So I just about had a heart attack. I had drafted a confidential email and clicked send with the wrong person in the cc: line.

I’m sure you have done that before. What saved me is that I have a rule in my Outlook at defers all of my outgoing email by one minute. This way the email sits in my outbox waiting for me when I have a “oh crap” moment after lifting my finger from the mouse.

Here is how you can set up a similar rule on your computer:

1. Open Outlook 2010.
2. Click “Rules” > “Manage Rules and Alerts” (on the home tab, under the move section)
3. Click “New Rule”
4. Under “Start a Blank Rule” pick “Apply Rule on Messages I Send” and click next.
5. On the “Which condition(s) do you want to check screen” just hit next.
6. Click Yes to applying this rule to all messages you send.
7. On the “What do you want to do with the message screen” under “Step 1” click the last option “Defer delivery by a number of minutes”
8. Under “Step 2” click the blue “a number of” text, input 1 minute and click ok.
9. Optional: On the next “Are there any exceptions” screen I would suggest selecting the 3rd option “except if it is marked important” clicking the blue text again, and choosing high importance. This will allow high importance (the red exclamation mark) emails to send immediately.
10. Give the rule a name (Defer all mail by 1 minute?) and click finish.

That’s it! Send me a thank you email the first time this saves your ass.

If you care about how long it takes you to find an email in your public folders, then this post is for you.  I like to think that people are impressed with my ability to quickly find project emails at work…

The simple setting change below tells Outlook to cache a copy of every single email in your public folder favorites on your hard drive which allows Windows search to index them all and allows you to search all of your emails from the start bar.

Requirements:

1. Outlook 2010
2. Windows Vista or newer
3. Email stored in public folders

Steps:

1. Open Outlook 2010.
2. Click File > Account Settings > Account Settings > Data File Tab > Settings > Advanced Tab
3. Check the box that says “Download Public Folder Favorites”
4. Add any public folders you would like to search to your favorites.
5. Wait for Outlook to sync a copy to your computer. A word of warning: this literally downloads every single message in your public folder favorites to your computer, so if your public folder favorites are 5 GB, it will download 5 GB to your computer. I recommend doing this from a wired connection at your office
6. When Outlook is done, click start and type in your search in the “Search Programs and Files” search bar.

The most common search terms I use are From:(email), To:(email), and date:(date) but here is an article from Microsoft describing all of the search terms: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows7/advanced-tips-for-searching-in-windows

Let me know if you impress anyone!

 

Want to increase your satisfaction with your work?

Try this!

Step 1: Think of something someone did for you at work.

Step 2: Thank them for it personally to their face, verbally on the phone, or in writing.

Repeat until you feel more satisfied with your work.

Tips for making this more effective:

Tip 1: Thank your nemesis, terrible boss, rude coworker, underperforming employee, or someone you don’t know that well. This is a great way to improve any work relationship.

Tip 2: Make the thanks specific to the individual and/or circumstance. How is the particular circumstance different then expected?

Tip 3: Practice regularly. You will get better at this the more you do it.

This seems dumb doesn’t it? It isn’t going to instantly solve all of your problems, but I guarantee it will help, and it only takes 30 seconds.

TRY IT RIGHT NOW.

I love the idea behind the Nest thermostat and the Protect fire alarm. Why do we just accept that the status quo (clunky, disconnected devices) are good enough? What other mini-revolutions can we start?

I for one would embrace a well thought out parking “Pay and Display” machine. It seems like the designers are trying to win both the “most confusing” and “slowest” awards at the same time.

Setting up a wordpress blog on your own domain on nearlyfreespeech.net is pretty easy (if you are a bit of a geek)

This is the guide I followed: https://members.nearlyfreespeech.net/wiki/Applications/WordPress

My only problem was that I mistakenly used “wordpress.com” instead of “wordpress.org” in the svn command…

I was trying to edit the .htaccess file myself, but that wasn’t working so I just changed the permissions and let wordpress do it for me, which worked perfectly.

The wordpress installer is very slick. I had to input the database settings in the config file, but after that it is literally a single page install form. Ages better than the last time I installed some web software.