If you have been using Outlook for awhile and have not been archiving, then take a look over your shoulder. That’s that IT person getting ready to delete messages in your InBox because you have gone over the limit… again!

There is an automated way to set up your Outlook to reduce your InBox size, and at the same time, not lose any email messages.

The first step is to create local Archive folders. I chose to create a folder per year to keep track of old emails. You should also create the folders in My Documents so they will follow you when you upgrade systems. For example I have created yearly Archive folders in \my documents\outlook\200X archive.pst.

To create these folders, select Tools—Options—Other tab—Auto Archive. You should see the Window below:

Then hit the Browse… button to get to the Window below. Go to My Documents. Once there select the yellow folder button near the top right to create a new folder, in my case I created Outlook. Create several folders within Outlook, if needed.

The last step is to select the folder you just created as your default archive folder. In my case that would be 2006 Archive.pst. Then exit by selecting OK.

The next step is making these folders visible, so you can access them for searching. To do this you select File—Open—Outlook data file…

If this is the first time you are Archiving, then you may want to split up your InBox into multiple folders. To do this select your InBox, then select File—Archive from the main menu.

From here you can divide up your InBox. In my case, using years, I would repeat this step, entering 1/1/2003, then 1/1/2004 etc, in the Archive items older than: box and selecting the appropriate Archive folder using the Browse…button for each year.

The last pointer I wanted to give was that you can have different Archive properties for each folder in you InBox. Let’s say you had a folder that was daily reports and there was no need to keep these for 3 months. You decided to keep them for 2 months, or less. You can right-click on the folder, select Properties—AutoArchive and adjust the time as per below.

The only maintenance that is required going forward, it to create a new folder each year (or as often as you choose) and set the default to this folder using step 1.

For the past couple of months I have been using a blog editor from Qumana. Blog editors allow you to work offline creating posts in a WYSIWYG environment. Qumana is very easy to use and has some nice added features that I will discuss below.

The software will work with most blog software. Whether it is hosted by the blog provider, or if you have your own provider using blogging software, Qumana will recognize most applications during the installation. I had a minor issue on my laptop, where Qumana would not recognize the “end point” or the version of blogging software I was using. Their tech support asked what version of Java I was using. Turns out I had an old version of the Java runtime. Once I upgraded, everything went smoothly.

With the latest beta update, they have made it even easier to add images to posts. Once you hit the add image button, you get the following window. You select how you want the image aligned, then upload it from you PC and it drops right into your post.

The posting editor above is easy to use. It has all the standard formatting options. The software picked up on my Wordpress categories; there on the right. If you notice the 2 green buttons, they offer some added functionality.

The Insert Tags button allows you to list multiple Technorati tags within your post. Technorati is a blog specific tag search engine. In most software, you have to get into writing HTML code to have the tags appear in  your post and have them linked back to Technorati properly. In Qumana, you simply open the dialogue box above and start typing.

The other button is Insert Ad. This allows you to \’monetize\’ your blog. That means you can make money from your posts. Similar to Google adsense, Q-Ads as they\’re called; allow you to put advertisements in your blog based on content. When someone clicks on the ad, you get paid.

Last but not least, Qumana allows you to future date your posts. You may ask yourself, “why would anyone want to do that?” Think about vacations. If you don\’t keep up with new and interesting posts, you will see a decline in your readership. So before you go on vacation, you can sit down and \’powerpost\’ 7 entries and schedule them to appear 1 a day for the next 7 days. No one will even know you were away. Below is the highlighted area for picking the date of each post.

As mentioned above, this review is on their beta product. They have had regular updates, and their tech support have been very responsive. If you are a regular blogger, I would highly recommend taking a look at this software.

I recently came across a great mouse pad. Yes I know, this is hardly a gadget or high up on the technology ladder. But when something like this works, if just feels right. The mouse pad is by Microthin in the US. It is called WOWPAD. It is a very think piece of plastic, with a tacky bottom. The surface works great for 2 reasons. It is very smooth, so the mouse glides across the surface with very little force. Plus the texture picks up the movements of a laser mouse much quicker than other pads.

Other benefits of the pad. It is washable…when was the last time you washed your mousepad? And the best thing about it is that you can tack it into a magazine page the same way you would put in a brochure.

In our business, email is both a curse and a blessing. When you get up to 100+ emails a day, it is hard to stay on top of the action items that result from these emails. It is one thing to read 100+ emails; it is quite another to act on the 20-30 action items that could result from those emails.

Outlook 2003 has some great features for keeping on top of your email. The 2 features I will discuss in this post, are search folders and follow-up flags.

When you receive an email that requires you to do something, you can add a flag to that email to follow-up later. Simply click on the flag on the far right of the Inbox window. The default colour is Red, but you can set several different colours by right-clicking on the flag.

If this action is something that has a specific date or time you want to follow up, just right-click on the flag, select Add reminder… and set the date and time.

In previous versions of Outlook, it was a little difficult to find these flagged entries. But with 2003, you have Search Folders. If you notice at the top of the Folders section on the left there is a Favorite Folders section. You can add many different search folders based on criteria you choose. The one that we will discuss here is the For Follow Up folder. Notice that there are 6 items in this folder. There is one entry for each flag that you set.

You can then use this list to work through your action items. When you have completed each one, simply click on the flag, and it will be checked off as completed.

To add more search folders, just right-click on an existing search folder and select Add search folder… or select File from the main menu, then New, then Search folder…

In the world of Web 2.0 there are some amazing tools being generated using Ajax technology. One of those is Big In Japan.

They have a bunch of tools to make blogging easier for the user. Give it a try!

I was asked what I use to capture some of the images on my Blog posts. I use TechSmith’s Snagit software.

 It has several effects that help with the image capture. The drop shadow effect I use on almost all of my images as it gives that 3D effect. It has a wide range of capture options. Including full screen, window or selected area. It also works on web pages and video.

So you may be wondering what these Digg This buttons are on my blogs. Digg.com is a web site that has become hugely popular over the last 6 months. How it works, is people post news stories, then people vote or ‘digg it’. The stories with the most Diggs usually is including in their weekly podcast. From a blogging perspective, this can drive a lot of traffic. When you hit the Digg button next to my posting, you are casting a vote for the post. It will get posted on the Digg site, where others will see it. If they Digg it as well you will see the counter go up. All of this will drive more traffic to my blog.(if you want to add the Digg buttons to your blog, check out http://ottodestruct.com/wpstuff/diggImplementor.zip )