BING - The New Search Engine on the Block

Live search is evolving -- and there is FINALLY an alternative to Google's search engine.

Microsoft recently introduced their "next generation" search engine. We were one of the early adopters and beta testers and we became very fond of Bing's capabilities and features.

What we call a "sidebar" is one feature we really like. Hovering over a vertical line to the right of a search result will cause a "snip" of the text of the page in question to be displayed. What's more significant is that this works with both HTML and scripted pages.

We also like the fact that the left side of your search results page contains yet another sidebar -- this time with a history of previous searches.

We strongly suggest that you give Bing a try. It's available at http://bing.com. It's FREE, it's evolving. We believe that though it's got a long way to go from a marketshare point of view that it's got a lot of potential.

An Important But Unfortunate Part Of Our Business

One component of our business is often overlooked; but it's an important part of what we do. It's also unfortunate that this part of the business is necessary -- but when it's needed it is a valuable and important part of our range of services.

That service happens to be our "computer forensic" service -- a service initially deployed at the request of one of our attorney clients. What was initially intended to be little more than a quick check of a computer to see if there was any obviously incriminating information has grown into a full-fledged service offering.

The intent of this service is simple...

• We review the contents of a computer that may contain incriminating information, pornography, illicit or illegal information, inappropriate e-mails, pictures or instant messages.
• We provide this service in a manner that will ensure that information found during the analysis will be allowable in court or significant in mediation
• We provide our client(s) with information we find during our analysis of the computer
• We appear as an expert witness if needed for our client

This service is currently available ONLY to attorneys and ONLY when domestic disputes or divorces are being litigated. We do not plan to extend this service to the "general population" because of legal, technical and ethical issues.

Multiple Time Zones in MS Outlook

I had the situation yesterday where I was working with an individual in a far-away time zone; and I was having trouble calculating the time difference between them and me. Then I found a quick and easy solution to the problem -- to let Microsoft Outlook do the thinking for me.

It's easy as pie to display two time zones in your Outlook calendar. Here's how.

• Click the TOOLS menu
• Click OPTIONS
• Click the CALENDAR OPTIONS button
• Click the TIME ZONES button
• Click SHOW AN ADDITIONAL TIME ZONE
• Enter the desired time zone
• Click OK

That's all there is to it.

June Tips For Using Outlook

I received this from HP earlier today. I have personally been using these tips for quite some time. If you're not, you might want to consider them.

Top tips to keep emails out of your spam bin

Spam surveys state what many of us already know: that the amount of junk email is on the rise. However, exact statistics vary: Internet security vendor McAfee claims 62 trillion spam emails were sent last year, while rival security company Norton says 350 billion went out in 2008.
One thing you can be certain of is that your spam filters are doing a lot of work these days. The trouble is, separating the junk from the genuine isn’t easy. As a result, you have probably experienced the inconvenience of important emails from clients being redirected to your spam bin.

To avoid losing valuable customer orders, or instructions from your boss, you can quickly and easily add your Microsoft® Office Outlook® contacts to a Safe Senders list. This will make sure that messages from these contacts arrive in your inbox.

5 super-speedy steps

To add your Outlook contacts to the Safe Senders list, perform the following steps:

1. On the Outlook Tools menu, click Options.
2. On the Preferences tab, under Email, click Junk Email.
3. Click the Safe Senders or Safe Recipients tab.
4. Click Add.
5. In the Enter an email address or Internet domain name to be added to the list box, enter the name or address you want added, and then click OK.

1-2-3: Rescue email from your spam bin

If you have your Outlook Junk Email Filter set on a high level of protection, some of your genuine messages may go to your Junk Email folder – for example, emails from friends or customers that your filter has not seen before. To be safe, you should check your junk folder daily if you are expecting a crucial email. But to make sure your filter knows not to move mails from certain people to your spam folder, follow these three steps:

1. In Mail, click the Junk Email folder in the Navigation Pane.
2. Right-click any message that you want to mark as not junk.
3. On the shortcut menu, point to Junk Email, and then click Mark as Not Junk.
   

Blue from your boss, red from your friends: color-coding

To help you identify emails from management or certain contacts, Outlook lets you color code emails. This means you won’t miss critical messages from the head office or your loved ones.

To color-code your emails (Outlook 2007):

1. Select an email from someone you want to color code.
2. Press Tools then click Organize. A pane will scroll down.
3. On the left side of that pane choose Using Colors. The name of the sender will now be visible in the above box.
4. Choose the option From. You’ll see the name field automatically adjusting when you select a message from someone else.
5. Choose a color from the dropdown list and press Apply Color.
   

In Outlook 2003, you can do the following to color code your emails:

1. Select and email from someone you want to color code
2. Right click on it, select Create Rule Select Advanced Options
3. Check the box indicating you want to assign a rule to the person who sent you the email (probably the first box),
4. hit next
5. Choose Flag message with a colored flag in the center of the list; to specify the color you wish to use, click on “a colored flag,”select color
6. Click through to finish.

Now each email from this particular person will come into your inbox pre-flagged with the color you specified.

Google Mail and Yahoo! can help too

Outlook has a lot of handy tricks for beating spam. But if you don’t use Outlook, other email clients like Yahoo! and Google Mail also allow you to tag certain emails as junk, while they usually recognize senders loaded in your contacts as non-junk. It is worth investigating the features they offer to help you against spam.

In the battle against the spammers, it pays to be proactive. By using these Outlook features, you can make your inbox more efficient, and improve your chances of receiving the emails that matter most to you.

Microsoft and Outlook are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.

2009 Relay For Life

It felt strange viewing Relay For Life vintage 2009 from the sidelines last Friday night. But what a wonderfully good experience watching faces of survivors, caregivers and just people who care.

I want to say "Thank You" to Debrah and Leigh for spearheading another Relay For Life. But they could not do it alone; so I say "Thank You" to the hundreds of team captains and team members and corporate sponsors who have worked so hard to make this year's event the success it obviously was.

You missed a great evening if you were not there. A year from now there will be another -- likely bigger and better than this year's event; so can we count on you to commit TODAY to making next year's Relay successful?

I've made a little clip of a few of the pictures I made. Hope you enjoy.