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The Vista OS has grown on me and now feels almost as comfortable as my favorite flannel shirt (yes, I like flannel). When I first started using it a year ago, it seemed like I was ignoring the new and cool features and trying to make the experience feel more like XP. So, this week, I wanted to talk about some things I’ve found helpful and hope you will too.

Modify Your Start Menu

Have the applications you use most appear when you click the ’start’ button. I like the Vista way of simply scrolling down the list of applications, much less annoying than XP’s cascading windows that collapse just when you’re ready to click! Choose the app you want to pin, then right-click on the icon and select ‘pin to start menu’. To remove, just right-click on the icon and select ‘remove’.

Now, the top two icons on the Start Menu are reserved for Email and your favorite Internet Browser. Mine happens to be Outlook and Firefox. Of course, IE is the default here, so if you want to change that here’s how to do it. Right-click the start button, choose Properties, and then click the Customize button in the Start Menu Properties dialog box. In the Customize Start Menu dialog box, pick the web browser and e-mail app you wish and you’re through.

Keyboard Shortcut for Accessing Start Menu

I like using the keyboard rather than the mouse, so I’m always looking for keyboard shortcuts. Here’s one for accessing your Start Menu without the mouse:

Press your Windows key, or the Ctrl+Esc keyboard shortcut to open the Menu. Then, press the Up Arrow key once to get to the All Programs. From there, you can expand All Programs by hitting Enter, or the Right Arrow key. Then, use your arrow keys to navigate up and down and use Enter to select your program. To close a sub-menu, press the Left Arrow key, or Esc.

Search

Maybe everyone knows about this, but it’s one of my absolute favorites for Vista. I have quite a long list of applications and instead of scrolling around and finding the one I want, I just hit the Start button and type in the name of the program I want and it quickly appears. This is a wonderful time saver. You can also use this feature to find documents, pictures, whatever. If you want to see all the excel documents on your computer, hit the Start button and type in *.xls. It will return not only the excel files in your folders, but excel files in your email as well. You can also save your searches for using later.

After hearing and reading all the hoopla regarding Gov. Palin’s email being hacked by a college student, I’m sure many of us have thought about the security of our own web email accounts and the ’security’ questions we’ve answered to keep our passwords secure.

There are some pretty logical and sensible tips for doing this. Of course, if you have a public presence, you’ll not want to use your true birthdate and other easy-to-find-out-facts on-line.Even if you’re not a ‘celebrity’, it might be wise to pick a fake birthdate and birthplace for many things web-related.

Gmail is the only web-based email provider (I believe), that will allow secure (or https) sign-ins. This is a great benefit for those of us who want to check email while traveling, in a coffee shop, etc. Probably not many of us stop to think that when we’re on our wireless laptops in a coffee shop, and decide to login to our Yahoo, or other web-based email, that there is a chance that our passwords could be hijacked by someone lurking on the wireless network. Since there is no security on an open network, everything is wide open and those with the know-how can intercept our data.

In addition to offering the https login, Gmail gives us the added security of choosing our own security questions. Take advantage of this feature.

Enabling https in Gmail is a simple click. Login to Gmail and click “Settings’. Scroll down to the bottom and click the “Always Use Https” radio button. Save your changes and from now on, wherever you login, your password will be encrypted.

After you do this, you’ll notice the Google mail notifier has stopped working. (The notifier is the mail icon that appears in your system tray when new email comes in.) You can fix this two ways. You can do a manual registry hack, or you can download the Google downloadable registry hack that will automatically do this for you. Google conveniently provides an uninstall to the hack, should you later change your mind.

A few weeks ago, I talked about using Google as a 2-way calendar/tasks/contacts/notes sync tool to access either your own or your client’s calendar without having to login to a desktop client or a remote computer.

I started using Plaxo with a client over a year ago. It was how I originally accessed and made changes to her calendar, contacts and tasks. It was a simple login from my web browser and my entries were synced to her Outlook. If you do use Plaxo with a client, either they will need to do the download and install to their email client, or you will need to log in and do it for them. After the install, the software leads you through choices about syncing. For example, you can choose to sync only the calendar and not contacts, etc. There will be Plaxo icons appearing in Outlook after installation.

You’re not limited to using Plaxo with just Outlook. Plaxo gives you the option to add “sync points” with Yahoo, Google, MSN, Windows Mail, Mobile and Outlook Express. It must be noted that these are all 1-way syncs. So this means if you are entering calendar updates, contacts or new tasks in, you’ll need to enter them in Yahoo, Google, etc. Then, they will sync to Plaxo. See below for an excerpt from the Plaxo Help Site that explains how it handles Google:

Google Synchronization Limits
Currently, the Google sync point is a one-way sync. It can only read data and changes to the data from Google to Plaxo. Any changes on the Plaxo side will not reflect back to your Google address book.
In addition, we only support contact deletions and additions during the sync. Changes to existing contact records will not sync to your Plaxo account.

It also must be pointed out that the web mail apps mentioned above are the 1-way sync. Since Plaxo has a software download for Outlook, that is a 2-way sync. This means when you enter a new appointment from within Plaxo, it will sync with the linked Outlook account.

When setting up your sync points with your various web accounts, Plaxo does give you options on what to sync. For example, you can choose to only sync your calendar and nothing else. If you change your mind and decide to remove a sync point, there are no worries about deleting any information. It simply stops the sync.

If one of your Plaxo contacts updates their contact information, it silently communicates this to your Plaxo account and updates it – nice.

There is a Plaxo Premium service that offers some benefits. A new service added is the ability to sync (again only 1-way) from your LinkedIn contacts to Plaxo.

There are many other features and benefits from Plaxo, such as ability to see and send your picture with each email, see pictures of your contacts (if they’ve uploaded one), get reminders of people’s birthdays and many more.

Plaxo also has a popular Pulse feature. This is Plaxo’s social networking side of things. You see your contact’s updates, blog postings, comments, etc. This can be delivered to your in-box, or you can view updates from the web.

Earlier this year Plaxo was acquired by Comcast. This gives me reason for pause, although they initially said privacy policies would not be changed, policies can be changed at any time. By choosing to be on-line and participating in a number of social networks, I have no expectation of being anonymous. Since Comcast is an information-collecting gorilla, digesting Plaxo just made it a bit bigger. To put that in perspective though, just mull over all the information Google has on all of us!

Since I’m using Outlook all day, everyday, it seems inevitable that things will go wrong from time to time. Here are two tools I use to help keep things running smoothly and to back up my mail files:

Microsoft Back-up Tool

Microsoft In-Box Repair Tool

First, we’ll talk about the Back-up tool. I don’t know why Microsoft doesn’t include this tool when Outlook is installed (works with 2002, 2003 & 2007), but it doesn’t. So go here read through the brief instruction set and download and install the program.

Before getting the backup file download, you may have to install the anti-piracy plug-in (office genuine advantage tool), so Microsoft can assure themselves you aren’t a pirate.

After the download is complete, close Outlook and install the software. Then, after opening Outlook, go to the File menu and you’ll see a new menu item called “backup”.

Click on it and you’ll see the below box.

Here you can choose to backup your main pst file, your archive files and whatever other mail files you may have. You can choose how often to backup and where the backup will be stored. I would strongly suggest you backup these important files in a couple of places (using Carbonite, Mozy, or an external hard drive). If your hard drive goes down and that’s where your backup is, it won’t do you much good! Another thing to remember – the backup tool won’t

run unless you exit Outlook. So, if like me, you hardly ever close your Outlook, set a reminder to do so regularly so a backup can be made.

Microsoft In-Box Repair Tool

This second tool will scan and repair your mail file. Ever go to open Outlook and it just won’t open! It’s happened to me and it created quite a bit of anxiety! Whenever I get these lovely cryptic messages from Microsoft, I google them to see if anyone else out there has had the same problem and I can usually find the answer from a fellow blogger.

This tool does come installed with Outlook (2002, 2003, 2007), but is buried deep within your folder structure (see below for location). To use this tool, you will again have Outlook closed and then navigate to the correct folder and double click on either the application .ost or .pst to scan the file type you wish. Then, you’ll need to navigate to where your mail files resides and select that and then click ’start’. The tool will begin running and go through the check. When it’s through it will let you know how many errors (if any), were found and then you have the option to back up your file before it does its repair. After the repair process is complete, start Outlook and see if your file will open.

I hope you’ll give these tools a workout. I’ve found them to come in pretty handy. It’s worth noting that if you don’t have a pst file that represents your outlook file, you won’t be able to restore your mail files. So it’s important to have regular mail backups in place. In addition to using the back-up tool, I use the free and popular Gmail IMAP feature so I can access my Outlook from either the web interface or my desktop client. I blogged about it here. Redundancy is good.

Below are detailed instructions on how to use the In-Box Repair tool (from Microsoft).

Quit Microsoft Outlook if it’s running.

Run the Inbox Repair Tool

1. Click Start and point to Find, or Search, depending upon your operating system.

2. In the Search for files or folders named box, type scanpst.exe.

3. Double click the Scanpst.exe file to open the program.

4. Type the path and file name of the pst file, or click Browse to locate the file using the windows file system.

5. Click Start.

Sometimes many errors will be found and you’ll have the option to back-up your file before repairing. After the repair process (usually very fast), start Outlook again and hopefully, your file will open for you.

At the Microsoft link given above, continue reading for instructions and information on more detailed information if you need to do additional repair work on your mail file.