According to an official press release from the big boys in Redmond, WA, using Windows 7 along with Windows Server 2008 R2 will grant you usage of Microsoft DirectAccess: “a new feature … that gives users the experience of being seamlessly connected to their corporate network any time they have Internet access … without connecting to a virtual private network.”

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KLS Software provides, at no cost, an application by the name of Windows System Control Center which provides a graphical user interface to a variety of different Windows diagnostic/troubleshooting/recovery suites including Microsoft’s Sysinternals… even Sysinternals live.

In the case of the latter, Sysinternals Live, all you need to do is simply point WSCC to live.sysinternals.com and the program will provide you direct GUIfied access to every Sysinternals utility… and not a single one of them will require installation on your computer. (Let me add that this is *very* convenient, as you might imagine.)

In addition to the Sysinternals suite, WSCC can also provide an all-in-one GUI wrapper for the Nirsoft suite of utilities. All told, this tool will give you easy access to nearly 240 incredibly useful tools.

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.