Free Tools We Use
Over the years TeamScope and its partners
have used many free tools to increase our productivity and we thought you
would enjoy hearing about them. We are not getting any compensation for
mentioning these products to you, they just happen to be the ones we like and
actually use. Also, if there are any specific topics that you would like us
to cover in The Outlook Expert, please send your ideas to Sales@TeamScope.com
so we can include them in a future issue.
KnockOut
Sometimes it is hard to tell if Outlook has completely shutdown
and is no longer in memory. This can then cause Outlook to complain the next
time it starts up and cause a lot of frustration. With KnockOut you can
easily monitor the state of Outlook by just looking at the KnockOut icon in
your systray, plus KnockOut lets you kill Outlook when it goes into this
mysterious state.
Express ClickYes
Do you get the annoying dialog telling you that another program is trying to
access e-mail addresses? If you want the OK button to always be pressed
automatically, then install this tool. Note that this tool is free for
Outlook versions prior to Outlook 2007, but you must purchase the Pro version
for Outlook 2007.
LookOut
NOTE: This product is no longer supported by the vendor.
The best search tool for Outlook which did not make the transition to Office
2007, but still works great with earlier versions of Office. If you really
want to make LookOut work on Office 2007 and are running on an x86 platform,
then you will want to read this: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/12/24.html
Yugma
(that’s Sanskrit for “confluence, meeting or state of togetherness”)
The free version of this product allows you to share your desktop with up to
20 other people at one time over the web.
Jing
A handy tool for creating quick screen capture videos. Great for
demonstrating a particular feature or having someone show you a problem when
they cannot use a real-time tool like Yugma.
LogMeIn
There are several products offered by LogMeIn, but we frequently use the free
remote desktop as well as the free Virtual Private Network tool, LogMeIn
Hamachi. With LogMeIn you can access your desktop computer from anywhere
without changing your firewall settings.
Synergy
Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse
and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems,
each with its own display, without special hardware. It's intended for users
with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own
monitor(s).
Free
Conference Call
Not a software product, but when you need to set up a conference call for
several people, the price cannot be beat!
Skype
Free computer-to-computer calls and video, plus instant messaging and it
integrates with Yugma. Skype also offers an Outlook add-in which will allow
you to automatically call your Outlook Contacts with the press of a button. Get
a Dlink DPH-50U and you can use
your current handset with Skype and your land line (I got mine for $10 after
rebates!).
RingCentral
While not free, for what you get the price is pretty low! RingCentral provides
you with a virtual PBX (Private Branch eXchange) giving you a single toll-free
line that supports multiple extensions, accepts faxes, dials all your phones
and e-mails you voice messages as WAV files and faxes as PDFs.
Linker
Many of you are already familiar with our own Linker tool for creating links
to Outlook items and files in Office documents, but it is so popular that it
needed to be mentioned again!
Scrubber
While not quite as free as Linker, our Contacts Scrubber for Outlook will
remove duplicate Contacts from your Outlook folders for free if the folder
contains less than 1000 Contacts. For larger folders and to get some of the
additional features, we charge the low price of $29.95.
CutePDF
Create professional quality PDF files from almost any printable document. CutePDF Writer installs itself as a "printer
subsystem". This enables virtually any Windows applications (must be
able to print) to create professional quality PDF documents.
YouSendIt
Need to securely give people access to
files but can’t send them because the files are just too big? This tool
allows you to post files up to 100MB in size for 7 days and allow up to 100
downloads for free. Larger files and more downloads cost you a little more
per month.
YouConvertIt
Convert any media file format (Documents,
Images, Audio, Video & Archives) without buying or installing anything on
your PC. They are not affiliated with YouSendIt as far as I can tell.
DynDNS
Dynamic DNS Free (DDNS) allows you to
create a hostname that points to your home or office IP address, providing an
easy-to-remember URL for quick access. We also provide an update mechanism
which makes the hostname work with your dynamic IP address.
CCleaner
CCleaner is a freeware system
optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your
system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk
space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet
history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner.
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
Provides basic anti-virus and
anti-spyware protection.
Auslogics Disk Defragmenter
Far better than the built-in
defragmentation tool that comes with Windows.
Office 2007 Service Pack 2
The new Office 2007 Service Pack is now
available for download from here:
The 2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 2 (SP2)
Note: If automatic updates are enabled this service pack will
be downloaded over the next few weeks and you will not need to manually
download and install this service pack.
Office 2003 Leaves Mainstream Support
As detailed here, Microsoft no longer provides Mainstream
Support for Office 2003 products as of April 14, 2009, but will only provide
Extended Support. What this means is that instead of providing no-charge
incident support, security update support and Hot Fixes, Microsoft will only
provide security update support and paid incident support. As of this
announcement, Extended Support will be provided until January 14, 2014.
Might be time to consider upgrading to Office 2007 since Office 2010 is coming out real
soon!
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