Microsoft Freebies
I am in the process of migrating myself back to Outlook after having used (ugh) Lotus Notes for the past year. I wanted to use what everyone else used and opted for Notes. I couldn’t stand it! I lasted as long as I could, but I have always used Outlook, and now I am returning home.
So, since I’ve been away, there are several neat tools that MS has made available. Here are a few, and if you know of more/better, please leave a note.
Outlook 2003 Automated PST Backup Add-in - Not the official name, but my description of it. Here is Microsoft’s:
The Personal Folders Backup download creates backup copies of your .PST files at regular intervals, in Outlook 2000 and later versions, making it easy to keep all of your Outlook folders safely backed up.
Instructions for use can be found here.
FolderShare - Once a commercial product, but now free thanks to a Microsoft purchase. With it you can share a folder, securely, between several PCs, sync files, and even share folders with friends. This isn’t a new program, it had been discussed on many Tablet PC site (and tech sites). But I somehow overlooked FolderShare and have just now installed it. I am hoping it will be a good way to keep my Outlook PST file sync’d between my PC and Tablet.
SyncToy - Not as powerful as FolderShare, but a very slick tool to sync files between 2 computers. I believe the PCs have to be connected or networked in some way, it isn’t an online solution. It is from the MS Digital Photography site, but has much wider uses. I bet you could use in in conjunction with FolderShare to get some interesting results.Developers listened to user feedback and updated SyncToy to 1.2 on 3/28/2006 and are taking feedback on their forum.