Microsoft Outlook Inbox; Integrates Yahoo

Xobni, today released a product that integrations with Web services, Yahoo! eMail, Facebook Platform and Hoover's, as well as improvements to its Skype integration. These strategic outlook integrations support and expand on Xobni's June announcement, incorporating key contact information from LinkedIn's massive network of business professionals into the Xobni sidebar.

The integration of Yahoo! eMail is scale implementations using Yahoo! eMail's APIs and makes it easy for Yahoo! users to preview their Yahoo! eMail messages and search their email and contacts from within Outlook for free. With hundreds of millions of users worldwide, Yahoo! Mail is one of the world's most popular Web email services, and now Yahoo! eMail users have a solution to preview their messages from Outlook, along with all the benefits and convenience of Xobni.

"This is a terrific use of our open Yahoo! eMail APIs, and we think desktop Outlook suppot users in the workplace will find great value in being able to preview their Web email from Outlook using the Xobni sidebar. One of our goals in help opening up Yahoo! eMail is to make it even more ubiquitous, so that people can access their Web email from wherever it's most convenient. Ultimately, we think people will become even more engaged with outlook Yahoo! eMail the more easily they can access it," said John Kremer, vice president, Yahoo! eMail.

Each of Xobni's new information help providers are leaders in their respective fields-Yahoo! eMail is one of the most popular Web email help services in the world; Facebook outlook is the largest social network in the world; Hoover's provides the broadest set of proprietary, rich insight into worldwide companies, industries and people; and Skype is the leading global internet communications company.

"As inbound communications volume skyrockets, people outlook are getting hammered with messages from social networks, personal email addresses and other Web services," said Matt Brezina, co-founder of Xobni. "These collaborations with leading Web companies outlook are Xobni's latest outlook efforts toward helping people process relevant information about their contacts, stay informed and connected to important people in their network, and quickly take actions on that information."

Each new service is opt-in and brings valuable features into Xobni's Outlook help product. Icons for each service appear in an easy toggle format within the Xobni sidebar, so users can decide which services they want to use. New capabilities of Xobni's sidebar include:

As proof that people are looking for a solution to email outlook overload, over 1 million people have downloaded Xobni in the 6 months since its public launch. Xobni's integrations with industry leading outlook email data providers are finally pushing email toward the 21st century, which is why Walt Mossberg recently wrote that Xobni makes Outlook "faster and more useful." With Xobni's simple inbox sidebar, 85% of users report spending less time searching for people, contact information, emails and attachments, and more time getting work done.

The Radicati Group, is a outlook email help canada research firm, saying that 210 billion emails are sent every day, and are expecting that by 2012 that number will grow to 419 billion. That match growth means there is overload of information , and xboni is helping to solve this problem.

Source:http://in.sys-con.com/node/754159

Windows Small Business Server 2008

his is an impressive update to Microsoft's Small Business Server that packs a big punch. However, it may be overkill for a lot of companies and isn't quite as easy to manage as it first appears.

Microsoft's new Windows Small Business Server 2008 has launched for small buisnesses it is very good for small buisnesses , because it has lots of feature for small buisnesses , but it is not cheap , because you need microsoft windows vista canada experts to fully utilize the whole features.

In SBS 2008 you get versions of key Microsoft vista products, notably Windows Server 2008 and Exchange Server 2007, and you will also get full microsoft windows IT support staff ,

There is two editions are available, Standard and Premium, both are in Windows Server 2008 OS. Microsoft vista windows Exchange Server 2007 is provided for email, with SharePoint Services 3.0 for collaboration . The Standard Edition ($1,089 or ~AU$1700) installs from a single DVD.

Web-based access to shared resources is the order of the day in Small Business Server 2008.

SQL Server 2008 is included in windows server 2008 so you get two benefits from one investment (from $1,899 or ~AU$2960). A second vista copy of Windows Server 2008 is also included in vista order to run this on a separate vista host server, if required. There is also many new features in vista like Hyper-V virtualisation, this is also covered in licence.

A full copy of Windows Server 2008 is provided in SBS 2008. You can use all its options, including the Hyper-V hypervisor.

The code is very light means you means it will install in few minutes. It also does not ask too much questions which it was doing before this . Exchange is pre installed vista complete with Outlook Web Access (OWA). The most common server roles and features required by small businesses are also configured during the setup process. An internal web site and remote web workplace are also created.

SBS 2008 users get a shared calendar plus email via Outlook Web Access and the standard Outlook client.

The server console comes in for a major facelift, with separate tabs for the main options making it a lot easier to navigate. A number vista of new and improved wizards help vista with common tasks like adding new users, creating new shares and web sites. Reporting tools are integrated too, along with a backup facility — although you can only take backups to external hard disk, and the backup and recovery options are limited compared to third-party alternatives.

SBS 2008 has built-in backup, but its functionality is limited compared to specialist third-party alternatives.

Source: http://www.zdnet.com.au/reviews/software/os/soa/Windows-Small-Business-Server-2008/0,139023442,339293255,00.htm

C-MAIL Launches 'Smart' Email Productivity Solution Designed To Help Business and Government Users Solve the Email Overload Problem and Speed Decision

NEW YORK, Oct. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- C-MAIL(TM) Corporation a provider of email productivity solution today launched a new service related to email , with this service people will be able to manage email's more efficiently , this service can be installed backside of the firewall , this service can be used by big organizations to small organizations and also government organizations.

C-MAIL is a user-friendly, intelligent SaaS add-in to Microsoft Outlook support canada that automatically and dynamically prioritizes email messages. C-MAIL's patent-pending algorithms work in the background taking into account users' clicking behavior, past email history, configurable company business rules, and various other optional user input. This dynamic prioritization and "smart" learning results in superior accuracy of email prioritization - and relieves the burden of endlessly sifting through email, thus saving precious time and enabling faster decision-making on important email. Easy to learn and quick to set-up, C-MAIL functions without modifying Outlook's email rules, folders, or archiving policies.

"Most email overload solutions available today rely on static rules-based technology and are limited to individual PC software that cannot effectively keep up with or adapt to the speed of business," said Manish Sood, CEO of C-MAIL Corp. "We developed C-MAIL's globally scalable solution specifically targeting the email productivity and reporting needs of corporate users. C-MAIL applies a fundamentally different technology consisting of dynamic prioritization of email, intuitive learning capabilities from individuals and groups, single-click workflow, meaningful email analytics, security and privacy controls, and enterprise-grade reporting. The benefits of using the service speak to the strong value proposition."

C-MAIL's patent-pending technology automatically analyzes individual and company email data to map organizational social networks, providing end-users and managers alike with a better sense of communication bottlenecks, productivity benchmarks, and key performance metrics. With C-MAIL, users can gain immediate efficiencies from the start. By analyzing the solution's robust real-time metrics and intuitive reporting, users can improve overall productivity, speed of decision-making, customer service, group collaboration, knowledge management, and efficient email data archiving.

"For many workers, the inbox becomes a cluttered and very unfocused to-do list resulting in excess time spent either determining which emails are high priority or constantly searching for actionable emails - which in turn becomes a very inefficient way to do business," said Sood. "Recent studies have shown that one minute of interruption can cost 15 minutes of lost productivity. With nearly half of your workday spent reviewing and managing email, the majority of which are non-urgent, businesses in today's economy need a 'smart' productivity solution that ensures that the workforce is clearly focused on business priorities - C-MAIL is that very solution."

Source: http://uk.sys-con.com/node/724229

Microsoft Outlook: 9 Things You Didn't Know You Could Do

1. Open Calendar, Contacts, or Task List in a separate window
Tired of clicking on the navigation buttons every time you want to switch between your Inbox and Calendar? Right-click on any of the Navigation buttons and choose Open in a New Window, and you can keep your Calendar or Contacts open in windows of their own. They'll stay open while you deal with messages; simply use Alt-Tab to navigate between the windows.

2. Display multiple dates in the Calendar
You can display multiple, noncontiguous dates in the Calendar by going to the monthly calendar display in the upper left of the Calendar window and Ctrl-clicking on the dates you want to view. Each date you Ctrl-click will appear as a column in the main Calendar display. You can also display any continuous range of dates by dragging the mouse over a series of dates on the monthly calendar.

3. Customize the flag and category icons
You probably already use the flag icon in the Inbox message list to remind you of messages that you'll need to look at in the future, or the category icon to help organize your mail. (The flag icon appears at the far right of each entry in Outlook's message list; the category icon is the rounded square just to the left of the flag icon.) You can specify which color flag or which color category will appear by default when you click on those icons. Simply right-click on any flag or category icon, choose Set Quick Click…, and select the category or flag that you want to use as the default.

5. Modify Outlook's menus
Do you want the commands you use most often to appear at the top of Outlook's menus? Just choose Tools | Customize, then the Commands tab, and click Rearrange Commands... In the dialog that opens you can move menu items up and down in the list, delete items you don't use, and add ones that you want. You can also save time by specifying "accelerator keys" that will launch a menu item when you type a single letter while that menu is open. To change or create an accelerator key for a menu item, click Modify Selection in the Rearrange Commands dialog, and insert an ampersand (&) immediately before the letter in the menu item that you've chosen to serve as the accelerator key.

6. Add holidays to your Outlook calendar
If your company observes religious holidays, or observes the same holidays honored in a head office in another country, you can add those holidays to the Outlook calendar. Use Tools | Options; on the Preferences tab, click Calendar Options…, then click Add Holidays…, and place check marks next to the national or religious holidays you want marked in your calendar.

7. Insert calendar data into your e-mail
If your e-mail account is on a Microsoft Exchange server and you're writing to someone else who uses the same Exchange server, you can insert data from your calendar into an e-mail. In the message-editing window, go to the Message ribbon (selected by default), choose Calendar from the Include group, and specify the time period and level of detail that you want to include. This option isn't available if your account is on a POP or IMAP server.

8. Add a contact from an e-mail message
To add the sender of an e-mail message to your Contacts, go to the message itself (not the entry in the message list), right-click on the sender's name, and choose Add to Outlook Contacts.

9. Get rid of unwanted add-ins
Keep Outlook 2007 sleek and fast by removing add-ins that other software installs with asking your permission. Go to Tools | Trust Center… then click on Add-ins, find the Manage: item at the foot of the window, make sure that COM Add-ins is the current item, and click on Go…. From the COM Add-ins dialog you can disable an item by clearing its check box, or remove it entirely by clicking Remove.

source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2332279,00.asp

Outlook Technical Support services in canada

After a 97-minute phone call with Bellsouth today and about a 43-minute call yesterday, I have decided to come one step closer to being “Off the grid”.

I have been with Bellsouth forever (I mean, there are so many other choices here in the Southeast, right?), but I have also been a customer of their DSL product for about three or four years with few, if any, problems. I was even on their dial-up plan for about three years before that. All in all, I have been pretty satisfied with them, unless I had to call customer support (God help you if you ever have to).

I use Outlook 2007 as my e-mail client at home. I’ve used it with Bellsouth for a while and I use it at work and love it. Last night, for the first time, I found I could no longer send e-mails, but could receive just fine. It is also worth nothing that Bellsouth/AT&T have no instructions for Outlook support 2007 on their Web site, and their tech support reps' latest instructions are Outlook 2003. I found it comical.

This obviously being a port 25 issue, I naturally called Bellsouth to have them offer me a solution. I’ll sum up their solution in a few words (which took me almost an hour to get):
When the tech couldn’t figure out the problem, they sent me to a “higher level” tech, who would gladly charge me extra money to diagnose the problem. It was their pay tech support.

Thanks, but no thanks. I declined.

It was nearing 8:00 PM and I wanted to play the husband role and spend time with my wife so I ended the call.

Today, I came home early from work to tackle this issue again. After 97 minutes and talking with five, maybe six people (none of whom could understand the issue or seemed to know much about this port 25), here is summation of the support I got.

Outgoing e-mail uses something on the Internet called a “port,” specifically port 25. Since my regular readers don’t claim to be all too technical in this regard, I won’t try and confuse you, but the bottom line is that Bellsouth/AT&T have been dropping their residential customers from using this port to send mail since 2003. My time ran out in late 2008 I guess. Their reasoning was that spammers find it easy to relay spam/junk mail through this port, and since Bellsouth business customers complained about spam (to which I'd say, “welcome to the Internet”), Bellsouth shoved the residential customers in the corner, told them to shut up and stop crying, and catered to the business customers. And as we all know, spammers will never find a new way to send spam e-mail now that port 25 is closed (yeah, right).

source: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/10/11/024643.php

Desktop outlook support

Google Desktop is een zoektool en doet zijn werk op Windows 2000, XP en Vista. Het kan onder andere zoeken naar informatie in e-mails, chats, webhistorie en verschillende soorten documenten en mediabestanden. Daarnaast indexeert deze zoektool verwijderde bestanden en verschillende versies van bestanden zodat wanneer een bestand per ongeluk gewist wordt de informatie via Google Desktop in veel gevallen kan worden teruggehaald. Het bevat tevens een sidebar waar zogenoemde gadgets ingezet kunnen worden zonder deze apart te installeren. De gadgets bestaan uit onder meer een nieuwslezer, weerberichtmelder, rss- en atom-reader, kladblok en een mediaspeler. Ook kunnen aparte gadgets worden binnengehaald waarmee de functionaliteit van de sidebar uitgebreid wordt. Voor meer informatie verwijzen we jullie door naar deze pagina. De ontwikkelaars hebben enkele dagen geleden versie 5.8.809.8522 uitgebracht en voorzien van de volgende blogpost:

Google Desktop 5.8 for Windows: increased performance

We love getting your feedback, and one of the themes that has cropped up in the Google Desktop Help group is that you want a lighter, faster product. We heard the message loud and clear and decided that the Google Desktop 5.8 for Windows release would be based entirely on performance.

In true Google fashion, we took a data-driven approach: Measure, then analyze, fix the most important issues and lowest hanging fruit, then rinse, lather and repeat.

First, we built performance tests that simulate a typical user's behavior when using Google Desktop and measure the time spent on actions such as starting up, shutting down, searching, adding a gadget, adding a new document to the search index, and so forth. We then took a page from the Google Chrome playbook by running the performance tests automatically for every single change we made to the software, on dozens of machines each time so that an average of the time measurements from all of them would give us a reliable comparison against previous versions.

Next, we refined an option that helps us improve the product, with your agreement. To send us information about problems you might experience, you can opt in to our error reporting system. If you have opted in, the system will send us anonymous diagnostic information about such events as crashes. In the new version, we improved this system to also detect and report situations where our product could be making your computer slow to respond.

We've learned a lot from these two new sources of data. The performance measurement system enabled us to discover some seemingly small changes that had a major impact on performance. We've been able to immediately fix changes that decreased performance, and learn from changes that improved performance. For example:

• We found a way to cut memory usage during startup by about 50%.
• Shutdown now happens five times faster, and we were able to avoid a seemingly innocuous state that would have almost doubled startup time.

From automated error reports sent by our beta testers, we learned that while Google Desktop generally performs very well, certain types of usage and some interactions with 3rd party software can trigger problems. We've made dozens of improvements based on this data. Here are some examples of what we've been able to fix:

• A few obscure cases where interaction with third party software could slow the computer down when certain types of files were being added to the search index.
• A rare issue that could cause slower computers to become temporarily unresponsive during Google Desktop startup.

We still weren't satisfied, so we analyzed the design of our software to find ways to improve it. This led us to make a few more changes:

• We realized that with the hundreds of Google Desktop Gadgets available from third parties, there is always the possibility that one of them performs badly. To help you deal with this, we added a system that detects when a gadget is causing your computer to perform poorly, and asks you whether to remove the gadget. While we were at it, we added proactive security measures that prevent malicious gadgets from stealing information from other gadgets, and we made changes that allow Flash programs such as interactive games to be embedded in gadgets; for certain types of gadgets this can be a lighter weight approach than previously possible.
• To reduce memory usage, increase stability and reduce memory fragmentation, we reduced the number of different processes that Google Desktop runs, and we now recycle some of our processes frequently (just like Google Chrome).
• Microsoft Outlook users will be glad to hear that we've reduced memory usage while at the same time improving the coverage and increasing the stability of our Outlook support.

We've had a fun and rewarding time improving performance, because at every step of the way we were sure that you would enjoy our product even more. Please give our new lighter, faster version a try. We hope you'll enjoy it.

source: http://tweakers.net/meuktracker/18512/google-desktop-588098522.html

Avaya offers wide array of unified communications wares

The company offers a dizzying array of UC products that enterprises can piece together to craft customized systems grounded in the company's long, solid telephony history. That said, integrating all the pieces together takes a lot of effort and may require a great deal of assistance from Avaya and its resellers.

This Clear Choice Test is the first in a series of reviews that examine the facets comprising enterprise UC platforms.

Our hands-on evaluation of a 2,500-users Avaya UC deployment included an example of each of Avaya's one-X suite of UC endpoints including hard phones, softphone clients, smartphone clients and a Web portal interface. These clients were connected to redundant S8730 IP PBX/communications servers running a hardened version of Red Hat Linux and Communication Manager 5.1 software.

In the test bed's main office configuration, we employed Avaya's SES SIP server to perform standards-based SIP call set-up and routing, which worked in tandem with the S8730 servers. The servers were also connected to a G650 Media Gateway, which provided media translation (G248, H323 and SIP), SIP trunking and other voice gateway functions. According to Avaya, this configuration is capable of supporting up to 36,000 users, including 16,000 IP end points.

As our branch office UC link, we tested the Avaya G450 media gateway, equipped with embedded S8300 blade communication servers, also running Communications Manager 5.1. This configuration is capable of supporting up to 450 users

source : http://www.networkworld.com/reviews/2008/090808-avaya-unified-communications.html

Azaleos Adds Support for Microsoft Hyper-V Server to Exchange E-Mail Management Services

OneServer Virtual Edition Uses Hyper-V to Reduce Hardware Requirements and Simplify High Availability/Disaster Recovery

Azaleos® Corporation, the managed Microsoft Exchange services company, today announced that its award winning OneServer™ Virtual Edition product now also supports Microsoft Hyper-V Server for virtualization of Microsoft Exchange e-mail servers. The immediate availability of Hyper-V support combined with existing support for VMware ESX, allows customers to choose either virtualization platform, or a physical server option, for their Exchange infrastructure with Azaleos OneStop™ Services.

Azaleos OneStop remotely managed services enable organizations to maintain an on-premise deployment of Exchange, while off-loading monitoring and administration to professionals in the Azaleos network operations center.

“Exchange Server 2007, and its multiple roles, requires organizations to deploy several hardware servers to take advantage of its full capabilities,” said Michael Osterman, President, Osterman Research. “Hyper-V Server allows organizations to reduce hardware costs, lower their power consumption, and streamline high availability and disaster recovery configurations for Exchange using virtualization technology that is fully supported by Microsoft.”

Since Microsoft Exchange Server typically does not require the full processing capabilities of an entire server, it is ideally suited for virtualization where its needs can be combined with other workloads. Although virtualization of Exchange can be used to consolidate server and storage resources, simplify administration, as well as streamline high availability and disaster recovery – it is not appropriate for all environments. Azaleos has published a free whitepaper that outlines the benefits, challenges, and disadvantages of deploying Exchange on a virtual machine.

The “Virtualizing Exchange” whitepaper is available at: http://www.azaleos.com/request_download.html?id=42.

Azaleos OneServer Virtual Edition now provides support for the leading virtualization platforms – Microsoft Hyper-V Server and VMware ESX server. Customers can choose either alternative based on their needs, preferences, or existing investments. OneServer Virtual Edition is an all-in-one service endpoint that integrates an optimized operating system and application software components to deliver highly available, scalable, and reliable Microsoft Exchange e-mail for today’s enterprises. It enables organizations to reduce from four to two the number of physical servers normally required for a highly available Exchange configuration.

“In our tests with Exchange Server, Microsoft Hyper-V Server performed on par with the much more mature VMware ESX Server, which is impressive,” said Scott Gode, Vice President of Product Management for Azaleos. “Adding support for Hyper-V to our OneServer portfolio allows customers to choose from a broader set of virtual and physical platform options for our OneStop services based on their technical and financial needs.”

Azaleos OneStop Managed Services

OneStop Managed Services available on OneServer Virtual Edition include:
ViewXchange, a real-time monitoring and reporting system for Exchange and its associated IT infrastructure.
ManageXchange, a remote command and control service that allows Azaleos technicians to monitor, manage, patch, troubleshoot and fix issues in a customer’s Exchange environment on a 24×7 basis.
MobileXchange, a turnkey mobile device management and monitoring solution for the Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) that can be rapidly deployed to provide remotely managed 24×7 services.
ProtectXchange, a comprehensive anti-virus/anti-spam service powered by MessageLabs that prevents threats from penetrating the network and safeguards data from malicious interference.
RestoreXchange, a complete dual-site disaster recovery service that handles both dial tone and mail storage restoration to minimize the impact on employee productivity and business continuity.
ArchiveXchange, an automatic archival and storage service that moves e-mail from the Exchange server to secondary storage to improve performance and reduce costs. ArchiveXchange enables users to access older mail using Outlook, web browsers, or mobile devices.

About Azaleos

Azaleos Corporation provides 24X7 remotely managed messaging services for enterprises with on-premise installations of Microsoft Exchange Server and Blackberry Enterprise Server. Azaleos OneServer and OneStop Services offer remote monitoring, management, maintenance, and reporting, which enable an organization’s IT staff to focus on strategic technology initiatives. Azaleos solutions can be installed and up and running in less than one day. A Microsoft Gold Certified partner, Azaleos was founded in 2004 and is led by senior executives from Microsoft, IBM, and Lotus. For more information visit us on the Web at www.azaleos.com.