Managing Social Networks in Microsoft Outlook

There has been a bit of a buzz developing about Outlook 2010 and some of the things it integrates.  Well, you don't need to upgrade to Office 2010 to take advantage of the "Outlook Social Connector".  Microsoft has been kind enough to make it available as a FREE download and it is compatible with Outlook 2003, 2007, and is built-in with 2010.

To download the OSC, simply follow this link: Outlook Social Connector 32 bit (February 2010 Beta)

Facebook inside of Outlook

Be aware that this is for the 32-bit versions of Outlook.  Not a problem, but if you only have 512 MB of RAM, this may make Outlook rather sluggish. 

With the introduction of Outlook 2010, Microsoft is making a 64-bit version available that will run very nicely with Windows 7 64-bit (if you have 4 GB or more of Physical Memory).

So... what does this "social network connector" do for you?  The panel that opens up at the bottom of an email preview (or when you are composing an email) will now show 'connections' from previous emails, appointments, tasks, file attachments and conversations logged in the journal (see the image above for an example).  In addition, this opens up a platform for the Social Networks to allow information to be fed directly into Outlook. Those adopting the interface are LinkedIn and MySpace (available now) with Facebook to be coming onboard shortly.  Also, there is a facility to pull in from SharePoint, so your enterprise blog posts can also be drawn into the connections panel.

What about Twitter and Hoovers? Fortunately, there is another utility that actually nicely complements the OSC, and that is available from XOBNI (inbox, spelled backwards).  While it may seem that XOBNI duplicates some things, in actual practice I found it to be rather nice to see both.  While XOBNI shows the Company Name, Position/Title and Current Location from a contact's LinkedIn profile, Outlook Social Connector actually lists the recent status updates.  And XOBNI allows you to specify the Twitter Feed that you want to associate with a contact.  I have suggested to them that they make this same option available for Facebook and LinkedIn, and that may be available in a future release.  So the COMBINATION of the two add-ons makes a very nice "at-a-glance" overview of everything related to your contact.  When I get things approved with XOBNI, a link will be available at our website for a FREE Download to get you started.

Is there more? You guessed it!  I have a couple of other FREE utilities that I've found to be quite helpful as add-ons to Outlook.  They are both available from TechHit and pop nicely into Outlook as a Toolbar that you can position where you want.  The first is TwInbox and that pulls the updates from all those I am following on Twitter and drops them into folders under the name of the Twitter Account, as well as providing a quick view of the latest tweets, as they arrive.  The second is FBLook and that allows a quick view of those posts made by your Friends.  Both of these utilities allow you to Post (or Tweet/ReTweet) directly from Outlook.

Better Time Management: The combination of all these tools really helps to minimize the time you need to spend logging (and getting lost) in your favorite Social Networks.  With these tools, you can keep an eye on everything right from outlook, and still only spend about 30 minutes 3-4 times a week keeping up with your networks.  Cool, huh?!  I thought so...

Share what works for you... I'm still searching for the best Social Network Aggregator, but thus far, none of them seem to have all of the pieces together.  So if you come across some better mechanisms for staying on top of all these Social Media resources, please post your comments here and share what you've found!

Give a shout if you have any questions... 847-348-3489

Gateway XHD3000 30-inch Monitor Fix

When the search for a fix for the Xbox 360 'Red Ring of Death" led to a number of unsatisfactory solutions online, there was one that really made some sense to this old electronics engineeer...  that was to "reflow" the solder on the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit).  That, along with a couple of other adjustments will be documented in a separate post, once I have confirmed that the fixes are holding for more than a couple of days of game play.

As it turns out, the same problem seems to be plaguing the Gateway XHD3000 30-inch Hi-Def Monitor.  Since Gateway has been "merged" into Asus, this product line seems to have been "orphaned", leaving no tech support available from the supplier.  But the "output" board suffers from a malady of having the display degrade from the center vertical to the right side by getting darker and almost completely black, with an occasional vertical green "stripe" appearing near the right side of the display.

The "fix" that was implemented for the Xbox 360 provided some experience with the proper methods for using a "heat gun" to carefully raise the temperature in the affected area of the "BGA" (Ball Gate Array) solder joints to effectively "reball" the joints and return the unit to full function.

For the Gateway XHD3000, this meant using a similar technique to reflow the solder joints in the area of the ribbon connectors (four connectors) on the Output board (at the top to the chassis).  The process takes about 45 minutes, plus it is necessary to let the board completely cool down for about 30 minutes.  But, it saved an expensive device and the display is now crisp and clear across the entire range.

For the XHD3000, a search for fixes resulted in about 32,000 links, most of which were complaining about the fact that Gateway Tech Support offered NO HELP.  And there are few, if any, service centers accepting repairs for this device.

If you need your LCD Flat Panel Display checked out and would like to have us determine if it can be  fixed, give us a call at 866-591-5557, or email us through this Support Blog.

- Jim Kirschenmann
MAX Communications
http://www.helpmemax.com/
Facebook: http://bit.ly/Facebook-HelpMeMax