brookelorren's Full Review: Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Full Version for PC ...
I am the spam queen. It isn't uncommon for me to get 200 to 300 spam messages a day. I've been using Mailwasher to remove spam for the longest time. Lately, it hasn't been working so hot, and has been causing me problems. So, when our computers decided to go haywire and we lost our Outlook (our old CD shattered in a freak CD-ROM accident), my husband went out and bought this.
I am familiar with older versions of Outlook, as I used it at work. I never really cared for it, instead I used Netscape for my mail. After trying this spam-blocking wonder, however, I may never use Netscape for mail again.
Setting up the Spam-blocker
It took me a while to set up the spam-blocking feature of Outlook. You can import text-based blacklists that you might have from other programs. I had a mailwasher blacklist that I used. Once I had the list ready to go, just listing email addresses, it was pretty simple to import into Outlook.
First pass through Outlook with my imported blacklist and low spam blocking (you have the option of using no, low, or high spam blocking, or using a safe-sender list only). Out of 790 emails in my inbox, Outlook caught about 300 emails. You can set the file up to send these junk mails to a junk mail folder (in case you want to check and make sure that they didn't delete something important) or permanently delete your junk. I chose to permanently delete my spam.
Next step was to set up filters. Outlook 2003 has more powerful filters than my old mailwasher program. I set up filters to delete the most common spam words found in my spam, and it got rid of a lot more emails. You can filter out words found in the body, the header, or the subject line. You have several options on what to do with these items, I chose to have them all permanently deleted. As you add the filter words, you can run the filter on your current inbox. One of the things I like best about these filters is that you can add several key words or phrases to one filter. I have one filter for subject line key words, for example... all the spam words go into that particular filter. It makes it very easy to update.
There are exceptions to every rule, and Outlook allows for that. I made an exception to all my spam filters for people on my contact list. That way, if my brother ever wants to send me an email about his mortgage, it won't accidentally get blocked.
By adding a few filters, I was able to trim down my junk mail to about 150. I spent the much of the afternoon adding filters that I may have overlooked, and now my system gets very little spam. It was very easy and user-friendly to set up. But now I have just one more problem...
Nobody must love me! There's no mail in my inbox!
Mail
The mail feature in Outlook 2003 is similar to that of previous Outlooks. You can set up a preview pane (I always have it turned off). There are several folders, including your inbox, unread mail, for follow up, sent items, deleted items, junk email, and outbox. You can create your own folders as well, just like in previous versions of Outlook. It looks a little different at first, but you can set it up to look very similar to previous versions, so you have a familiar look and feel. The colors are a little different though.
Sending an email is easy too. You can utilize your contact lists to make typing your mails easier (I can type Dad to send an email to my dad, for example). There is spell-checking available as you send an email (and even auto-correcting). It is integrated with Microsoft Word 2003, I'm not sure what happens if you don't happen to own that.
A feature that I didn't like at first (but now that I have made a few adjustments, find useful) is not automatically downloading pictures. This is a great feature for people that might otherwise find themselves accidentally looking at a filthy picture that they don't really want burned into their brain. You can tell Outlook to automatically download pictures from people on your safe list. Soo... while you may need to spend a little time setting up Outlook with safe listed people, once you do it will make emails a lot easier. Also, just because they do not automatically download a picture doesn't mean that you won't be able to see it. You can click on a picture and have it downloaded for you.
MICROSOFT TREATS US LIKE BABIES!!! GRRRR...
The one down side to this program... and it is a HUGE down side in my opinion... is that it treats you like a &*$#$^# baby that can't even figure out what files to open and not open. Several file extensions are blocked automatically with this program... including access files and URL links.
I spent a couple of hours trying to work around this... I updated the registry, downloaded programs that were supposed to fix this problem... still nothing. Every time I sent myself a file with the extension .mdb (my test file) it got blocked. This ALMOST makes me want to stop using this program and deal with 200 spam emails a day instead. Anyway, I guess that Netscape will still have its uses.
There is one way that I know of to get around this, as there were in previous versions. You can change the file extension. However, that has to be arranged ahead of time, and some email users don't know how to do this.
Before I tried this out, Microsoft had ALMOST earned some brownie points with this program. Well... I still hate you Microsoft... :shakes fists.
I can see with giving the Exchange Servers the ability to block files, or automatically blocking files unless the user specifically requests otherwise. Or even putting it in the registry. I have never received a virus via email, and don't find that likely, as I never open attachments that are from people I don't know, and always email my friends to confirm that they meant to send something if I receive a suspect attachment. I don't see the need for a company to treat us like incompetent babies this way.
Before I tested this feature, I was going to give this product 5 stars. I almost want to give it only 3 stars at this point. At any rate, I am boiling over with anger as I write this.
Calendar
Like previous versions of Outlook, this version has a calendar installed. If you are familiar with the previous versions of Calendar, this works similarly. You can add dates, even recurrent dates. You can view your calendar in daily, weekly, work-weekly, or monthly formats.
I'm not sure if this was a feature of previous Outlooks, but you can customize your work schedule. If work starts at 7 AM, you can change that in the calendar to denote that. I know that feature would have been useful, had I known about it, when I used to work with a company that used Outlook.
The calendar panel seems to have a slightly different setup, but if you are familiar with prior calendars, it shouldn't be too difficult to acclimate to. The colors are different, however.
Contacts
The Contacts section in Outlook is familiar looking to those familiar with Outlook. You can put their email address, phone number, nickname, spouse's name, even IM address, into your contacts page. You can add your own fields if you need to. There are alphabet tabs along the side so you can quickly move between names.
One of the nice things about contacts is that you can easily sync it up with your email. If you put trusted email addresses into your contacts, all you have to do to ensure that emails from them are never accidentally deleted is to add them to your contacts. This is a pretty useful feature to me, as I get a couple of emails from some mailing lists that have been identified as junk mail before by mailwasher.
You can view your contacts in different ways. The way you are probably used to viewing contacts is by address card. You can still view them that way with Outlook 2003. You can also view your contacts by detailed address cards, categories, phone list, company, location, or follow-up flag.
You can add pictures to your contacts as well. If you have trouble matching names to faces, this can be a helpful feature.
Tasks
Another feature might be familiar with previous users of Outlook is the Tasks feature. You can assign tasks, mark when they're completed, give a due date, assign categories, even list the percentage completed.
One of the features that I wished that they would implement is a repeat tasks feature. You can do that with a repeat calendar item, but it would be nice to be able to list repeat tasks.
This feature seems to be a lot like it used to be. You can change the reminder time for your tasks in the options if you wish.
Notes
I'm not too familiar with the notes feature, because I've never actually used it. I asked my husband to help me out with this feature, and it looks pretty useful. For the purposes of writing this Epinion, I tested it out, and it is pretty easy to use. You can create notes to yourself and stick them on your desktop. I can see this as being useful... say, if my husband calls and tells me to go pick up some butter from the store, I can put a note on my desktop reminding me, and it will stay up there for as long as I need.
You can categorize notes, and add your own categories. You can also change the different colors of sticky notes that you put up on your desk.
Features I (and my husband) Like To See
1) That Microsoft would stop treating everyone that uses their products like doofuses that can't even deal with email attachments.
2) Have a way to minimally run Outlook in the background and notify you when you receive email.
Conclusion
This program is a great improvement (in terms of spam-blocking capability) over previous versions of Outlook. It has a different look and feel, but not so much that you can't figure out how to use it. It's got all of the features that you've gotten to know and love with previous Outlook versions (with the exception of being able to adjust the registry to be able to get attachments).
I think that I will continue to use it, despite the attachment thing. It's not a perfect program, but it's got it's uses... especially if you get a lot of spam.
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