Beginning today, GoDaddy (you most likely have – or someone you know has – a domain parked at GoDaddy) is offering hosted Microsoft Exchange plans. 

There are two plans currently available: individual access (dubbed “Outlook with Mobile”) with 2GB of storage for $9.99/mo and group access (dubbed “Group Outlook with Mobile”) with 20GB storage space for $56.99/mo.  The latter enables up to 5 users and both plans come with Outlook 2007 for each user to use on your desktop or laptop (MS Licensing may even permit both but don’t quote me on that).  Here’s a snippet of Microsoft’s official press release:

“GoDaddy.com Inc., the world’s largest domain registrar and largest hosting provider in North America, and Microsoft Corp. today announced that GoDaddy.com is delivering mobile and group e-mail plans with Microsoft Outlook, powered by Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, to help small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) improve worker productivity and communications regardless of physical location. The new e-mail plans from GoDaddy.com, including Personal Outlook, Outlook with Mobile, and Group Outlook with Mobile, give SMBs the ability to manage all of their online services from one place.”

GoDaddy certainly isn’t the first to offer hosted Exchange plans but they are a company you’re almost certain to see around tomorrow (although you can’t be too sure now) and that’s definitely something to consider when it comes to your email. You can find plenty of other hosted Exchange providers by just doing a Web search for “hosted Exchange plans.”

Microsoft Exchange, in my humble opinion, offers a much more pleasant and stable experience than, for instance, IMAP with Gmail.  (I can’t quite emphasize “stable” enough.)

Plus, of all the services you should be paying money for, email might just be one of the ones you should consider – especially given how critical it can be sometimes.  I mean, you wouldn’t want to find yourself, oh – I don’t know, locked out of your email account with no sign of support whatsoever… would you?

Taglocity, the company behind the Outlook organizational add-in of the same name (which we’ve covered before) just debuted a new beta of Taglocity for Outlook.  This time, they’ve drawn a little bit of inspiration from Xobni.

Taglocity, for those of you that don’t know, is a simple add-in designed to allow for “tagging” of emails, tasks, appointments, etc. in an effort to make organization of those items in Microsoft’s infamous email client a little easier. 

I’m personally a big fan so I was a bit troubled when I received a message this morning stating that my beta software had expired.  After downloading the most up-to-date version from taglocity.com, I was presented with a few big changes.  The two biggest changes in the new release are the “Taglocity Task Pane” and “Conversation View.” 

The first big change, the task pane, is where the Xobni reference comes into play.  The task pane, much like in Xobni, is displayed to the right of the message you’re reading and is an area where you can view snapshot information in regards to the individual who sent you the message.  (e.g., recently exchanged messages, files exchanged with the sender, number of emails to/from, etc.)  Those of you who currently use Xobni know exactly what I’m talking about.  In fact, here’s a visual comparison of the two:

(Click on the image for a larger view.)

To clarify,  I’m not saying that Taglocity has blatantly ripped Xobni off or anything because I think the new task pane fits perfectly into the features that they’ve been building up over the last few versions: groups/networking.

The other new feature, conversation view, is exactly what you might expect.  Clicking the conversation view button on the Taglocity toolbar brings up a quick window that neatly displays all of the messages related to the same subject.  It seems to work perfectly and is a great replacement to Outlook’s “Find Related Messages” which inevitably takes a while to pull up.  (Xobni also has this feature but it’s a little too slow for me.)

If you’ve yet to give Taglocity a try, you can sign up for the beta at Taglocity.com but I’d personally recommend reading about what all the software has to offer prior to doing so.  It’s designed to do more than just “tag” messages – although, admittedly, that’s primarily what I use it for – so far.  Also, a recent post on Taglocity’s blog also gives some great insight on what the company desires to achieve with its flagship product: “Saving Email – A Brief History.”

So, Google’s been offering IMAP access to Gmail for quite some time now.  What about Windows Live Hotmail users…all eight of them?  Are they just left hangin’ with *scoff* POP3?  (Okay, I kid…there are literally hundreds* of Hotmail users still in existence.)

Well, if you’re a Hotmail user that also has access to Microsoft Outlook, either at home or at work, then you’re in luck.  For a little while now, Microsoft has been offering Microsoft Office Outlook Connector: an Outlook plugin that lets you access and synchronize your Hotmail account(s) from within Outlook.

Much like with IMAP, E-mails that you send/receive/file in Outlook are mirrored in your Hotmail account online upon hitting that magical Send/Receive button. 

For example, e-mails that you send from your account in Outlook are, as you might expect, stored in the “sent items” folder right there in Outlook but also get uploaded to the “sent items” folder of Hotmail.  (Same for “deleted items,” “drafts,” etc.)  In addition, the tool also allows you to synchronize your Hotmail contacts and calendar.

In my opinion, this option acts even better than traditional IMAP access because, for the most part, IMAP remains a relatively flaky technology.  As an Outlook/Gmail user, I experience the following annoyances with my Gmail IMAP connection in Outlook 2007:  frequent disconnects, quirky synchronizations, LENGTHY synchronization times and my own personal favorite… the inability to take advantage of Outlook’s feature-rich flagging options on messages.

That last one is actually a problem with how Outlook treats IMAP connections, not a problem with IMAP in general…but allow me to explain.  You see, natively, you can right-click on a message in Outlook and “flag” it for follow-up by selecting one of many different follow-up options: Today, Tomorrow, This Week, Next Week, No Date and Custom.  That flagged message then appears as a “task” in your task list or in your To-Do Bar (new to OL2007.)  With IMAP messages, you only get one follow-up option: “Flag.”  Then, if you do decide to go ahead and generically flag that bad boy, it shows up multiple times in your To-Do Bar.  (That one’s actually due to the Gmail IMAP folder structure in Outlook.) 

Neither of these quirks exist with messages retrieved by the Outlook Connector.  Sure, that’s not a big deal but I personally find it highly annoying.

Anyways, I’ll most likely not be switching back to Windows Live Hotmail anytime soon (mainly due to that horrificly awful banner ad in place at mail.live.com) but I wanted to point out the availability and uniqueness of this particular tool to those of you using the Hotmail/Outlook (2003 or 2007) combo.  If you’re interested, you can find it for download here on Microsoft’s downloads site or packaged as an available option in the new Windows Live Wave 3 installer.

*Hundreds, few million…same diff.

If you’ve been itching to finally create a consistent theme for all of your Office 2007 documents (Word, PowerPoint, etc.) then the Open XML Theme Builder (free, open-source) from Microsoft’s Codeplex might just be what you’re looking for.

Using this application, you can instantly choose your (or your company’s):

• default theme colors (text/background/hyperlink/accent, etc.)
• major and minor fonts
• line styles (color, weight alignment, etc.)
• fill styles (solid/gradient, tint/solid, etc.)
• effect styles (shadows, bevels, etc.)
• background styles (solid fill, gradient fill, rotation, etc.)

Here are some screenshots (click to enlarge) of the various theme objects that can be tweaked using this program:

Colors and Fonts:

Line Styles:

Fill Styles:

Effect Styles:
 

Background Styles:

As is apparent from the screenshots above, there’s a ridiculous amount of items to tweak and customize so it might be better to open an existing theme and tweak it instead of starting from scratch.  If you’ve currently got Office 2007 installed, you can find quite a few default themes buried here: “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Document Themes 12.”  (Of course, you need to replace that drive letter with the drive letter on your computer that contains your Office installation.)

This is a great tool to have, especially in a business environment, if you want to present a consistent theme throughout the documents you share internally and externally.

Source: MSDN Blogs [alspiers]
————————————————————————-
“The Open XML Theme Builder is a tool that helps with the creation of theme files (*.thmx) that encapsulate the visual appearance and formatting of a document in order to help create a better looking document. Theme files can be used by Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® 2007, Microsoft® Office Excel® 2007, and Microsoft® Office Word 2007.”
————————————————————————-

For those of you operating a Windows-mobile powered device, this day promises not to disappoint.  For, you see, Opera decided to release the latest version of their eagerly-anticipated (and what seemed to be indefinitely-delayed) mobile Web browser.  The beta is a free download but will most likely require the purchase of a registration upon it’s final release.  (The last version of Opera Mobile cost about $30…and wasn’t that good.  Granted, it was still better than any version of Internet Explorer Mobile but that’s not saying much.  This version trumps the last one and I’ll most likely be willing to purchase it to improve the Windows-mobile Web browsing experience any way I can.)

Improvements over the last version (v8.65) include performance enhancements, pan & zoom browsing (remarkable and very iPhone-esque), Web standards compliance and the ability to save Web pages and/or images to your phone.

Try it out and I think you’ll agree that it’s definitely the best Windows-mobile based browser out there…at least until Mozilla officially enters the market.

Source: http://www.opera.com/products/mobile

“Overall, it’s a great tool for those with no experience in scripting their own upload elements or even little knowledge in seeking out and implementing already-existing PHP/ASP/etc. upload scripts.”

I’m not sure about the rest of you, but one of the first things I do when I get to work is pull up my home computer via Remote Desktop in Windows.  This way I have access to all of my files, applications and I typically leave Outlook open at home all day long so that I also have access to the mail from about a dozen different E-mail accounts that Outlook is pulling down via POP or IMAP.

For years now, I’ve been using a service called DynDNS to disguise my difficult-to-remember, dynamically assigned Comcast IP address into something I can remember…something like: myname.dyndns.org.  (They have other domain name options, too.)  The software that controls my router easily integrates with DynDNS so that whenever I log onto a Windows machine (any Windows machine with Remote Desktop installed - which is just about all of them*) all I have to do is type in that address and I can instantly connect to my home computer.

Up until now, however, I’ve been manually updating my DynDNS account online whenever Comcast decides to change my IP address.  That changed today when I found the DynDNS Updater application for Windows. 

Acting as an application launched at startup or even as a native Windows service, the updater will automatically detect any IP address changes from my ISP and update my DynDNS account so that I never have to worry about not being able to connect to myname.dyndns.org if, by chance, my Internet service goes out while I’m away from the house.  (It seems like I always knew DynDNS offered this type of application but I only found out for sure today.)

The account at DynDNS is completely free, as is the Updater app so I highly recommend you check it out: http://www.dyndns.com.

Of course, Remote Desktop is only one of many possible applications for using the DynDNS service.  For instance, you could use the DynDNS service (in conjunction with a lightweight Web server like VertrigoServ or XAMPP) to host your own Web site and subsequently provide your users with an easy-to-remember address.

In addition, there are also some other similar services out there so if any of our readers have any recommendations, feel free to share them via the comments.

I came across an article on an MSDN blog detailing a modification you can apply from within Windows XP or Vista in order to speed your Outlook start-up time.  Navigate to C: > Users > Your Username > AppData > Local > Microsoft > Outlook on Windows Vista or C: > Documents and Settings > Your Username > Local Settings > Application Data > Microsoft > Outlook in Windows XP and rename your "extend.dat" file to "extend.old." 

Outlook will essentially repair itself upon its next launch and recreate an extend.dat file - this should significantly reduce your start-up times.

Note, there’s no guarantee this will fix all types of slow start-up times for Outlook 2003 or 2007.  There could be plenty of other causes including a limited amount of RAM, an abundantly large personal files folder (.PST) and/or a bloated or corrupted add-in.

Source: Sundara Prabu via MSDN Blogs

Early this morning, the Adobe Labs team released preview versions of three Creative Suite 4 applications: Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Soundbooth.

(Personally, I thought that Adobe might actually phase Fireworks out now that the program is being produced by the same company that releases that other graphics program, Photoshop.  Guess I was wrong.)

The official announcement on the Adobe Labs site provides plenty of information on what the new versions bring, including a brand new interface, but does not, however, provide decent screenshots.  So, here are some captures from Adobe Dreamweaver CS4: (click on the image for the larger version)

(Dreamweaver CS4 main window)
(CSS options dialog after selecting font…should make for quick and easy CSS maintenance.)

(Adobe Extension Manager CS4)

  (Validation Checker)

Some of the notable new features for Dreamweaver include:

Live View - View your web pages under real-world browser conditions with the new Live View in Dreamweaver — while still retaining direct access to the code. The new rendering mode, which uses the open source rendering engine WebKit, displays your designs like a standards-based browser.

Photoshop Smart Objects - Photoshop and Dreamweaver integration has evolved to the next level of compatibility and functionality. Drag and drop an Adobe Photoshop® PSD file into a Dreamweaver page to create an image Smart Object.

Adobe® AIR™ authoring support - Create multiplatform desktop applications from your Dreamweaver HTML and JavaScript sites with new Adobe AIR™ authoring support.

Read more about the new releases over at Adobe Labs.  Or, download the betas and give them a spin yourself.  (Note: the trial period for beta testers is two measly days.  However, if you already own a copy of the respective program [or the CS3 suite], you can test it for a tad longer.)

Taglocity, currently in beta, just launched v2.0 of its Outlook 2003/2007 E-mail tagging software.  With this new version, Canada-based Terazen Technology, Inc., added plenty of enhanced features in addition to some social networking features.  (Hey,  why not?  Everybody else is doing it.)

If you’re unfamiliar with Taglocity, the software essentially allows you to add "tags" to your E-mails, tasks and calendar items from within Microsoft’s antiquated Outlook product.  To do this, the software takes advantage of Outlook’s "categories" feature and, for each new "tag" you create with Taglocity, a "category" of the same name will be created behind-the-scenes and added to your Outlook personal files folder (.PST) 

I’m guessing the object of enhancing already existing Outlook functionality is to provide you with the option of retaining the methods of organization you’ve established with Taglocity if you no longer wish to use the product anymore.  It makes sense to me…data portability always makes sense to me.

(What never did make sense to me was why Microsoft never made "categories" a more prevalent feature in Outlook to begin with.  It really is a great way to add organization to Outlook.  Regardless, Taglocity helps to enhance and bring focus to this semi-powerful existing feature.)

Whether you’re browsing your inbox or composing a new E-mail/task/appointment, you’re presented with intuitive options via the Taglocity toolbar for adding tags to help you easily find E-mails at a later date:

The average Fans of Tech reader already realizes the benefit of tags over folders but there might be a few of you out there still asking  yourself: "why tags?"  Here’s the answer: after you’re finished reading an E-mail, one would normally file that message in a single folder in a vein attempt to keep your inbox "organized."  The problem is that, after a while, you’ll most likely have multiple folders that pretty much serve a similar purpose.  That leaves you with multiple places to search in order to find the item for which you’re looking.  With tags (or "labels" if you’re a Gmail user), you can assign multiple keywords to the item in question thus improving the likelihood that you’ll find this item whenever you go looking for it.  And, since Taglocity is essentially a plug-in for Outlook, you can do BOTH!  File and tag!

The free product even takes tagging a step further by incorporating two very useful features: Bundles and AutoSuggest.  The latter, as you might guess, makes the tagging process even faster by "suggesting" similar tag matches as you type…start typing a few characters and if the tag suggestion is the tag you want to apply, just hit "enter."  The other feature, Bundles, allows you to assign many tags at once by assigning a bundle tag name.  You might equate this feature to "Distribution Groups" in Outlook where you can send an E-mail to ONE distribution group in Outlook and that message is automatically sent to the many different members you’ve assigned to that DG. 

Taglocity & the Entperise

From what I can tell, Terazen will monetize Taglocity by selling enterprise versions of the product which makes perfect sense to me as it would fit very well into the enterprise atmosphere.  One reason I say that has to do with yet another brilliant feature of the product: "groups."  Here’s what the site has to say about groups:

"Groups are a way of sharing tags and email messages. You can publish common information to our Taglocity groups (with Tags on the message, of course!) which then means other people in the group will be able to search and see. Think of how many CC: email chains you can get rid of!"

I have first-hand experience with the aforementioned E-mail chain problem and I can genuinely see a need for this product in an enterprise setting…especially for non-profits. (*Shudder* So much E-mail.  *Shudder*)

Searching

Now, let’s say you’ve had Taglocity installed for a few months and you want to go find one of the E-mails you’ve tagged.  Use the toolbar (see above) and enter your search query on the far-right.  You’ll be taken to the Taglocity search window (and quickly, I might add.)

You’re presented with your results and a quick way to modify those results using the tag cloud at the bottom and side of the window. I don’t necessarily anticipate using this feature more than the built-in search of Outlook 2007 (as I can typically remember the exact contents of the item I’m looking for) but, for generic searches, this could still prove to be pretty handy.

Of course, all these settings (tags, searching, etc.) can be tweaked using the utility’s configuration window:

Overall, I think the product fills a void (and then some) that Microsoft should have filled a long time ago.  A long time ago.  Install this (in addition to that other useful Outlook tool, xobni) and you’ll actually find yourself becoming…gasp…productive.

Despite my rambling, there are a few areas of Taglocity I didn’t even cover so head on over to their site and check out the product…and then sign up for an account.  This new release is a dramatic improvement over v1.1 and should actually have enough weight behind it to take it into the mainstream.