DigIT and I will be discussing how to use different views when trying to locate files or other items on a computer.

Editor: DigIT, can you explain why this topic recently caught your interest?

DigIT: My regular computer operator (my human friend) was recently complaining that she could not find a file on her computer. I asked her which one and when she told me, I was able to find it immediately. I could not understand why my friend had trouble. She attempted to explain it to me, but I found her reasons confusing; she mentioned a strange character named Waldo that seemed to always be missing.

E: Oh, you’re referring to the Where’s Waldo book series. Those are fun—what don’t you get?

D: Why do you humans like Where’s Waldo?  It seems pointless to me if you do not like looking for things.

E: Well, Where’s Waldo started out for younger children, most of whom would only be playing games or doing learning activities on a computer.  The adults, like your friend, would typically be working; trying to produce things for other people.

D: She told me that finding a file is like looking at a Where’s Waldo picture, without the fun; that finding one file among all the other files should be easier.

E: That’s probably because Where’s Waldo is a game, and finding files is typically thought of as work for us.  Maybe you need to understand that we humans see the two similar tasks as entirely different things.  Work for a human is something we have to do if we want to eat, have a place to live, or have a computer.  Something like Where’s Waldo is for entertainment, something we make a choice about doing, which has an entirely different value scale.

D: That explanation makes it somewhat clearer, although I doubt I will ever understand you humans completely.

E: It works both ways, believe me. So, were you able to offer any suggestions to make files easier to find?

D: I really do not find those Waldo pictures very challenging, and finding files is something I do without even thinking. I recommended that she try eliminating some of the files; even rearranging them might be beneficial.  We discussed displaying the files in a different order, such as sorted by size or date.

E: Oh, yes, the Details view in Windows Explorer can sort items that way. It can be very helpful. But what can you recommend for locating other types of items, like e-mail messages? I often have trouble finding specific messages in my Inbox.

D: In e-mail, there are many ways to arrange items to make it easier to find the one you want, such as sorting by columns. You can also filter out some of the items to give you a smaller group to look at. In Outlook, Search Folders provide an efficient method of filtering messages by using a specific set of criteria.

E: Search Folders are great, and so are the built-in views.

D: I could elaborate further on changing views, but the options depend on which program you are using.  My human friend said she was going to provide some tips for some of the most common software applications.

E: She did, and I’ll be sure to post those on the blog entry for this podcast. Any last words, DigIT?

D: Please try to remember the view options, and the other tools at your disposal, to assist you when searching for specific items. It is unfortunate that most of my family has not mastered the trick of talking to humans. If they could, it would probably make life for you humans much easier, but I am afraid it might also shock many of you.

By the way, here is a trick you can use for solving those Waldo pictures. Just look for the pattern in his shirt, then check for the hat and glasses to find the exact match. But I digress; I will stick to those bits and bytes.

E: Thank you for joining us this week, DigIT. We look forward to speaking with you again in the future to gain more insight on the computer world from your unique perspective.

Here are the tips for this week. You can find links for these in the blog entry for the podcast, at www.productiveUpodcast.com.

• Changing the view in a Windows Explorer folder
• Using different views in Outlook
• Using different views in Lotus Notes
• How to create your own view in Outlook
• How to use the Full Screen Reading view in Word
• Creating and using Custom Views in Excel
• Using the Slide Sorter view in PowerPoint
• Changing the Zoom level in PowerPoint
• Using different message views on a BlackBerry device
• Using different calendar views on a Windows Mobile device

Thanks for listening to our podcast. If you have any recommendations for future episodes, be sure to let us know by writing an iTunes review, or by droppping us a line on Twitter @productiveUcast.

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

Personally, the rhythmic tapping of fingers on a computer keyboard is like music to my ears. If there was a room with a thousand monkeys typing on a thousand computers…well, I don’t know if they’d eventually churn out a best-selling novel, but I’ll bet it would sound like a symphony in there.

This is one of the reasons I love using keyboard shortcuts while I’m working at my computer. When I’ve got a good typing rhythm going on my keyboard, I don’t want to have to disrupt the flow by reaching for the mouse to perform some commands (even though mouse-clicking can also be quite a pleasant sound).

Many e-mail clients support keyboard shortcuts, so when I’m catching up on e-mail correspondence, I try to make the most of those time-saving keystrokes. Everything from cutting, copying, and pasting text, to flagging a message for follow-up, and even sending the message, can all be performed right from the keyboard. If you’re doing something as simple as scrolling from the beginning of an e-mail to the end, you can avoid using the mouse altogether.

Even when you’re not composing a message, you can take advantage of many of the keyboard shortcuts that are available for organizing your messages and navigating through your mailbox. There are shortcuts for moving through messages in your folders, jumping directly to certain folders, moving or copying items between folders, and creating items such as messages and appointments.

Learning the keyboard shortcuts and teaching yourself to use them can take some time. I started off learning one or two, and found that I felt like I was working more efficiently when I could keep both hands on the keyboard. So I took the time to learn a few more, and eventually abandoned my mouse completely when I was working in Outlook or Gmail.

The tips for this podcast will focus on teaching you the keyboard shortcuts that are available for working with your e-mail, whether you’re in Outlook, Lotus Notes, or working on the go with a BlackBerry or Windows Mobile device. The links for these tips can be found on the blog entry for this podcast, at www.productiveupodcast.com.

• A Hands-On Approach to E-mail: Keyboard shortcuts you can use while composing a message in Outlook
• No Mouse Required: Keyboard shortcuts you can use while composing a message in Lotus Notes
• Control and Shift Your Mail: Keyboard shortcuts you can use in Outlook’s main window
• Moving Multiples: Using the Ctrl and Shift keys to perform keyboard shortcuts on multiple messages at once
• Get the Most Out of Your Keyboard: Shortcut keys for the BlackBerry e-mail application
• Touch and Go: Keyboard shortcuts for Outlook on a Windows Mobile device

We’ll also throw in a few bonus links to sites that list keyboard shortcuts for some of the other popular e-mail clients:

• Outlook Web Access
• GroupWise
• Eudora (PC)
• Eudora (Mac)
• Gmail
• Yahoo Mail

Once you get into the habit of using keyboard shortcuts, you’ll find that they really can save a lot of time compared to using the mouse for certain actions. The best way to start using them is to learn one or two at first. After that, you may find yourself hooked and wanting to learn more. Then, when someone walks by your desk and mentions that you sound like a thousand monkeys, you can smile gratefully and accept it as a compliment, knowing that you are composing your own symphony of tapping keys.

That’s all for this week, but if you’re enjoying the podcast and the tips, be sure to write a review for us over at iTunes. Also, don’t forget that you can follow us on Twitter @productiveUcast.

See you next time!

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

But it’s a little early to be thinking of summer, isn’t it? So why would I mention this in the middle of February?

Oddly enough, even in the dead of winter, with temperatures in the single digits and several feet of snow piled up around the house, I still love a good ice cream sundae. Especially if it has peanut butter ripples, frozen pieces of candy, or chunks of cookie dough.

Some things are just better when they’re frozen, but a computer is definitely not one of them.

When your computer decides to freeze up or hang, it usually does so at a crucial moment, like when you’ve just spent several hours editing a Word document and haven’t saved it yet.

That feeling of dread sets in. You begin to panic, and then you fear the worst: that all your hard work will be lost.

Sometimes, unfortunately, this is the case. But there are some steps you can take to ensure that your work will be recovered in the event that Word crashes.

If you enable the AutoRecover feature, which is available in several of the Office applications, it will periodically save a backup version of the file you’re working on. Then, if the program quits unexpectedly, it will prompt you with the recovered file the next time you open that program.

There is no guarantee offered with the AutoRecover feature, and at times it will fail to recover your work, so your best bet is still to save frequently when working in a file. You may find it much easier to use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+S to save your work as you’re typing, without your fingers ever leaving the keyboard. If you can get into this habit, you might just find your left hand automatically reaching for those keys without you even realizing it!

When the Deep Freeze sets in, whether it’s Windows, an Office application, or a mobile device, we don’t want you to be left out in the cold. The tips for this week will provide you with a starting point for when it seems like all is lost.

• What’s Frozen? – How to determine whether it is Windows or an application that is frozen
• An Ounce of Prevention for File Loss – How to enable the AutoRecover feature for Microsoft Office applications
• Mittens for Your Computer – How to clear out temporary Internet files, cookies, and browsing history
• Save Your Fingers By Letting Your Fingers Save Your Work – Using a keyboard shortcut to save while working in a file

And since you can also experience crashes on mobile devices, here are a few tips that can help you with BlackBerry and Windows Mobile:

• Just In Case – How to back up your BlackBerry data
• How to Thaw a Frozen BlackBerry – Resetting a frozen BlackBerry device
• Frozen In Your Hand – Resetting a frozen Windows Mobile device

We hope you’re enjoying the podcast and all the tips. If there are any topics you’d like to see covered in a future episode, please let us know in an iTunes review, or leave us a message on Twitter @productiveUcast.

That’s all for this week. Try to stay warm even when your computer is freezing, and we’ll see you next time!

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

“I’ll just give you the money and you give me the donut…end of transaction. We do not need to bring ink and paper into this.”

This scenario might seem a bit ludicrous, even for those who prefer to document everything almost religiously. But with the increase in activity on social networking sites, the minutiae of everyone’s daily lives seems much more prevalent now than it was several years ago.

Think about how often you’ve seen your friends informing the world what they had for lunch via Facebook, Twitter, or any other site with status update features. Is this something they would have shared with you over a phone call a few years ago? “Hi, Dave. I just had a tuna hoagie. Okay, talk to you later.” Probably not; but as technology advances, we find ourselves equipped with new ways to keep track of all kinds of information.

It’s comforting to know, then, that this capability has some uses that are actually productive. E-mail clients such as Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes, for example, make it particularly easy to document your appointments, tasks, and other activities. So not only can you set up an appointment to meet with a contact, you can also have a record of the meeting for future reference.

Outlook takes this a step further and allows you to associate a contact with other items, such as e-mail messages, appointments, documents, or tasks. Once the items are linked to the contact, you can view all this related content on the contact’s Activities tab. You can then filter this view to show only upcoming appointments with that contact, for instance.

The tips for this week will focus on those features that help you keep your appointments and tasks organized and well-documented. The tips include:

• Your Presence is Requested: How to schedule a meeting in Outlook and Notes
• Stay Active: Using Outlook’s contact Activities feature
• A Noteworthy Feature: Making quick notes with Outlook’s Notes feature
• “Dear Diary…”: Using the Journal feature in Outlook and Notes
• Raising the Flag: How to flag items for follow up in Outlook and Notes
• A BlackBerry Never Forgets: How to flag an e-mail for follow up on your BlackBerry

Enjoying these tips? Have any suggestions for future podcasts? Stop over and write a review of the podcast on iTunes, or drop us a quick note on Twitter @productiveUcast.

That’s all for this week. Until next time, remember: you might never need a receipt to prove that you bought that donut. But then again, you just might. See you next time!

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

With the holidays right around the corner, I wanted to give my listeners a few tips for the tech-savvy traveler.

Tip 1: Pack it up, but be ready to take it out.

When packing your bag, neatly organize your clothing items so anything you may need to get at is located on the top. Or consider using one of those space saver bags that allows you to either roll out the air or vacuum it out.

Pay close attention to what you are bringing on the flight with you, and have your liquids in their clear quart-sized bag located in a front pocket of your luggage or on top so they are easy to get to. I personally keep mine in the same pocket as my laptop.

Plan to be searched, just in case. There is always a chance you’re going to become that “random search” guy or gal, and in that case it could make you late for your flight. In fact, always plan to be there ahead of time. Besides, you have like, what—50 gadgets to keep you entertained, right? Get your money’s worth!

Tip 2: How to clear security faster.

Keep your boarding pass and ID handy. Put them in your front pocket so when you get to the gate, you can easily have them ready for inspection. Never leave them in your back pocket; this leaves you vulnerable to identity theft issues or pick-pockets. Oliver is always waiting to pick a pocket or two.

When passing through security checkpoints, your laptop must go alone in its own bin; if you put anything else in the bin with it, security will flag it and you will have to put it through again.

Remove your shoes and belt (make sure that when you do, your fly is not unzipped by accident because TSA will let you know—trust me!). You can also just wear a nice pair of comfy sweats instead.

Take out your Wii and your projector, too. Yeah, so what—if I get stranded, at least I can play Mario Kart with others who are in the same predicament. But we can do it in style: 8 foot wide on a wall!

Tip 3: When can I take out my toys on the plane?

Listen for the single “bing” after take off. This means you’re now at 10,000 feet and you can use your “approved electronic devices.” So bring on the gadgets. Instead of having to turn off your smart phone completely before this point, most devices have a “travel-safe” mode. If you’re having trouble locating this option on your phone, here’s a tip that will show you how to do it on BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and iPhone.

Here’s another fun idea: if you have kids traveling with you, bring your portable GPS. They are a lot of fun on a plane, and you get the chance to see how fast you’re really going.

Tip 4: How to have fun when your flight is delayed.

Do some people-watching with your iPod—this can be great! Turn on your iPod to any song and imagine the people passing by are actors in a music video. You can also do this as people are boarding the plane. So far my favorite songs to listen to are “Flight of the Bumblebee” or “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” by Dead or Alive. Man, I love ’80s pop.

Play “Duck Duck Goose” with other business folks at the Southwest kiddie tables (you would be surprised at how many people might just play along).

Get to know the flight crew that is waiting to take the same flight. This can be a great way to get those free extras and better service once the plane finally departs.

Find other people with iPhones or iPods and share games or show off your apps. I can’t believe how many pages of apps people have sometimes. My favorite games are Skee-ball and Yahtzee—you can get anyone to play Yahtzee with you.

Find some cards and start a game of Rummy or poker. Just remember that not all forms of poker are acceptable in public; after all, you’re not in college anymore.

That’s all for this week. If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, be sure to head over to iTunes to write a review for us. And you can always visit us on Twitter @productiveUcast.

Well, until next time: as the the weather outside is frightful and may be causing flight delays, take a piece of advice from comedian Gabriel Iglesias and “Have a little fun.”

See you next time!

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

Welcome back to the podcast!

This week’s edition…

“My Keys are in the Freezer” OR “Lost and Found”

We have all had one at some point in our lives – you know the interesting little morning argument with your spouse about why he or she moved your keys. Darn her incessant tidiness! Why did I marry someone who is so clean and neat?

In my case, I usually continue the argument while frantically wandering around looking for my lost keys. After all, I have to get out the door and off to work. Meanwhile, she keeps insisting that she didn’t move them. I remind her that I am a creature of habit and that I would have never placed them anywhere except on the table by the door.

This nonsense continues for a time, and then I give in and ask for the spare key just so I can get on my way (still kicking myself and blaming her, mind you).

In one such recent spat, I found my keys later – in the freezer. Yes, in the freezer. Apparently, I was so exhausted the night before that when I came home I when straight to the freezer to put ice in a glass. I remember almost dropping the glass and thinking “That’s gonna make a mess!” I put down my keys on the shelf and poured my drink.

I have begun to think that, in my old age of 35, I might be facing early onset of dementia, or perhaps I’m just a little more distracted. Heck, I am known around the office for borrowing pens and never remembering to return them.

Responding to e-mails can be just as much of a challenge for me. Even after my spam filter traps the junk, there are still volumes to keep up with.

Hence, this week’s tips, which are all about dealing with e-mail mania and precisely how to find where you “stored” your important information.

Our tips include:

All is not lost — Maybe those deleted items can be recovered after all.

Find it fast — Locating a lost message in your e-mail folders. Using Outlook’s Find feature to narrow down the list of hiding spots.

Searching 101 — Having trouble remembering where you placed an e-mail message? Using Advanced Find feature in Outlook.

Finding it on the go — Fast searches you can perform on your BlackBerry.

The search is on — Defining search parameters on your BlackBerry.

That’s it for this week’s edition. Until next time, and remember to say you are sorry to your spouse when you blame her for freezing your keys

You can find links to all our tips at www.productiveUpodcast.com, and don’t forget that you can always stop by iTunes and write that glowing five-star review you been meaning to give us.

Thanks for stopping by!

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

This week’s episode: “Organizing Your Mail and Contacts”.

You know, nothing’s more honest than a 7 year old kid. He tells me things he likes, he tells me things that he doesn’t like, but one of his favorite likes happens to be organizing and arranging things, or just searching through one of those “Where’s Waldo?” books. You know, it can actually be fun looking for one thing in the midst of others. Heck, there’s even a game on the Nintendo Wii where you can sort and organize your Miis.

While find to spot things in a “Where’s Waldo?” book or on the screen with your Wii, it may not be nearly as fun on your computer monitor. Many software applications have features that let you see only what you want. Sorting and filtering are often things you can do in different views. Why would you want to change your view? Well, the goal is to find what you need quickly and conveniently.

Let’s take, for example, the staple of every office secretary… the Rolodex. How might you organize your Rolodex? Let’s use the example of my Rolodex of “Things that Rock!” Remember, the purpose of the Rolodex was to organize and quickly locate information depending upon what you were thinking about at the time.

For example, in my “Thing that Rock!” Rolodex, I might have the song “We Will Rock You” filed under W for “We Will Rock You” or under Q for Queen, the artist. I might have Rocky Balboa under B for Balboa, R for Rocky, or under Philadelphia, or even museum. How about the Rocky Horror Picture Show? Perhaps I have it under Movies, Musicals, Brad, or Janet.  Maybe Lynyrd Skynyrd, they rocked! You know, maybe I have them stored under F for Freebird, L for Lynyrd, S for Skynyrd. How about Fred Flintstone? He’d be listed under B for Bedrock, that kind of rocks. He worked in a quarry, so Q for quarry or F for Fred, or F for Flintstone, or maybe W for Wilma because his wife was nice, too.

Now you can see how having these different cards in many places so I could find them easily and make them easily accessible might get a little out of hand. What if Fred Flintstone changed his address? Now I have to go find all the cards that I had on Fred Flintstone to update his address, and what a mess that would be. No matter which kind of system you’re using-whether it’s BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Outlook, Lotus Notes, you name it-all of them have these different kinds of views or categories, or some way to organize data so you don’t have to constantly duplicate it. As you saw with the Rolodex example, it can just get really out of hand, and you’ll never know for sure if you actually have the accurate and updated information.

I have to say that one of my favorite things in Microsoft Outlook, whether it is version 2003 or 2007, was that I was able to categorize items by color. For instance, I could color-categorize items from my Fraggle Rock friends. For Gobo, I made his color purple because his hair was purple. And Mokey had light blue hair, so I used a light blue color. For Red, (shock, shock) a red category color. Wembley had yellow hair so I assigned him a yellow category color. And Boober had orange hair, so he got an orange color for the category.

Now I can organize e-mails for all these people and actually color-categorize them, as well. This way, when I get e-mail from them or I assign tasks to them, it can be marked in their color so I know who’s actually doing what just by simply looking at the colors on my screen.

This week’s tips include:

Arranging Your Inbox (Outlook)

Have you ever wasted countless minutes scouring your Inbox and thinking, “It has an attachment, but I don’t remember when I got it or who sent it…?” Fortunately for you Outlook, provides a quick way to arrange your Inbox the way you need to see it.

Quick Sorts (Outlook)

Sorting and filtering e-mail can help you find groups of messages you need to see. Creating or customizing a view can help you find things you use regularly. But if you know who sent you a message but not when you received it, one click can help you see all your messages sorted according to who sent them.

A Watched Inbox Never Boils (Outlook)

Have you ever missed an e-mail message from your boss or HR that you really needed? Or are you constantly checking your Inbox to make sure you know the very second messages come in? Would having an e-mail message jump out of the mass of messages help? Automatic Formatting can help.

Needle in a Haystack – Finding Things in Outlook (Outlook)

With technology constantly finding new ways of delivering information right to our fingertips, some of us find ourselves swimming in more e-mail than we know what to do with. Depending on how often you archive or delete old messages, it may be difficult to find things in Outlook when you really need them. Customizing your Views can help you find messages.

Categorizing Outlook Items – Only Half the Battle (Outlook)

Categorizing your Outlook items is a great way to stay organized in your daily work environment, but it is only half the battle. Being able to easily find or view your Outlook items by category is the other half.

Using Rules to Manage and Organize Your Mailbox (Outlook)

Rules help you manage your e-mail messages by performing actions on messages that match a specific set of conditions. After you create a rule, Microsoft Outlook applies the rule when a message arrives in your Inbox or when you send a message.

How to Use Different Message Views (BlackBerry)

Messages View is the first view you see when looking at your BlackBerry e-mail messages, but you can also look at messages using several other views.

Using Different Calendar Views (BlackBerry)

When looking at your Calendar, you may want to see different things at different times. Your BlackBerry provides four different ways of viewing appointments on your Calendar, all of which can be accessed by going into the Calendar and displaying the menu.

Using Views in the Address Book, Memopad and Tasks (BlackBerry)

Within the Address Book, Memopad, and Tasks, you can create and apply filters to quickly see entries that are associated with that filter.

And finally…

Viewing Tasks on the Today Screen (Windows Mobile)

By default, you can view your tasks on the Today Screen. However, there are several options that you can enable to view the types of tasks you have available. Use the following steps to change these options.

Well, I hope this week’s tips will help you to organize your Rock minions. Don’t forget:  the links for these tips are actually here in this blog entry.

If you like what you see here, you might also like some of the links we are posting on Twitter. You can follow us on Twitter at @productiveUcast.

Until next time-Rock On, Dudes! We’ll see ya next week!

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

Ask my wife sometime and you’ll probably find out that my short term memory has a lot to be desired, and is in fact practically non-existent. I could easily have four drinking glasses lying around the house at any given time and never even realize it. Her number one response when I ask where I put something is invariably, “Where did you have it last?” I typically respond to this with something akin to, “If I knew where that was, I wouldn’t be asking.”

Going off to work in the morning can be a tragic event for me, especially if I were to, say… leave my laptop at the house, forget my lunch, or leave without my pants. Okay, that’s probably a picture best left to horror writers like Stephen King, but you get the picture.

I’ve learned to cope with my absent-mindedness and lack of caffeine by piling things up on the dining room table and putting my keys on top. I figure if I can’t leave the house without the keys, then I can’t leave the house without noticing the pile of stuff underneath the keys. You do need to be careful, though, so you don’t snatch up your kids’ homework. How embarrassing is it for a kid to go to school with an excuse like “My dad ate my homework”? Okay, I never ate the homework, but I have had the chance to scan it and e-mail it to my son’s teacher with a little “oops, sorry about that”.

But you can probably relate to situations in your life where you might feel as absent-minded as I. Just try finding an e-mail sometime that you know you have, but seems to be gone. Feel like pulling your hair out by the roots?

Don’t fret, Sweet Polly. “There’s no need to fear, Productive U is here!”

Having the right coping mechanism in place can really go a long way to being more productive with your e-mail program or mobile device. Let’s start by tackling some tips on Outlook first.

Have you ever searched for a needle in a haystack, or anywhere else for that matter? Finding a message in your e-mail can be a time-consuming task, particularly if you don’t remember when you received it or who it was from. Outlook has a search box available for you to enter text for a quick search. The results will not be pretty and will likely include more than you want, but it will be fast. For instructions, click on the link for “Quick and Dirty Way to Find Messages” in this blog entry.

Microsoft Outlook also offers an Advanced Find feature with a large number of options. In our tip labeled “A Beginner’s Guide to Finding a Message“, we explore a few ways to get you started refining your search for messages.

If you find yourself doing the same searches over and over again, there are a couple of solutions available to you. You can either save your search from the Advanced Find dialog, or you can use a Search Folder. Search Folders are very similar to saved searches. They show you information that meets specific criteria, but the big difference is it looks kind of like a folder and can remember the way you like to view your results. You can find the instructions for these two under links called “Saving Your Search” and “Search Folders“.

If you own a BlackBerry, you probably feel like your thumb will fall off before you find that agenda your boss e-mailed to you last week. These ultra-portable brain containers have all the capacity to store on-the-go information for us, but much like remembering where I put my glass down, your drink (or, in this case, e-mail) can be elusive.

We understand that when you’re in that business meeting and looking for something, time is often important, and the faster you can find it, the better. In our tip “Quick Searching on Your BlackBerry“, we cover two fast searches you can do to speed things up.

You can also search with criteria or parameters on your device, and it usually produces a more precise result than the quick search methods. Click on “Searching for Messages on Your BlackBerry” for more details.

If you still need more help wrangling your Simon Bar Sinister, just remember “When Polly’s in trouble, I am not slow. It’s hip, hip, hip and away I go…” to this week’s featured eTraining class, “Dealing with Large Volumes of E-mail”. You can find a link to the schedule for this class in this post at www.productiveUpodcast.com.

Until next week… Not Plane, nor bird, not even frog. It’s little ole me, Underdog.

Tips:

Quick and Dirty Way to Find Messages

A Beginner’s Guide to Finding a Message

Saving Your Search” and “Search Folders

Quick Searching on Your BlackBerry

Searching for Messages on Your BlackBerry

Here’s a link to the original Underdog Cartoon Video

Underdog Cartoon Intro

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

• Wearing Poppies
• Flying Flags
• War Memorials
• Backyard Barbecues
• Start of Summer Vacation Season
• Spending Time with Family & Friends
• Doing work while intoxicated on pie or other libations

WHAT?! Doing work?

That’s what I said. Come on, now. You aren’t going to tell me that you will actually put away that BlackBerry, iPhone, or other mail-enabled mobile device that tethers you to the land of cubes and customers.

I can hear you now: “But what if someone needs me?” Now come on, are you really that important, or does the term “CrackBerry” apply to your lifestyle, too? They’re not called CrackBerries for nothing; they may even give you a Gollum kind of feel. (Yes, my precious, yes. What has it got in its Inbox and TwitterBerry?) If they were so easy to put down, we would — AND we would turn them off.

However, work worries can be stickier than a candy apple at the state fair, so this week we are offering up tips on how to make your time off more relaxing by keeping some work worries from creeping into your weekend plans.

This week’s tasty morsels can found in our blog entry for this podcast at www.productiveUpodcast.com, and include:

For Outlook:

• Turning the Out of Office Assistant On / Off
• Getting things done while you you’re gone (you, too, can be a friendly task master)

For BlackBerry:

• How to use the BlackBerry to set the Out Of Office Assistant
• Do not disturb, unless… How to limit interruptions on your BlackBerry using Notification Profiles
• Staying somewhere for the weekend? Why not use your BlackBerry as an alarm clock?

Enjoy your holiday weekend, and remember…

One phone to rule them all
One phone to tweet them
One phone to bring them all, and at the barbeque meet them

Don’t forget:  you can follow us on Twitter at ProductiveUCast.

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

So when I looked at my e-mail the other day as though it needed an exorcism, I couldn’t help but wish I could treat it like the Ghostbusters. You know, like:

When there’s something strange in your Inbox, dude… Who ya gonna call?

If there’s something weird and it don’t look good… Who ya gonna call?

Well, just try calling your typical IT geek and they will tell you, “Good luck with that!”

Not here, though; we’re going to take a page out of the Ghostbusters movie and apply it to your Mailbox. So, strap on your proton pack and let’s get this party started!

Are you sick of being the Keymaster of Gozer and waiting around for the Gatekeeper to remind you to destroy and release your deleted mail? Be restricted no more by the mystical ties that bind you! All you need to do is set Outlook to automatically empty your Deleted Items folder each time you close the application. Just go to the Tools menu, choose Options, click on the Other tab and enable the checkbox for “Empty the Deleted Items folder on exiting”. You can gain satisfaction knowing that even if you were not able to annihilate humanity, at least you took out your trash.

Next is our lesson on how to use a proton pack to save you from dealing with those little spam slimers. When you see a message that doesn’t even deserve the chance to return from the undead of the deleted items, then whip out your proton pack, set it to maximum, point it at the message to be deleted, and hold your Shift key while pressing Delete. This will prompt you to permanently delete the message. Click OK and that ectoplasmic message can never return again. Just be careful not to cross the streams with a message from your boss, because once you have eliminated a message this way, there is NO way to get it back.

Much like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, your Mailbox size can often become bloated and no one likes sticky mail clogging their Outbox. The first thing you need to know is: “What is your ideal size?” You may feel that you have unlimited capacity for sending and receiving mail, but your e-mail server administrator may feel that he needs to keep the masses slimmed down and set an ideal weight (or size limit quota) to prevent larger network traffic issues. Have you received one of those little nasty grams stating that you’re exceeding your Mailbox size limit? I included a link in this blog entry that gives you a way to check the actual sizes of each folder in your Mailbox so you can choose which marshmallows need toasting first.

If you’re not looking to toast all your old e-mails and send them into the netherworld, consider archiving your messages instead. You can put those little monsters right into a separate containment unit called a Personal Folder file, which will free them from their hold on your Mailbox space and you can go back and visit them any time you want. For an alternative way to access this feature and see other Mailbox clean-up items, check under the Tools menu and select “Mailbox Cleanup”. You may find that this is a great way to identify the larger beasts with attachments that need to be caged separately from the other ghouls.

Don’t be afraid to be a regular citizen; not everyone understands ghost-busting like our professionals. However, if you want to join our Mailbox-busting crew and show off your skills to co-workers in need, why not learn the tricks of the trade by taking this week’s featured eTraining class titled, “Dealing with Large Volumes of E-mail”? Not only can you learn from a trained support specialist, but you can ask your own specific questions on the topic with a live instructor. How many training classes online nowadays do you know of who use real people live to teach the class? Check out our blog posting for a link to the schedule for this class.

Click Here for Class Schedule of ”Dealing with Large Volumes of E-mail”

Finally, if you’re looking to trap the e-mail monsters on your BlackBerry or Windows Mobile device, be sure to check out the links for tricks on managing your little demon pocket devices at www.productiveUpodcast.com.

• BlackBerry – Taming the Email Monster
• Windows Mobile – Taming Your Inbox

Thanks for joining us and we look forward to helping you cross the great barrier of frustration and guiding you into the light on the side of better organization and time management.

Who ya gonna call?

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum