Greetings! Welcome to Vol. 9, No. 6, 23 June 2004, of Exchange
Messaging Outlook, a biweekly newsletter about Microsoft Exchange
and Microsoft Outlook.
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EMBARRASSING MOMENTS IN E-MAIL
After my embarrassing approval of spam last week, I received enough
"embarrassing moments in e-mail" replies to fill several
newsletters. While I won't bore you with the details, I'll share
some of the lessons learned and maybe it'll prevent you from making
the same mistake.
We've all heard embarrassing stories about sending personal e-mail
to huge internal distribution lists. Some of our readers were on the
DLs, a few were the ones sending it. Some blamed Outlook 2002/2003's
autocomplete feature. Autocomplete makes it easy to send messages to
frequent contacts, but if you aren't paying attention when you
select the address you can easily choose the wrong David or Jill.
Others said they typed names in the To field and had autoresolution
disabled, so the names didn't resolve immediately. When they hit
Send, Outlook picked what it thought was the correct address.
Unfortunately Outlook was wrong.
Other readers reported they copied text from another message or
document, with the intention of updating it before sending. Some
people reported working with templates containing fields they needed
to complete, marked with "[enter recipients name here]" and sending
it without completing the fields. Others started to update a
message, but forget to change the subject line or other details. .
During the Office 2003 beta test, one beta tester requested a dialog
be added to Outlook that asked "Are you sure you want to send this
message to <e-mail address>?" after he mistakenly sent a message to
the wrong person. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be much help as most
people would disable the dialog after the first "Are you sure?". SSW's LookOut! For Outlook:
http://www.ssw.com.au/ssw/lookOut/
RECALLING SENT MESSAGES
Bob writes "I wrote a reply to a co-worker in anger and left it open
on my desktop. Later I accidentally sent it. Thankfully, this is one
time Message Recall worked. Moral of my story? I learned to close
messages and save them to Drafts instead of leaving them open on the
Task bar."
Unfortunately, Bob's story is all to common, but most of the time
it's not a happy ending as Recall has a history of failing more
often than it works. The major problems are that it only works with
Exchange server accounts in the same domain as your account and the
message you are recalling needs to be unread. However, even allowing
for those limitations, recall still has a high failure rate.
In many cases, it takes a couple of minutes before Outlook processes
the recall and human nature being what it is, most people will read
the original message to see why it's being recalled. In other cases,
message recall is not automatic and the recipient needs to open the
Recall in order for it to process.
Since Recall is one of the most useless features in Exchange, make
it a habit type random letters into the CC field before you begin
your reply. If you hit Send accidentally, the message will try to
resolve the letters to a contact and fail, giving you a chance to
cancel the send and avoid embarrassment. Along with saving messages
to drafts and closing them, the Always check spelling before sending
option can help prevent some people from accidentally sending
messages.
TEACHING E-MAIL ETIQUETTE
Many embarrassing moments are the result of lack of knowledge of
netiquette and "newbie mistakes". Few users need trained on how to
open an e-mail client, type a message and send it, but if no one
takes the time to teach users the finer points of using e-mail, how
will they know that typing in all caps (because it's easier for the
sender to read on the screen) means you are screaming at the
recipient? Other common mistakes, like forwarding every hoax or
virus alert to everyone in the address book, are easily avoided with
proper training.
If your company doesn't have e-mail training and usage guidelines in
place, or even if they do, download the "Commander's Guide to
Managing E-mail". Not only does it include many useful do's and
don'ts, it also has some great tips for managing your e-mail and
avoiding information overload. It's full of ideas for any company
writing their own guidelines and recommended reading for individual
users.
My accident was more embarrassing to me because I spent most of the
previous evening fighting a losing battle against a trojan army of
computers controlled by spammers who are using my cdolive domain
name in their spam. I was reviewing NDRs for messages sent by
zombies and reporting the infected computers to the owner's ISP,
often cable and DSL providers. I know it won't make a dent in the
sea of spam, but if the owners are notified, it's a valuable lesson,
one I hope they learn from.
As a result of various policies in place to prevent spamming or make
it more costly, spammers began installing trojans on other people's
computers and using them to send the spam. To help escape detection,
they use false From addresses, spoofing the address in one of
several formats from random letters to names appended with letters:
vfcdregt@cdolive.com or mary.whitevb@cdolive.com. They often also
use the domain name in the header and a quick glance at the header
makes it appears the domain is the true sender: "cdolive.com
(pcp01337659pcs.kensgt01.pa.comcast.net [68.81.122.253])".
The zombies are distributed using the same techniques used for
viruses, usually via e-mail, but chats and websites are also used.
Once installed, the spammers have control of the infected computer
and personal and financial data is at risk.
By limiting the number of messages they send from each computer, the
spammers can avoid detection, and because they have hundreds or
thousands of infected computers to work with, they can easily send
100,000 messages within minutes without causing an unusual spike in
bandwidth usage. If the owner of the machine discovers they're
infected and cleans up the machine, the spammer easily replaces it
with another computer under their control. If your computer is infected, the best method of cleaning it up is
with a reformat and reinstall. It's a lot of work, but it's the only
way you can be sure the computer is clean. And finally, if your
computer is infected with a zombie, virus, or Trojan, remember to
change all of your passwords and account numbers.
DTSEARCH DESKTOP http://www.dtsearch.com/PLF_desktop_2.html
dtSearch Desktop provides instant searching of desktop-accessible
files, including Outlook message stores and Eudora message files. It
features automatic support for "Office," HTML, PDF, XML, ZIP, etc.,
attachments, including all hit-highlighted display features.
dtSearch Desktop has clipboard options, file launching, and other
tools for working with retrieved data. You can export of search
results in various data formats to use with other programs. Also
available is dtSearch Web (http://www.dtsearch.com/PLF_web_2.html),
a search utility for web servers which can convert other file types
("Office," Unicode, ZIP, etc.) to HTML for browser display with
search keywords highlighted.
EASY MAPI http://www.rapware.nl/prod_easymapi_page1.asp
Easy MAPI now offers over 30 examples that should make it very easy
for beginning MAPI developers to start working with MAPI or WAB.
Some of the features include HTML support in MAPI messages, MAPI
forms support (non modal forms), Appointment Invitations, Full MAPI
restrictions support, and Exchange Manage store support. Version 3.
GALTODB http://www.essentialmethods.com/GALtoDB
A Super fast NT/2000/XP Service that copies Global Address List
information to a database, using Extended MAPI, not ADSI or CDO.
GALtoDB supports Microsoft Access, Oracle, Microsoft SQL, and most
other database systems. It includes the ability to create a new
distribution list based on information from the Global Address List,
while excluding email addresses that match criteria that you define,
perfect for creating or recreating an up-to-date distribution list
that does not contain unwanted accounts, such as Service Accounts,
opt'ed out accounts, VIP accounts, etc.
IMF ARCHIVE MANAGER http://hellomate.typepad.com/exchange/2004/06/imf_archive_man.html
Another IMF Archive Manager is now available, this one uses a
webpage to list the messages caught by the IMF filter. Use this
viewer when you want to review the subject, sender, and recipient
then resubmit a few messages and delete the rest, while the IMF
Archive Manager from http://weblogs.asp.net/exchange/archive/2004/05/26/142366.aspx
is better if you plan to report spammers.
INOX http://www.vmoon.com.pl/inox/
POP3 connector for Exchange. Runs as service to collect mail from
POP mailboxes and forward to Exchange via SMTP.
JEYO MOBILE EXTENDER FOR OUTLOOK http://www.jeyo.com/products/JeyoMobileExtenderForOutlook.asp
Jeyo Mobile Extender for Outlook adds mobile SMS messaging
capabilities to Outlook by connecting Outlook with a Windows Mobile
Smartphone or Pocket PC Phone Edition device. It allows you to
exchange text messages with other mobile phone users anywhere around
the world directly from your Outlook and manage your SMS data with
ease.
MAIL ATTENDER ENTERPRISE EDITION http://www.sherpasoftware.com/MAEEnterpriseoverview.shtml
Mail Attender Enterprise provides comprehensive content management
in PST files on desktops/servers, mailboxes and public folders. With
MA Enterprise, administrators can enforce common policies, archive
data and search content in multiple information stores from a
central web interface. Also, can track statistical information such
as total message/attachment count, size and type while tracking
usage of individual users. Works with Exchange 5.5, 2000 or 2003.
MODBLOGGER ADDIN http://workspaces.gotdotnet.com/modblogger
ModBlogger Addin is an Outlook 2003 managed addin that will
automatically upload an image attached to an email, and create a
weblog entry pointing to that image.
ORFILTER http://martijnjongen.com/eng/orfilter/
Free Exchange 2000/2003 or Windows 2000/2003 SMTP event sink to
check senders' mail server IP addresses against an open relay list.
Version 4.
OUTNOTE http://www.totalidea.com/frameset-outnote.htm
Attach notes to messages and contacts using OutNote. Manage your
notes from a central OutNote window, including reply and forwarding
the message with or without the note. Available options include
reminders (pro version), display a small window reminding you a note
is attached when a message is selected or display the note when a
message is selected.
OUTSOURCE-XP http://www.totalidea.com/frameset-outsource.htm
OutSource-XP automatically collects all important Outlook 2002/2003
files and lists them so you can choose the files (and settings) you
want to backup. The unregistered version of OutSource-XP v2 saves
the files into a pre-selected backup-folder, but does not compress
the files. The registered version compresses the backup into one
single file, and offers a Quick-Backup feature which creates a
backup just with a single mouse-click. Version 2.
PEOPLESEARCH http://www.webactivedirectory.com
Allow authorized users inside and outside your company access to
information stored in the Active Directory. PeopleSearch uses a web
browser to retrieve information stored in the directory, such as
telephone number, location, title, and manager. Administrators can
customize PeopleSearch to set up searches for any object or
attribute in the Active Directory, as well as configure how search
results are displayed in the browser. Version 1.6.
PST POLICY ADMINISTRATOR http://www.sherpasoftware.com/pstpolicyoverview.shtml
Automatically compacts PST files to recover deleted PST storage
space and reduce the risk of corrupted PST files. PST Policy Admin
keeps PST storage in check by deleting aged or large attachments and
messages. Once it has cleaned up the files, it can automatically
compact the data and free up additional storage to complete the
storage reclamation process.
PUT ANNIVERSARY / BIRTHDAY IN CALENDAR http://www.rsoutlook.com/us/rspacc.htm
While Outlook normally creates Birthdays and Anniversaries
automatically, it doesn't always create them when you import a .pst
file or synchronize with a PDA. Use Put Anniversary / Birthday
automatically put all anniversary's or birthday's where they belong
(in the Calendar) so you won't miss this important events. Works
with any Contact folder - personal or public folder, and has an
extremely simple user interface
Updated Utilities
ORF ENTERPRISE EDITION http://www.vamsoft.com/orf/default.asp
New features added to ORFEE version 1.5 include Dual filtering
points, allowing you to filter emails on arrival, which allows
delivery path analysis, keyword and attachment filtering and
Attachment and keyword filtering so you can drop emails with
malicious attachments or replace the attachments with a customizable
warning text. Both the keyword and the attachment filtering support
using Perl-compatible regular expressions and are Unicode-aware.
E-mails caught by the On Arrival filtering point can be dropped,
redirected or tagged (header or subject). ORFEE includes a built-in
log viewer which allows easy browsing, searching and filtering the
logs.
OUTLOOK CONTACTS SCRUBBER http://www.teamscope.com/otherpro/utilities.asp#scrubber
Outlook Contacts Scrubber provides a means of easily eliminating
duplicate records from your Outlook Contacts, by scanning your
contacts and looking for possible duplicate items. As it finds
duplicates, it displays a field-by-field comparison of the data and
offers a logical way of merging the data into one item. You can opt
to use the program's proposed merge or override it with personal own
choices, on a field-by-field basis. The free version of Outlook
Contacts Scrubber gives you all of the basic capabilities you need
to eliminate duplicates from your Outlook Contacts, and can process
up to 1000 items. The Registered version provides you with the
ability to process an unlimited number of items, create user-defined
duplicate definitions, auto-process duplicates without user
intervention, and works across two Contacts folders. Version 3
PST ATTENDER http://www.sherpasoftware.com/PSTOverview.shtml
Central management tool for Personal Folders (PST files) on network
drives. Uses rules and scheduling to enforce corporate mail
policies, compress attachments, search content, compact PST files,
clean up virus infections and archive data. Provides detailed
reports on PST files contents and space reclaimed.
OUTLOOK VBA CODE SAMPLES http://www.slovaktech.com/code_samples.htm
These Outlook VBA code samples are great for users who need a
feature but can't write code as well as budding Outlook developers
to learn from. Included in the available code samples are VBA
procedures to remove attachments from selected messages, insert the
date and time in a message, get the senders e-mail address, get
internet headers, create a toolbar button that contains a hyperlink
to a website, add a disclaimer to e-mail, extract a distribution
list to a Word document, sort the Outlook address book, change the
FileAs setting for contacts, and a FolderInspector Wrapper. All
samples were written by Outlook developer Ken Slovak.
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