NOTE: In 1988, after I had given an all-day, everything-you-need-to-know-about-computers presentation for ICLE, someone said after seeing my course materials, "You ought to publish this stuff!" I began to put together The Law Office Computer Survival Guide, which I intended to sell and keep up to date as a loose-leaf reference service. It never was published, as I set it aside to get "Corporate Update" out the door. This is the beginning of my efforts, in a different format, to do a "brain dump" of information and opinions, and to keep them up to date. The good news is that you won't have to file the pocket parts, and I won't have to ship it to you. The bad news is that I haven't figured out how to charge for it. Stay tuned, and feel free to ask questions, answer questions, or make suggestions. -- Jim Eidelman

Outlook Contacts -- JAE Notes

There are aspects of the Outlook Contacts database and interface that are wonderful, inventive and useful. There are other parts that are enough to make you want to send a letter-bomb to Belleview, Washington. Here are some notes on the parts I like, with some notes on the problems. The detailed discussion of the problems and our solutions are a work in progress that are not yet ready for publication.

Locating a contact:

• Good: If you know the first few letters of the person's name, just type it, and you'll go right to it. Also, if you know the company name or another search category, you can search for it, and it will find all occurances.
• Bad: No global search as Commence has.

Making a phone call:

• Good: Just click on the person, then click on the telephone icon. The system will display a very intuitive dialog box that lets you select the phone number, change configuration, etc., or just click OK to dial the phone. When you click "dial," it pops up a journal entry with the clock running, ready to type in your notes and record of the call.

"Parsing" names and addresses

Importing data.

Sending an email

Automatic journaling (frustration if not in personal folders)

(c) Jim Eidelman 1997

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