Looking up a contact

Be aware that people create new email addresses all the time and for all types of reasons, eg. for mailing lists.

Figure: Looking up the address' contact

Figure: Looking up the address’ contact

When looking up a contact and the email address does not exist. This message box is not good enough. It should say “Here are a list of suggestions that have email addresses that are very close.”

Figure: This dialog is not good enough

Figure: This dialog is not good enough

Send/Receive Progress

Sometimes you just want to sync quickly (eg. over GPRS) and one big, fat and unexpected 10MB email is coming without you knowing and without a way to skip it. So please improve this dialog, so you can see if you have a bottleneck and give an option to skip the email.

Figure: My UI suggestion would be to show the top 5 emails in size (sorted descending) with a button on each row "Skip for now"

Figure: My UI suggestion would be to show the top 5 emails in size (sorted descending) with a button on each row “Skip for now”

Appointments should be able to store images

Well actually they can add images as same as emails. but because they are stored as RTF (instead of HTML like normal email messages) so they convert to 4-5MB attachments.

The worst thing is the syncing problems with Windows Mobile devices.

PS: I think it should be easier to insert Live maps (or google maps) for directions.

Figure: The Appointment with large image

Figure: The Appointment with large image

Make the closing down of Outlook more reliable

The problem I find with Outlook 2007 (also occurs in Outlook 2003) is that I often close down Outlook, wait a short while then shut down Vista… yet invariably when I start up again, it says the data files weren’t closed properly. I can only presume this has something to do with the fact that it seems to keep receiving mail even when it’s shut down. I have had the Outlook OST file so corrupted it was impossible to recover it, so I had to re-synchronize > 10+ GB of mails.

I use two laptops (both Vista) and I would say that at least 60% of the time I start up Outlook 2007 on one, it says the file was not closed properly. I don’t know what is causing it, but it just adds to the many pain points of Outlook 2007.
The likely cause of this is that some “3rd party” application is keeping Outlook running.

Show number of related messages left in your inbox and their subfolders

When I am processing an email in my inbox, I want to complete it and its related messages. Currently, Outlook 2007 only gives you the “Related” button and it works very slowly and poorly because Outlook needs to search the related emails in all folders.

  • Add a checkbox in Tools | Options “Show number of related messages left and their subfolders”
  • Add a red bar to alert “There are N related messages left and their subfolders”
Figure: Find related message

Figure: Find related message