Spring is Sprung

Spring - a time of renewal and replacements.

I've been planning a mailshot for a while and thinking that the best way to do it was via Outlook. My computer was running very slowly and I had resisted installing Outlook because of that (I used Outlook Express for emails, and it works fine, but it certainly doesn't have the bells and whistles of the "real thing"). I bit the bullet, installed Outlook - and the computer went from slow to comatose.

One of my goals for this year had been to replace the computer. Suddenly it became an "urgent" rather than a "probably necessary before I pull all my hair out". So I did some research and decided on a particular model of Toshiba laptop, with loads of RAM and all the other TLAs* you could possibly want, that PCWorld were offering at a good discount. My nearest branch is Dundee, 25 miles from the office, but I arrived to discover that it was combining with its stable-mate, Curry's, and the Grand Opening was the following day. Therefore there was no stock in the old shop and the stuff in the new one was unavailable.

Having taken time out for this expedition I didn't want to do it all over again the following day, so I trundled another 25 miles to Perth where they had 5 of that particular model in stock. Brilliant! Bought the computer, back to the office to set it up. First mistake: I should have paid PCWorld the £30 they charge to do all your transferring for you. It would have been money well spent, even if I'd had to wait 'til the following day. It took me hours... I was still at it two days later.

Most of it was straightforward, at least - burn stuff to disk, download it the other end. The main problem was how to transfer my address book contacts and emails from Outlook Express on the old machine to Outlook on the new one (with two different operating systems to add to the fun). Online fora provided several possible answers and eventually I managed to get the address book across, but the emails were a no-no. Apparently you have to transfer them before you start receiving any, and I didn't know that until after several new ones had reached the inbox. Ah well!

Now I'm learning my way round Outlook. It's not totally transparent, I have to say. I wanted to create separate groups for various types of contact (personal; businesses I already have dealings with; and prospects of at least two separate sorts). So I tried opening a New Group in the side bar. There it sat, bright and shiny - and quite un-openable. Hmm. OK, try the Business Contact Manager tab on the taskbar; there's a tab in there for Database Tools/Create a New Database, so I tried that. I thought it had worked, but there was no sign of it when I pressed "Connect". [Connect?? To what?] Furthermore, it appeared to have deleted all the contacts in the Business Contacts database I had so carefully moved across from the old computer. Bah! I re-input them, and decided to ask friends for help.

[Of course, it might have saved me a lot of trouble if I'd read the "Learn about Business Contact Manager" page in the same menu as the Database Tools. But - I don't know about you - I'm one of those people who only notice that the info's there when they've tried everything else. Perhaps I shall read it yet...]

However advice from friends suggests not trying to create databases within Outlook anyway. One person suggested using Excel, another Access - both apparently work well, though Access is said to be complicated to learn.

If any reader(s) have any other ideas (or know their way around Outlook in Office 2007 really well and can teach me) I'd be enchanted to hear from you - please leave a comment and then you won't have to find another good deed to do today ;-) Or contact me via my website: http://greatcopy.info. Thanks to anyone who can help; the sooner I get the hang of this thing the better.

*TLA= three letter abbreviation

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