The Office Outlook Team Blog runs down how you can use keyboard shortcuts to access the various features of the Ribbon which appear when you’re composing a message in Outlook 2007. The approach (which is shared with other Office 2007 apps) is far from obvious: you need to type Alt-letter to access a particular ribbon tab, then a one or two letter code for a particular section. The abbreviations are often not intuitive (alt-H for Message, anyone?), and this afterthought approach to keyboard shortcuts is perhaps my biggest single objection to the entire Ribbon approach. Note that while the post recommends typing Alt separately to the rest of the shortcut — e.g. Alt then H then A then F to attach a file — you can still use the classic Alt-H together to begin. Doing this probably makes sense given that in other parts of Outlook (like your inbox) that’s the only way to access menus, and who wants to waste time remembering where Alt is used on its own? For more Outlook navigation tips, check our previous post on navigating Outlook panes.
Ribbon Key Tips [Microsoft Office Outlook Team Blog]If you’ve got a MacBook past warranty and are looking for more hard drive space, Seattlite Tim Molter offers a detailed step-by-step guide to a do-it-yourself upgrade with photos. His method is particularly clever because rather than buying a blank drive, Molter just buys an inexpensive USB external drive, which allowed him to both create a fully bootable backup from his original drive and provided an enclosure for his old hard drive—all for less than half the cost of an upgrade from Apple. The old drive makes for a handy complete backup or can be sold on classified ad or auction sites for the equivalent of a cash-back trade-in once cleaned up. The same general idea will work with any laptop with a 2.5″ hard drive (which is most of them), and doesn’t involve any tools more complicated than a small screwdriver. 500GB MacBook Harddrive Upgrade for Under $100 [Obscured Clarity]
Used to be that when you emailed someone five times from Gmail, that recipient automatically got added to your contacts list—but no more. The Official Gmail Blog explains that now message recipients who you haven’t explicitly added to your Contacts list yourself go into a separate “Suggested Contacts” list. Suggested contacts still show up in the To: field’s auto-complete, but still separate “people who you cared enough to edit or add by hand” versus “people you replied to a few times.” The update will be retroactive, too: As part of this change, we’re moving previously auto-added contacts back into Suggested Contacts. Only contacts that you’ve edited, imported or added to a group will remain in My Contacts. This will provide everyone with a clean slate and, we hope, a better point for syncing contacts with mobile devices (for example with Android). We’ll be rolling this change out to everyone over the next few days.
Minor but helpful upgrade. What other updates do you want to see to Gmail’s contacts? Shout ‘em out in the comments. More changes to Gmail contact manager [Official Gmail Blog]
We gave you a hands-on look at Android last week, and now the mobile platform that Google begat is available in all its source-code glory from the Android Open Source Project.
Firefox with the Greasemonkey extension: You’re cruising through your unread items in Google Reader, and suddenly you want to mark all the items AFTER your current one as read, or BEFORE your current one as read—but not all of them. The Mark Until Current As Read Greasemonkey user script can do just that. With it installed, press Ctrl+Y to mark items before the one you’re looking at as read, and Ctrl+I to mark items after as read—a nice feature for power GReader users. The Mark Until Current As Read user script is a free download, works with Firefox and the Greasemonkey extension, and is currently on deck to be included in the Better GReader extension. Thanks, CliffordBadger! Google Reader – Mark Until Current As Read v 1.2 [Userscripts.org]
Windows/Mac/Linux (all platforms with Java): GTD Free, a Java-based desktop app, is one of the most straight-forward implementations of the Getting Things Done organizational system you’ll see, but it also serves as a great introduction for the GTD-curious. Five tabs put your tasks in a sequential flow, and using them helps reinforce GTD’s basic tenets in your brain. Bang out action blurbs in Collect, detail them in Process, file them in already-labelled folders like Actions, Someday/Maybe, and Projects, and mark them off in Execute. It’s definitely not a lightweight, paper-like system, but it’s a fairly clean implementation if you want to try Getting Things Done as it was really intended. GTD Free is a free download, works wherever the Java platform does.
GTD-Free [via FreewareGenius.com]On the heels of Mozilla’s location-aware Geode extension for Firefox, Google announces that Google Gears will get a geolocation functionality for laptop Wi-Fi users, so you can get local news and searches without manually entering your location. [via]
Reader Gorodin writes in:
I recently saw the DIY iPhone-Turned-Alarm-Clock Stand. This inspired me to share my own hack using the black plastic iPhone packaging, two jumbo binder clips, and some double-sided tape. I dremeled out a notch to accommodate my charging cable, but that’s optional. It’s great for watching a show while working in my home office. It also gives the illusion of less clutter than just leaving the iPhone sitting on the desk, taking up space.
Windows only: Free PDF conversion tool Print2PDF isn’t as click-and-go friendly as a tool like doPDF, but it does offer a serious amount of control over the looks, permissions, and security of your PDFs. Like other PDF apps, Print2PDF installs itself as a printer, but after you hit “Print,” you can add watermarks, passwords, change the read/edit/print permissions, add attachments and auto-email, manually change the compression levels, and do much more. Print2PDF also integrates itself directly into Microsoft Word, Excelt, and Internet Explorer, and supports encryption for sensitive documents. It’s probably more than the average home user needs, but office workers may find its options seriously handy. Print2PDF is a free download for Windows systems only. Print2PDF [602 Software via The Download Blog]
