• The "Big Number" in the U.K. 
• Updated AutoAccept Utilities 
• New Digital Dashboards 
• Exchange 2000 Hands-on Labs

• Thanks to our sponsors
• New Slipstick site features
• New utilities
• Updated utilities

I meant to write about the "Big Number" in the last issue of EMO, before the mass switch of dialing codes in the U.K., but better late than never. Though the updates have been well publicized inside the U.K., people living elsewhere probably won't realize there has been a change until they try to dial a U.K. number and the call doesn't go through.

What has been happening over the past few months -- culminating in a large switch last Saturday, April 22, -- is the addition of new area/city codes for many parts of the U.K., coupled with a move to eight-digit local numbers in London. In other words, if you need to dial London today, you'd better check to make sure that you have the right number.

For Outlook users, there are two key issues related to the Big Number. One is that many tools -- free and commercial -- are available to update your Outlook contacts to the new area/city codes in the U.K. See our page at http://www.slipstick.com/addins/contacts.htm.

The second issue is how Outlook performs its automatic formatting of numbers when you type them into a Contact record. The automatic formatting feature largely depends on fixed length local numbers within a country. Since the U.K. now has both seven- and eight-digit numbers, you may get unexpected results if you just type in a number -- with no punctuation -- and expect Outlook to format it properly. The MSKB article OL2000: New 020 London Area Code Interpreted as Country Code for Egypt at http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q254/8/29.ASP describes one example. (While this article describes a symptom experienced by some Outlook users, it is somewhat misleading, since the new area code for London is not 20, but 020.)

Though that article says Office 2000 Service Release 1 resolves the problem, the real resolution is to enter telephone numbers in full international format:

+xx (yyy) zzzz-zzzz

where

xx = country code (1 in the U.S. and Canada)

yyy = city or area code

zzzz-zzzz = local number

This is the one sure way to have unambiguous numbers and to make use of Windows dialing properties to dial the correct access codes for locall, long distance and international calls. See our Outlook Phone Numbers page at http://www.slipstick.com/config/olphone.htm for more on this issue. (Sorry about the page being a little dated, but it's on the revision list.)

Also see The U.K's "Big Number" Telephone Changes for a more detailed report and step by step instructions for setting up Windows to handle UK numbers properly.

Exchange Server administrators with shared resources like conference rooms will be happy to know that Robert Strong has posted version 4.0 of his free AutoAccept Utlities at http://www.exchangecode.com. These utilities are a much enhanced version of the AutoAccept script that Microsoft provided to handle automatic booking of resources. Robert's script has been widely accepted as the best automatic booking method prior to Outlook 2000 (which supports direct resource booking, as long as you have a total Outlook 2000 environment). The updates in the new version are most bug fixes, rather than new features, including a fix for the free/busy information updating inconsistently.

Prompted by a question on one of the newsgroups about whether Microsoft is really committed to the digital dashboard concept or whether it's another technology that will wither away, I went searching this month for digital dashboard applications and found an interesting collection of both complete dashboards and components ("nuggets" in DD parlance) that you can incorporate into a dashboard. I was particularly interested to see the relatively sophisticated dashboards for online learning.

ActiveSheets
http://www.activesheets.com/products/activesheets.htm
Component that works with Microsoft Excel to deliver data from a SAP R/3 system.

Centra 99 for BackOffice
http://www.centra.com/product/backoffice.html
Intranet training and collaboration system with digital dashboard interface and integration with Outlook calendar.

Engo.com
http://www.engo.com/dashboardintro1.htm
Digital dashboard for tracking your auctions and bids at Engo.com.

IntraLearn
http://www.intralearn.com/
Online learning system incorporating digital dashboard as one client option.

MSNBC Personal Update
http://www.msnbc.com/m/olk2k/msnbc_o_install.asp
Free digital dashboard replacing the Outlook Today page that provides stock quotes, weather and headlines when you are connected to the Internet.

Personal Knowledge Portal
http://www.80-20.com/html/pkp/pkpms.htm
Digital dashboard replacing the Outlook Today page, using the ISYS search engine to provide extremely fast, indexed search nugget to Outlook. Features include indexing of files attached to messages, saved searches and matching of contacts with related messages.

ProClarity OLAP Client
http://www.knosysinc.com/officeindex.html
ActiveX analysis controls that integrate into digital dashboards.

XSonic
http://www.magic-e.co.uk/digital_dashboards.htm
SMS and other mobile components that can be integrated into digital dashboards.

A few notes on the MSNBC dashboard:

If you look at the .htm files added in the \Program Files\Msnbc\Outlook\Client folder, you'll figure out that the dashboard displays a local file named msnbc_o.htm, when you are not connected to the Internet, and a page at http://www.msnbc.com/m/olk2k/msnbc_o.asp when you are online. In other words, you can't edit the online version, since it's a server-based ASP page.

The up and down arrow buttons to the right of each section of the page move that section up and down. You don't get any choices for changing views as you would with the built-in Outlook Today page.

To remove the MSNBC dashboard, run Add/Remove Programs from Control Panel, and select MSNBC Outlook 2000. If that does not restore your original dashboard, you may need to make some changes in the Windows Registry. (Always make a backup copy first.) Check for a HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Outlook\Webview\mailbox key, and if it is present, delete it. This key is added by the MSNBC dashboard installation program. If you had a custom digital dashboard that you want to use again, enter its full path in Url value under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Outlook\Today key. If the Url value doesn't exist, you'll need to create it.

Many thanks to my fellow MVPs Randy Byrne and Ken Slovak for poking around in the MSNBC dashboard to uncover some of its details. 

If you're interested in learning more about customizing Outlook Today, Microsoft provides a white paper and samples you can download from http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/2000/Appndx/toolbox.htm#outtoday. Also see our Digital Dashboard page at http://www.slipstick.com/dev/dashboard.htm.

You can tell that we're getting close to the release date for Exchange 2000. Microsoft has started running hands-on training labs for Exchange 2000 at various sites around the country, now through June 30. These labs spend three hours covering basic configuration, administration and maintenance issues and are geared toward small to medium businesses. We have not attended one, but at $49, it sounds like a good opportunity to get some practical experience in Exchange 2000 on someone else's equipment. See http://www.microsoft.com/directaccess/training/hotlabs/exchange2000/ for details. Microsoft is offering similar labs for Windows 2000 at http://www.microsoft.com/directaccess/training/hotlabs/Windows2000/.

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