Your opinion of OUTLOOK as a primary email program (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

For years I have migrated away from Microsoft's email program
opting to use Eudora and then PocoMail/Barca
instead.

Been very happy with Barca but the problem is that
they charge you for every new PC you install their program on,
and now that I am thinking of buying a new computer, I am
reevaluating my email needs.

I have a Beta/RC of Microsoft Office 2007 that includes OUTLOOK.

I have always steered away from OUTLOOK because I heard
it was very vulnerable to viruses. At lease PocoMail/Barca
will not automatically open any attachments and execute a
virus.

The nice thing about using OUTLOOK is that it synchs well
with my PDA.

So, anybody using OUTLOOK, and if so, can you comment
on how well it performs? Can you also create stationary
(logo letterheads) to use with email?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

Have you considered Mozilla Thunderbird?

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Yeah, Jeff, I have.

I think I am most interested in Outlook because of
its smoother integration with Windows and PDAs.

I just have to find out from current users of Outlook
as to how virus-prone the softeware is.

Also need to now if I can create stationary to put my HTF
logo at the top of my email messages.

 

[Bryan X]

Ron,

Outlook does have a stationary function. It's under TOOLS, OPTIONS, MAIL FORMAT

I use Outlook from my Office XP Pro Suite. As for catching viruses, I use Avast! and it integrates just fine with Outlook. If an email tries to come in with a virus attached, it alerts you and gives you options before you see it.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Bryan,

I do use an antivirus program so that should help.

Another question....

If I have Outlook on my desktop and on my desktop is there
a BACKUP and RESTORE feature that allows me to backup my
email/contact data on my desktop and restore it to my laptop
so I can keep both in synch?

 

[Bryan X]

Yeah, you can export any of your mail folders, contacts, etc. to a file and then move that file to your laptop and import it. It's under FILE then IMPORT EXPORT

 

[DaveF]

I use Outlook 2003 at work and find it a very well done email program. I use Thunderbird at home: it's good for home, but it's decidedly inferior to Outlook.

 

[Paul Padilla]

You really can't go wrong with Outlook for compatibility. Outlook has had those issues patched since the 2000 version. All subsequent versions prevent automatic attachment execution by default, even when the preview pane turned on. (2003 and newer call it the reading pane) Of course there is no good substitute for dedicated anti-virus protection.

Backing up and stationary are no problem as Brian mentioned.

Outlook can be a memory hog, though, but starting in 2003 they added a selectable feature called "Hide when minimized" which does two things. When this is enabled and Outlook is minimized it does not show up on the task bar, but only shows up with the gold, square icon in the system try by the clock. Now, this frees up space on the task bar, but more importantly if forces Outlook to release memory back to the system. You can watch the Outlook.exe task in the processes tab of the task manager to see it in action. With my Exchange server, Outlook hovers around 40MB while open, but the second it's minimized to the system tray that number drops to around 3MB. Major performance benefit, and it doesn't affect new mail notifications. The 2007 beta does this too so you can check it out for yourself.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I use Outlook both at work (MS Exchange back-end email server) and at home. The main reason I use it at home is because of the integration with my PDA, making it easy to synch my contacts between work and home -- I do not bother synching my calendar at home, that's synched at work only (just my preference). I've never had a virus issue. I use AVG at home, which scans Outlook. At work, we have much more elaborate anti-virus protection on the Exchange servers, as well as Symantec on the desktop.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Paul,

Know where I can find this option? I am using Office 2007 Enterprise
and hopefully the settings are the same.

Thanks

 

[Paul Padilla]

Easy...right click the Outlook icon down by the clock and place a check next to the "hide when minimized" option.

 

[Paul Padilla]

FYI...after that feature is enabled you can bring Outlook back up by either using any shortcuts you may have, or double clicking the icon near the clock. It makes no difference and it no longer launches a second instance of Outlook as it used to.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Paul,

That did the trick, and a valuable one at that! Thank You!

Interesting that for years I dodged Outlook for email. I used
Eudora and more recently, Barca (from the folks at Poco).

Only after installing Office 2007 did I take notice of Outlook
as an email program. I like the fact that it integrates well with
my PDA and Blackberry. The built-in filter also does a very good
job of separating my junk mail from good mail.

Think I'll be an Outlook user from hereonin.

 

[Radioman970]

I've continued to use Thunderbird (*giggles*) because of the attachment issues Outlook was having years ago. I just never switched back over. Plus I'm reeeeal careful who gets my primary address. All junk goes to my yahoo. YAHOO!

But I"ll try OUtlook again because it sounds like it's improved judging by all the good words here. But slightly off-topic, I recently installed IE7.0 and my spyware incidents have increased. I used to get zero with Firefox. :frowning: The memory issues may turn me away from Outlook and IE until I upgrade some hardware next year.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Hey Paul,

I hope you don't mind if I can continue to abuse
your knowledge of Outlook as I need to figure
something out here.

Look at the way I type my messages. You no
doubt notice that I like to keep my messages
formatted a certain way in that I go halfway
across the page and then line break.

Problem is, in Outlook, every time I do a line
break (by hitting enter) the first word in the
next line is automatically capitalized.

Any way to turn that auto function off? I
looked under editing but could not find the
corresponding option.

....by the way, really enjoying Outlook. Just
need more time to learn and master it.

 

[Randy Tennison]

Tools/Options/Spelling/Autocorrect options

Unclick "capitalize first letter of sentences"

 

[Ronald Epstein]

That did it! Thanks, Randy!

 

[Paul Padilla]

I don't need your abuse...I've got hundreds of people dying to abuse me. Thanks...I haven't been able to throw out a Ghostbusters quote in a while.

You can turn that particular "auto correct" option off on the fly as one time off, or globally off. As soon as you hit enter and the first letter of the next line is capitalized, hover the mouse over the capitalized letter.

After a second it will have a kind of hollow underline beneath it and a small box will appear labled "auto correct options". Click on the box and you'll have a choice of undoing the auto cap, or to stop capitalizing first letters of sentences completely. The last option is "control auto correct options" which will take you straight to the whole list of auto correct settings.

Glad you're digging O2K7. The lack of standard file>edit>etc. menus throws people but I like they way they've grouped things.

Oops...looks like my piddling around allowed someone to beat me to it. Oh well...maybe you'll enjoy the shortcut version.

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

The reason people have scorned Outlook as an option is because it is the numero uno email attack target, or has been at least. It simply wasn't safe enough to use as your main email program.

Things have improved a lot, obviously. Many antivirus programs integrate into Outlook and filter stuff going both in and out, for example, and Outlook has been patched to be a lot less dangerous.

It still does a lot wrong, including top posting and all that annoying stuff, but it's hard to avoid these days. I have to use it at work too.

My one rebellion though is to use plain text format only, as email should be, and I fix the top posting and nasty quoting in Outlook with the free Outlook Quotefix. Doesn't work with Outlook 2007 (yet?) but one can always try this macro.

 

[Paul Padilla]

Definitly a big target. The whole Bill Gates is the anti-Christ thing doesn't help. (mind you, I'm not necessarily refuting that)

Truthfully though, I've been doing IT for more than 10 years and Kimmo, you're the only one I've run into that has a problem with top posting. For many years I never even knew there was another format.

IMHO, it's really a Ford, vs. Chevy , vs. et. al debate. Most of the things touted as drawbacks such as quoting rarely come up in day to day business communication in my experience. And most mail servers now a days are smart enough not to cause the appending problem.