What is Outlook?
For the next few weeks, I am going to look in depth at some programs included in the Microsoft Office. I am going to start this week with Outlook. Outlook is, in my opinion, the program that truly distinguishes Microsoft Office from other similar offerings. It is the program to help organize your life. It offers a great e-mail client, calendar software, address book and to-do list all in one. No other software comes close to offering such a complete organization solution.
The first thing most people think about when they hear Outlook is e-mail. It is a great e-mail program that works with any POP3 or IMAP account (almost all accounts not based on the web) as well as Windows Live Mail. In addition to just checking e-mail, Outlook allows users to create rather complex rules to have Outlook perform certain actions when a certain type of message is received. (more on this in my next entry)
The contact list makes sense to include in an e-mail program since a lot of communication today takes place over e-mail. In addition to providing great sorting and filtering features, Outlook’s biggest feature in contact management is the ability to import and export. This means the files should be useful even if you decide to stop using Outlook.
The final component of Outlook is its Calendar and Tasks features. These also fit well with the e-mail program. Outlook easily handles almost any type of recurring appointment so it doesn’t need to be entered multiple times. It even allows you to send e-mail requests to others to confirm if a meeting time works.
Overall, Outlook is a program many home users would do well to explore. Over the next few posts, I am going to examine these features in more detail. Check back often.
What do think? Have you ever used Outlook? Why or why not? Is Outlook the best organization client available? Do you have other recommendations? I look forward to your comments.