     |
Great Free Outlook Goodies You Can DownloadThere are some great freebies available to make life with Outlook more efficient or more fun. This is the place to find out what's available, which free downloads are best, and where you can get them.
LookoutNote: Microsoft has removed the Lookout download pages, replacing them with a link to Windows Desktop Search. As of June 14, 2007, you can still download Lookout from third-party websites, but Microsoft is clearly phasing it out.Have you ever used Google? I'm sure you have. There's a good chance you used Google to get to this page in the first place. Wouldn't it be cool if Outlook had Google built in for searches? Well, it doesn't. But you can install Lookout. Lookout is a super-fast search engine that you can install into Outlook. Lookout can search all your mail, contacts, notes, tasks, calendar items, Public Folders, and files on your computer from within Outlook. How good is Lookout? Well, the company that created it was acquired by Microsoft, and word on the street is that Lookout technology will appear in the next version of Outlook. To put Lookout to work for you, go
here.
Cloudeight StationeryStationery can brighten up your mail messages. Colorful backgrounds, even animations and sound, turn plain old mail into something fun. Outlook comes with some stationery, and you can download a little more from Microsoft, but for the really creative stuff, you need to do a little hunting on the web.You should also know that there are risks to downloading free Outlook stationery from random sites. Cloudeight Stationery is one safe place to find free Outlook stationery. NOTE: If you have never used stationery in your messages before, here's a quick guide to using stationery in a message. Personal Folders BackupWith so much of your life stored in Outlook, backing up your data is mandatory. Can you imagine losing ALL your old messages, your upcoming appointments, task lists, and notes at once? Backing up your data manually is hard, but Microsoft has published Personal Folders Backup to make it easy and automatic.Personal Folders Backup is an Outlook add-in that regularly backs up any Outlook PST files you desire. You select which PST files to back up, and how often it is done. Once it is configured, Personal Folders Backup will appear when you close Outlook if it is time to back up your data. You can let it do its work, or postpone the backup. If you want to use Personal Folders Backup, and I strongly suggest that you do so, follow the instructions on the
Backup Microsoft Outlook
page. SNARFSNARF, the Social Network and Relationship Finder, is a free tool from Microsoft Research. It exists to help you better triage your mail. That is, it helps you decide which messages to respond to when you don't have the time or inclination to respond to them all.If that all makes sense to you right now, you can go directly to the SNARF download page to download and install SNARF. If you want more information, including my impressions of using SNARF, visit my
SNARF page
first. Windows Live Local for OutlookWindows Live Local for Outlook is a free add-in for Outlook 2002 (XP) and Outlook 2003 that links Outlook to Windows Live Local, Microsoft's new (still in beta as of September 2006) web-based map, directions, and information service. If you ever need to get or include directions, maps, or other location information in an appointment or a meeting invitation, you'll really enjoy this add-in. I've posted the basic information you will need if you want to give Windows Live Local for Outlook a try.That's it for this free Outlook stuff page. From here you can:
|
