Outlook tweaks for the basic user

Have you missed the IBM Lotus Notes functionality of “Prompt to save mail” for each mail in MS Outlook? Or have you cursed yourself for forgetting to add the attachment before sending that all important mail?

MS Outlook might not have all the functionalities of it’s counterparts but it’s powerful VBA macro engine leaves us to do what we want.

1. Attachment Reminder reminds you when you forget to attach a file to an email—preventing a possibly embarrassing situation with a client or boss.

Once installed, the code scans your new email message for words indicating that you've attached a file—you can change the words in the code . The detection only happens for the latest message in a conversation, skipping the replies and forward portions.

2. Outlook offers only two options while sending mail as seen from the screenshot below,

save all mail to sent items or do not save any mail. We cannot selectively save an selectively save a copy of message to sent items as was possible in Lotus Notes

Prompt to save does exactly what it means. Before sending the email, it will prompt whether to save to sent items or not.

 

Below is the code that does these two jobs. There are lots of versions floating around so not sure whom the credit should go to for the original code. Have modified it to suit my requirements.

Follow the below steps to install the code

1.) Ensure that Macros are enabled for your Microsoft Office Outlook. Macros don’t work with Microsoft Outlook Express, therefore this setup cannot be achieved with Microsoft Outlook Express.

2.) Ensure that your security level is set to Medium. You can set the security level by clicking on Tools –> Macro –> Security. Set the desired level to Medium.

3.) Traverse through Tools –> Macro –> Visual Basic Editor ( Or press ALT + F11)

4.) Expand Project 1 by clicking on the + sign.

5.) Expand Microsoft Office Outlook Objects.

6.) Double click ThisOutlookSession.

Paste the below code, save and exit.

' this sub needs to be installed in the ThisOutlookSession module
Dim vCancel As Boolean
Dim Msg, Style, Title, Response As String

Private Sub Application_ItemSend(ByVal Item As Object, _
                                 Cancel As Boolean)
    vCancel = False
    Item.Categories = ""
    If Item.Class = olMail Then
        Call CheckAttachments(Item)
        If vCancel = True Then
            Cancel = True
            Exit Sub
        End If
        Call CheckToSave(Item)
        If vCancel = True Then
            Cancel = True
        End If
    End If
End Sub

' this sub can be installed anywhere
Sub CheckToSave(objMail As MailItem)

    Msg = "Do you want to save a copy of this email?"    ' Define message.
    Style = vbYesNoCancel + vbQuestion + vbDefaultButton1    ' Define buttons.
    Title = "Mailbox Control"    ' Define title.
    ' Display message.
    Response = MsgBox(Msg, Style, Title)

    If Response = vbYes Then    ' User chose Yes.
        objMail.DeleteAfterSubmit = False
    ElseIf Response = vbNo Then  ' User chose No.
        objMail.DeleteAfterSubmit = True
    ElseIf Response = vbCancel Then
        vCancel = True
    End If
End Sub

Sub CheckAttachments(objMail As MailItem)

    Dim InCount, MailBody, MailLength, AttachCount, SignAttachCount
    'If you have a picture or vCard in your signature then make SignAttachCount equal to the
    'number of files attached in your signature.
    SignAttachCount = 0
    InCount = 0
    MailBody = LCase(objMail.Subject) & LCase(objMail.Body)
    'If the message is a reply or forward, then the macro will not search for the strings in the original message.
    MailLength = InStr(1, MailBody, "from:")
    If MailLength = 0 Then MailLength = Len(MailBody)
    'Add lines for every string you want to check.
    'Parts of a string can be added as in "attach" will match "attached", "enclose" will match "enclosed"
    If InCount = 0 Then InCount = InStr(1, Left(MailBody, MailLength), "attach")
    If InCount = 0 Then InCount = InStr(1, Left(MailBody, MailLength), "file")
    If InCount = 0 Then InCount = InStr(1, Left(MailBody, MailLength), "enclose")
    AttachCount = objMail.Attachments.Count

    If InCount > 0 And AttachCount <= SignAttachCount Then
        Msg = "Did you intend to attach any file in this mail?"    ' Define message.
        Style = vbYesNo + vbQuestion + vbDefaultButton1    ' Define buttons.
        Title = "Missing Attachment"    ' Define title.

        ' Display message.
        Response = MsgBox(Msg, Style, Title)
        If Response = vbYes Then ' User chose Yes.
            vCancel = True
        End If
    End If

End Sub

 

On startup, click enable macros, if prompted. You should be all ready to go. Send out a test mail and check. If you have any problems in installing leave a comment.

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Bing

Year 2009 is proving to be a good year for Microsoft. First was the awesome Windows 7 (which is there on my to-blog list) followed by it’s latest search engine Bing http://www.bing.com. With Bing, MS is seriously looking to eat into rival Google’s marketshare.  Within 10 days of it’s launch, Bing has already crossed Yahoo to  the 2nd rank in search engine marketspace.  I have already replaced Bing as my default search provider in Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer.

To get straight to the facts. Why should you switch over to Bing?

1. Bing has come on par, if not better, with Google in terms of the interface, search results & the speed
2. Bing will display the categories, related searches and the search history on the left.

1. Bing Video search makes it possible to play videos directly on the results page and also offers a plethora of options on the target video’s duration, screensize, resolution and the source.

1. Bing’s image search displays image results on an infinite scrolling page with options to filter images by size, layout, color, style or people

1. Bing’s image search has the ability to display only wallpaper images in the image search results. This is done by searching for a term in Bing image search and clicking on the Size category in the left sidebar. It will automatically display various size filters including one called wallpaper. This will display only images that have the exact size of the computer screen resolution.
2. The parameter contains will tell the search engine to only look for websites that contain that search term

1. Bing’s Best Match & Deep Links feature is designed to make finding relevant information easier by cutting down the number of clicks and getting you to your final destination faster. Results include customer service numbers for retail sites, the ability to track a package right from the search page, deep links to common pages within the site and much more.

1. Quick Preview is an additional window that expands over a search caption to give more information about the site's relevancy

1. Instant Answers is a feature designed to provide information within the body of the search-results page.

So, are you ready to go and bing? If you want to make it the default search provider for your browser, click here.

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Dreams

All of us have dreams.

All of us do not dream.

Can you make out the difference between both the statements? Whilst the former is a dream which most of us have while sleeping and forget on waking, the latter is the vision we set for ourselves for the future.

There are various reasons why many of us do not dream

• prefer to take life as it comes or
• are comfortable with the existing situation or
• are bogged down by family pressure and responsibilities or
• complacent or
• under-confidence of one’s abilities or
• scared, lest the dream fail or
• scared, because people might laugh at or make fun of the dream or
• ignorance of the power to dream

Am a true believer that each one of us has loads of talent to make it BIG in the world. It’s just that the task of identifying the talent is not straight forward. It requires lots of contemplation, self appraisal, analysis of our passions & desires. Lot of us think that the people who make it big are born with the silver spoon in their mouth. While luck does have it’s own role in each of our lives, fortune favors the brave. If we look at history, the biggest names (right from Bill Gates to Warren Buffet to Dirubhai Ambani) started from scratch and carved out their empires. Agreed that few people have “it” in them, but a majority of them grow big because they never stop learning. They learn from the people around them (small or big does not matter), reading about the stories of successful people,  fictional books which inspire. The process of learning never really stops. Each of us as an individual can do anything we want. We just have to set our heart and mind towards it.

Human brain is a person’s biggest asset. It can give answers, solve equations, create visions and do just about everything as long as we do not limit ourselves. We do not even harness a fraction of it’s original power to think and do. In our normal day to day scenarios, we tend to think only in the direction which is set. If there were a business problem with some department in our company, we do not think a solution for that if we are not responsible.  This is how we limit ourselves. If one needs to understand the power of our brain, try to wake up in the morning remembering your dreams (the former kind mentioned above). When we are in deep sleep, our brain is free of any limitations. It does many things which we would not have thought capable of. For eg, I try do the above exercise very often and have been very surprised, i’ve woken up in the morning realizing having sung a song with lyrics never heard before, having choreographed steps which have never seen before (though I am born of two left feet), solving a technical problem which has been bothering me in real life for many days. When we have this realization of the power within us, we can do anything. There are no limitations, no precedents. Ask an average adult to give a speech in front of 100 people, he will shiver, he will blunder. Put a 2 year old kid in front of 100 people and ask him to speak about his toys, he will blabber non-stop with high excitement. What’s the difference between both, the adult has heard of something called “stage-fear” whereas the child has not yet come across that concept. Our limitations are what we impose upon ourselves. Free ourselves and we live a free life. This is very very easy to say and equally tough to enact, but having the realization is the first step forward.

Three books have changed my life forever: The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, Godfather. I learnt how to dream, why to dream. I found my passion, found out where I want to be. Though I have not yet figured our how to reach there, I know I will. Knowing where to go is the most important step. We get a direction, a mission for our life, getting there is something which will eventually happen once we are convinced of where we want to go.

“The first ingredient of success is desire.
Do you know what you want?
Your desire is the planting of your seed.
Your desire for success must be so strong within you
that it's the very breath of your life.
It must be your first thought when you wake in the morning,
and your last thought when you go to bed at night.”

So, if you like writing, dream that you would write a best seller one day selling over a million copies, if you adore cars, dream that you will bring a revolution to the way cars run, if you like playing guitar, dream that you will perform solo to a live audience in a packed stadium, if you think your world is made of 0 & 1’s, dream that you will build a computer which will replace books in each and every school in the world.

Dare to DREAM and dream BIG.

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Sharks In Your Life

Came across this very interesting story on the net. Not sure of the exact source as there are lots of websites with this article. Thought of sharing it with all of you.

The Japanese have always loved fresh fish. But the waters close to Japan have not held many fish for decades.

So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever. The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish were not fresh. The Japanese did not like the taste.
To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen and they did not like frozen fish.

The frozen fish brought a lower price. So fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks. After a little thrashing around, the fish stopped moving. They were tired and dull, but alive. Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference. Because the fish did not move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste.

The Japanese preferred the lively taste of fresh fish, not sluggish fish. So how did Japanese fishing companies solve this problem? How do they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan? If you were consulting the fish industry, what would you recommend?

How Japanese Fish Stay Fresh:
To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks. But now they add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very lively state. The fish are challenged.

Have you realized that some of us are also living in a pond but most of the time tired & dull, so we need a Shark in our life to keep us awake and moving?

Basically in our lives Sharks are new challenges to keep us active and taste better..... The more intelligent, persistent and competent you are, the more you enjoy a challenge.

If your challenges are the correct size, and if you are steadily conquering those challenges, you are Conqueror.. You think of your challenges and get energized. You are excited to try new solutions. You have fun. You are alive!

So have you found the Shark in your life?

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