Let’s Meet the New MS-Outlook - MS Outlook 2013

MS Outlook is one of the most powerful & frequent application used by users. Microsoft releases a new version of Outlook named Microsoft Outlook 2013. In new version of Outlook, there is complete new look & feel with three different background colors i.e. white, dark grey & light grey. It’s a better application all around with new wide-ranging features. Here are all the change & enhancements of 'MS-Outlook:

The new version of 'MS-Outlook comes with new features like:-

Attachment Reminder: Sometimes it may happen that you forgot to attach your file and send it to respective person. MS-Outlook fixes this problem by providing attachment reminder feature. When you compose your email & refer to upload attachments and hit for sending then a pop up for attachment reminder appear to remind you about the attachment. User can also turn on & off Attachment reminder by selecting “Don't show this message again” in the Pop up window.

Social Networks: MS-Outlook 2013 provides you facility of connecting your social networking account (Facebook, LinkedIn,) with your MS-Outlook account. After configuring Outlook with your social media account, you will get update from the people present in your social network friend’s list. To take advantage of this incredible feature, run Outlook 2013 in Cache Exchange Mode with windows Desktop search.

Outlook Data Files: In earlier version of MS-Outlook, when you connect Outlook with exchange, the file size of OST file is quite large but in MS-Outlook 2013, a new compressed MS-Outlook data file (OST) is created whose size is 40% small as compared to previous OST file. If you want to avail this feature follow “Outlook Policy group Template”.

Older Version OUTLOOK coexistence: You can also run MS-Outlook 2007 & 2010 with this new version of MS-Outlook 2013 but not at the same time. One thing user should keep in mind that this feature is not compatible with MS-Outlook 2003. To get benefit from this feature, Click to run version of MS-Outlook 2013 so that user will be able to run 2007 & 2010 side by side with Outlook 2013.

Message Preview: You can take a quick look at your message and find out which message needs more priority .User can also use quick commands to perform quick actions like(delete, mark, flag or unflag) by clicking on image present in image list.

Weather Bar: By placing 'weather bar' to your calendar, you will get complete weather forecast for a specific day or for specific location or forecast of coming three days. There is no need to switch to check about the weather forecast to schedule a meeting quickly. You can also add or delete a city to your Weather Bar List

Sky Drive: - Sky drive act as a cloud and permit user to upload & synchronize files and access from a local device or a web browser. It offers 7 GB of free storage for new users. In MS-Outlook 2013, you can connect your MS-Outlook 2013 account to your Sky drive .When you start your 2013 application then your sky drive details are displayed in top left corner and user can choose sky drive as its default location to save data.

Overall, Outlook 2013 is a great application with wide variety of new advanced features. I will give 4 stars out of 5 to this application.

Steps to connect Social Network Account (Facebook) with Outlook 2013?

Now a days, Social media sites are more popular among users than other type of sites. Just because of the increasing popularity of social media sites, users demand for social media connectivity in every apps or software which they are using in their daily life. Microsoft introduced a new advanced feature in Outlook 2013 that helps you to integrate many social features & provides tremendous social media connectivity features like importing contacts, chatting with social media friends etc.

In today’s world, Every Person have their profile on multiple social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn etc & you can easily find out your friends Contact information in your social media account. The Outlook 2013 can import your friend’s contacts from Social Network account to Outlook.com account & you can easily send a message or email to your friend without login to your Social Network account. For this, you only need to have social network connectivity with your Outlook .com account. We can connect most of the social media accounts like Facebook, LinkedIn and can follow our friend’s activity precise from the Outlook desktop Interface. Here I am taking example of facebook account.

So let’s have a look at how it can be implemented:

Steps to Add Face book Account

1 Start Your Outlook 2013 Application

2 Go to File Menu & Click on Info

3 After clicking on Info, Go to Account Settings & Check for Account & Social Network Settings.

It displays a list of Social Network accounts; you can choose Social Network Account as per your choice. In this, I am choosing face book. After Clicking on the Face book checkbox button, click on finish.

4. Now it will ask for your login information. Fill Your Login details and click on connect button to set up connection.

5. After clicking on connect, connection will occur then click on Close button.

6:- Now You will be able to see all the activities like contacts, pictures, images when you start interacting with your friends. To check recent activities, Click on what's new .You will get all updates from the person. You can also update your status by using 'Status Update' option.

You can also connect your other favourite social network by using above steps.

How to Synchronize your MS-Outlook Calendar to Windows Phone?

Synchronization is the process of establishing consistency of data flow between source location to destination location or vice versa. If you are an Outlook user then this process can help you in your daily work routine. Every time, it is not possible for any user to turn on the system & start Outlook application to check the schedule for the whole day.

         If you synchronize your MS-OUTLOOK account with your Windows phone then you can access your important information anywhere at any time. You can check your schedules such as important meetings & can also set other reminders like reminder for paying the bill, policy premium submission and many more activities through this process.

Synchronization Types:

One Way Synchronization: In One way synchronization, updated data is copied from a 'source' location to destination, but no data are copied back to the source location.

Two-Way Synchronization: In two-way synchronization, updated files are copied in both directions, i.e. from source to destination and vice versa for keeping the two locations identical to each other.

E.g. synchronizing your MS-OUTLOOK calendar to windows phone is the proper example of two way synchronization.

To proceed, firstly MS-OUTLOOK calendar is transferred to Microsoft accounts and then from Microsoft account to your Windows Phone.

Necessary Steps to perform Synchronization:

There are two methods of synchronization:

• With Exchange.
• Without Exchange.

Step 1. Mail Server Check Point:

To perform operation, firstly check which mail server you are using:

           It's with Exchange

                OR

            It's Without Exchange

Follow these Steps to check mail server: In case of MS-Outlook 2010:

• Start your Computer
• Run Outlook 2010 e-mail application on your computer
• Move the cursor to File Menu.
• Click on Info.
• After Clicking Proceed to Account Information section,
• In Account Information Section Click on Account Settings,
• Choose your Account Settings.
• After the Name, Check for the account Type.
• Now, check for your email address
• Look if Microsoft Exchange is listed as the mail type or not.

In case MS-Outlook 2007

• Open your MS-Outlook application.
• Go to Tools
• Click on Account Settings.
• Below Name, look for the account Type.
• Search for your email address
• Confirm if Microsoft Exchange is listed as the mail type or not.

After confirming the mail server, proceed to next step.

Step 2. Now, Add Outlook Account to your Phone:

Using MS-OUTLOOK without Exchange:

• Start Application
• Flick left to the App list,
• Tap Settings
• After then tap Email + accounts.
• Tap to add an account
• Tap Microsoft account or Windows Live.
• It will ask for your e-mail address & Password.
• Enter your Email address & Password
• Sign in to your account

After signing your account, you can easily synchronize your calendar by using two methods:

1. Automatically keep your Outlook calendar synchronized with your phone. You can do this by using MS-OUTLOOK Hot mail Connector to move your MS-OUTLOOK calendar to your Microsoft Account.
2. Import your MS-OUTLOOK calendar to your Microsoft account by Manual process.

If Using MS-OUTLOOK With Exchange:-

• Start screen,
• Flick left to the App list,
• Tap Settings
• Tap Email accounts.
• Add an account
• After Adding Tap MS-OUTLOOK.
• Sign In to your account by filing your email address and password
• You will see MS-Outlook calendar should automatically sync to your phone.

The above written steps will help you to synchronize your MS-OUTLOOK calendar to your Windows phone.

All About Windows Live Mail

Windows live mail is an updated email client of Microsoft that is also known as Windows live mail desktop & Windows Live Hotmail. It's a free application provided by Microsoft with windows vista & also a part of Windows Live Essentials. Just like other email applications, Windows Live Mail also has its own way of storing information. You can easily download this email application from cnet site. Windows Live Mail used file format named as EML file to store information.

EML File: These files are plain text file that contains header information of every email along with the attachments. When a user creates an account on Windows Live Mail, automatically EML file get create on the basis of his login detail. This file can be easily open on a Notepad also.

EML File Extension: - File extension used to save EML file is .eml.

EML File Location

The default location of EML files:-

C:\Users\<user-login>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail

File Size: File Size of EML file completely depends on the size of your hard disk .There is no predefined file size of EML file. User can also send high pixel images through this file as the file size have no limit.

Here are all Enhanced features of Windows Live Mail:

Enhanced features of Windows Live Mail are:-

• By using Windows Live Mail user can synchronize with Windows Live Contacts. Real time updates are available and user can easily synchronize updates with holding account.
• By Using Windows Live Mail user can send and receive photo images & can also send the URL of thumbnails to download photos.
• Integrate with RSS feeds, instant messaging & Calendar.
• Support Spam filtering & fast message search.
• Hope this article will help you to understand Windows Live Mail.
• User's can enjoy multi line message list.
• User can work in off line mode also by using Windows Live Mail.
• Allows you to store emails directly on your computer

The latest version of Windows Live Mail is 2012 which was released in August 2012. Here are all updated features of Windows Live Mail 2012:

• Support for Web-based email accounts including Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo! Mail Plus.
• Have Synchronization with Windows Live Contacts.
• Supports for RSS feeds.
• Emotions can be added in emails.
• Feature of In-line spell checking.
• Separate inbox folders for different POP accounts.
• Photo email feature in emails

I always preferred Windows Live Hotmail because it is one of the easy-to-use email applications that also help me to maximize e-mail security across multiple e-mail accounts.

DIFFERENT METHODS OF SPLITTING PST FILE:

Ms-Outlook is a free email service provided by Microsoft & used as a Personal Information Manager. Over 50% of the users are currently using Ms-Outlook as an interface for exchange information because of its security and reliability. To save our messages, calendars, events, Ms-Outlook used PST file format. I have already discussed in brief about the PST file format & Importance of PST file in Ms-Outlook. In this post, I will discuss some methods to split your PST File. But first you should know why we need to split PST File? To know the reason see the following issues and have you ever observed these common problems with MS-Outlook?

• Speeds Get Slow Down 
• Reading E-mail MSG 
• Moving E-mail MSG 
• Deleting E-mail MSG

 If yes then you should definitely split your PST File. This all is happening due to large sized PST File. Microsoft has provided a tool to split large sized PST file. The name of tool is pst2g tool. This tool split your large sized PST file but there is no surety of getting your original data back. The adequate method to solve the problem of large size PST file is to split your PST File by using third party tool .By using third party tool; you may able to split your PST file by

Split PST File by Size: - Large size PST file can lead to corruption. The best way to avoid corruption is to split your PST file in to small PST files. It's easy to manage small PST file as compare to large PST. One more benefit of splitting large PST file in to small PST files is you will be able to access it on every version of Ms-Outlook. 

Split PST File By Date: Increased size of mail box also increase the size of PST file which can be the reason to corrupt your PST file. To prevent your pst file from corruption, you should manage your PST file by splitting it according to a specific date & time. After splitting, save your split PST at a new location. 

Split PST File by Folders: its obvious e-mail send by you consist of attachments. These attachments make your PST file size large & will also create problem in sending & receiving emails. The only solution to this problem is splitting your PST file according to specific folders. In this option, you can make a new PST file for a specific folder that reduces the size of PST file. 

E-mail Id’s:- Suppose you are working as a Project Manager & handling multiple projects at the same time. At the same time, you are asked to give reply of a specific email. It will take too much time to search for a specific client email from the pool of emails. You can avoid this situation by splitting PST file by using e-mail id contains all information like (To. Bcc, Cc). After that, you can find it easily & can save your time.

After reading above methods (date, size, folders & e-mail id), now you can easily choose which method is more beneficial for you to split your large size PST file.

HOW TO MIGRATE LOTUS NOTES EMAIL TO OUTLOOK?

E-mails are the most fast & reliable way for exchange of information. In IT world, there are various email service providers such as Gmail, Lotus Notes, Microsoft, Thunderbird, Yahoo and many more. These emails services have their own applications, own file format as well as interface to communicate with server. Although there are many email service providers but there are few features that make MS-Outlook user's first choice as compared to Lotus Notes that are

• Installation Cost
• User Friendly Interface
• More Secure
• Easy Migration

Both these e-mail application service provider (Lotus Notes & Ms-Outlook) have their own pros & Cons. I am also an IT professional using Lotus Notes application. As a Lotus Notes user, I am facing many difficulties like:-

• File Doesn't Exist
• Entry Not Found In Index
• Server Error
• Database is Incorrect

Therefore, sometimes it's difficult for me to maintain my lotus notes files i.e. NSF. Every time, I need a technical expert to sort out my NSF file problem. Then I decided to use email services provided by Microsoft & choose MS-Outlook, I found, it's good for me to use MS-Outlook for the same work. I hope you also know, Lotus Notes are associated with NSF file format to store email where as MS-Outlook is associated with PST for the same. To use MS-Outlook, as a source of exchange information, I have to convert my all NSF files in to PST files. Here, I am assuming that you are aware of all importance of NSF & PST file. By applying few steps, I have successfully migrate my all Lotus Notes email to MS-Outlook mail .I am sharing these steps with you which will help you in migrating your Lotus Notes in to PST file.

Requirement for Migration: - We know NSF & PST files support by different email applications. These email applications use different interface to perform their operations. That’s' why before migration, you need following two applications:-

• Lotus Notes
• Microsoft Outlook.

Steps for Migration: - Follow few steps to migrate your NSF file in to PST file.

1. Start you Lotus Notes.
2. Inside the Lotus Notes there is a mail tab. Click on the mail tab.
3. In Mail tab you see a Menu bar is appearing.
4. Go to Menu bar & click on the File section ,
5. In file section go to Export option.
6. As you click on Export you see a wizard starts named as “Export”.
7. Continue with your Export Wizard.
8. Now, To Export all the mails click on End section to stop the Wizard.
9. In Next Step open your Microsoft Outlook.
10. Import your all mail files.
11. Again go to File Menu and click on wizard named as “Export & Import”.
12. Start the process through wizard by clicking on the file You Export from Lotus Notes.
13. You will be asked “What File you want to Import in to Outlook”
14. Click on the Finish to end the wizard.
15. Import your all Lotus Notes file mail file in to MS-Outlook files.

These are the few simple steps to migrate your NSF file in to PST files. This is the free method of migrating your all NSF files in to PST files. However if you are not able to migrate your file by using above steps then don't worry .There is one another option to migrate your NSF files in to PST files that is third party tool. Various third party tools (NSF to PST File Converter) are available in the market along with their user manual. They also provide you assuring of no data loss.

I hope the information shared by me is useful to migrate NSF files to PST files.

An Introduction to Ms-Outlook & Outlook Express Environment

Ms-Outlook used PST Files to store information same as Outlook Express used DBX files to store all information. Before proceeding for DBX and PST files, let me clear out the basic difference between Outlook Express & MS-Outlook. Although these two applications shares a common architectural philosophy but don’t have a common code base. The main differences between these two applications are explained below:-

Functionality: - MS-Outlook is enriched with the features of emails, personal calendars, group scheduling, task, and contact management. While Outlook Express is enriched with features of newsgroup & email only.

Technical Support: - MS-Outlook has full support for voice mail where as this feature is not supported in Outlook Express. Ms-Outlook can be used with Exchange Server, or any other standards-based communication system that supports MAPI while this is not supported in Outlook Express.

May be a question will get arise in your mind!! How can we access our information using these two applications?

In the starting of the article, I have already mention that In Ms-Outlook & Outlook Express, information is stored in form of files named as DBX files (Outlook Express) & PST files(Ms-Outlook). But both files are working in a different ways. Here are all differences:

DBX FILES: - DBX files are Outlook Express Database file used to store email messages, newsgroups, & folders. These files are introduced in Version5 with Outlook Express. Outlook Express has its own file structure with .dbx extension. Outlook express email application has name corresponding to their mailboxes like inbox.dbx, sentitems.dbx, Drafts.dbx, Folders.Dbx .

File Size: - The maximum file size for DBX file is 2 GB. Due to less file size, it may be difficult to send music files, videos, photos etc through the use of this file.

Location of Files:-. Every Application has a default location to save file associated with them. In the same way, Location of DBX File is:

C:\Documents and Settings\[user name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{……..}\Microsoft\Outlook Express.

PST FILES: - Microsoft Outlook is a standalone application which provides us the features of storing our emails, calendars, to-do list, notes, and other outlook data in PST File Format. PST is an outlook data file abbreviated as Personal Storage Table.

File Size:-When concept of PST file is introduced, its predefine size was 2 GB .According to the users need, now PST files can save up to 50 GB data easily.

Location of File:- The location of PST file depends on the version of windows used by the user.

Windows 7 & Windows Vista: - drive:\Users\user\App Data\Local\Microsoft\Outlook

Windows XP:-drive:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft

\Outlook

Conclusion: Above are some basics & necessary points that explain the difference between Ms-Outlook & Outlook Express, which can be very helpful to understand the overall structure of these two Microsoft Email Clients.

Why we need to convert NSF file to PST file

Before explaining the reasons behind NSF to PST conversion, I would like to share basics of NSF file. NSF files are IBM Lotus Notes files expanded as Notes Storage File. These files can also be used for the process of data replication. Lotus Notes are associated with many types of databases. The most common databases associated with Lotus Notes files are:

• Mail Box Database: - Mail box databases are used to store mailboxes on Domino Server.

• Address Box Database: - Address Box databases are used to store contact records on User's PC .These databases are stored locally.

These Lotus Notes files are saved by using .NSF file. Anyone can easily access & read an NSF File by using Lotus Notes Client. Don’t get confuse with Lotus Domino Server or Lotus Notes Server as both are same thing.

Need For Conversion:

Email plays a vital role in the IT world to exchange information in a smarter and faster way. We all know that NSF files are designed by IBM & contain our emails, messages, calendars entries, notes data, task & to do list etc. PST files play the same role like NSF files in MS-Outlook. The difference between these two files is that we need two different platforms to operate these (NSF & PST) files. There are top two reasons for the conversion of NSF to PST file.

• Maintenance & Installation:-To install Lotus Notes Application is not a Child’s play .You must expertise in installing the Lotus Domino to enjoy the uninterrupted services of IBM. Also the installation cost of Lotus notes is very high as compared to MS-Outlook. It’s not possible for every small organization or home user’s to afford such a high installation cost. On the other hand, MS-Outlook has more user friendly environment as compared to Lotus Notes. It’s user friendly interface that force user‘s to convert all NSF files into PST file format.

• Job Switch: - Suppose you are working with an organization which works on Lotus Notes platform & all of a sudden you decide to switch your organization and you want to carry your Lotus Notes data with you as it stores all your valuable information. Perhaps your new organization is using MS-Outlook for exchanging the information then? While Lotus Notes Files will not work on MS Outlook platform. To overcome this situation or to access your Lotus Notes mails without any loss of information, you have to convert all Lotus Notes (NSF) files in to MS-Outlook (PST) files.

I think above reasons are sufficient for any lotus notes user to migrate the NSF files in to PST files, you can easily migrate lotus notes data with outlook using any third party tool. But when you are going to choose the third party tool, first ensure that tool is compatible with all versions of windows as well as Lotus Notes & also convert your NSF file without any data loss. The tool should also have user manual so that you can perform conversion smoothly.

What is Microsoft Office 365? Discuss how it can benefit to Small Businesses?

What is Microsoft Office 365? 

As we are advancing in technology on every single step so it is also important to less our self with latest update technology and keep update from old one. Before I share about Microsoft office 365, I would like to take you to the history of Microsoft Office how it grown up significantly from beginning to till today. As we all know that MS office is very strongly used for various purposes to record the information in different formats and file such as Word for content, Excel for numbers, Powerpoint for presentation, MS Access for database and so on. 

Microsoft Office 365: Time is very precious for each one of us and we are advancing in technology day by day to do many things in short span of time with effective quality too.  In one word ‘Do more in less time’. Microsoft 365 enables us to access email, important documents, contacts, and calendar anywhere and any device. Due to this special feature it is very helpful for small businesses too.  User can easily access the data from PCs, Mac computers, iPhones, Android phones, and BlackBerry smart phones at anytime. It is true that data is flowing all the time in these smart phones. Now you can ask for any data at any movement as per your need. This advanced feature is really very helpful for small businesses. 

You can select the tools as per your choice on which you want to work in Office 365. It is easy to work and learn with Microsoft 365 because the programs you already know and use with Microsoft Outlook Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint.  You can also find strong security features,   improved collaboration capabilities, with password-protected portal to protect your data from unauthorized users.

Let us discuss some important benefit of Microsoft 365 to Small Businesses

1. Global Accessibility: It means you can access Office 365 documents such as email, important documents, contacts, and calendar from anytime, anywhere at any device such as PCs, Macintosh computers, iPhones, Android phones, and BlackBerry smartphones. So you are free to work as per your desired location. Office 365 also supports you to view and edit documents from the most popular web browsers on PCs and Macintosh computers. Take control of when and where you work with Office 365.  

2. Very Professional look and feel: It is a nice way to leave a good impression on your client by showing seriousness about your business with effective presentation. Office 365 tells potential customers that you’re serious about business. 

3. Secured Communication and Collaborate Within and Outside of Organization: Microsoft Office 365 helps you to keep very smooth and secure communication within and outside of the organization it creates a password-protected portal to share with everyone within and outside of your organization. You can take control on every document and edit it according to your choice as it’s gives you control over the document.

4. Quickly you can learn & use: You don’t need to do any crash course to work with Office 365 because it is very easy to learn and working is also very easy. 

5. Secure Online Solution: Various advanced features of Microsoft 365 can enhance your small-business and Office experience such as now you can attached attach up to 25 MB, calendaring, contacts, online meetings, instant messaging, document collaboration, and more.

 6. Safe and Secure: Whenever we say data then the first though which comes to mind is security. Security is always the high priority at Microsoft. With Office 365, you can use the same systems used by Microsoft and other enterprises worldwide to help protect email, documents, and networks. 

7. Familiar environment: Office 365 looks and feel are very similar to previous Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. These tools provide the same great features you rely on as well as powerful capabilities in Office 365. 

8.  No Requirement for Advanced IT Knowledge:  Even users who don’t have IT background can easily access Office 365 so your employees can quickly start using Office 365. 

9.  Strict Privacy Policy: You can feel a comfortable feeling because Office 365 promises to safeguard your data with enterprise-grade reliability, disaster recovery capabilities, data centers in multiple locations with strict privacy policy. 

10.  Get more Flexibility:  You can add more flexibility to your small business with Office 365. It allows you to easily provide users with only the services they need, cost-effectively adding value to your business.  

Few Important Steps to know How to Integrate Microsoft Access and Outlook 2007

This post will help you to know that how you can integrate MS Access with MS Outlook 2007. I have found this feature of MS Access very useful so I am sharing it.

Integrate Microsoft Access and Outlook 2007

The benefit of integrating MS Access and MS Outlook is really great. You can easily collect the various information from various Outlook email client user and maintain the data in Excel sheet. Sometime when you have to take input on same topic from many user and you are running short of time. In such condition, I believe this integration is really meaningful.
Let us read how we can integrate MS Access and MS Outlook without even having the sound knowledge of both. As we know MS Access is Database and MS Outlook is Email client so to collect the information at one location we need to integrate MS Access and MS Outlook both.
First make sure that MS Outlook is properly configure and working fine. You are able to send/receive email without any problem. Once you have confirmed that MS Outlook is running fine then check the MS Access too.
The steps to Integrate Microsoft Access and Outlook 2007 are as follows:
Step1: Open MS Access > Go to Sample > Create Database of your choice
Step 2: Enable the Security Option too.
Step 3: Create Database as per the required filed
Step 4: Once Database filed created than save the file
Step 5: Go to > External Data > Select Create Email Option
Step 6: Click NEXT > and Choose > HTML Form Option
Step 7: Select the Fields you want to include in MS Outlook Email
Step 8: Click Next
Step 9: Don’t forget to check the option ‘Automatically Process Replies’ > Next
Step 10: Enter the desire email address [Make sure the addressee must have MS Outlook on that email id]
Step 11: Create the Email Message and MS Outlook window will Pop up
Step 12: Just send that message to desired email id
Step 13: The recipient of the message will fill the required information and reply to you
Step 14: Check your MS Outlook mail and open that reply mail
Step 15: Go to MS Access Database and just refresh the table
Step 16: You will see the updated Excel table with new data which received by Ms Outlook Email.


It is really an efficient way to work smartly when we have to collect huge amount of same information from different user in short span of time. In case if you face any trouble in the process feel free comment or write for solution.