When the message comes back, you have the option to keep the message unread and even flag it for follow-up. That way, when the message comes back as the original receipt date, you’ll be sure not to miss it.

(I still wish there was an option to have the message come back to the top of your inbox but, unfortunately, you get into a tricky gray area when it comes to the ethical dilemma of modifying the original message.)

I’ve become absurdly-addicted to the 14-day trial I downloaded earlier this month and I’m sad to see the trial end. Still, the add-in is only $29.95 and that’s a pretty small price to pay for what could be a very effective tool for maintaining your always-ridiculous and always-overflowing inbox.

That’s Boomerang for Outlook in a nutshell.

Well, back in August (2010), Baydin launched a port of the Boomerang functionality for Gmail – via an extension/add-on for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, respectively. (Although, I did notice it’s not currently compatible with the most recent Firefox 4 beta. Sad, but true. – 2/22/2011) In my opinion, it’s even more powerful and intuitive than it’s Outlook-based big brother. (Kinda like how Gmail is more intuitive and powerful than Outlook. Go figure.)

Indeed, right within a message, you can utilize the Boomerang drop-down menu to have that message come back to you at a later date for follow-up. Alternatively, while composing a message, you can tell Boomerang to bounce that message back to you as an automatic reminder (again, in whatever kind of timeframe you wish) OR have the message come back to you if the message has no follow-up. That’s right, if someone doesn’t reply to you, Boomerang will remind you about it. Freaking awesome.

Boomerang for Gmail is in a free beta now but if you’re eager to reward the awesomeness that’s baking in the kitchen of Baydin HQ, you can donate a small chunk of change to ensure that development of the Gmail plugin is continued. I highly recommend it.

Have you tried Boomerang? What do you think? What are some of your favorite Outlook/Gmail-based productivity tools?

If you missed our review of SimplyFile from way back when, the following is a snippet from that article as well as a brief overview of the software itself:

SimplyFile is designed to help you, well, simply file messages that are in your Outlook inbox into the appropriate folder. By using “an advanced algorithm to learn and adapt to your filing habits,” SimplyFile gives you a recommended folder destination as soon as you select a message in your inbox. By clicking on the SimplyFile button, the message immediately goes to that destination; thus saving you from dragging/scrolling through your folder structure and dropping it into the necessary folder once you’ve found it.

In addition to the all-powerful SimplyFile button mentioned above, the software also adds some much-needed Gmail-esque keyboard shortcuts for message management and for navigating complex folder structures – shortcuts that literally save me hours every single week. (Yeah, that’s no dramatization – it will literally save you hours of time every week if you’re an Outlook power user.)

Like I mentioned before, there’s a 30-day trial of SimplyFile available for download. If you download it, I’d be genuinely surprised if you didn’t purchase it.

The new release not only adds support for Outlook 2010 but also options to quickly file away all messages within a particular thread as well as messages from a particular sender – both great ways to achieve inbox:zero. Additional new features include batch filing and some interesting usage statistics.

SimplyFile runs $49 but, again, if you’re a serious Outlook user, it’s well worth it.

There are a great number of sophisticated VOIP solutions out there. You can go the Microsoft route and implement a “unified communications” suite like Microsoft Office Communications Server. Similarly, you can go with a richly-complex Windows Server-based solution like ShoreTel. If you’re a true rogue, you can alternatively go the open-source route and opt for a Linux-based phone system like Asterisk.

Of course, there’s always an online solution that’ll save you from investing in either hardware or software. (For the most part, at least.) Enter Zaplee. Zaplee integrates with your existing Skype account(s) to provide you with an easy way to manage departments, extensions, greetings, forwarding, complex routing, etc.

Getting everything setup, at least according to the site, is a pretty straight-forward, 4 or 5-step process: download the software, setup the extensions, setup departments, record greetings and then, well, go live. Check out the Zaplee feature tour to get an overview of how the system looks and works.

As a side note, there are two flavors of Zaplee: the $5-a-month (for unlimited users) solution that you can manage from your desktop, alongside the Skype software. The other option, Zaplee On-Demand, at $10-a-month (also for unlimited users) is entirely Web-based.

Overall, it’s a pretty impressive, quick and easy way to get a phone system setup in your office. Sure, you might very well outgrow it eventually and you might decide that you’re better off with one of the aforementioned paths I mentioned above (OCS/ShoreTel/Asterisk) but, then again, Zaplee might just do everything you need… and at a ridiculously-low price.

What say you? What voice system have you decided upon/deployed for your office?

Enter 7Stacks and Jumplist Launcher. Both apps enable you to add shortcuts to folders/applications anywhere on your system… shortcuts that will be accessible via a right-click on the app icon in your taskbar. It’s something that I wish was built into Win7 natively but a 3rd-party app will do just nicely.

[Source: FreewareGenius.com]

The uniqueness at play here is that it finally provides SharePoint novices an easy way to extend the platform without fumbling around in areas with which they might be unfamiliar. (i.e., system files, DLLs, stsadm, etc.)

The product isn’t cheap by any means ($4K) but if you’re already using SharePoint server in the enterprise, chances are, you’re probably used to big budget line items. You can explore both the AppEngine and the CorasWorks app store on their site at corasworks.com.

Here are some more deets on the Cinema from the official press release:

As the only PC consumer webcam on the market today with a native 720p sensor that delivers widescreen video capture at 16:9, LifeCam Cinema provides 720p high-definition video and features Auto Focus to keep video sharp from across the room all the way up to 4 inches from the webcam. Also launching with LifeCam Cinema is Microsoft’s ClearFrame Technology, which offers faster image processing technology to help deliver smooth video at any resolution and improved noise reduction technology to reduce image graininess and keep video sharp. Finally, the LifeCam Cinema webcam’s widescreen technology allows the widest angle of capture ever for a Microsoft webcam, at 74 degrees — no need to worry about leaving anything out of the shot again.

Now, I think OL2K7 was a significant improvement over 2K3 but that’s not really saying much. I am, however, stunned to see (with the Office 2010 technical preview released this week) that Outlook 2010 has not made the leaps and bounds it truly needs to make in order to remain both relevant and competitive.

What has improved?

Well, the Outlook interface is finally in sync with the rest of the Office platform. Meaning, of course, that the infamous “Ribbon” is now all throughout the application instead of just within new message windows as it was in 2K7. (I read an article on BetaNews.com by one Carmi Levy stating that they wish Microsoft would do away with the Ribbon altogether. I wholeheartedly disagree and think that the Ribbon is a great way – especially for touch displays now and in the future – to quickly find what you’re looking for.) In addition, the overall appearance is very bright and refreshing. There are still some theme options in place but the default is great in my humble opinion.

Conversation view has, at long last, been added to Outlook. It’s still a tiny bit quirky but it acts pretty much the way you’d expect it to. If a message comes in that’s a reply to an existing message, any related messages to that particular subject line are displayed with it.

The startup process, while unfortunately lengthy (see next section), is a bit less annoying. The improvement comes with the new animated launch screen – it stays up until Outlook is fully ready to be used. Previous versions of Outlook were a bit of a tease in that the window would launch but you’d be waiting about 5 seconds for each element of the application to appear: 5 seconds for add-in toolbar A, another 5 seconds for add-in toolbar B, 5 seconds for the To-Do bar to appear, etc. I find I have more patience with the animated splash screen… and patience is a rare commodity these days.

Message clean-up is ever-so-slightly enhanced. You’ll notice in the first screenshot above that Microsoft has finally embraced the concept of “tagging” in Outlook but only barely. In the screenshot above, there’s an area of the first Ribbon section called “Tags.” However, all that area presents is a drop-down allowing you to use the previously-existing “Categories” functionality of Outlook to file a message to categories of your choice. This is exactly what the previously-reviewed Outlook add-in Taglocity does but Taglocity still does it alot better. The aforementioned add-in allows you to jump to a tagging toolbar, begin typing tag/category names (it finds as you type), hit enter and your message is tagged. Hit the escape key and you’re back to your message. The process with the now-slightly-more-visible button is still very much mouse-driven and just doesn’t make sense with frequent Outlook power users.

In addition, there’s a new “Clean-Up” drop-down button in that same section of the Ribbon that allows you to quickly get rid of insignificant, older messages in either the conversation that’s highlighted or all of the conversations currently in your inbox… or even all of your subfolders.

Quick Steps represent a fantastic new feature in Outlook 2010. As you might guess from the name, Quick Steps allow you to create shortcuts for various actions like forwarding to a specific person or department or automatically reply to a selected message and delete the original – all in one action. You can even assign a keyboard shortcut to your quick step. A number of Quick Steps are included by default but it’s insanely-easy to create your own.

Forwarding a message as an attachment now has a designated button in the primary tab of the ribbon. Hit the button and, as you’d expect, a new email comes up with the selected message already as an attachment. This also works with multiple messages… very cool.

What hasn’t improved?

Filing and organizing messages. To my knowledge, there’s still no easy and fast, find-as-you-type way to move a message to a specific folder without a 3rd-party Outlook add-in like SimplyFile. We reviewed TechHit’s SimplyFile (from the makers of QuickJump and TWinbox) way back when and it offers a very Gmail-esque way of moving messages using the keyboard while remaining in your inbox. It’s a beautiful process and while I’d hate for TechHit to lose a revenue stream (still plenty of other great features in SimplyFile), this is functionality that should already be in Outlook… especially when this sucker is released in the year two-thousand and ten. C’mon, Microsoft. Seriously. Gmail also has this with the new “Move To” (keyboard shortcut “V”) and “Label” (keyboard shortcut “L”) features.

It’s most likely due to the fact that it’s a technical preview but Outlook’s performance over that of Outlook 2K7 w/SP2 has TANKED. The migration process was a lengthy 10-20 minute process… and I’m on a dual-core with 4gb of RAM so resources aren’t scarce by any means. Any subsequent, routine launches also take more time than 2007 required.

The reply process still inserts your own email address when clicking reply on an email you sent. Technically, that makes sense since you’re replying to an email that you sent. Intuitively, it makes absolutely no sense at all. In 99.9% of all cases, I’m just going to want to follow-up with someone on an email I already sent them – I’m not following up with myself. Gmail does this correctly. There, you hit reply on an email you sent and the email address of the original intended recipient is automatically inserted in the “to” field.

In addition to bare-minimal support of “tagging,” Outlook has still yet to present us with an option to add notes to an email. Sure, with the 2010 Office suite, OneNote will be included and it’s pretty easy to send a message to OneNote from within Outlook. However, that involves and entirely separate program and is entirely unintuitive… as well as a waste of time. C’mon, Microsoft… you already have a “notes” section inside Outlook… just find a way to marry messaging and notes and give us the option to add a freakin’ note to a message without having to modify the message itself.

What’s regressed?

3rd-party add-ins have taken a significant hit in Outlook 2010 as a result of the ribbon. The one solitary problem with the Ribbon is that it takes the place of loads and loads of various toolbars that previous versions of Microsoft Office required. Instead, each toolbar is replaced with a “tab” on the ribbon. The problem here is that many Outlook add-ins require visibility in order to maintain full functionality and to be as effective as possible. For instance, with the SimplyFile add-in within Outlook 2007, there remained a toolbar at the bottom of the window with a drop-down of folders and a SimplyFile button (among other items.) With a highlighted message, I could hit that button and my message would automatically be filed to the correct location. Now, there’s an extra click in the process as I have to navigate to the add-ins tab on the ribbon to get the button… which really disrupts the natural flow of that process.

Overall

Sure, the list of items under the “What has improved” section of this post is longer (mostly minor items) than the other sections but I’ve been genuinely let down by this version – as it stands now in a Technical Preview. I have absolutely no idea how Outlook will remain relevant over the next few years as Gmail & Google Apps both continue to grow exponentially while we wait for Office 15. Plus, Google has Google Wave coming down the pipeline which, according to pretty much everyone (I seriously have yet to read a non-Microsoft, negative opinion on Google Wave), will be the end-all, be-all of productivity apps. Good luck, Microsoft. You’re gonna need it.

What about you, readers? Have you had a chance to play around with Outlook 2010? What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments.

Additionally, they confirmed that a new HD Zune device is not only in the works but announced that it also will debut in the fall. The new device will incorporate many, if not all, of the existing Zune device’s most popular features (including Wi-Fi and Zune Marketplace access) while also adding an OLED multi-touch screen, a web browser an HD radio receiver.

That Wi-Fi access will, according to the press release, enable full streaming of 5-million+ Zune Marketplace tracks directly to the device.

Well, that does it. I’ll not only have to upgrade that 1st-gen, 3-year-old Zune of mine but also have to subscribe to the monthly service… just for that streaming feature alone. Plus, that’s a freakin’ slick lookin’ device if you ask me.

Update: I missed this in the PR but Microsoft’s got an official site for the HD launch: zune.net/ZuneHD.

The new feature also allows a server admin to manage the machine (think Automatic Updates and Group Policy settings) without forcing the user to login to the VPN.

DirectAccess is said to be secure but the first question that popped into my head was: “yeah, but how secure…?” (After all, it is Microsoft we’re talking about and VPNs are put in place for a reason.) According to Microsoft, “DirectAccess helps ensure that organizations can meet regulatory and privacy mandates for security and data protection for assets that must roam beyond the corporate network.”

So, I suppose by limiting the types of data that a remote user can access, you can provide a better security experience… as opposed to just granting access to pretty much anything on the network.

What say you, faithful readers? Leave your comments below…

In the meantime, here’s a little more information regarding the type of security in use with DA:

“DirectAccess uses IPsec for authentication and encryption. Optionally, you can require smart cards for user authentication. DirectAccess integrates with NAP to require that DirectAccess clients must be compliant with system health requirements before allowing a connection to the DirectAccess server. IT administrators can configure the DirectAccess server to restrict the servers that users and individual applications can access.”

(Image courtesy of 4sysops.com)

Here’s just a few of the benefits to the software listed on the official SP Designer site:

• Automate business processes such as document approval, custom event notification, and other collaboration tasks with the Workflow Designer.
• Create reporting and tracking applications using data views and forms to easily gather and aggregate data from outside your site and from SharePoint lists and document libraries on the Web site.
• Get started fast with pre-built Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Application Templates, which are fully customizable and extensible using Office SharePoint Designer 2007.
• Extend your solutions by building advanced interactive Microsoft ASP.NET pages. Insert and edit controls with the same powerful activity menus and control property grid previously found only in development tools such as Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.

Check out the SharePoint Designer 2007 download page to grab your copy. (You need to register first. No biggie.) Of course, you can also still purchase it for $259 if you’d like. It’ll, um, help the economy.