as you mouse over it you’ll see green boxes appear to indicate a potential Web slice. Click on the box, and the Web slice will be added to your collection, with an option to place it directly on the Favorites bar. Checking the weather or traffic or even headlines becomes as simple as click the drop-down arrow for that slice.
Accelerators are links that cut out the steps needed to blog, tweet, or use Facebook.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)
Similarly, Accelerators make repetitive tasks one-click behaviors, such as getting a definition for a word. Once you’ve installed the Accelerator, double-clicking on a word will bring up a blue box. Click the box to see a drop-down list of choices. Once you mouse over your selection, a pop-up window will show you the precise piece of information you’ve been looking for, whether it’s a definition or a blogging window.
InPrivate browsing introduces a cache and history on-off switch, similar to features offered by Google Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. Accessible from the Safety menu or using the CTRL+SHFT+P hot key, it opens a new browsing window with a label at the left of the location bar that indicates you’re using InPrivate. There’s also InPrivate Filtering, located just below InPrivate browsing, which can be customized to tighten or loosen the noose placed on information sent out when visiting certain sites.
Domain highlighting makes it easier to avoid getting spoofed.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)
There are also several slight but useful features in IE 8. As you open new tabs, they get color-coded and moved around so that similar sites are grouped together. I found this a bit jarring at first, because I expected new sites to be opened in the same place, but I can understand the logic behind it and why some users might like that kind of tab behavior. Tabs can be configured at the bottom of the General page under Internet Options.
Internet Explorer 8 also has tab sandboxing like the Webkit-based browsers from Google and Apple. You can’t rip a tab off into a new window, but when a tab crashes, IE itself won’t, and the tabs are configured to either resurrect themselves or open a new page on your default search engine.
There’s a greater emphasis on Web standards and security than before. The SmartScreen and cross-site scripting filters throw up a red warning page when you’re about to visit an unsafe site. There’s also domain highlighting, which grays out the name of the URL you’re looking at except for the domain itself. This sounds simple, but effectively draws attention to spoofed site URLs.
Version 8 is the most standards-compliant yet, but in case a page breaks, the Compatibility button should resuscitate it.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)
There’s also a compatibility button so that sites designed specifically for IE 7 and earlier can still be viewed. Placed at the right-hand side of the location bar, clicking it should reload the site you’re looking at under the IE 7 rendering engine.
IE 8 does have more problems than mere JavaScript engine speeds. It scores a 20/100 on the Acid3 test, the lowest of the major browsers, and the installation process still requires a reboot. There’s no default “smart” location bar that many other browsers have, although you can search your history and most visited pages from it.
Drawbacks aside, there’s no reason to not upgrade if you’re an old fan of IE, and there’s even a few things in IE 8 for new users. Even though there are some nice usability features in IE 8, I think that Internet Explorer has a long way to go to replace the damage that the notoriously insecure IE 6 did to its reputation.
See the 2007 Microsoft Office system in action
See the 2007 Microsoft Office system in action
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Take a look at the 2007 Microsoft Office system. This video highlights the Microsoft Office Fluent user interface, which helps you more easily use Microsoft Office applications to deliver better results faster.
Note This video requires Windows Media Player.
For an optimal viewing experience, use a 56 kilobits per second (Kbps) or faster Internet connection and set your screen resolution to 800 x 600 or higher.
Office 14 Release Date Gets Pushed Back
Office 14 Release Date Gets Pushed Back
March 01, 2009 – Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced last week that “Office 14 will not ship this year.
Microsoft officials have been careful not to provide a ship-date target for the next version of Office. However, last year, more than a few times execs slipped up and indicated Office 14 would ship in 2009. Just a month or two ago, Microsoft reps were telling corporate customers that Office 14 would ship in either late 2009 or early 2010.
Microsoft released an alpha version of Office 14 in January to selected customers. A first beta should ship this summer. Office not shipping until 2010 makes for an interesting launch season in the coming months.
Windows 7 is still tracking to be released to manufacturing by the third quarter of 2009, sources said. Will Microsoft delay the “official” launch of Windows 7 to time it with Office 14 in early 2010? Or has Microsoft decided it doesn’t really matter whether it launches Windows 7 and Office 14 together (even though many business users prefer to deploy new Windows and Office releases together)?
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Windows 7 beta: First impressions
Business Tech 
January 7, 2009 6:09 AM PST
Windows 7 beta: First impressions
Posted by Renai LeMay
Windows 7 could be one of Microsoft’s greatest operating systems, if it fulfills the promise shown by the unofficial beta version (build 7000) we have been testing for the past couple of days.
Let me preface these quick impressions of Redmond’s latest opus by saying that I came to Windows 7 after having happily run the much-maligned Windows Vista on my Intel Core 2 Duo-based PC for the past 18 months (alongside Ubuntu).
I found Vista to be a worthy upgrade from Windows XP SP2. Despite its obvious flaws (can you say “resource hog”?) and the acknowlegement that some of its features need to be disabled by default, Vista at heart is a much more stable and usable operating system than XP, which was first released in 2001.
The release of Service Pack 1 and gradual driver improvements have built on Microsoft’s somewhat-shaky Vista beginning.
Coming from this background, I have been pleased to discover over the past several days that Microsoft appears to have built on Vista’s strengths and addressed most of its weaknesses with the beta release of Windows 7.
I found the Windows 7 beta a painless install. Out-of-the-box driver support on our test machine was perfect, and it took only half an hour and two quick reboots to begin running a stable desktop environment, though we wondered why Windows 7 created a 200MB partition in addition to its main partition. The 33MB of updates quickly came down the pipe upon loading the desktop.
Basic desktop performance was strong; the reports that Windows 7 is simply faster than Vista appear to be true. Certainly, Windows 7 had no problem simultaneously installing and launching applications, downloading files, browsing the Web, and carrying out other tasks on our modest 2.8GHz Pentium 4, which has only an 80GB IDE hard disk and 512MB of RAM.
Vista’s most visible annoyance, User Account Control, has been pared right back on its default setting, and we encountered it only a couple of times throughout a whole morning of installing applications. However, if you feel nostalgic for UAC’s old behavior, you can easily change it back via Windows 7′s new Action Center, which now centralizes all of the security updates and warning alerts that Windows throws your way.
Windows 7 recommended that we install a third-party antivirus package (it suggested Kaspersky and AVG), but its antispyware package Defender comes preinstalled. Microsoft appears to have an antivirus package installed under the hood; when downloading new software with Firefox, we were told that our downloads were being scanned for viruses.
I particularly like the new photo-realistic device icons, and the overhaul of the way Windows handles and ejects USB storage devices. Microsoft appears to have wiped out a lot of the Windows XP-era interface quirks of Vista; the result is a much more simplistic, unified experience for common tasks.
I also enjoyed the overhaul of the Windows taskbar, especially the slick graphics, but a bug prevented us from being able to use the preview function (it showed a black rectangle instead), and you’ll want to play with the taskbar settings to get this piece of the Windows 7 puzzle just right. It’s easy to get minimized windows mixed up with launcher buttons, for example.
I want to stress that we didn’t test the Windows 7 beta exhaustively, and business users will need to closely examine deployment software and how the operating system integrates into their existing environments, as well as its ability to work well with third-party software. For example, we couldn’t get Adobe Systems’ Creative Suite 3 to install on Windows 7 beta; the installer told us we needed to quit Internet Explorer first.
But perhaps the most important thing to note about the software is that at first glance, it has much more of that nebulous “Windows XP feel” than Vista ever did. Even on our modest machine, Windows 7 didn’t thrash the hard disk or ever feel unresponsive, except when we were installing Apple’s iTunes, a notorious pain on Windows systems.
In general, this signals that Microsoft has spent a lot of effort with Windows 7 on delivering a solid operating system that won’t “wow” anyone but will satisfy them on a much deeper level. In other words, just what the doctor–and the customers–ordered.
You can find a lot of further Windows 7 analysis on the ZDNet.com blog of Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, as well as our own photo gallery here.
Renai LeMay of ZDNet Australia reported from Sydney.
Microsoft Office to open up to rival formats
Microsoft Office to open up to rival formats
Boost for interoperability
By Charles Cooper – Published: Tuesday 16 December 2008
Microsoft plans to open Office to other file formats, a move the company hopes will placate government and business concerns about document interoperability.
Describing this as a step to foster greater transparency, Microsoft intends to document how it incorporated Open Document Format support into Office 2007 Service Pack 2, which is still in beta. That product is expected to ship sometime in the first half of 2009.
Tuesday’s announcement concludes a pledge Microsoft originally made last spring to boost support for rival formats in Office. Read more
