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Book Review of:
Outlook Annoyances 
Taking Charge of MS Outlook 

From the January, 2000 issue of PC Alamode Magazine
by Vade Forrester
Microsoft Outlook is a powerful, useful tool which combines a decent e-mail program with a personal information manager, an appointment calendar, an address and phone book, a task list, a journal of activities, and a sticky-note creator. Now in its third version (Outlook 2000), Outlook is a challenge to use effectively and a real bear to manage. But if you (like me) have wondered if the problems you have experienced with Outlook are real or just your own ineptness, be reassured: lots of others have problems with Outlook, and this book not only identifies a wide assortment of Outlook problems, but also tells you how to deal with many of them. 

Authored by Woody Leonhard, Lee Hudspeth, and T.J. Lee, this book joins a series of Annoyances books in the O’Reilly catalog. I have read a couple of other books in this series and found them to be useful, but too preoccupied with criticizing Microsoft for errors or programming choices. However, this book is much more to the point, focusing on helping you get the most out of Outlook instead of going overboard about the mental deficiencies of Microsoft's programmers. It's good to see the series is growing up. 

The book is full of gems of information, like this one: "Outlook stores everything– every bit of your personal information - in a single file." That file is mailbox.pst. All your e-mail, your personal folders, your calendar, everything is in that file. And it gets big fast, especially if the Journal is turned on to record lots of your activities. Outlook Annoyances tells you how to handle those files and protect them against corruption. I searched other books for three days to find that information. 

Other actions the book tells you how to: 

  • Avoid unwanted e-mail (spam)
  • Create rules to manage your files and e-mail
  • Customize Outlook (not easy in its current configuration)
  • Create a custom toolbar in Outlook 98
  • Deal with problems with:
    • E-mail
    • Personal folders
    • Outlook address book
    • ISPs
  • Use Journal effectively
  • Create Posts, or message that are stored in shared folders where others can read them
  • Set appointments
  • Schedule meetings
  • Create and maintain Contact Lists
  • Import data from outside lists
Beyond the above basics, the book tells you how to do more advanced operations, like using the Outlook Contacts list as the data source for a mail merge into Word. This turns out to be a nightmare, easily worthy of the title of Annoyance. Next, for the adept programmer, there are several chapters on using Visual Basic scripts with Outlook. Fittingly, the book ends with a chapter on finding sources of help with Outlook. 

Drawbacks? Only Outlook 97 and 98 are addressed. Outlook 2000 is very similar, but not identical to Outlook 98, so the book's solutions may not work with Outlook 2000. 

I wouldn't want Outlook Annoyances as my only Outlook reference work, but if you want to understand and use Outlook better, I heartily recommend Outlook Annoyances. It is available from O’Reilly Direct for $24.95 at 800-998-9938, but if you mention the code DSUG, you can get a 20% user group discount. 

Thanks to Susan Ives for picking up this book at COMDEX