Microsoft has named 29 finalists in eight categories for the MEC 2000 Solutions Awards, focusing on Exchange 2000 and the Web Storage System. The categories cover applications from both Microsoft customers and solution providers. For the full list, see http://www.exchange2000partners.com/mec2000. Winners will be announced at the Microsoft Exchange and Collaboration Solutions Conference in Dallas, Oct. 10. I'm hoping that we'll get to see the finalists' actual solutions at MEC or some future conference.

We continue our digest of essential articles about Exchange 2000 with a list targeted at developers. Exchange 2000 makes some big changes and introduces many new technologies, but the power of the Web Storage System to build applications that can run on many different clients is worth the study effort. You might want to start with these articles:

Exchange 2000: Web Storage System, Workflow Tools, and CDO Turbocharge Collaboration Apps
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/0700/exchange/exchange.asp

Developing Web Store Applications
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?URL=/library/backgrnd/html/webstorewp.htm

Building Applications Using Web Store Events: Overview
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?URL=/library/techart/webstoreevents.htm

Building Management Components for Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?URL=/library/techart/e2k_cmpts.htm

Gateways: Migrating Exchange 5.5 EDK-Based Connectors to Exchange 2000
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?URL=/library/techart/Gateways.htm

Collaboration Data Objects Roadmap
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?URL=/library/techart/cdo_roadmap.htm

RVP: A Presence and Instant Messaging Protocol
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?URL=/library/techart/Rvp.htm

It never fails: Just when I think I know just about all the tricks about Outlook, someone posts a new one in one of the newsgroups or on the outlook-users mailing list (mailto:outlook-users-subscribe@egroups.com). Here are a few that I've picked up lately:

In Outlook 2000, if you have adaptive menus turned on, you can open a menu fully expanded by double-clicking on it.

To clear the Locations drop-down list on appointment items, close Outlook 2000 and then delete this key in the Windows registry (always back up the registry before making changes!):

Outlook 2000
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Outlook\Preferences\LocationMRU

Outlook will rebuild the key the first time you set a location.

As many of you may know, I have been writing a column this year for Windows 2000 magazine covering the basics of Outlook 2000 VBA programming, especially for Exchange administrators. The column deals with basic tasks, such as automatic processing of incoming messages to go beyond what the Rules Wizard can do. Many of the earlier Outlook VBA on Demand columns are now available online and include code that you can use in your projects. If you have just a few minutes at a time to try to learn Outlook VBA, check out this series:

Automatic Message Processing
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=7677

Flagging Incoming Items
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=7949

Handling Blank Fields
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=8141

Moving Incoming Items to Folders
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=8191

Handling Code Errors
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=8488

Showing the Sender's Email Address
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=8630

Working with an Item
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=8783

Showing Contacts' Email Addresses
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=8845

Updating a Few Outlook Items at a Time
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=9032

If you are a subscriber to Windows 2000 magazine, you can also get the most recent column via your subscriber logon.

FYI, some of the code listings include statements like "BEGIN CALLOUT." These are publication marks and need to be removed before you try to use the code in your projects.

One of my daily tasks is to keep tabs on the various discussion forums for Outlook and Exchange Server and try to gauge what issues are perplexing people the most. Then I try to either locate an MSKB article that explains the issue and add it to the various pages on the Slipstick web site (such as http://www.slipstick.com/contacts/index.htm for issues related to Outlook contacts) or write up my own article. Three of my latest articles for developers point out many basic techniques:

Syntax for Outlook property and control values and events
http://www.slipstick.com/dev/propsyntax.htm
A beginner's guide to reading and setting values of Outlook properties and form controls. It also covers basic event handling related to changes in property and control values.

To automatically add an e-mail address as a Bcc to all outgoing messages in Microsoft Outlook 2000
http://www.slipstick.com/dev/code/autobcc.htm
Explains how to use the Application.ItemSend event to copy in a mail address on all outgoing messages and hide that address from the normal To and Cc recipients. People who have more than one e-mail account often want to get a copy of outgoing messages in their second account's Inbox, just so they have an extra copy.

To get the sender's address from an Outlook mail message
http://www.slipstick.com/dev/code/getsenderaddy.htm
Provides two methods, one for the From address, the other for the ReplyTo address -- which are not always the same thing! Since Outlook provides no property on a MailItem to give you the sender's e-mail address, these are critical techniques for any Outlook programmer.