As someone who has more gadgets and electronics than I’d care to mention (mostly out of fear that someone may hold an intervention and put me in virtual group therapy), one thing I have learned over the years is that although a device is built to be portable, it isn’t always convenient.

Let’s take, for example, my home or work laptops. I like them because they have a large screen and can go anywhere with me, but they tend to weigh me down. It’s like putting on five to ten extra pounds. It’s not much, but walking around with even an extra five pounds in a bag can get tiresome. In addition, you’re likely carrying supporting items that add even more weight, such as an extra mouse, power cables, and cell phones to complete your little mobile office.

If you’re like me and can’t really afford to gain more pounds than you already have, consider buying a bag with wheels. Yes, I know. People give me a hard time and ask if I stole my kid’s backpack, but it’s worth the ridicule at times. Besides, who says a grown man can’t have a rolling backpack with Finding Nemo on it?

Now, if you find you don’t have the time to keep booting up your laptop at the airport and shutting it down, consider using the hibernate feature in Windows. I set it up so when I close my laptop lid it activates the hibernate mode. It saves power and does a decent job of saving my work where I left off.

But what if you’re going on vacation and don’t want all the extra weight? In that case, a Netbook would be handy. I have one running Windows 7 Starter Edition. Not only is it lightweight and compact, it’s also good for surfing the web at local WiFi hotspots, checking e-mail, or even watching movies and TV shows on your favorite video streaming site. And although I have Office 2007 running on it, I rarely use it. I try to save work for the work laptop.

Another added benefit I get from my Netbook comes in the form of a webcam and Skype. When you travel a lot, it’s always nice to get to see your family or children. Who can resist the fact that a 7 year old who notices himself too much will inevitably talk with you, but make faces at himself the whole time?

Overall, the one device I use most—because I can quickly and easily check e-mail, listen to audio books, or take quick notes—is my iPod Touch. If you have an iPhone or other smart phone, you know what I mean.

But with great power comes great responsibility. These little wonders of the modern age can be damaged easily if not protected. How was I supposed to know that if I’m flipping the iPod around to show a larger view of a picture to someone that I should not be holding a glass filled with soda? Yeah, you guessed it—dunking it in your glass turns out to be a bad thing. Portability like this also has another big nemesis…the back pocket. Not only can you sit on it, you can also forget it’s in your pocket and wash it in the laundry. Yeah, you guessed it again—lots of water is bad. And can you believe how many soap suds can appear under the surface of the screen? Amazing!

We’ll leave you with a few tips that should help you out with those wonderful hand-held gadgets. The links for these tips can be found on the blog entry for this podcast, at  www.productiveupodcast.com.

• Are You Connected Now? – Connecting to wireless networks on a laptop
• Stealth Mode – Changing the power settings when closing your laptop lid
• Cleaning Your iPhone
• Cleaning Your Windows Mobile Device

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.

So when you carry your devices in this new era of portability, take the time to consider what you really need to pack to get the greatest use on your trip—or be like me and take them all!

See you next time!

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

The first item on our list is the angry e-mail. E-mail provides a crucial benefit over face-to-face communication: you have a chance to carefully choose your words and compose an eloquent message. But e-mail can also inspire a confidence that may be lacking in live communication.

This can lead to the angry e-mail, and sometimes it’s all too easy to write things you would never say. There’s probably a reason you would never say those things, so it’s important to keep that in mind before pushing that Send button. Once you do, there’s no way to get that message back.

So if you’re angry, upset, or irritated in any way, it may be best to step away from the computer for a break. That way, you will likely cool off or relax and have a better frame of mind; after all, you probably don’t want to burn any important bridges.

Next, let’s talk about the plague of electronic communication: the forwarded chain letter. We’ve all gotten these and may have even been tempted to pass them on at some point. I mean, let’s face it: if we pass that message on to at least ten friends, we could suddenly inherit millions of dollars. And if we don’t, it could mean bad luck for the next seven years. But that is more than likely not going to be the case.

Chain letters were annoying enough when they arrived as paper mail, but in that form they cost money to send. With electronic mail, which is mostly free, chain letter forwards are even more prevalent, and just as bothersome.

Some of these messages make you feel guilty if you ignore them, or even threaten karmic disasters if you fail to pass them on to a specified amount of recipients. And then there those that imply technical catastrophes if you don’t click on something or delete a certain file. Please, friends: don’t fall for those.

So, you might ask: what is the best way to handle these unwanted messages?  First of all, delete the message, especially if it is the kind that threatens technical disaster or asks you to click on a link. Second: if they are coming from a relative or close friend, ask them gently to not include you on the list for those e-mails unless they directly know the source.  Remember, this may be the only entertainment dear Aunt Sally has.

Our dear friend, the Cybercouth Tiger, sent a note about a few other aspects of e-mail etiquette that he wanted to share with us. Here is what he had to say:

One of my avocations is playing stand-up bass in an amateur jazz ensemble. We have six musicians in the band, but using electronic calendaring is impractical for us.  As a result, our rehearsals and gigs are scheduled via e-mail messages. This would be quite acceptable but for a few irritating habits of the members in the percussion section. They don’t seem to grasp the concept that only the band member serving as our organizer needs to know if they can or cannot attend a particular date. Being drummers (and in bands, it is always the drummers), they use Reply to All when Reply was all that was needed. We all get enough superfluous e-mail from spammers and bots without getting it from percussionists, too.

On top of this, the stick-wielding troglodytes don’t understand that typing in all capital letters is rude. I often must restrain myself from replying to them (not using Reply to All, of course) that, “ALL CAPS IS FORTISSISSIMO.  PLEASE STOP YELLING!” While the decorum of a jazz band would never allow me to comport myself in such a manner with my band mates, I count it a privilege to be able to help you avoid the percussionists’ errors and harmonize with the groups with which you work.

Thanks for the advice, Cybercouth!

The tips for this week center around these ideas and a few others that will help you avoid behaving like a troglodyte, or any other unsavory character.

• Reply to All With Care – Using the Reply to All feature in Outlook and Notes
• Think Before You Send – Understanding Outlook’s message recall feature
• Don’t Shout – Avoiding the use of all caps
• Unread Letters – Manually marking messages as read or unread in Outlook
• Need a Receipt With That? – Using read receipts in Outlook and Notes
• Break the Chain – Dealing with chain letters in e-mail
• Read it Later – Manually marking messages as read or unread in Windows Mobile

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 to make Miss Manners, the Cybercouth Tiger, and Mom proud of your e-mail communication.

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

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

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

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

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

A Group as a noun is defined as:

• Any collection or assemblage of persons or things
• A number of persons or things ranged or considered together as being related in some way
• A Cluster or Aggregation

I have spent the past few years watching my 6 year old develop social and learning skills and I’ve realized that there is some fundamental force in nature that compels everything, not just humans, to group and organize.

From the time he could play with toys, he has been grouping things in all sorts (no pun intended) of ways. Take, for instance:  at age two, he organized different sized cups and rings by color, shape, and size.

Age 4, he started sorting and organizing action figures: “Here are my Bob the Builder guys and here are the Justice League good guys.”

Now, at age six, he spends nearly every waking hour that he is not in school playing, which for him consists mostly of collecting things, then sorting and organizing what he has collected. There is virtually no room in the house that doesn’t have something set up in a line or shape; from Ben 10 Aliens going down the stairs, rubber ducks in the shower (so many I feel like I am in a ball pit), to cards laid out like a memory game in the middle of the living room floor.  And whatever you do, don’t move the green ones, because like David Banner and the Incredible Hulk, “You won’t like it when he’s angry”. I’m starting to wonder if I can get him a guest star role on that USA Network show Monk and make some extra cash.

So what is it that really compels him to do this? Is it his mother’s cleanliness? Is it my influence from organizing pictures and files on my PC? Is it genetics, or just the natural law of the universe?

I don’t think I have the scientific background or degree to be authoritative on the laws of nature, but I do know it exists everywhere and if you look closely enough, you can see it, too.

Take, for instance, the Universe; it is made up of galaxies which consist of stars, gases, black holes, Star Gates, worm holes, Death Stars, planets, and much, much more.

If you think the grouping of things is purely a human concept, look at the non-human creatures around you.

We have packs of wolves, colonies of ants, gaggles of geese, herds of sheep, prides of lions… I could go on for hours (and you’re probably thinking “haven’t you already?”!).

So how does this affect you in your daily life? Let’s look beyond the natural landscape and look at the Wild World of Cubes, better known as the Office Space (yes, red staplers and all).

In the office, equipment and resources are combined in meaningful ways like Filing Cabinets filled with hanging folders, which in turn are filled with more folders; contained inside of them is related paperwork such as invoices and personnel files.

We even group our employees into divisions or departments like Sales and Operations. On the operations side of my company we are clustered into Management, Team Leaders, Consultants, and Trainees.

I’m sure you can find this coordination of people everywhere, even beyond an Organization’s staff. Like when you find yourself at work using Twitter, where I have people I follow (like the GetItDoneGuy) and people who follow me (like you following ProductiveUcast). That’s right, listen to my voice… follow, follow, you will follow ProductiveUcast on Twitter and subscribe to my podcast.

Oops sorry, I was just told by my manager that unless I am thinking of joining the Psi Corp on Babylon 5, I should stop trying to use mind control to influence my audience and tell you about the links for visual and written tips in the blog entry for this podcast.

OK, so tips for this edition are geared toward helping you better organize your contacts and how to make emailing groups more efficient.

Tips Like:

• Creating a Distribution List
• Making a Distribution List from the Names in an Email Message
• Creating an Email Message to Selected Contacts
• Understanding and Using the BCC Field
• Categorizing Your Contacts for Frequently Changed Groups
• How to Create Address Book Groups
• Adding Many Email Addresses to a Message

While you’re there visiting the blog, check out one of my wife’s favorite characters, the Friendly Task Master, and his thoughts on “Why do they put eggs in cartons?”

Looking to hire skilled help to get a special project done, but don’t have the budget to hire an experienced technical assistant permanently?

We can give you the expert assistance of a Technical Consultant to help increase your turnaround time and make your project more cost effective.

Check out the link in our Blog Services category labeled “Hire a Virtual Temp” and find out more about how we can fulfill your on-demand vTemps needs.

Thanks for listening.

See you soon!

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

A fluke ice storm recently had me back to kicking myself, and I grabbed my trusty lock de-icer and scraper and headed outside.

After finally getting into my car (20 minutes of X-ACTO knife-style cutting on the edges of the driver’s side door), I started it up. Then I had to go out into the cold and spend another 15 minutes scraping ice off the windshield. Talk about your losing productivity. If I just had one of those starters, I could be unfrozen AND get other things done while it happened.

How much does this remind you of the virtual scraping we all end up doing with our computers at work? I find there is always junk causing my computer to freeze and lock-up. Most days it seems unavoidable and certainly kills my ability to be productive, and even some days lays ruin to my almost completed work.

How many times have you found yourself editing a Word or Excel file for an hour or more and realize, just as the computer freezes, that you haven’t saved any of your changes yet?

So I polled a few of our support and productivity specialists and found that almost 90% of the time they receive a call where someone’s computer locked up, the person has NOT saved the work and what they have done can be recovered less than only 30% of the time.

Wow! Picture large and small companies that lose data that will take longer to redo than it originally did to create — all just because most people (myself included, just ask my wife about my son’s 2nd birthday party pictures) are not aware of some basic built-in features and functions of software applications they use daily.

Well, this week our tips are focused around the topic of AutoRecover and what to do if it doesn’t work. I will also include a few other tips in separate entries on proactive measures you can take so you won’t be left out in the cold.

Here are the links for this week’s episode:

Turning on the AutoRecover Feature in

• Excel 2003
• Excel 2007
• Word or PowerPoint

Enabling the AutoRecover Feature in Visio

What to Do When Your Computer Freezes

What to Try When AutoRecover Fails

Recover Information in a Frozen or Damaged File

How to Reset a BlackBerry

and Understanding the Reasons to Reset Your Device

If you would like to receive our expanded text edition of the Tips and Tricks Newsletter click on the link for Sign-Up on this site.

Until next time, remember to save frequently and don’t get left out in the cold the next time your computer freezes.

Thanks for stopping by!

Special thanks to Clayton and Fulrum for providing our theme music.