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No matter how much we may envy Bill Gates, Microsoft has an undeniable hold on office software. If you want to use any bells and whistle in your business software, it must be able to communicate with Microsoft Windows, whether that's Office, Outlook or IE. Arguably the most important of the masses of software choices for businesses of any size is that of plug-ins or add ins for Outlook in order to manage your contact information.
Typical Microsoft: Office Isn't Enough
The day Microsoft puts out a software program that is complete for every customer and doesn't need tweaking in any way will most likely be the day that Satan skates to work. Until that day, we need add ins for Outlook in order to help customize this basic program to meet our particular peculiar business needs.
For example, say I'm a freelance graphics designer. You don’t get a more peculiar business than that. But just like a huge international corporation, I need to get my clients' contact information organized and safe. I can use add ins for Outlook to focus on one aspect of Outlook and enhance it.
Say I need to send out a notice saying my email address has to change. That's a mighty important chink of information for my clients to know! I could spend the time trying to notify by the usual email methods, or I could use an add in for Outlook Express to purposefully enhance the email and address capabilities.
I could also use separate add ins for Outlook to make templates (which saves me a heck of a lot of time) or an e-mail follow up add in for Outlook to see if my emails ever got to where they were supposed to go.
If you have a business need, you can go to the bank that there's a plug in or add in for Outlook made for it.
Essential Crap in Basic English
Just like with anything else, there are dos and don’ts when it comes to using add ins for Outlook. These will be incredibly obvious to all computer geeks, who can skip this section if they like. But for 99.9% of the rest of us who use computers, these add ins for Outlook are about as comprehensible as Celtic Ogham runescript. For those of us who can't tell a byte from that thing the dog does to our hands when we feed him, here are some basic parameters of add ins for Outlook.
You have to have Outlook on before you can run any add ins for Outlook. You can't just try to run the add in without Outlook being on. That makes your computer very cranky very fast.
Plug-ins or add ins for Outlook are made by many, many software companies – not just Microsoft. The others are legal, although Microsoft really hates these add ins for Oulook. Sometimes they are free – most often they're not. Most add ins for Outlook available on the web will have a free trial period for you to get a good taste.
They are not for all versions of Outlook. If it's an add in for Outlook 2003, it will not work for more recent versions. When you update Outlook, you're going to have to update your add ins for Outlook, too.
Safety First, Next and Last
Not all add ins for Outlook are safe enough to be downloaded to your computer – and invaluable data. No add in for Outlook is a timesaver if you have to fix a crashed computer after installing it.
First off, NEVER download add ins for Outlook on a P2P (peer to per) network, like Usenet or even Instant Messaging. If you have any other family member use your business computer for a home business or if you have other employees, they all must follow this rule of no file sharing.
P2P networks are arguably the Wild West when it comes to cyber security – there isn’t any. Because of the ability to communicate in real time, all of the information doesn’t get filtered through a security browser. That means any file being shared is compromised in some fashion, even if your best friend recommends it and wants to send add ins for Outlook to you. |