TipTalk: from Microsoft At Home & At Work

Reduce stress and stay organized while running errands

A day of running errands can be stressful for anyone. A simple journey around town can involve a great deal of coordination, from planning what you need and where to go to finding a simple route around town that hits all the necessary destinations. Technology can help you get organized and reduce some of this stress.

Tip #1: Plan ahead using the Web
Before you set out, use the Web to check the local weather and possible traffic around town. You might also want to check the hours of operation for the stores you plan to visit; many times stores will post this information on their Web sites. You can use MSN for most planning needs.

Tip #2: Know your budget
Errands usually involve spending money, so double check to ensure that you have sufficient funds for your transactions. Determine your balance before you head out so you know how much you can spend. Personal finance software, like Microsoft Money, can help save you time.

Tip #3: Use a PDA to help you stay on track
A Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) or Smartphone can be very helpful while on the road. You don't want to forget anything while you're out and about, so use your PDA to keep track of your different lists for shopping. Be sure to install Windows Mobile software and you will also be able to access Internet Explorer.

Tip #4: Travel efficiently—map your shopping route
There are several devices available for in-car navigation. If you're looking for something affordable and easy to use, software might be the way to go. Microsoft Streets & Trips with GPS Locator can turn your laptop into a powerful navigation system.

Tip #5: Keep the kids entertained
Spending a lot of time in the car can be boring for children. To help alleviate their boredom, bring along some toys or travel games to keep them occupied and entertained. Consider bringing a laptop with Microsoft Encarta, which is both educational and entertaining, and doesn't require an Internet connection.

Read the full article from Meredith Williams.

Plan your financial future

Having your finances in order, understanding your credit report, and maintaining a good credit score are key ingredients to financial success. You can set yourself up to achieve that success by taking a few simple steps.

First, everyone has certain fixed income and expenses each month. However, it is important to set aside money to save for big purchases, like the down payment on a house, emergencies like unexpected medical bills, and of course retirement. Anything left after that becomes your disposable income. Planning your lifestyle so that you spend no more than that amount every month is one of the keys to financial success.

"It's hard to live within your means if you don't know what your means are," says Maxine Sweet, vice president of public education for Experian, a global information solutions company. Take some time to sit down with your computer and analyze your accounts and spending with a software program. With Microsoft Money, for example, you can automatically download all of your financial information from different accounts into one place. You can even view historical information for those accounts to help you better understand your past spending trends. Microsoft Money also lets you track your spending in categories that you want to watch closely, such as dining out, entertainment, or shopping. This will help you allocate your money in an easy and effective way.

Find more tips for achieving financial success  by viewing the rest of this article.
From Amber Marquez-Moore.

Claim victory over your e-mail

No doubt you've opened an e-mail and thought, "Hmmm, not sure what to do with this. I'll deal with it later!"—and promptly closed the message. If you do this over and over again, it doesn't take long to end up with several hundred (or thousand) messages in your Inbox.

Developing a new approach to processing your Inbox will help you to gain more control, improve your response time, and keep up with critical actions and due dates.

Tip #1: Set up a simple and effective e-mail reference system

The first step toward an organized Inbox is understanding the difference between reference information and action information.

Most people receive a considerable amount of reference information through e-mail. Sometimes as much as one-third of your e-mail is reference information. So it is essential to have a system that makes it easy to transfer messages from your Inbox into your e-mail reference system. An E-mail Reference System is a series of e-mail file folders where you store reference information to ensure you have easy access to it later. Learn more about setting up an E-mail Reference System. Once you take care of filing your reference information, you can use the next three steps to handle e-mail you have to do something with, your action information.

Find three more tips for claiming victory over your email at the full article on Microsoft At Work, here.

By Sally McGhee, Consultant and Productivity Expert

Save time with a tablet PC

Too many meetings and increasing responsibilities mean I need to make the best use of my time as possible—without sacrificing quality. Saving bits of time can add up to a lot at the end of the day. I use the Tablet PC as my only computer and throughout the day it helps me work more efficiently and quickly.

For example, do you edit business documents—memos, presentations, manuals, or other documents? If so, the ability to mark up documents in digital ink with your Tablet PC, and send those marked documents electronically, is incredibly useful. I can type edits onto a document, but there are several reasons that I find using digital ink more helpful.

• Ink markups on text document better convey the intentions of my points. I can draw arrows, circles, and use paint-style highlighting on the page to better communicate my edits. When I'm done, I can share the edited document electronically with anyone. Learn more about using ink in Microsoft Office Word.
• I often edit while I’m commuting or out of the office, perhaps at home in a comfortable chair. Typing can be difficult with a conventional laptop keyboard perched on my lap. The Tablet PC interface is easier to use, and more relaxing. It is just like marking up a paper document on a notepad in my lap, and just as comfortable.
• If I’m in a meeting it’s easier to edit related documents. With the Tablet PC, I don’t need to bring out a noisy keyboard-based laptop. I can make my edits in pen with the Tablet PC in my lap or on the table like a paper pad.

There are several programs you can use to mark up your documents. Word 2003 and 2007 come fully pen-enabled for marking up documents, as do Excel and PowerPoint.

Learn more great short-cuts to make with your tablet PC at the full article on At Work.

From: Michael Linenberger, author of "Seize the Work Day: Using the Tablet PC to Take Total Control of Your Work and Meeting Day"

Create custom cards on your computer

Above all, expect to make a few mistakes when starting a new printing process. I always buy extra materials to have on hand.

Most programs come with some sort of built-in card feature. Some popular programs include Microsoft Digital Image Suite and Microsoft Office Publisher, both of which include built-in templates for cards. All of the programs make it easy. To get started in Microsoft Digital Image Suite, for example, on the File menu click Create a Project and then choose Cards.

If you want to be more creative, you can create your own images and put them on standard card stock, which is made for printing. For example, these Avery note cards, which I like to use, are 4 1/4" x 5 1/2", which is half the size of a standard 8 1/2" x 11" page, and easily fit into a printer. I use my preferred method, which can be easily adapted to most programs. I call it "The Old-Fashioned Way," as it's really just onscreen page layout. Start by creating a standard 8 1/2" tall by 11" wide page in a landscape format using your imaging program.

Create and position your images and text on one half of the onscreen canvas. Refer to your program's displayed rulers for placement. Most programs and printers initiate printing on the left side of an onscreen landscaped page. In that case, drop your Avery note card into the printer width-wise and print. Voila! You're all set.

Of course, there's a lot of room for creativity with these kinds of cards. Find complete directions, with pictures, for making beautiful custom cards on your computer here.

From: Tami Peterson Lewiski, author of Digital Decorating

Live Writer

• Live Writer supports  many different types of blogs including SharePoint blogs. So this post came via Live Writer
• Just use the drop down Weblog menu to add a new blog and point it at your SharePoint blog, in my case MySite. The wizard will then download the templates and graphics needs for the site automatically

• You can add pictures, videos, Silverlight applications, maps etc. Just go visit the live.com site for more add-ins

-- Rob Atkinson
-- MSIT Ireland

Outlook Voice Access—No Computer Required

What would you say if I told you that you could check your Outlook e-mail without a computer or mobile device? Now try saying it without profanity.

Outlook Voice Access allows you to dial-in to your Exchange Server 2007 mailbox from any telephone and listen to your e-mail using text-to-speech technology. And Outlook Voice Access doesn't just read you your e-mail. It can also play back calendar items, contacts, and tasks.

Hear something that deserves a reply? Don't go running to your laptop. Use Outlook Voice Access to reply to or forward messages, as well as send a pre-configured "I'll be late" notice.

Need to call someone at the office but don't remember their extension? Use Outlook Voice Access to search the company directory for a person to call or initiate a phone call from one of your Outlook contacts.

You can navigate Outlook Voice Access with your telephone keypad or, better yet, by using the built-in speech recognition. Let your fingers do the walking some other time.

For more information on Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, visit http://www.microsoft.com/exchange.

Office in Your Pocket

Microsoft Windows Mobile is the power behind handheld devices like the Pocket PC and Smartphone. With a Windows Mobile device in your hand and Exchange Server 2007 in your office, the information you need most is always at your fingertips.

Every Windows Mobile device comes complete with Outlook Mobile, ensuring you have access to your e-mail, Calendar, contacts, and tasks wherever you are. Outlook Mobile also supports Exchange Server 2007's Unified Messaging, a capability that, when configured by IT, delivers voice mail and faxes directly to your Outlook and Outlook Mobile inboxes.

Exchange Server 2007's ActiveSync technology ensures your device is connected to the server and ready to receive new Outlook items as they arrive. This "push" technology makes manual synchronization a thing of the past, ensuring your device always has the latest and greatest information. Over-the-Air Search functionality allows you to search your entire mailbox from your device, whether or not the items you're looking for have been downloaded to the local store.

But wait, there's more! Windows Mobile Pocket PC devices may also include Office Mobile, powerful pocket-sized versions of the applications you know and love. With Office Mobile, you can create, edit, and open Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents on your device. Combine Office Mobile with Exchange Server 2007's LinkAccess, and you can even open linked documents stored on internal shares or Windows SharePoint Services sites right from your device. If OneNote Mobile is installed on your device, you can take notes on your device and synchronize them to Office OneNote 2007.

We hear what you're saying. "All this information in my pocket is great, but what if my pocket gets picked?" Not to worry. You can use Outlook Web Access 2007 (a feature of Exchange Server 2007) to remotely wipe your device. The Artful Dodger will have your device, but not your data. You can even use Outlook Web Access to reset your device password. So, go ahead. Put a Windows Mobile device in your pocket. Just make sure you pay for it first.

For more information on Microsoft Windows Mobile, visit http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile.

Managing E-Mail and Records

Do you work in an industry where every piece of e-mail you send (or sometimes even think about sending) has to be archived for legal purposes? In today's regulation-heavy environment, if you're not careful, cleaning out your Mailbox can lead to cleaning out your desk. To make the process of archiving e-mail easier, you can use Managed E-Mail Folders in Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.

Once set up by the administrator, Managed E-Mail Folders are accessible in Outlook 2007 and Outlook Web Access 2007. You can drag messages required for archival to these folders where they will be governed by administrator-defined retention and expiration policies.

Likewise, an Office SharePoint Server 2007 Records Repository can help you archive and manage important documents of record. IT personnel, lawyers, and records managers can use the Records Repository site template to quickly create an online records vault and apply information management policies to govern record labeling, auditing, and expiration. Documents can be uploaded to the repository directly from your favorite Microsoft Office 2007 applications.

Managed E-Mail Folders and SharePoint Records Repositories are easy ways to stay compliant with external regulations and internal policies.

For more information on Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, visit http://www.microsoft.com/exchange.

Gettin' Groovy

How do you work with people in other organizations? These could be partners, vendors, or even customers. Sharing documents and information across multiple network boundaries is often a cumbersome process, with participants almost solely dependent on sending and receiving e-mail attachments.

The problem with e-mail attachments, apart from server space issues, is the existence of multiple versions of the same document floating around the organization. Sending e-mail attachments between organizations further complicates matters because now these multiple versions have the potential to take on lives of their own within multiple locales.

Microsoft Office Groove 2007 makes it easy to work across network boundaries by bringing people together in decentralized workspaces. Decentralized workspaces securely operate outside the network firewall, allowing people from multiple companies to share documents and information with each other in a controlled environment.

Office Groove 2007 is installed locally on each participant's computer. Only people running Groove can access Groove workspaces, and they can only access the workspaces to which they've been invited. Each workspace member receives a local copy of the workspace documents and discussions. You can even add and synchronize documents stored in a Windows SharePoint Services document library.

When changes are made, the changes—and only the changes—are synchronized between each member's computer. This means you can work seamlessly with documents online or offline, updating your virtual team when you happen to have an Internet connection. Groovy.

For more information on Microsoft Office Groove 2007, visit http://office.microsoft.com/groove.

Microsoft Videos—a new way to view what's new at Microsoft

Launched today, Microsoft Videos is a brand-new video portal that gives you an easy-to-use location for viewing all of the most recent Microsoft-produced videos. The portal has a wide variety of videos, keynote speeches, how-to instructions, and demo videos.

Featured videos will change daily and you can watch them using a new custom Silverlight video player. Try out  new features, like how to create a party playlist in Windows Vista by watching the video at the same time you're setting up your playlist, or view the newest Microsoft Office 2007 video featuring Amy Sedaris.

Some of the coolest aspects of this portal are the community features. After viewing videos, you can not only rate and comment on what you've seen, but also share videos with friends via e-mail or the embed link. (You can post the video and player for sharing by embedding the link—and it's easy. Just copy and paste the embed URL onto your personal blog.) 

Check out the new portal at http://preview.microsoft.com/video and send the Microsoft Videos team feedback at msvideos@microsoft.com.

Team Sites and My Sites and More, Oh My!

Meeting Workspaces and Document Workspaces are two examples of the different sites and workspaces you can create with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007. To see the full list of Windows SharePoint Services default site templates, click the Site Actions button on your site, workspace, or portal home page, then select Create Site. You may need to click the Sites and Workspaces link under Web Pages. Scroll to the bottom of the New SharePoint Site page to the Template Selection box.

On the Collaboration tab, you'll find easy-to-use site templates for creating your own Team Sites, Blogs, Wikis, News and Publishing Sites, and Records Repositories. Click the Meetings tab for five different Meeting Workspace templates (you can also access these templates from the Meeting Workspace Task Pane in an Outlook meeting request). The Enterprise tab includes enterprise-ready templates for Document Centers, Report Centers, and Search Centers. Select the template you want to use and click Create.

With an Office SharePoint Server 2007 portal deployed in your organization, each individual employee can create and manage their own personal My Site. Your My Site is the place to store and edit personal documents, manage shared documents and tasks, and keep track of colleagues. Each My Site contains personal and public views of your information, allowing you to share information about yourself and your role while keeping private information private. To automatically create and configure your own My Site, simply click the My Site link from your Office SharePoint Server portal home page. Then repeat after me, "There's no place like my home page. There's no place like my home page." Ruby slippers are optional.

For more information of Microsoft SharePoint Products & Technologies, visit www.microsoft.com/sharepoint.

Open XML Formats in the 2007 Microsoft Office system

Microsoft Office Open XML is the new default file format for Excel 2007, PowerPoint 2007, and Word 2007. Why would Microsoft introduce a new file format with this release? No, not to make your life miserable. In fact, Microsoft Office Open XML is designed to make working with documents easier than ever before.

Imagine two versions of the same Excel spreadsheet—one is saved using the old .xls format and the other is saved using the new .xlsm format. Two spreadsheets identical in every way, except the .xlsm file is up to 75 percent smaller than its counterpart, it comes equipped with improved damage-recovery, and the "m" in the file extension lets you know that this spreadsheet contains macros before you open it. Throw in the inherent developer and data integration benefits of XML and you have a file format for the 21st century.

Standard Open XML file extensions end with an "x"—.docx, .xlsx, and .pptx. Open XML files containing macros, like the example above, end with an "m"—.docm, .xlsm, and .pptm. And don't worry; you can still save files in their original binary .doc, .xls, and .ppt formats for sharing with older versions of Office. However, a better option for users of Office 2000 SP3, Office XP SP3, and Office 2003 SP1 is to download the appropriate Open XML file converter from http://office.microsoft.com. With the file converter installed, users can open and edit the new Open XML formats in their existing version of Microsoft Office. Keep in mind, new features of Office 2007 used in the original document creation will remain unavailable when working in these older versions.

If you can't see your file extensions in Windows Explorer, click Organize, then Folder and Search Options. Click the View tab and uncheck Hide extensions for known file types.

For more information on the Open XML file formats, visit the FAQ at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/HA101723691033.aspx.

The Great Communicator

Do you spend more time talking to voicemail than people? Is sending e-mail like tossing pennies down a black hole? Take a look around—the lights may be on in the cubicle next door but nobody's home. Where is everyone? Chances are they're in a meeting. Or between meetings. Or working from home to avoid meetings. Wherever they are, you need to talk to somebody. And you can't wait three weeks until the stars and the gaps in your calendars align.

Microsoft Office Communicator 2007, the desktop client for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, integrates real-time presence information into your favorite Microsoft Office system applications. With Communicator, you can tell if a contact is online and available to communicate with you. Just hover over a person's name in the To: line of an Outlook 2007 e-mail message and click the dropdown menu for a list of communication options. You'll also find presence information for contacts in the Office 2007 Document Information Task Pane and on Windows SharePoint Services sites and workspaces.

If your coworker is online and available to work with you, you can use Communicator to send her an instant message, place a PC-to-PC voice and video call using your computer microphone and speakers, or, if Communicator is integrated with your company's phone system, you can use Communicator to place and receive phone calls using your desktop phone. You can even configure Communicator to auto-forward incoming calls to your mobile phone, home phone, or other location where you happen to be online. Throw in the ability to participate in real-time application sharing sessions, conference calls, and Microsoft Office Live Meeting online meetings, and you have one tool that can do the work of many. If only that basket of remote controls next to the recliner was this organized.

For more information on Microsoft Office Communicator 2007, visit http://office.microsoft.com/communicator.

Feed Me

You can now fully subscribe to and interact with RSS feeds from within Outlook 2007, the most natural place to manage this kind of information. To add an RSS feed, right-click the RSS Feeds folder in the Navigation Pane and select Add a New RSS Feed. Enter the URL for the RSS feed you want to manage. For more detailed management options, click Tools, then Account Settings, and select the RSS Feeds tab.

For more information on Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, visit http://office.microsoft.com/outlook.

For more tips and tricks for the 2007 Microsoft Office System, pick up a copy of Evan Archilla's new book, So That's How! Timesavers, Breakthroughs, and Everyday Genius, available now wherever books are sold.