Spotted on LifeHacker: Mark Bird’s Outlook Attachment Reminder.
This Outlook macro will politely remind you to attach a file if it finds the word “attach” in your email and no actual attached file.
I’ve just tested it in Outlook 2003, and it sure does work … and you get to pretend that you’re a programmer for a couple of minutes.
In other news: hands up who knew that there was a Visual Basic Editor shipped with Outlook?
Over the last year or so I’ve found myself answering the same questions time and again by email, or pointing people to the same resources. This is my top tip on dealing with this sort of thing.
The two top questions that folks have asked me have been:
I used to have to write these from scratch, or go hunting through my Sent Items folder to see what I wrote the last time.
But now … now I just create a new Signature (or edit an existing one) in my email client and add the details there.
The signature feature of email clients is the perfect place for storing information that you use and include in your emails time and time again. But it doesn’t have to be restricted to contact details. I now have “signatures stored called
That’s saved me a huge amount of time over the last few months. I just wish I’d thought of it sooner!
Got some more phishing spam this week at work. This time it was supposedly from ACCOUNT CENTER and had the subject UPGRAD YOUR ACCOUNT.
Nice use of British English there.
Here’s what it said:
Dear Email Account Owner,
Wow! A personalised email, then!
This message is from educational messaging center to all our email account owners. We are currently upgrading our data base and e-mail account center.
We are deleting all our email accounts to create more space for new accounts.
Wait, wait, wait!
First of all, I love the name of the administrational unit: “educational messaging center”, and with American spelling of centre too … and not a capital letter in sight.
Their reasoning for asking you to send them your username and password (which is the next bit) is terrific: “we are deleting all our email accounts to create more space for new accounts.”
That doesn’t even make business sense! It’s like a bank saying: “we are clearing out all the money in the bank in order to create more space for new money.”
It finishes off by saying:
Thank you for using st-andrews.ac.ukk!
Warning Code: VX2G99AAJ
I looked up that warning code, it stands for: “This e-mail was sent by phishing, scamming scum”. Good to know.
NOTE: This message is authorize by the st-andrews.ac.uk email account protector unit.Notification message will be send back to you after verifying your account before account could be reset. All right reserve.
Wow! I wish we had an “email account protector unit”, that sounds like a cool place to work. I imagine that they dress up in armour and have a big round table with a hole cut out of the centre in which they place the e-mail server.
SERIOUSLY, if you ever get an e-mail anything like this: DO NOT REPLY.
Instead, if you have any doubt about its authenticity then just forward the e-mail to me, along with your username and password, date of birth, address and …
Only joking, I don’t want to see your spam, I get enough of it myself!
I started watching this a few months back, but have just discovered it again: “Inbox Zero” Google Tech Talk at 43Folders.com.
Follows the Getting Things Done (GTD) / Take Back Your Life (TBYL) method, the video is just short of 60 minutes, but it’s great.
UPDATE: for some reason the short bit between the last two commas went missing when I published. Browser troubles, perhaps — I was using Opera. That will explain David’s comment below.