With my taxes done, I'm set in my goals to accomplish the other tasks I need to do before I do any more scrapping stuff (although I'm having withdrawals).
Since the desktop that crashed contained our family calendar, where everyone would input into one place and visit to see where everyone else was, as well as sync to my PDA, the need for a new system for an all laptop family was evident.
Here's what I set up yesterday. I'm going to share a few things I learned. I'm not sure how family's get along without a family calender--especially those with teens!
Back when the boys were younger and into many recreational sports and scouts, and before our time of computers, our family calendar was kept manually and was color coded. Rather than writing each boy's activity with their name by it, each boy had their own pen color. It worked out rather well, but went by the wayside when we developed a family calendar on Outlook.
My first task was to get my PDA to sync with Outlook. To my surprise, what I discovered was that the old Microsoft Active Sync that was used with XP no longer works on Vista. There is a new program called Windows Mobile Device Center.
I was pleasantly surprised at how easy the new program is to manage compared to the older one. It is certainly a great improvement in software by Microsoft. It is much more user friendly.
I have known that Google calendar allowed sharing between people/accounts, as well as syncing with Outlook, but since we all have Yahoo e-mails and none of us really use Google services too much (except Blogger), I set out to see what Yahoo had available.
I found that it too, just like Google Calendar, has available software to download to sync with Outlook. However, there was a strong warning not to use it with any other sync software installed, except "Palm" sync software. I searched the internet and could not find any information as to whether or not Windows Mobile Device Center was compatible with Yahoo Sync or not.
I decided to give it a shot and test it. When installing Yahoo Sync, I did choose the setting to manually start the syncing, rather than to have it do it automatically. It just seems common since not to allow it to start running when I have my PDA syncing.
After quite a bit of testing, I am happy to report I have had no problem with the new system! The two programs seem to be working together just fine.
The sharing of Yahoo Calendar was easy to set up and I feel no need to give you instruction details. Now, the boys can sit down at their laptops and edit my calendar by adding their work schedule and whatnot. It will download to my Outlook through Yahoo Sync and then download to my PDA through the Windows Mobile Device Center.
In addition, everyone can see the family calendar from any computer, including editing it.
I realized that my Outlook had another serious problem. Back in 2006 or 2007 when I had computer problems and had to restore a back-up of Outlook, I somehow accidentally imported duplicates. I have never been able to spend the time deleting them all, although I have tried.
I decided to search the internet to see if there was a program that deleted duplicates within Outlook. There are many out there and I downloaded and tried quite a few. I could not find a totally free one that worked much at all. I narrowed it down to two programs. I read many reviews at various sites, but actually found a bit of security in the recommendations of the Office Marketplace recommendations.
Deduper seemed to be promising, although a bit costly at $29.95. It had some big pluses in that it actually shares in a window both the original and the duplicate message as it searches, also allowing you to read the messages in a reading pane to choose individual messages to uncheck them should the program make a mistake. However, after letting the program run for hours, I became frustrated at how slow it was. I never did get to delete my trial message allotment. I found that even if I selected only one folder, it would search all of the folders. It was quite frustrating and I was getting impatient.
So, although the reviews were not as good for Anti-Dupe, at the cost of $14.95, I was willing to give it a try. The down side of this program is that you do not get to review the files before they are deleted. However, the program does move the files into the Outlook deleted folder, so they are easily reviewed and restored by dragging them back to the original folder should there be a problem.
I found the program to work very quickly and it did choose the duplicates well. Each search took only a few seconds or minutes per folder, depending on folder size. Another downside is that it only runs on one folder at a time and with multiple folders, starting the program over and over was a bit cumbersome. I decided, however, that the "minuses" of the program vs. the lower cost, the quickness, and my needs balanced out okay.
I know that my Outlook also sometimes creates duplicates when it begins to download, but then is interrupted before it can delete them off of the server. This is yet another reason to run this program. I did find and clean up my inbox of many duplicate e-mail messages also.
Now I only have one more large task to set up (and many mini ones I'll do as they come along) before I can get back to scrapping and recording videos for my readers. I need to get a new back-ups system running. I know what I need to do, but it is just going to be time consuming. With Survivor premiering tonight, I hope I can find the time to get it set up!
However, I thought I would share one of the freebies again and encourage you to use it in the Use It! Challenge. Join us in the forums here.
I was so surprised to note the url! Look at the address! I've got my own special website!
I do not know how long these are good, but you can 
The flash is so well done! The movements and the words just spread warm fuzzies like a mountain fire!
Ha ha ha! The text is all personalized with your name! Oh, first my own url and now it is talking directly at me!
Then the setup allows three choices to either "synchronize", "echo," or "contribute." If there is any hesitancy in what synchronize might do between two folders, possibly deleting files, then I would recommend always adding your new files to one folder and then always contributing them to the other folder. This setting never deletes files.
At the bottom of the main search page you will see some hashtags that are popular at the moment. Click on them to join in on the conversation of what others are chatting about.
When you use the "@" symbol in your post, that person will be able to see that you have posted about them. Oh, the warm fuzzies of link love begin! Want someone to feel good? Just let them see you talking about them! As you can see, Kathy saw my post and thanked me for retweeting her!
