By Joe Puckett, director of recruiting and training at PC Helps

The Rave:
Ever since digital technology escaped its white-coated keepers in the computer lab it has become relentlessly more and more personal. The BYOD trend is a logical phase in the development of the personalization of digital technology. Users no longer want to be restricted to “your” hardware; they want to use the hardware they choose. It is natural that the companies creating those devices would deliver what people want.

Part 4 in the series:
Are We There Yet?

One result of this is that iOS devices have been very good at allowing individuals to standardize multiple devices to their own preferences. What they have not been good at is supporting standardization to an organization’s preferences. One new feature in iOS 5 makes significant strides towards organizational standardization — it supports downloading and installing multiple applications at one time. This is convenient for individuals, but also a great time saver for those provisioning multiple standardized devices.

The Rant:
Simultaneous download and installation is a start, but nowhere close to where enterprises need to be. Tools for managing groups of devices are still lacking. This is a big enough issue that third-party vendors have developed such tools. Research In Motion recently announced that the newest version of BlackBerry Enterprise Server would include tools for managing a variety of mobile devices, including iOS devices.

The Conclusion:
Apple could open many doors to its devices in the corporate world if it offered much-needed centralized management tools. With iOS 5, Apple moves a little bit in that direction, but it isn’t there yet.

***

Read Part 1: iOS 5 is Like Going to the Gym — No Pain, No Gain.

Read Part 2: iOS 5 Lets You Cut the Cord, Maybe.

Read Part 3: Separate Checks, Please.

About the author: Joe Puckett is PC Helps’ director of recruiting and training. He grooms the talent here, and creates our internal and client-facing corporate training courses. A 15-year PC Helps veteran, Puckett is the one to ask if you ever have a software question.

This week, PC Helps Blog is featuring Puckett’s series of “iOS 5 Rants & Raves” geared to IT leaders and professionals. He has been researching and testing the new operating system as part of his ongoing efforts to build new iPad training modules for PC Helps productivity consultants.

The BlackBerry 850

How does a company fall from grace so quickly?

Jonathan S. Geller of Boy Genius Report (www.bgr.com) has an idea. In a recent article titled “Inside RIM: An exclusive look at the rise and fall of the company that made smartphones smart,” Geller takes a look at RIM’s history, including its personas and politics.

It’s an interesting inside look at how the iconic company evolved — and didn’t evolve when it missed product features and device trends like adding MP3 players and cameras to its phones.

Read the full article here.

If IT continues to let fear get in the way of change, it will face obstacles.

But It Looks Cool

As early as February of this year, the CBS Interactive Business Network (BNET.com) posed the question of whether iPads would be next in the bring-your-own-technology-to-work trend. The iPad was about a month away from release to the US market.

In the piece “iPads Next? Office Workers Bring Own Technology to Work,” writer Sean Silverthorne discusses a yet-to-be published book by Forrester Research’s Ted Schadler and Josh Bernoff that looks at the phenomena of “self-provisioning” and “technology populism.” In the book, which is set to be called “Groundswell Heroes,” Schadler and Bernoff trace the history of bring-your-own-tech trends and offer opinions about why they took off in business, despite IT’s resistance.

Although Silverthorne takes issue with the iPad as a legitimate business tool (“I don’t see how a device that lacks Office, has no ability to multitask and can’t run Flash becomes a serious productivity tool,” he writes), he nevertheless offers reasons why he thinks mobile professionals will embrace it:

• Messaging and collaboration.
• Full Web experience on a big screen.
• Business media.
• Full-size document and presentation tools.
• The beginnings of anytime-anyplace secure wireless connectivity.
• It looks cool.

Read Silverthorne’s article here.

Read Schadler and Bernoff’s blog here.

An Era of Transformative Change

In a piece published on Sept. 1, Fortune magazine makes a salient point: If IT continues to let fear get in the way of change, it will face two huge obstacles: “First, the consumerization of IT means that new innovations hit the consumer sphere first before entering the enterprise. Second is the emergence of mobile-centric enterprises that are adopting rather than preventing these new ways of working.”

In “Bring Your Own Device to Work is Finally Here,” writer Gary Kovacs scolds companies that resist change. He writes: “Embracing a ‘bring your own’ policy can help accelerate the process of IT transforming itself from ‘The Cost Center That Says No’ to ‘The Business Partner That Helps Drive New Revenue.’”

Read the piece here.

Bye Bye BlackBerry?

On Sept. 10, Bloomberg News reported that JP Morgan, the second-largest bank in the U.S., may soon let employees use iPhones for corporate e-mail. JP Morgan will be running security tests and will make a final decision late this year, the article stated.

Interestingly, the bank will not be purchasing iPhones or Android phones for its workers as it did with BlackBerrys; rather, employees will purchase the new devices themselves.

Expect this trend to grow.

Read the piece here.

With every new gadget that hits the market, it becomes increasingly clear that your IT department needs a plan of action for handling mobile devices.

In an article published on October 7 in InfoWorld.com, Galen Gruman writes that the aforementioned platforms are quickly gaining share in business, according to a report published by the enterprise mobility company Good Technology.

According to Good, less than two months after its late June launch, the Apple iPhone 4 became the most frequently activated device among Good’s enterprise customers. Additionally, the Apple iPad climbed into the top five and Android continued to grow rapidly as more new devices come to market, with the Droid X by Motorola ranked as the most frequently activated Android device in September.

With every new gadget that hits the market, it becomes increasingly clear that your IT department needs a plan of action for handling mobile devices. If you don’t already have one in place, now is the time to formulate it. Need a little more convincing? Here are three reasons to keep your mobile landscape in check:

1.    Help desk headaches vs. deployment training

If security and protecting your IT infrastructure from random downloads, viruses and outside software are concerns, shouldn’t they run parallel with end-users and their mobile devices? Almost half of all mobile devices purchased in the United States are bought by individuals rather than corporations and millions of those devices are brought into the workplace for use. Requiring users to take basic training prior to using their device within your IT infrastructure can eliminate help desk headaches and boost productivity for the user.

2.    Downtime vs. support

Downtime is of paramount concern when it comes to mobile device use in the enterprise. Because the majority of users are high-profile employees, such as senior and middle managers, the downtime has greater effect on an organization’s bottom line. Additionally, mobile devices are often relied upon in time-sensitive situations. As a result, providing users with an immediate and knowledgeable outlet for support makes sense from an investment, efficiency and business-critical standpoint.

3.    Downtime vs. continued training and support

Lack of resources for mobile device support and training contributes to increased downtime, but so does a misguided allocation of resources. The fact that your help desk isn’t receiving a steady stream of mobile support calls doesn’t mean issues and downtime don’t exist. It usually means just the opposite — that mobile device users are taking matters into their own hands in the following ways:
•    Seeking peer support, which increases downtime costs as you now have multiple employees trying to sync one employee’s calendar to his mobile.
•    Spending too much time with self-help menus and online resources, which commonly results in no solution or a partial solution.
•    Finding no solution or a “Band-Aid” solution, in which the end-user continues to use his mobile device without ever utilizing the tools, features or shortcuts that can increase productivity. (Jen Sweeney)

For Outlook 

2007′s Improved Out of Office Assistant

The Out of Office Assistant has changed significantly in Outlook 2007. If you click on the tools menu and select Out of Office Assistant, you will see a dialog box that is somewhat different from previous versions. Now, when you select the option to “Send Out of Office Replies,” you can click the check box that says “Only send during this time range.” Checking this box activates boxes to set the start and end dates and specify times during which you need replies sent. Kind of handy.

Four ways to keep on top of your e-mail while you’re on vacation.

Another change to this feature is two tabs, one for handling replies to be sent “Inside My Organization” and the other for handling replies to be sent “Outside My Organization.” In earlier versions of Outlook, replies were not sent to external contacts at all.

In order to enable the “Outside My Organization” reply, click on the tab and enable “auto-reply to people outside my organization” by placing a check in the box. Once you enable this option, you can select a radio button indicating whether the reply should be sent to “my contacts only” or “anyone outside my organization.” Handy, indeed. (Melissa Adams)

Autoreply with Custom Subject Line
Sometimes you need to mix it up and modify the autoreply subject. Follow these steps:

1. In the Out of Office Assistant dialog, click the Add Rule button.
2. For the reply to go to “all messages that arrive,” leave all the criteria fields blank.
3. Check the “Reply with” box and click Template.
4. Specify the subject AND the body of the message in the email form that opens. Leave the other fields blank, save and close the form.

Note: Be sure to remove the text from the “Autoreply only once…” box where you would normally specify your Out of Office message. If you don’t, senders will get both the custom subject response and the standard response. (Brian Choplick)

For the BlackBerry

Filter Incoming Mail
Say, for example, you receive a daily report that you will not read or deal with on your phone and would prefer to just handle it back at the office. Can you create a filter for that?
Of course you can. Here’s how:

1. Click on the Messages icon to open your messages, then click the trackwheel or Menu button and select Options.
2. Select Email Filters.
3. Click your trackwheel or Menu button, select New and then type a filter name.
4. You have several fields you can filter on: From; Sent To; Subject; Message; Sent directly to me; CC to me; BCC to me; Importance; Sensitivity. You can choose more than one option here. For example, to take care of your daily report problem, create the following filter:From: coworker@domain.com
   Subject: Daily Report
   Action: Do not forwardThis will affect any emails from colleagues with “daily report” in the subject.
5. Click your trackwheel or Menu button and save the filter. By default, it is enabled and will function immediately with any new incoming messages.

If you want to temporarily allow filtered messages, simply click on the filter name to uncheck in the filter list. Take note, however, that filtering works only if your BlackBerry is activated on a BlackBerry Enterprise Server; to access filters with BlackBerry Internet Service you must check with your wireless carrier.

High-Priority E-Mail Notifications
You want to make sure you know when high-priority e-mails come in, and the standard notification doesn’t quite command your attention. To set up special notices, start at the home screen, go to Profiles, then Advanced. Here you can create a new profile or modify your current one. Set the desired notification for Level 1 Messages and save. Note: High-priority message notices will work even if you have disabled those for other types of messages. (Nkoli Ukpabi)

Have any tips for handling e-mail while you’re away? Send them my way: jen.darr@pchelps.com.

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Frozen Treat: Three tips on resetting your smart phone.

How to Thaw a Frozen BlackBerry (all versions)

The first step to take if your BlackBerry is misbehaving is to reset it. Doing this will clear the internal memory and solve many issues. There are three ways to reset a BlackBerry: soft, double-soft, and hard.

Soft Reset
Press ALT+RIGHT SHIFT(CAP)+DELETE to perform a soft reset.

Use this reset method when you want to stop all applications on a BlackBerry while leaving the device powered on.

Double-Soft Reset
Start by performing a soft reset (ALT+RIGHT SHIFT(CAP)+DELETE). The screen will turn off. When it turns back on, press ALT+RIGHT SHIFT(CAP)+DELETE again. You should then see another blank screen, followed by an hourglass.

Performing a double-soft reset stops all applications on the BlackBerry and is nearly the equivalent of a hard reset. Timing is the key to performing this manuever. This is something to try if you are having difficulty removing the battery to perform a hard reset.

Hard Reset
Starting with the device powered ON, remove the battery for 30-60 seconds. After you put the battery back in, the device will reboot. This usually takes between one and three minutes.

NOTE: The BlackBerry Pearl, Curve and Storm only have the ability to perform a hard reset. However, there are third-party applications that you can download that provide the ability to perform a soft reset. (by Joel Reeves)

How to Thaw a Frozen Windows Mobile Device (Pocket PC Edition 5, 6)

Resets on Windows Mobile devices can be can be classified into two types: hard and soft.

Soft Reset
With this type of reset, memory stays intact, so it is fairly harmless to your device. Two benefits of a soft reset are that it unfreezes a slow or non-responsive device, and it closes all running applications. Most Windows Mobile phones have a “soft reset” button in a hole that you can press to reset the device. The location varies, so consult your device’s manual to find the button on your particular phone.

Hard Reset
This type of reset is a bit more extreme and should be used only if you have backed up your device or if you are intentionally trying to erase all data. Just like the soft reset, the method to hard reset your device will vary by model. Consult your user manual for further details. (by PC Helps Staff)

Backing up Your BlackBerry, Just In Case

Before making any significant configuration changes, you will want to make sure that all the data on your device is backed up. In the event of any problems, this will ensure that the data can be restored.

1. Connect your BlackBerry to your computer with a USB cable.
2. Open Desktop Manager and double-click Backup and Restore.
3. Select Backup to perform a full backup, or select Advanced to perform a backup of specific databases.
4. If you are using the Advanced options, select each database you want to back up, and then click the arrow to move it to the list of things to back up.
5. Select a location and file name for the backup data.
6. Click Save.

If you want to perform a periodic automatic backup of your device’s data, you can do that, too:

1. Connect your BlackBerry to your computer with a USB cable.
2. Open Desktop Manager.
3. Double-click Backup and Restore.
4. In the Configuration section, select Options.
5. Check the option “Back up my device automatically every X days.”
6. Type your desired interval in the field.
7. Choose whether you want to back up all device data, or exclude messages and synched data.
8. Click OK.

Note that the backup can occur only when your BlackBerry is connected to the computer, not wirelessly. (by Joel Reeves)

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Choosing the right migration partner could mean the difference between the championship or an epic loss.

As with any major investment, IT leaders are responsible for proving the value behind the purchase — no matter the economic climate. In an economic dip like the one we are riding out now, the focus on ROI is doubled.

Most IT leaders realize that a Windows 7 & Office 2007 deployment requires coordination, planning and oversight, and they know which areas need to be assessed and addressed. As a result, most bring in a third party for migration assistance.

Champion your migration and prove ROI with these eight service practices:

1. First-Level Analyst Certification: Providing certified computer consultants (Microsoft Office 2007 and Windows 7 launch partners) results in higher first-call resolution rates based on their core competencies. Information workers are less likely to be placed on hold or passed through a tiered-level support structure. Applying a simple analogy, it is probable that the golfer playing five to six times a week will outperform someone who hits the links a few Sundays a month.
2. Domestic vs. Offshore Staff: The ribbon and overall look of the Office 2007 interface compared to previous versions will test IT staff and information workers. Adding potential language barriers will no doubt raise the challenges.
3. Maintain 24-7 and After-Hours Coverage: Forgo skeleton crews or lower-level support during off-hours and deliver constant, world-class Office 2007 and Windows 7 support and training outlets throughout the entirety of deployment. Many organizations employ staff globally or remotely, in addition to a nine-to-five crew. Don’t penalize employees for working in a different time zone or after hours by providing less-than-stellar service.
4. Deliver Advanced Level Office 2007 & Windows 7 Support: As IT leaders begin to see ROI during the early phases of the migration, information workers will have begun navigating their way around the ribbon and will begin finding additional and more advanced time-saving features. Support avenues should mirror these advanced-level requests and should not be treated with any less urgency than basic-level requests made during the initial migration phase. Avoid tier-structured support models to keep service levels high and reduce worker frustration and downtime.
5. Number of Software and Mobile Device Applications Supported: Requiring a migration partner that is familiar with applications and mobile devices outside the Office suite can be critical to the complexity of Office 2007 calls. Based on statistics collected over the past 18 months, many information workers begin their support requests by referring to what they could do in previous versions and want to see those same steps applied to this new version.* Additionally, Office 2007 and Windows 7 is just as often expected to work in correlation with other applications including BlackBerry and Windows Mobile.
6. Training: Instruction before, during and after a migration is a key element in measuring ROI. Everyone learns at a different pace, so having a multitude of training options is best, i.e., self-service, on-demand, web-based, individual and customized. Being able to identify and deliver targeted training needs, solution-based metrics and measurable productivity gains can justify several portions of an Office 2007 and Windows 7 investment.
7. Planning and Education: Many IT leaders admittedly lack the knowledge that encompasses an Office 2007 and Windows 7 migration assurance plan, hence the reach and popularity of migration partners. With this support and training investment and other day-to-day infrastructure responsibilities IT leaders are tasked with, a migration partner should be expected to deliver a simple, successful solution. Anticipated migration assurance plans should include a readiness checklist, a project and deployment timeline, an information worker education awareness campaign, and excellent support and training — all of which can be easily integrated into the existing IT infrastructure.
8. Call Metrics: Downtime and productivity are key factors in proving ROI for any software or IT-related investment. The question to ask is: If IT leaders commit to purchasing new or updated hardware, servers, software, etc., how will the investment affect business units and add value to the organization’s bottom line? Downtime and productivity levels are two areas that easily can be quantified. With little effort, simple call statistics like response time, abandonment rate, hold times, and average first-call overall resolution percentages can be measured and delivered.

*Knowledge workers at 10 Fortune 1000 organizations (clients of PC Helps) were surveyed November 2008 through April 2009, and were asked to quantify the amount of time they would have spent resolving issues such as importing data into a file from another source in Access 2007, tracking changes in a Word 2007 document, repairing a damaged Excel 2007 file, and hundreds of other Office 2007-related software questions without the services of PC Helps Support, LLC.

MORE INFO: March Migration Madness — click here for a top-seeded team and strategic game plan | PC Helps Info Center | Contact PC Helps

“The Ribbon” almost became a profanity in 2009. It’s central to the Office redesign, and it has rendered even seasoned Office users lost and confused.

Are we “efficiency experts”? We think so. Are we “leisure enablers”? Yes, we are. Are we “ROI generators”? Precisely.

Here’s a breakdown:

1. Mobile Device Support

I, personally, cannot imagine a world without on-the-go access to e-mail, documents, maps and every other feature my mobile device affords me. And, I suspect, most corporate workers would agree.

And smart phones will only become more central to how we work. According to a 2009 study, mobile use for business will double from 2008 to 2011 and the variety of devices being used will increase. Problem is, IT departments will continue to be ill-equipped to handle the support needs.

A lack of support naturally leads to downtime, and, because the majority of users are higher-profile employees such as senior and middle managers, the downtime will have a greater effect on an organization’s bottom line.

That’s where we come in. Companies hire us to provide 24-7 expert mobile device support – from BlackBerry and Palm to iPhone and Windows Mobile. Downtime is eliminated; productivity is elevated.

2. Office 2007 & Migrations

“The Ribbon” almost became a profanity in 2009. It’s central to the Office redesign, and it has rendered even seasoned Office users lost and confused.

Many companies had already committed to a migration before the economic downturn, and the inevitable learning curve promised grief. Factor in the dismal financial climate and the overwhelming pressure to pull off a successful migration, and you have full-on agita.

That’s where we come in.

Companies hire us to be there, sometimes 24-7, during the all phases of a migration to Office 2007. Our Microsoft-certified consultants handle the surge in calls early on in a migration, and continue throughout all phases.

3. General How-To

This is our foundation. You need help with a VLOOKUP or pivot table? Call us. You have a thousand-recipient mail merge to complete and keep getting errors? We can help.

Our consultants rarely come across a question that hasn’t been asked before. Experience and stats prove that most users have problems with the same general areas of an application. And although modifying font and line spacing in a document isn’t excessively time-consuming, when you add up the minutes it takes to make those types of changes to every document created, and scale that across a company with 3,500 PC users, the productivity loss can be substantial.

Back to our definition. I’d say this: We enable you to go to more of your kids’ soccer games. We help your company earn its return on investment. We help you do more with less, to work efficiently, to get things done.

MORE INFO IN: Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps

How to Create an AutoText Entry (Word 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007)

By David McQueary

Retyping long strings of text over and over can become tedious.

Say you are creating a Word document for your company, and you have to use the firm’s 30-character name countless times throughout. Retyping long strings of text over and over can become tedious. Use AutoText instead; it makes document creation much faster and much less repetitive.

Word 2000, 2002, 2003

1. Click on the Insert menu and select AutoText.
2. In AutoText you can create your own entry. Once you enter the company name click the Add button on the right.
3. Click OK.

Word 2007

1. Type the text in a blank document or highlight existing text in any document.
2. Click on the Insert tab, click on the Quick Parts drop-down arrow, and choose Save Selection to Quick Parts Gallery.

Now when you start typing, after the first three letters you can press tab/return and it will fill in the rest of the name automatically for you.

How to Use AutoText on a BlackBerry

By Joel Reeves

One of the ways you can make typing quicker on your BlackBerry is by using a feature called AutoText. All BlackBerrys come with a set of AutoText entries for commonly misspelled words, words with apostrophes, and words that require letters to be in a certain case.

To access the AutoText list on a BlackBerry, go to Options | AutoText. On this screen, you will see the predefined AutoText entries.

To add your own AutoText from this screen just display the menu and choose New. In the “Replace” section you would enter what phrase you would want to input on the device (i.e. TY). In the “With” section you would enter what words/phrase you want to be replaced with (i.e. Thank You).

With the “Using” field you will have two choices: Specified Case and SmartCase. The differences are as follows:

SmartCase – You let AutoText determine the capitalization based on how it is used in a sentence (e.g., “ty” would replace “thank you” in the middle of a sentence, and “Thank you” when used in the beginning of a sentence).

Specified Case – You want AutoText to replace your phrase with how you entered it when creating the AutoText entry (e.g., “ucla” will always return “UCLA”).

After you are done creating your entry, display the menu and choose Save.

How to Have Your Device Suggest Words When You Type
(Windows Mobile 5, 6)

By Edwin Soto

Typing large amounts of text on a handheld device can be a real drag. To speed up this task, you can have your device suggest words based on what you are already typing. Follow these steps:

1. Click Start, go to Settings, select the Personal Tab, and then choose Input.
2. On the Word Completion Tab, place a check in the “Suggest Word When Entering Text” option.
3. In the “Suggest after entering letters” drop-down list, you can choose from one to seven letters.
4. In the “Suggest Words” drop-down list, you can choose from one to four words.
5. Check the “Replace Text As You Type” option if you want it to automatically correct common misspellings. (This option is called “Enable Auto Correct” on Windows Mobile 6 Devices.)
6. Click OK to accept your changes.

Now when you enter text into your device, you will have a list of choices to speed the process.

Have any priceless productivity tips to share? Send us an e-mail or post a comment.

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Outlook: Activating the Out of Office Assistant (versions 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007)

By Mary Hazel McDermott

Top tips to get you ready for your yuletide break.

Before you leave on vacation or even a long weekend, it is a good idea to set up an Out of Office message. This allows Outlook to reply automatically to each person that sends you a message when you are not there. Outlook replies only once to each person to avoid creating a large volume of messages.

Turning on the out of office message:

1. Click on the Tools menu and click on Out of Office Assistant. (If you do not see Out of Office Assistant, the option may be disabled; call the help desk for assistance.)
2. Select “I Am Currently Out Of The Office.”
3. Set up your AutoReply message.
4. Click OK.

Turning off the out of office message:

1. Click on the Tools menu and click on Out of Office Assistant. (If you do not see Out of Office Assistant, the option may be disabled; call the help desk for assistance.)
2. Select I Am Currently In The Office.
3. Click OK.

In Outlook 2007, depending on your mail server setup, you may see additional options for sending Out of Office auto-replies only during a specified date range, and for setting different auto-replies for messages received from addresses outside of your organization.

Lotus Notes: Activating the Out of Office Assistant (versions 6, 6.5, 7, 8, 8.5)

By Ronnie Merritt and John Grandinetti

Letting others know you are out of the office for a period of time can make it easier for them to get their work done. This tip will show you how to set up an Out of Office message in Lotus Notes — which will, in turn, make you a better colleague.

Notes 6, 6.5, 7

1. Open Your Mailbox — make sure you are on the server copy if you have a local replica.
2. Click on the Actions menu, select Tools, and choose Out of Office.
3. On the Dates tab, set the dates you are leaving and returning.
4. On the Out of Office Message tab, you can customize your message by changing the default text that appears inside the frames.
5. The Special Messages tab can be used for sending customized e-mails to specific people. To use this feature, enter the desired recipient(s) in the To field on this tab and type your custom message in the frame below.
6. The Exceptions tab may be used to set Notes to not reply to certain senders.
7. Once you have set all desired options, click Enable at the bottom of the dialog box.

Notes 8, 8.5

1. At the top of your message list, click the More button, then select Out of Office.
2. Enter the day you are leaving and the day you will be back in the office. You may also have a checkbox called “Specify Hours,” which enables you to choose the time of day you are leaving and when you will return. (This feature may not be available depending on how Notes is set up on your server.)
3. Below those fields, you will see three tabs. Click the first tab, Standard Notification. There you will enter the subject of the Out of Office message you want to send to people.
4. Below that is a checkbox called Append return date to subject; checking this will add your return date to the subject line.
5. Next, click in the Additional body text field and add any text you want to appear in the message body.
6. On the other two tabs, you can create exceptions for when you do not want to send your standard Out of Office message.
7. On the Alternate Notification tab, create an alternate subject and body, and enter the addresses or domains that you want to receive the alternate message.
8. On the Exclusions tab, enter the conditions under which you do not want to send any Out of Office message — such as when the received messages have a particular subject or sender, when the message is sent to a particular group, or when the message comes from an Internet address.
9. When you are done, click Enable and Close to turn on the Out of Office notifications.

How to Use a BlackBerry to Set the Out of Office Message (BlackBerry, all versions)

By Joel Reeves

If you have left the office already and forgot to set your away message, there is no reason to worry. Using these steps, you can turn on the Out of Office message while you are traveling.

1. From the Home screen, go into Messages, display the menu, and choose Options.
2. Choose E-mail Settings.
3. Scroll down to the Use Out of Office Reply section and change the setting from No to Yes.
4. Type the text you want for your Out of Office message.
5. Display the menu and choose Save.

To turn off the Out of Office message, follow these same steps, and change the Out of Office setting back to No.

BlackBerry: Handling mail attachments remotely (BlackBerry, all versions)

If you are using a BlackBerry with OS 4.5 and higher, you have the ability to open/edit attachments using a program called Documents To Go. If you receive an attachment and choose to open it, you will be presented with two choices — “View” or “Edit with Documents To Go.” If you choose the former, the attachment will be viewed using the built-in BlackBerry Attachment program. If you choose the latter, the attachment will be opened using Documents To Go, which enables you to do basic editing of the attachment (editing and selecting text, cut/copy/paste, etc). This program will also maintain many of the formatting features as if you were looking at the attachment on a full-size computer.

Outlook: How to Assign Tasks to Others (versions 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007)

By Mary Hazel McDermott

When you take time off, there are certain things in the office that still have to be done. You may have already created a task to remind you to do them, or you may be so used to doing them that you do not need a reminder. But someone else filling in for you will not have the same routine and will appreciate the reminder.

Creating a task can provide several benefits, including sending a reminder to the person it is assigned to, creating a record of who it is assigned to, and providing confirmation when the task is complete. There are two methods in our tip; the first is about assigning an existing task, and the second starts with creating the task.

To assign an existing task to a colleague:

1. Click on the Go menu (Outlook 2000 and 2002: click on the View menu and select Go To), and choose Tasks.
2. Right-click the task to be assigned to someone else.
3. Choose Assign Task from the shortcut menu.
4. Enter the recipient’s e-mail address in the To field.
5. Click the Send button.

To assign a new task to a coworker:

1. Click on the File menu, select New, and click Task.
2. Click the Assign Task button on the Standard toolbar (Outlook 2007: The Assign Task button is on the Task tab of the Ribbon, in the Manage Task group).
3. Enter the recipient’s e-mail address in the To field.
4. Type a short description for the task in the Subject field.
5. Select the start date and due date for the task.
6. Set the status, priority, and completed percentage for the task.
7. Select “Keep an updated copy of this task on my task list” to save a copy of the updated task.
8. Select “Send me a status report when this task is complete” to have Outlook notify you when the recipient marks the task as completed.
9. Type a message or details for the task in the message body.
10. Click Send.

A reminder is automatically created for the task and pops up on the due date. Now you know that the vital tasks you are leaving behind will be taken care of while you are gone.

Have any out-of-office horror or success stories? E-mail them to us. Happy holidays.

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