Outlook Tips

Archive now or later?

Need to keep some Outlook items without cluttering up your computer? You can set up Outlook so those items are archived after a certain period of time. This way, you still have the information, but it doesn't get in your way. Outlook automatically archives the contents of certain folders. These folders and the age at which items are archived are Calendar (6 months), Tasks (6 months), Journal (6 months), Sent Items (2 months), and Deleted Items (2 months). To change the age at which items in these folders are archived, right-click the folder, and then click Properties. Click the AutoArchive tab and then change the options. For more information, ask the Office Assistant about "Archiving."

IT'S NOT MY DEFAULT

What do you do if a friend tells you that the e-mails you send to her at the office are so great that she wants to read them at home?

• Smile triumphantly and pat yourself on the back.
• Confirm that she has a computer at home.
• Write down her home e-mail address.
• Change her default e-mail address setting in the corresponding contact record.

What was that last one? Well, changing a default e-mail address may sound complicated, but all you're really doing is adding a second e-mail address for your friend and making sure that all of your future messages to her go to her second address. The Outlook Express address book lets you add a new address for a recipient without deleting the old one, just in case you need it later. To add a second address, follow these steps:

• Press Ctrl + Shift + B to bring up your address book.
• In your contact list, locate the person whose default e-mail address you want to change; then double-click on his or her name to bring up the Properties box.
• In the E-mail Addresses section, click in the space next to Add new; then type in the new e-mail address.
• Click on the Add button.
• In the space below where you typed the new e-mail address, click once on the new address to select it.
• Click on the Set as Default button; then click on OK.

From now on, unless you switch the setting in the future, every message you send to that person is automatically sent to the new address. (Note: If you already have more than one address listed--or if you do decide to switch back to the original address in the future--repeat the process above but skip steps 3 and 4.)

YOU'VE BEEN ERASED

In a previous tip, we showed you how to set Outlook Express to automatically get rid of all the items in your Deleted Items folder each time you exit. (Choose Tools + Options; in the General tab, click on the Empty Messages From the Deleted Items Folder on Exit check box to place a check mark there, and click on OK.) But what if you can't wait until you close out the program to delete items? Maybe you received a joke SO bad that simply sending it to Deleted Items just doesn't seem good enough. Or, more likely, you have a huge mail message with attachments taking up valuable disk space and slowing things down for you. Here's a way to immediately and permanently get rid of such messages:

• Click on the Deleted Items icon in the Folder List or Outlook Bar.
• Find the offending item in the message list and select it (click on it once).
• Press the Delete key.
• When Outlook asks whether you want to permanently delete the message, click on Yes.

Keep in mind that the Deleted Items folder is a safeguard against accidentally deleting messages. If you delete an item from here, you want to be ABSOLUTELY positive that you don't need or ever want to see that e-mail again. Once you delete it from this folder, it's erased forever.

GO BY THE BOOK

A lot of times we procrastinate and put off doing the little things--even things that can have potentially positive consequences. What the heck does that have to do with sending e-mail messages?--you ask. Well, maybe you don't write to as many of your friends as you'd like. Or maybe just the daunting task of composing and addressing all of those e-mails overwhelms you. Well that task shall daunt no more, because we've found a way that makes composing and addressing a lot of e-mails to a bunch of the friends in your Address Book easy:

• Press Ctrl-Shift-B to bring up your Address Book.
• Right-click on one of your contacts.
• From the pop-up menu, choose Send Mail.

Just like magic, a new message appears on-screen with your contact's info already in the To field. Of course, you still have to fill in a subject and body text as you like, but that can be as simple as "Hi." and "How are you?" So what are you waiting for? Write to a few friends you haven't spoken with in a while. Trust us. You'll feel good about it.

HYPER-ACTIVE--PART 1 OF 1

As you probably know, the purpose of the preview pane is to enable you to see the contents of an e-mail message without having to open it. But as mentioned in other tips, the preview pane has a few other advantages as well. One of the coolest things about the preview pane is that it gives you the ability to use active hyperlinks--those graphical or text-based items that take you somewhere on the Internet when you click on them. When hyperlinks are associated with text items (typically e-mail or Web site addresses), they show up as blue and underlined. The sure-fire way to tell whether an item is a hyperlink is to place your pointer over it. If the pointer turns into a little hand (that looks like it's giving the "We're #1" sign), you've found a hyperlink. Click once and you're off somewhere. If you're not sure where you're off to, do the following:

• Pull down the View menu and make sure a check mark appears next to Status Bar. If a check mark isn't there, choose Status Bar to place a check mark beside it.
• Move the pointer over the hyperlink (but don't click).
• Look at the info that pops up on the lower left corner of your screen on the status bar. Chances are you'll see something that starts off with "mailto:" or "http://" (without the quotes).

HYPER-ACTIVE--PART 2 OF 2

You can tell that pictures or words in your preview pane are hyperlinks because when you place the mouse pointer over them, the pointer turns into a little hand. The hand symbol indicates that if you click on one of these items, you'll go off somewhere on the Internet. More specifically, here's what clicking on the two most common types of links does:

• Clicking on a "mailto:" link (followed by an e-mail address) automatically begins a new message to the addressee.
• Clicking on an "http://" link automatically fires up Internet Explorer and takes you to a particular Web site. (Note: If you're not already online when you click on this type of link, Internet Explorer automatically opens and asks whether you want to go online. If you decide that you do want to go online, Internet Explorer finishes the trip for you after you successfully connect to your Internet Service Provider.)

In short, hyperlinks are about the quickest, easiest action you can perform on the computer--and one more reason why the preview pane is such a handy feature.

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