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Mike Torres recently posted his Outlook Dream. 

An Outlook Dream

My dream is for Outlook to do a few things natively (i.e. I don't want to install add-ins):

1. I want threads compressed into one email message automatically, with parts of the message marked as unread instead of the messages themselves.  And when a new message arrives that's part of an existing thread, move that "unified" message to the top of the inbox and mark the line item as unread again.  This way I can see that a) the conversation has continued and b) there are parts of the conversation I haven't read yet.  This way, my mailbox doesn't get flooded and filing the thread in a folder is much easier... and searching/browsing email is just more manageable.
2. Include my replies in that compressed thread as part of the conversation automatically.
3. If I'm sending an email to a distribution list that I also happen to be on, don't send the email back to myself.  I actually set up a client-side rule to deal with this one (automatically delete mail from me automatically).
4. Let me take myself off of a thread while alerting others that I've done this.  30% of the email I get every day I don't have to get.  It doesn't involve me and I don't want the thread to continue with me on it.  But I can't do anything about it other than setup a bunch of custom rules - or run Omar's Thread Killer add-in.  What I really want is a way to "opt-out" of a thread such that whenever anyone else replies, they see a status table at the top of the compose window that indicates who has opted out and maybe why (just in case the thread forks or the focus changes and those people are needed... this way the folks can be added back)

He should try ClearContext v3 out (use coupon code CC15-15130 and get $15 off) now and a free upgrade. I know it's an add-in, but it's the only one I run these days.

But anyway, he has some valid requests. Here is my 2007 version of my Outlook Dream Wishlist, which I haven't posted since December 2004! Looks like only two of my items in my last wish list made it in to Outlook 2007 :-( (6. RSS Reader and 9. A single mail editor that works well, and doesn't have toolbars that move randomly (Word Mail).). I stopped using IMAP so I don't know if it's any better or not.

Anyway, here is the new list.

1. Navigate to next unread item in next unread folder. I get a lot of mail from a lot of different distribution lists. I want a way to read all these items in a fast efficient way like I can read blog posts in FeedDemon using NewsPaper style.
2. Show me what my meeting conflicts are when I get a meeting request. When I get an appointment all Outlook can tell me is that there is a conflict. Common! You are holding all my calendar appointments in your database. You're telling me you can't tell me what the conflict is? Maybe even draw a calendar in the meeting request view so I can make an informed decision about accepting/tentatively accepting/declining a meeting? Pretty Please .
3. Natural Language parsing for new tasks. I want to enter "Call Mom at 5pm [@Calls] and have it create a task with a due date and reminder set to 5 pm with a category of @Calls.
4. Brain Dump mode for tasks. I want to dump things into a window and have them turned into tasks or appointments.
5. Unsubscribe from thread. I've written about this before, and ClearContext has this in v3. Microsoft Employees can use ThreadKiller (which I wrote) and seems to be pretty popular.
6. Filter BCC'ed messages to DL. I can't stand when people BCC a DL that I am on, only to have that message interrupt me in my Inbox... go away, back to folder you pesky email.
7. Better Category Assignment UX (ala del.icio.us tagging). Categories received a nice facelift in Outlook 2007, but assigning categories is even more tedious than Outlook 2003 (where you could freeform type them). I want a box in every window with a autocomplete drop down to assign a category.
8. Replace Notes with OneNotes. I've never understood Outlook Notes. They don't have a scroll bar, look like sticky notes, and are in a weirdo font. You also don't have a toolbar and can't easily assign a category to them. Lets put Notes out to pasture and integrate the excellent note taking app OneNote directly into Outlook so that my notes can roam and be viewable in OWA. Mike Torres weighs in on this and I have to agree with many of his points. The fact that OneNote doesn't work in a web browser, or doesn't roam from PC to PC w/o something like FolderShare is a major hindrance for me. The fact that OneNote for PPC and Smartphone can't sync over the air like tasks, contacts, calendar and mail is an even bigger bummer.
9. When replying to a thread and a new message comes in please please please tell me that happened so that I don't create a thread fork and screw up the conversation. Geez, Instant Messaging has this baked in. Corporate Email needs it. How about a message that says "A recent reply to this conversation has arrived... would you like to include that message in your reply instead?"
10. Lists. I want Lists... lists of tasks to be exact. I want to share those lists with my wife. I want to organize my tasks into projects, grocery lists, wish lists etc etc. I also want that in OWA so I can get to my lists from anywhere.
11. Instant Messaging. Bake Office Communicator into Outlook give up on corporate IM as a stand alone product. Everyone runs Outlook 24/7 and not everyone runs Communicator. Because not everyone runs Communicator it's not the lowest common denominator and as such I have to email a lot more people than I should. When you launch Outlook it should log you into Communicator and make it so you can IM, store the conversation and move seamlessly between IM and Email. Communicator is great if everyone would use it.

Outlook is the 2nd most important application in my life and I love all the new changes in 2007, but I think there is a lot more than can be done. Hopefully the next version of Outlook will take a stab at some of these, even if it's only 2 of them .

I can't agree more with this post. I've seen this so many times at Microsoft I can't even count them.

This is why I like shipping often, and why I like Web Services... Version 2 doesn't really make sense and you don't need to wait till v3 to get it right.

It's amazing what happens when you ship often. You lose the free loaders and people don't panic when their feature is pushed to the next release.

As such we've always had "themes" for our Windows Live Mail Milestones, but so far, we haven't fallen prey to this version number black hole... when we are out of beta it will take a lot of work and effort to keep the version train at bay. 

There are many reasons why you shouldn’t smack version numbers on web applications, but the most important is to avoid a feature creep detour.

When people hear “version 2.0”, they think it’s the last call for the only feature train in a good long while. If you miss it, you’ll have to wait for the big three-oh to board. Nobody likes waiting, so they rush and they push to make this one.

Now the big version that started out with a clear vision, one or a few great ideas, suddenly gets bogged down by feature freeloaders. When the 2.0 train is already hauling those heavy weights, surely no one will notice this little thing or that little thing.

And what could have arrived in weeks turns into months. In no time short, your feature train is so overloaded that it seems like its not moving at all. Or going backwards. Certainly there is no one who can tell you when it’ll pull in.

So stop it. Don’t alias your next big feature idea “version 2.0”. Call your big idea by its name and it’ll be much easier to spot the freeloaders. Once they have to pay full scheduling fare, you’ll probably realize that they weren’t that important anyway.

That’s why we’re calling the next major revision of Backpack the “Widget Overhaul” and not Backpack 2. And that’s why we’re calling the one after that “Backpack Business” and not Backpack 3.

Source: Why big version trains are always late - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals)

I posted a little utlity I wrote a while back called ClipboardToImage.This app does one thing, it takes the contents of your clipboard (an image) ad saves it to disk using a number of fileformat options. I wrote this so that I could use Alt-PrtScn, save to disk and then post to my blog. Prior to that you need to launch a program like Paint.exe (which is scary to use), find a way to crop, and then save.

This reduces the number of steps and makes it really easy. Place ClipboardToImage.exe in a portable/launchable place and just run it when you have your screen shot on the clipboard. It will then ask you where you want to save the image and with which format.

Oh, it does one other bonus. If the contents of the clipboard is text, then it will remove any linebreaks (like in broken urls).

I basically use ClipboardToImage for window screenshots and Cropper for all the others. It's a winning combination .

Enjoy.

Here is the code for the app:

using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Drawing.Imaging;
using System.IO;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace ClipboardToImage
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Summary description for ImageType.
    /// </summary>
    public enum ImageType : short
    {
        Png = 1,
        Jpeg = 2,
        Gif = 3,
        Bmp = 4
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// Summary description for Program.
    /// </summary>
    class Program
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// The main entry point for the application.
        /// </summary>
        [STAThread]
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            object image = GetClipboardContents();
            ImageType imageType = ImageType.Png;

            if (args.Length > 0)
            {
                try
                {
                    imageType = (ImageType)Enum.Parse(typeof(ImageType), args[0], true);
                }
                catch
                {
                    // TODO: spit out command line help
                }
            }

            if (image is Bitmap)
            {
                SaveImage((Bitmap)image, imageType);
            }
        }

        private static void SaveImage(Bitmap bitmap, ImageType type)
        {
            SaveFileDialog saveFileDialog1 = new SaveFileDialog();
            saveFileDialog1.Filter = "PNG file (*.png)|*.png|Jpeg file 
(*.jpg)|*.jpg|GIF file (*.gif)|*.gif|Bitmap file (*.bmp)|*.bmp|All files (*.*)|*.*"  ;
            switch(type)
            {
                case(ImageType.Png):
                    saveFileDialog1.FilterIndex = 1 ;
                    saveFileDialog1.DefaultExt = "png";
                    break;
                case(ImageType.Jpeg):
                    saveFileDialog1.FilterIndex = 2 ;
                    saveFileDialog1.DefaultExt = "jpg";
                    break;
                case(ImageType.Gif):
                    saveFileDialog1.FilterIndex = 3 ;
                    saveFileDialog1.DefaultExt = "gif";
                    break;
                case(ImageType.Bmp):
                    saveFileDialog1.FilterIndex =4 ;
                    saveFileDialog1.DefaultExt = "bmp";
                    break;
                default:
                    break;
            }

            DialogResult dr = saveFileDialog1.ShowDialog();

            if (dr == DialogResult.OK)
            {
                string fileName = saveFileDialog1.FileName;

                switch(saveFileDialog1.FilterIndex)
                {
                    case(1):
                        bitmap.Save(fileName, ImageFormat.Png);
                        break;
                    case(2):
                        bitmap.Save(fileName, ImageFormat.Jpeg);
                        break;
                    case(3):
                        bitmap.Save(fileName, ImageFormat.Gif);
                        break;
                    case(4):
                        bitmap.Save(fileName, ImageFormat.Bmp);
                        break;
                    default:
                        break;
                }
            }

            bitmap.Dispose();
        }

        private static object GetClipboardContents()
        {
            IDataObject iData = Clipboard.GetDataObject();

            System.IO.MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
 
            // Determines whether the data is in a format you can use.
            if(iData.GetDataPresent(DataFormats.Bitmap)) 
            {
                Bitmap bitmap = (Bitmap)iData.GetData(DataFormats.Bitmap);
                bitmap.Save(ms, ImageFormat.Bmp);
                return bitmap;
                
            }
            else
                return null;
        }

    }
}

For some reason I want one of these. Finally, a place to put that rats nest of cables under my desk. Who would have thought you could still create a new formfactor for a surge protector? And why did it take 10 years to get to v3?

Too many people wrote about writer today for me to link to any of them .

I started using Writer as soon as the internal beta started. I was so very surprised and excited when I first used it. For one thing I had no idea we were working on a blogging app (other than Word 2007) but this one will be better than Word IMHO because it's so well targeted at blogging as a scenario. The only thing I'll miss from word is the excellent contextual spelling support in 2007.

If anyone was watching the dasBlog checkins I've been making they would have noticed two things.

1. RSD Support. This makes it so that you can simply point the blogging application at your site URL and the software automatically configures itself for your blog. Easy as pie.
2. MetaWeblog.newMediaObject. This makes it so that you can attach images to your post without having to remember how FTP paths work. Basically dasBlog and the blogging application do all the heavy lifting for you. While I didn't actually check in this support for dasBlog, I fixed a few bugs to make it work with Writer.

Both of these will be in dasBlog 1.9. Those two features alone were enough for me to stop using BlogJet. The features below were icing on the cake.

Anyway, Back to writer. There are a few things I love about it.

1. I love how it handles Drafts. You just close the window and it autosaves, You can keep a long list of draft items (I like to treat my drafts as todo's for blog posts). All the draft UI is handled seamlessly in the application.
2. It's awesome to be able to preview your post using the CSS of your blog. Very innovative.
3. Inserting Pictures is fun and easy. I like the border and drop shadow effects.
4. Love the insert Map
5. Come to think of it, I love the fact that there is an API. I wrote two plugins already .

Here is a screen shot of my first plugin, Insert Code that uses the excellent CSharpFormat. It will pretty print your code with a few options.

And here is a screen shot of my 2nd plugin, Insert SmugMug Image (for my favorite photo site, SmugMug). This plugin will allow you to insert a photo from your SmugMug gallery.

I hope to get both of these available for download in the next few days (no promises).

Writer is going to be a great successful product. You can just tell by how excited the team is about their product, and how responsive they were to the internal dogfood/beta community.

I HATE my Cingular 2125 and my k-jam. I hate these phones to death. They are buggy and impossible to use and I feel like the hardware is unusable. Just look at the power button on the 2125 to get a sense of how silly it is. And the k-jam is unusable with my constant fight from keyboard to pen mode... I LOVE it when the T9 on my 2125 goes berserk or when my 4 way joystick stops responding to down. I also love it when my stylus falls out of my k-jam or when it stops reminding me of meetings for a few hours. Oh, and I love the anemic tasks application on the Smartphone that won't even let you set a due date for a task. Sweet. The fact that the Motorola Q doesn't have copy and paste! Awesome.

So I was relieved to see that there are finally spy photos of my next phone.

The bottom line is this:

1. Need a windows mobile phone (although I have thought many times about getting the next Palm OS based GSM Treo).
2. Smartphone Formfactor is better, but you need a keyboard
3. The Q is a nice idea, but flawed because Smartphone was never made with a keyboard in mind and the phone is clumsy.
4. Pocket PC lacks many of the features of the Smartphone, but Palm has done a nice job on the Verizon Treo 700p of addressing this.
5. HTC can't write a Radio Stack to save their lives and my phone is always "waiting for network" making my MSFP update useless as my phone never gets any email when it's supposed to.
6. Keyboard on the k-jam is unusable.

I'm hoping that Palm will come to the rescue and finally save us GSM users from bad HTC made phones.

Today I looked at my credit card bill and saw the $10 charge for Urge. I had forgotten that I signed up for Urge, and of course was annoyed because I've used it 3 times. That's right. I went through the rigmarole of getting WMP11 and getting all the urge software installed, then of course dealing with some DRM corruption issues that were perplexing requiring that I download some software from Napster to fix the problem. Ugh. So I went and cancelled service today. At least they make that easy.

Anyway, I didn't find Urge to be anything special. Not $120 a year special. It reminded me of my Napster experience albeit Windows Media Player has a bit more lipstick on it (still not pretty, no amount of lipstick will fix my complaints with WMP... take a look at the mess called the options and skins dialog to see what I mean).

The other day I read something that Thomas Hawk wrote that really resonated with me.

"Why else doesn't this excite me? Because Windows Media Player largely sucks right now and this is the software I'd likely use to interact with the device if I were to own one. This fact, Windows Media Player sucking (to be fair for me as a large digital music collector), has in fact dampered my whole spirit these days when it comes to digital music."

While Thomas does a lot of complaining about WMP, and while I don't agree with 100% of what he says, I do feel the same way. I am not excited about audio on my computer any more. It's a dreary, unfun, boring experience interacting with music through my desktop or laptop. I don't even bother copying my music collection to my laptop any more. The only place I have "fun" with my media library is on my Windows Media Center (which has a great music browsing/playing experience) and my iPod + iTunes. iTunes isn't an amazing piece of software, but I like using it. And please, I'm not going to get a 2 GB Clix so that I can have a tolerable experience syncing and playing my music on a portable device.

Lets hope Zune moves the needle.

PS - What is the deal with removing the menu bar from the applications? I don't understand this. It's one thing to remove the menu bar if it's clear and obvious how to do all the features that require the menu bar w/o having to use the menu bar. Sorry, but WMP doesn't do this right. They made it even harder in WMP11 to get to the menu which seems to be the only way I can figure out how to change a skin.

Losing a pet is quite possibly the hardest thing to deal with. I don't know why, but the emotional bond you have with an animal that is pretty much completely dependant on you and your family their entire lives results in a drastically different reaction to their death than you might expect. Losing our dog Pucky was the single hardest thing I'd dealt with... for me and my family.

Reeves and Paula lost Nala last week. Nala was such a special dog. When my dog died, I too was thousands of miles away, and it was especially hard knowing that I wasn't there when she passed. Nala was such a special dog, even though she only had 3 legs .

Back a few years ago, our campus had a policy that allowed you to bring your pets to work. I used to hang with Nala and Jack a lot, and it was really nice having dogs around. A few years ago, a dog bit some one and they canceled the dog policy :-(. Although, Nala was so quiet and well behaved that you would often find her sleeping in Reeves office anyway.

Nala, we'll miss you.

There seems to be a lot of trash talking going on in the hallways. I pity the fool who messes with my scooter.

A lot's been going on in the ClearContext world, and I thought I'd do a quick highlight.

1. Deva, one of the 3 behind ClearContext (and an all around cool guy) started a blog. He's already got some great posts on email management and overload. His post analyzing the Microsoft Email Overload Scale Research paper is really interesting.
2. The folks at CC have posted a teaser on what Outlook 2007 Support will look like. Yummy.
3. They also published the results of their 2006 Email Usage study.

Don't forget that you can now try some of the basic features in CC for free using their Inbox Manager. I suspect not many people know this but it's a great way to get your feet wet with a tool that I pretty much rely on.

I'm really excited to start playing with their new beta... it's got a lot of goodies I've been waiting patiently for .

The last 10 years were the best in my life . I have high expectations of the next 10...

Lora is taking me to the Village Pub for dinner. Yummy.

Nice to see that Sony is getting into the GeoTagging game with this little GPS device.

Simon has a really good post on some simple macros you can create for Outlook 2007 for us GTD users. Personally I've got a simple "Next Action" button that executes the following VBA Script (Ugh I hate VBA).

Mine is a hybrid of his and one I created. The difference is that the first time you run mine it will create a toolbar button for itself and when you create a task it will open the task so that you can make edits like add a due date and subject to be more descriptive. It also trims "Re: " from the subject of the email.

Public Sub CreateNextAction()
    Dim olExp As Outlook.Explorer
    Dim myolApp As Outlook.Application
    Dim myNamespace As Outlook.NameSpace
    Dim myTasks As Outlook.Folder
    Dim myFolder As Outlook.Folder
    Set myolApp = Outlook.CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
    Set myolExp = myolApp.ActiveExplorer
    Set myNamespace = myolApp.GetNamespace("MAPI")
    Set myTasks = myNamespace.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderTasks)
    ' check for the toolbar button
    Set myobjCB = myolExp.CommandBars.item("Standard")
    On Error GoTo MyError
    Set objNA = myobjCB.Controls("&Next Action")
    On Error Resume Next
    
    Dim cntSelection As Integer
    cntSelection = myolExp.Selection.Count
    
    For i = 1 To cntSelection
        Dim item As MailItem
        Set item = myolExp.Selection.item(1)
        item.ShowCategoriesDialog
        Set myTask = item.Move(myTasks)
        subject = myTask.subject
        subject = Replace(subject, "RE: ", "")
        subject = Replace(subject, "Re: ", "")
        myTask.subject = subject
        myTask.Save
        myTask.Display
    Next
    
    Exit Sub
MyError:
        Set objNA = myobjCB.Controls.Add(msoControlButton)
        objNA.Caption = "&Next Action"
        objNA.FaceId = 7264
        objNA.Style = msoButtonIconAndCaption
        objNA.OnAction = "CreateNextAction"
        objNA.BeginGroup = True
        objNA.TooltipText = "Create a Next Action task from this E-mail"
End Sub

I'll be blunt. Microsoft Money is the most important application that I use. My entire financial life is in Money. I use practically every feature and been using the product since 1998. I've also upgraded to every money version since I first started using it. However, Money 2005 left a sour taste in my mouth that both Money 2006 and now Money 2007 have not adequately addressed. Money is slow, and my file is now huge at close to 40 MB (which I'm guessing contributes to the slowness). I do not use any of the MSN online features after a DISASTER in 2005 when it completely and utterly devastated my accounts to the point that I had to go back 3 months and re-create my financial picture transaction by transaction. I have about 15 accounts in money that range from checking and credit card to car and house loans. I wasn't joking when I mentioned that each and every penny is accounted for.

Why do I do this? Dunno, habit I guess. I like going to one place to see everything. In doing so I've realized the benefits of having pretty accurate tax withholding, decent portfolio tools and budget tracking.

Anyway, both Money and Quicken are now available in their 2007 versions. I've contemplated the idea of giving Quicken a try (the last time I used Quicken was the Mac versions that I started with in College and stopped using when I installed Money 1999). BTW Money was the main reason I bought a PC to use at home back in 1999.

According to this web site there are 8 new features for personal users. Excuse me? I've also installed Money 2007 and can't tell you what exactly is improved about the Tax Estimator... it still won't do Alternative Minimum Tax or State Tax Estimates. The rest of the features are just not interesting to me.

Now, according to the Quicken website, there are 123 new improvements in Quicken 2007. A quick glance at that list has me going "Yes, Yes, Yes!!!".... oh, these are improvements to Quicken, not Money. Darn. I would pay $50 for the ability to simply attach all my tax documents or other digitized items to transactions.

So, for the first time in close to a decade, I am going to plunk down some Money for Quicken and kick the tires a bit. Making a switch like this is a huge investment in time for me, but I'm simply afraid that what I read in this post by Phil Su 2 years ago is still true today. 

I'll let you know how it goes.

Once upon a time, I was an avid Mountain Biker. I used to ride close to 100 miles a week on and off road. I was in great shape. Back then front suspension bikes just arrived on the scene and I got an aftermarket Manitou Shock with my cool Sran Grip Shifters. A lot of time has passed and I've owned 3 different mountain bikes. 2 years ago my Trek Fuel was stolen and I never got around to replacing it.

Well the time has come. I now live pretty close to the hills and there is no excuse. Today I went and test rode some Full Suspension bikes, a Cannondale and a Rocky Mountain Element 50. I really liked the Rocky Mountain but have never heard of them. I've been a Gary Fisher/Trek guy for the past two bikes. Does anyone have any experience with Rocky Mountain bikes and have good or bad things to say?