Being able to see colleague’s calendars in Outlook can be very useful for co-ordinating meetings, arranging appointments or just being a sticky beak.  In Outlook Calendar, in the Navigation Pane, there are several links to help you get started quickly with calendar sharing.

Open a Shared Calendar

You can open another person’s default Exchange Calendar if the person has granted you permission to do so. If the other person whose Calendar you want to open has not granted you permission to view it, Outlook prompts you to ask the person for the permission you need. If you click Yes, a sharing request e-mail message opens automatically. The message requests the person to share his or her Calendar with you and also provides the option to share your default Calendar with him or her. After you access a shared Calendar for the first time, the Calendar is added to the Navigation Pane. The next time you want to view the shared Calendar, you can click it in the Navigation Pane.

For all of you office worker warriors out there like me, you may find yourself in word 2007 doing certain actions day in, day out wishing there were a keyboard shortcut. Guess what? You can make one.

For me it’s using the paste special function so that I don’t lose my formatting when I’m pasting from the web or another document. So here’s how you do it.

First of all click on your ‘Office’ button  then right down the bottom on the

right hand side you will see the ‘word options’ button  click on it.

This will bring up you ‘Word Options’ page

Now click on ‘Customize’ in the left options bar. This will bring up the following screen:

Right down the bottom you will see the option to customize keyboard shortcuts, click this button and it will bring up all of your options for creating keyboard shortcuts. Just as an aside if you’re wondering what all that stuff is above the keyboard shortcuts, it is a list of commands that you use frequently and can add them to your ‘Quick Access Toolbar’ which is…

Anyway, back to customizing your keyboard shortcuts, click on the customize button to bring up this screen

Then find which category the shortcut you require is under. For the paste special function I just look at what I normally do.

E.g. I notice that the ‘Paste’ function is under the ‘Home’ tab

And then I found ‘EditPasteSpecial’ in the ‘Commands’ list on the right, I clicked on it and found that it already had a short cut which is displayed in the ‘Current Keys’ box (it’s Alt+Ctrl+V in that order  if you’re interested)  or you can ‘Remove’ the current key and create your own.

So there you have it warriors. Happy wording

One of the benefits of having a laptop is being able to log on anywhere and have access to your stuff. This is especially true of things like emails, but there are a few settings that need tweaking before you can open your mailbox from anywhere in the world.

To Set Up Outlook Anywhere in Office 2007:

1. Open the Control Panel and select Mail if you are in Classic View, or User Accounts and then Mail if you are viewing Categories. In the popup window, select Show Profiles.

Select Add and enter a profile name when asked. This is just a label, so name it whatever you like.

2. This will bring up the Add New Email Account dialog. Select Manually Configure server settings or additional server types and then click Next.

3. Select Microsoft Exchange and then click Next.

4. You will probably need to check in with us for your server name. Your user name is the name that you use to log on to your work network, and will often be the same as the first part of your email address. Enter these details and then select More Settings. 

5. Choose the Connection tab and select the Connect to Microsoft Exchange using HTTP box, then select Exchange Proxy Settings.

Exchange Proxy Settings:

1. Your Connection Settings URL will usually be mail.domain or remote.domain, where your domain is usually the part of your email address after the @ symbol.

Select both the Connect using SSL only and Only connect to proxy servers that have this principal name in their certificate boxes.

2. This will be either msstd:mail.domain or msstd:remote.domain. The bit here after msstd: will be the same as you entered in step 1. above.

3. If you often use your laptop in the office, leave On fast networks, connect using HTTP first, then connect using TCP/IP unchecked. If you work mostly remotely check this box. In either case, make sure that you tick On slow networks, connect using HTTP first, then connect using TCP/IP.

4. Your Proxy Authentication Settings will depend on the type of server you are connecting to. If you are running a 2003 server the Authentication type will be Basic. If you are running a 2007 server the Authentication type will be NTLM. If you aren’t sure, try basic first- if it doesn’t work you can come back and change this setting.

When you click OK you will be notified that you need to restart Outlook for these changes to take effect. When you restart Outlook you will be prompted to log in:

Your credentials will need to be entered as internal domain\username, which should be the same username that you use to log on to your workstation. Confusingly enough, your internal domain is not necessarily the same as the domain name used in your email address- you might need to check with us if you aren’t sure what it should be. Once you log in you will be able to access your email wherever you go.

If you let us know that you want to set up Outlook Anywhere we can give you all the details of your domain and server that you will need. If your email still isn’t connecting properly after all this there are a few geeky behind-the-scenes tweaks that we can try to get it up and running (we can’t give away all our tricks!). If you get stuck or if you have any questions please let us know!

Your username and password are the keys to your virtual identity. Setting a unique password allows you greater security and more control over who has access to your confidential files. Changing the password you use to log on to your computer is a simple task that you can do from your workstation- it doesn’t need to be set on the server.

To set a new password:

To reset your login password, press CTRL+ALT+Delete. This will bring up a Windows Security pane. This will look a little different depending on whether you are working in Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7:

If you are logged in to a Terminal Server or working remotely, CTRL+ALT+Delete will function on the workstation that you are locally logged in to and not your terminal server session. To send the same command to the terminal server, user CTRL+ALT+End instead. You can also go to the Terminal Server ‘Start’ menu and select ‘Windows Security’ to reach the same options.

From the security pane, select ‘Change Password’.

Once again, the screen you see will vary depending on whether your operating system is Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7.

Enter your old password to confirm your identity, choose a new password (don’t forget to enter it into both the ‘New password’ and ‘Confirm password’ fields) and you’re all set.

When choosing a new password:

With words like identity theft and fraud being thrown around so much these days it can be a little intimidating trying to think of new passwords that don’t leave us scratching our heads when we go to type them in.

• Try to strike a balance between what will be secure and what you can easily remember and type.
• Mix upper and lowercase letters with numbers or symbols to dramatically increase the strength of your password.
• Try not to reuse the same passwords in many different places- especially not the passwords that you use for internet banking! That way even if someone manages to guess they will not have access to all of your data.
• Remember that a phrase can be just as effective as a random character string and much easier on your memory- ‘W0rk1ngClassM@n!’ or similar is a strong password, but one that will be very easy to recall.

Many people do not change their passwords at all, so as long as ‘password,’ ‘changeme123,’ and ‘letmein’ are not in your repertoire you have a leg up on the competition.

If you forget your password:

Passwords are not stored in any way that we can access, not even with IT superpowers, sorry! If you forget your password we have no way to tell you what it was. We can, however, change your password back to a default, which will let you log in as normal.

Of all of the mobile devices I’ve ever had to support, the iPhone is so far proving to be the easiest. I wouldn’t want to support a large fleet of them, as I’m not sure their enterprise manageability is a scratch on Blackberry, but for smaller volumes they’re fantastic.

The single most asked question is…”How do I setup my shiny new iPhone for my email?”. Or in more tech terms, “How do I configure Exchange sync on my new iPhone?”. Now this is of course only relevant if you have an Exchange server to connect to, which most of our clients do. It’s a really simple process. Check it out below.

First of all, let’s go back to the main menu. You can get there by pressing the ‘Home’ button in the very bottom centre of your iPhone.

Now tap on the button labelled ‘Mail’. In the picture to the left, it’s on the very bottom row, second from the left. You can customise where your buttons are though, so yours may be in a different spot.

The next thing you’ll see is a choice of what type of email server you want to connect to. For the purposes of this exercise, tap on ‘Microsoft Exchange’.

Now here’s where I think most people get a bit worried. Don’t. It’s pretty straight forward. Just enter the information in each field then tap ‘Next’. If you’re note sure what goes in a field, just give the helpdesk a call, and we can help you out. Here’s what I’d put in my setup…

Email: ben@grassrootsit.com.au (see, easy huh?)

Domain: grassrootsit

Username: Ben (this is usually the bit of your email address before the @)

Password: xxxxxx (your normal email password, like you use to access the webmail)

Description: Just ignore this field.

Once you’ve clicked ‘Next’ from the previous step you may come back to a screen that looks the same. Look carefully and there’s actually a new field there called ‘Server’.

Most of the time you’ll want to enter ‘mail.’ followed by your email domain. So for example, my email domain is ‘grassrootsit.com.au’ (the bit of my email address after the @), so I would enter mail.grassrootsit.com.au. Tap ‘Next’.

Some people may see a warning that says “Unable to Verify Certificate”. This usually means that your server is using a self-signed certificate. It’s pretty geeky, and we’re happy to explain what that means, but for now just click “Accept”.

OK, almost there. The settings on this screen are really up to you, but most people would set all three to ‘On’. When you’re happy with your choices, tap ‘Done’ and..well.. you’re done!

So there you go. Amazingly quick and easy. Now on rare occasions we have seen people have trouble with this setup. For those times, here’s a couple of the common reasons.

Typos. So the iPhone keyboard can take a day or two to get used to, so making a typo can be a common mistake. Go back over your settings and just make sure everything has been entered correctly. If it looks fine, cancel the process and start from scratch.

Data Pack. Your phone account will need a data pack on it. More specifically, it will need an iPhone data pack. Normally the telco’s won’t miss you on this one, but it has happened. If nothing else works, call your telco (eg: Telstra, Optus, etc) and confirm that your account is setup for an iPhone.

Happy iPhoning !

How many times have you had to relay an error message on your screen to some tech support person on the other end of a bad phone line? And the thought of retyping that cryptic rubbish into an email makes you shudder? How much easier would it be if you could just copy and paste that error into an email to the helpdesk? Well guess what..you can! While you’re looking at the error message on the screen, just hit Control-C like you normally would to copy any old thing, and then go into your email, and hit Control-V (or the Paste button) to paste the error message. You’ll see the exact text of the error message appear, ready to send to the helpdesk.

This little trick is a Windows thing, so should work in pretty much any application that you need.

Finding it tricky keeping track of a colleague’s appointments? When you use an Exchange account (as a lucky Small Business Server user will do), you can open another person’s default Outlook Calendar – all you need to do to get started is get them to grant you permission to view the calendar.

If the other person whose Calendar you want to open has not granted you permission to view it, Outlook prompts you to ask the person for the permission you need. If you click Yes, a sharing request e-mail message opens automatically. The message requests the person to share his or her Calendar with you and also provides the option to share your default Calendar with him or her. After you access a shared Calendar for the first time, the Calendar is added to the Navigation Pane (side bar) in Outlook. The next time you want to view the shared Calendar, you can just click it in the Navigation Pane.

To begin the process of sharing calendars in Outlook 2007, open your Calendar in Outlook and click on the Open a Shared Calendar link in your Navigation Pane. Type a name in the Name box, or click Name to select a name from the Address Book. Then click OK.

In Outlook 2003, you’ll need to ask the person whose calendar you would like to share to open his/her Calendar in Outlook, and in the Navigation Pane, click on Share My Calendar. They will have the option to allow anyone access to the calendar or just grant access to specific users.

We’ve all had those moments where we print off a document from Excel and find that our spreadsheet annoyingly sits across one and a bit pages, rather than neatly across one page. Rather than trying to rearrange your graphs and tables, there is a quick and easy way of making sure the document fits across one page.
continue

The Print Screen button (generally located above or to the right of the Backspace key) will copy a snapshot of whatever is currently displayed on your monitor to the clipboard. If you press Alt and then Print Screen, this will copy a snapshot of only the top window that is open on your screen. Opening a new document in Paint, image editing program or Microsoft Word and selecting Paste will copy the screenshot there and allow it to be saved. This is particularly handy for emailing us exactly what that error message looks like – saves you having to write it out long hand!

If you are running Office 2003 (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc) and someone sends you an Office document attachment that you can’t seem to open, don’t fret. With many people now having made the move to the Office 2007 suite of programs, you may encounter compatibility issues if you try to open a document created in this newer version of Office. This doesn’t mean you need to run out to buy a copy of Office 2007 – there is an easy solution so that you can open and read the newer versions of Office documents.
continue