I have always wanted to use multiple Exchange accounts within Outlook without setting up multiple profiles. It looks like Microsoft is set to make life a bit easier for me and 1000s of others.
Check out the news from the Outlook team’s blog.
One caveat is that Outlook 2010 will only support 3 Exchange accounts. Still, 3 is better than one…for lots of things…like say, chocolate chip cookies.
I will be taking my international road show just down the street to speak at this month’s Dallas SharePoint Developer Group meeting.
I’ll be covering How To Integrate Sharepoint With Office And Line-Of-Business Applications.
What I plan to do is show-off how to use Office as the front-end to solutions that work with SharePoint.
For fun, I’ll show how to integrate data from a sales database as well as an accounting program.
It will be fun. And if it isn’t…well, at the least there will be pizza. Never hurts to serve food at these things to keep everyone happy.
Next week I am presenting a session at Tech-Ed that shows off a few cool techniques for customizing Outlook. I’ll presenting with one a fellow Cogent Company cohort, Damon Armstrong.
If you are interested in customizing Outlook and want to learn how to customize its UI then you don’t want to miss this session. We’ll cover the basics while implementing a business process that allows us to show more advanced techniques.
In fact, we’ll show you to do this:
Trust me you want to attend…especially because you learn just how simple a solution like this can be.
Below is the full session abstract copied from the official Tech-Ed 2009 site.
See you in LA!
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OFC325 Building Custom Applications in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Tue 5/12 | 2:45 PM-4:00 PM | Room 408A Tags: 300 – Advanced, Breakout Session, Developer, Developer Manager, Microsoft® Office Suites, Office and SharePoint, Solutions Architect, Yes, Yes This session covers strategies for customizing Outlook for your unique business requirements. The session covers how to build task panes (for Inspectors and Explorers), form regions, custom Ribbons, and more. A real-world business scenario is used to provide context as each demo builds upon itself to show how each UI component can work with each other. In addition, other features like data storage, views, and search are covered. |
I have tried to ignore all the hubbub regarding this silly video about what Microsoft Office could be like in 2019.
I finally watched the video and thought if all the concepts displayed become a reality that would be just spiffy.
But to be perfectly honest, I find the video to be an exercise of mental masturbation. Sure it stimulates the mind, but what good does it really do you?
Some folks at MSFT (most likely the marketing team) have their heads in the clouds partying like its 2019. The video strikes me as completely irrelevant to what Microsoft’s customers are experiencing today…an out and out struggle for survival today…2019 will take care of itself.
Today’s recession is kicking our tails. If it hasn’t hit you, it most certainly has hit a friend or a neighbor. What concerns most of Microsoft’s customers is taking the required action to survive the next few years. If this is the message MSFT has to offer, it’s a big mistake.
"I can’t take any more news about that damn video. It’s stupid and MSFT’s marketing team should work overtime to counter act its messaging"
–Me
(after the video arrived in my RSS feeds for the umpteenth time.)
How about today? How will Office 2007 or the upcoming, but delayed, Office 14 be effective at :
Concepts are fine and dandy but if the message isn’t made personal by telling you how it will benefit you personally, it is lost. I hate to say it but Apple understand this rule of marketing. I offer their Mac vs. PC ads as the primary example.
I do realize the video is (probably) meant to inspire us. In fact, I didn’t see anyone type anything. If I don’t have to type in 2019, sign me up!
I also liked the digital wallet thing-a-ma-jiggy (at the 0.43 minute mark). If they could make a version today that provided bailout cash on-the-fly I’d max a credit card or two to get one.
I am fan of Microsoft and I believe they have the best platform for home and business. I hate to see them creamed when it comes to marketing but I am accustomed to it and I don’t think it will change anytime soon.
Developing solutions with Microsoft Office using VSTO can be difficult as it isn’t as straight-forward as targeting a version of the .NET Framework to support and then proceeding with all the activities involved with developing a custom solution.
Nope. If you are targeting Office, you are potentially dealing with several versions of Office. If so, then you could be dealing with multiple versions of VSTO. And if so, then you are dealing with multiple strategies for dealing with your VSTO solution’s deployment and security.
VSTO is great and I use it as often as I can but it can be a mess to coordinate all the overlapping components of Office, Visual Studio, and the .NET Framework. Keeping all the details related to the various scenarios of when to use what is difficult. In fact, my notes are sometimes indecipherable.
So I am glad to have found an FAQ on MSDN’s VSTO forum that provides answers to complex situations you will encounter when using VSTO to build Office add-ins.
Here is the link to Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) FAQs
This FAQ includes answers to such questions as:
If you are new to VSTO or even if you are an experienced VSTO developer, this site is worth the 5 minutes it will take to read over the FAQ.
There was an earlier version of this post. It had more words and as it went on and on about how I track damn near everything in Outlook. It’s true. Everything. If I don’t track something I want to do or have to do as an Outlook task, it won’t get done.
I deleted that post by accident as I thought I was deleting something else. As it turns out, the wrong Window had the focus when I hit the Delete button and I deleted this post. Dammit!
Anyways, I always fall way behind on the deadlines I set for my tasks. So each Monday morning, I set the deadlines to a week from the current day.
Here is the VBA code to achieve this.
Sub ResetTaskDeadlines() Dim ns As NameSpace Dim fld As Folder Dim task As TaskItem Dim items As Outlook.items Dim rest As Outlook.items Dim filterSQL As String Set ns = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI") Set fld = ns.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderTasks) Set items = fld.items filterSQL = "@SQL=" & """http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/id/" filterSQL = filterSQL & "{00062003-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/" filterSQL = filterSQL & "81010003""" & " <> 2" Set rest = items.Restrict("[Status] <> 'Completed'") For Each task In rest ''UNCOMMENT THE OPTION YOU WANT TO USE ''task.DueDate = "1/1/4501" 'Set to NO Due Date ''task.DueDate = task.DueDate + 7 ' Set to 7 days from current due date task.DueDate = today() + 7 'Set to a week from today ''task.DueDate = FirstDayOfNextMonth ' Set to first day of next month 'task.Save Next End Sub Function FirstDayOfNextMonth() As Date Dim d As Date d = Date FirstDayOfNextMonth = DateSerial(Year(d), Month(d) + 1, 1) End Function
I pretty much use VSTO to build Outlook add-ins professionally. But for quick personally useful scripts like this, VBA still reins.
New video on MSDN…
This video shows how configure to setup the Data Mining Client For Excel addin. This addin is part of the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Data Mining Add-ins for Microsoft Office 2007 download available at: http://www.microsoft.com/DOWNLOADS/details.aspx?familyid=896A493A-2502-4795-94AE-E00632BA6DE7.
Here is the original post:
How Do I: Setup and Configure the Excel Data-Mining Add-in?
Now what?
UPDATED: this link might help…at least it describes what is new & different in Windows 7 besides turning my desktop into a fish tank. I don’t like fish. In fact, I am very uninspired by them. I don’t understand why this is the image the Windows team chose to introduce me to Windows 7. But is Monday and I’m a bit cranky.
Microsoft has a new site that helps you get started using SharePoint in your development efforts. The site aggregates virtual labs, webcasts, white papers, tutorials and other related content. Instead of searching everywhere for good code to steal, you can go to this site and find what you need to get started with SharePoint development
The site covers the foundational topics of SharePoint development such as:
The site reminds me of the Interactive Developer Map (IDM) available at the Office Developer Portal. The IDM highlights what you can do with WPF while also providing a tool that aggregates content related to Office development (i.e. VSTO, SharePoint, & more).
I had the privilege of writing an article discussing SOA for CIO.com which was published a couple of weeks ago. Check it out here:
Why Adopting SOA Is Like Purchasing a Total Gym
In the article I create a word-picture (aka an analogy) in which I compare adopting SOA to purchasing a Total Gym. Somehow the analogy works.
Although SOA has several benefits, transforming your body to look like Chuck Norris or Christie Brinkley isn’t one of them.