September 1, 2010
DETAILS ABOUT MICROSOFT ONLINE SERVICES
Previously:
Fear of Exchange
Moving Mail Online With Microsoft Online Services
Small businesses should strongly consider having their Outlook mailboxes hosted on Exchange Servers run by Microsoft for a small monthly fee. I’m going to recommend this to a number of my clients and I encourage anyone interested to contact me to talk it through. I’d like anyone in a business with 2-20 employees to read this carefully!
For businesses currently running Exchange in an onsite server (usually as part of Small Business Server), the move to hosted services does not significantly change the experience of using […] continued
August 20, 2010
FEAR OF EXCHANGE
I’m strongly urging my clients running Small Business Server to move their mailboxes to online hosted Exchange servers. I’ll give you a bit of background and tell you an anecdote to explain why Exchange frightens me, then tell you more about Microsoft Online Services next week.
Microsoft released the first version of Small Business Server in 2000. It was updated in 2003 and 2008, and a new version is planned for next year. It is a customized collection of several Microsoft server products, bundled up to be installed on a single server. The products are the same […] continued
July 18, 2010
OUTLOOK ADDRESS BOOK AND MICROSOFT WORD
Previously:
Displaying Contacts In The Outlook Address Book
Sorting The Outlook Address Book By Last Name
For some reason the ribbon bar in Word 2007 and Word 2010 does not have a button to push that brings up the Outlook Address Book for inserting addresses into Word documents, envelopes, and the like. It’s an easy fix but I don’t understand why it has to be fixed. I thought people did this all the time – store addresses in Outlook, then drop them into Word with a single click, right? Humph.
Word 2007 and 2010 have a “Quick […] continued
July 15, 2010
SORTING THE OUTLOOK ADDRESS BOOK BY LAST NAME
Previously: Displaying Contacts In The Outlook Address Book
When you open the Outlook Address Book to address an email message, the names in your Contacts folder are sorted by first name. Lots of people want them sorted by last name. It’s one of those mildly irritating things that requires changing a deeply hidden setting. It seems like the kind of thing that would be listed under “Options” in the Address Book menu, doesn’t it?
Here’s the sequence from Windows 7 and Outlook 2010. It’s similar in earlier versions of Windows and Office.
- Open Control Panel.
- Type “mail” in the
[…] continued
July 15, 2010
DISPLAYING CONTACTS IN THE OUTLOOK ADDRESS BOOK
When you click on the TO: button to address an email message in Outlook, most people expect to see a list of their contacts. If your mailbox is run by Microsoft Exchange, chances are that you’ll see the short list of users inside the company, not the people in your Contacts folder.
Big companies can develop more complex systems of address books. This simplified description is aimed at very small businesses with Microsoft Exchange (typically either Small Business Server or a hosted account at Microsoft Online Services, OwnWebNow, or the like).
When Microsoft Exchange is running […] continued
May 23, 2010
FIND MAIL FASTER WITH SEARCH FOLDERS
Both Outlook 2003 and 2007 have an often overlooked feature named Search Folders. Look under the list of mail folders (Inbox / Outbox / Sent Items) and you’ll see a handful of default Search Folders, gathering together all the items that meet some criteria. “Unread mail,” for example, displays all the messages that are unread regardless of what folder contains them. If you’ve moved messages out of the Inbox without reading them, they’ll still show up in the “Unread mail” search folder.
That’s the secret of Search Folders. Your messages aren’t moved or duplicated; these are virtual […] continued
May 20, 2010
THE EVOLUTION OF EMAIL
It’s rare now to find traditional POP3 email accounts, where messages are downloaded to a single computer and are only accessible at that computer. We move between different computers freely (home/work/laptop/netbook) and want our mail to be available on all of them. We are buying smartphones in staggering numbers and getting our email on the phone is a big part of the reason.
Seeing our mailbox from multiple computers and devices can be done clumsily with a POP3 account but it’s far easier with Gmail, Hotmail, or an Exchange mailbox. If you are using an email address […] continued
January 29, 2010
MICROSOFT ONLINE SERVICES OUTAGE FOLLOWUP
[Thursday January 28, 2010 – sent to MOS subscribers at 9:07pm]
Dear Customer:
Microsoft Online Services strives to provide exceptional service for all of our customers. On January 28, customers served from a North America data center may have experienced intermittent access to services included in the Business Productivity Online Suite. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you and your employees.
We are committed to communicating with our customers in an open and honest manner about service issues and the steps we’re taking to prevent recurrences.
- What happened?
- Monitoring alerted us
[…] continued
January 28, 2010
WOBBLES WITH MICROSOFT ONLINE SERVICES
Some problems today with Microsoft Online Services, which leaves me feeling unsettled about it.
Microsoft has made a serious commitment to moving Exchange customers to hosted services. There are some real advantages for small businesses if someone else takes responsibility for the mail system – Exchange is a big, complex piece of work that needs regular attention and updates, and requires a high degree of expertise if something goes wrong.
Many third parties offer hosted Exchange mailboxes but in some ways, Microsoft’s own hosted mail service offered through the Microsoft Online Services program is the […] continued
January 15, 2010
PREVIEW SPAM WITH EXCHANGE DEFENDER
Exchange Defender has a new tool for previewing quarantined messages.
Exchange Defender is the service used by many businesses to quarantine spam and scan incoming and outgoing mail for viruses before delivering mail to the company server. Exchange Defender sends a daily report listing all quarantined spam, as well as providing add-in software for Outlook and an online control panel for reviewing quarantined messages.
(Exchange Defender is well suited for any business running Small Business Server; almost all my clients with Microsoft Small Business Server rely on Exchange Defender. You need a partner to set it up for […] continued