Adam Cogan

Help me use Office’s Quick Access Toolbar – Make our software learn

By Adam Cogan in Word September 27, 2009 0 Comment

I don’t see users (aka knowledge workers) use the Quick Access Toolbar… I don’t even see advanced users like developers use it.

I think it would be great to have it automatically learn how we use the application and put shortcut commands there.

Then encourage me to use the shortcut commands, by having it give a visual indication (eg. flash) when I use the normal slow menu.

Figure: It would be great to see the Quick Access Toolbar grow from this…

Figure: To this… automatically

PS: I would also like to see it in VS.NET

Outlook 2010 – Help me fix this annoying behaviour of “Check Names” (aka Control + K)

By Adam Cogan in Outlook September 16, 2009 0 Comment

If I type “Brian”

Figure: Then click “Check Names”

It will change to “Brian Norton”
Instead of giving me a choice of “Brian Norton” and “Brian Noyes”

Figure: The reason is it only looks in the “Global Address List”

Figure: I want it to also look in the “Contacts” Address Book too.

PS: My iPhone uses the same data, but works as I expect.

Summary points

It should work out of the box (BTW it shows both “Brian’s” out of the box, for my iPhone).
This option, should be more discoverable.

Suggestion for the Outlook Team

Figure: Change the “Check Names” button to this style

Figure: Make the order more discoverable by adding “Change Order” under “Check Names” button that would take you to
Address book

Figure: Address Book

Calendar – Help me Print my Monthly Calendar without certain appointments showing

By Adam Cogan in Outlook September 11, 2009 0 Comment

Figure: There should be a way of setting some appointments to low importance (eg. Daily Standup) and not printing it

Figure: What we need is 2 more checkboxes under this one

[x] Don’t print anything for ‘Private’ appointments
[x] Don’t print anything for ‘Low Importance’ appointments

Help me undo a hotel broadband inflicted Redirect

By Adam Cogan in Internet Explorer August 19, 2009 0 Comment

I am travelling in (say) NZ and accessing the Net through the Hotel’s broadband access system. If I have to reboot I save all my current open tabs when I close down Internet Explorer.

After I reboot and reopen IE every page is redirected to the hotel broadband login homepage. Aaaaaaaaaahhhh… Not happy. I won’t be able to remember and I am not going through all my history for the last week.

Figure: All pages have been redirect to hotel page

Help me setup Outlook search on Windows Server 2008 R2

By Adam Cogan in Outlook August 16, 2009 0 Comment

It is not that uncommon to configure Outlook on a server.

Figure: I think the Outlook team can do better than this…. as a minimum a web page with all the download links

There are 2 options to fix this:

Command line: ServerManagerCmd -i FS-Search-Service or
Server Manager > Roles > Add Roles > File Services > Windows Search Service

Give a drill through option for Categories

By Adam Cogan in Outlook August 14, 2009 0 Comment

There should be a right click option for opening all SharePoint items.

Figure: Add a right click option “Open All ‘SharePoint’ (12 items)”

Figure: The drill-though menu would open like this

Calendar – Missing an edit button

By Adam Cogan in Outlook August 11, 2009 0 Comment

We need an ‘Edit’ button.

Figure: When someone else adds an item to your calendar (like a PA), you will see this email. There should be an ‘Edit’ button

Would love to run SQL queries against my inbox

By Adam Cogan in Outlook July 16, 2009 0 Comment

Gmail allows me to take my email offline and run standard SQL queries against it Not just email…. Contacts, Calendar and Tasks.

I wish I could do that with Outlook.

Figure: Google Gears allows storing data locally in a fully-searchable database

When Repairing Corrupt Data files you need more info

By Adam Cogan in Outlook June 16, 2009 0 Comment

When you are a damaged PST or OST you get this.

Please give me a % complete (and any other info, like the part it is up to)

It should also alert users that this is not fixing corrupt data.

Eg. This is a consistency check only checking the free space – the non-data regions of the file (the free space that needs to be used). Therefore, this check progresses has nothing to do with the data itself (i.e. it is not folder-by-folder, it is region-by-region in the file).

Figure: Please give me a % complete

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