Mobile Work Phone That Switches to Personal Phone

The real need is to be able to go from work to personal and back. This includes not only the messaging, but the look itself. The pearl is a great step, but the software has a long way to go. Have a switch on the outside to go from work to personal. This would allow the person to really feel like they were "switching work off". The settings could be such that email is no longer pushed, but is queued for later. Maybe the ringer changes and even the home page of the start screen. For example the camera link could become front and center verses the task list. Email needs to be clearly separated. I don't want to have the temptation of getting caught up on a work item when I'm trying to check in on the weekend plans with some friends. Instant messaging could also help send the message. I'm not working, ping me later. Hit the switch and the presence info changes back to working. Integration with work phone “follow me” systems could also be tied in. I'm always annoyed by having to remember to call into the system to let it know I'm at my desk or working. Calendar integration should go beyond the corporate server. Using Google calendar to share my travel schedule with friends is fun, but requires me to keep my calendar updated in two places.

Posted by Darin Archer on September 20, 2007 | Comments (0)

Remove Attachments from Microsoft Outlook

Many enterprise IT shops these days are significantly limiting mailbox sizes for their employees. It seems rather odd given the cost of storage, but none the less something many of us deal with. It means we're constantly killing time each day cleaning up attachments and archiving mail. I shared my displeasure with a colleague of mine, James K. and he quickly created a Microsoft Outlook macro to automatically remove attachments. This feature should be a part of Outlook, but in the mean time, it saves me from opening each email individually to remove attachments (Outlook has no bulk processing feature for this).

Below is the macro that you can add to your own Outlook application:
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Sub RemoveAttachments()
Dim selectedMailItem As Outlook.MailItem
Dim currentAttachment As Outlook.Attachment
Dim i As Integer
For Each selectedMailItem In ThisOutlookSession.ActiveExplorer.Selection
'Remove attachments until there are none left
While selectedMailItem.Attachments.Count > 0
selectedMailItem.Attachments.Remove (1)
Wend
selectedMailItem.Save
Next
End Sub
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Updated 9/24/07: Remove Attachments from Appointments

Sub RemoveAppointmentAttachments()
Dim selectedAppointmentItem As Outlook.AppointmentItem
Dim currentAttachment As Outlook.Attachment
Dim i As Integer
For Each selectedAppointmentItem In ThisOutlookSession.ActiveExplorer.Selection
'Remove attachments until there are none left
While selectedAppointmentItem.Attachments.Count > 0
selectedAppointmentItem.Attachments.Remove (1)
Wend
selectedAppointmentItem.Save
Next
End Sub

Posted by Darin Archer on September 11, 2007 | Comments (0)