Xobni, usage impressions

After some days after the first setup, I can report some impressions on this Xobni plugin (http://www.xobni.com)

First of all after the setup process Xobni took some time to initializa, but given my huge mailbox this time has been ridicolously short. A fake? No... Actually Xobni started working immediately, with no glitches.

I have to say that this piece of software is really well designed, and given its speed (awesome) also the code must be great code. Great quality.

In the Outlook interface Xobni lives as a single new sidebar, and everything happens in there. This is a completely different choice from (for example) ClearContext. Actually the functionality of Xobni and CliaerContext are different, so given this, both choices are correct.

What I like most in Xobni? Search, for start. Fast (really fast) and complete. Then the information visualization, that collects in a very little space a lot of very well organized information extracted from my mailbox, contact list, and attachment collection. Please go here and take a tour of the screenshots.

But also "people navigation", or email analytics, or the threaded conversations are good ideas!

So as you maybe understood... I really like Xobni !!! :-)

Xobni - installed right now...

I just installed the Xobni Outlook plugin, that's now in public beta.

The Xobni claim is about "email happiness", and if it works like the video demonstrations say it will be actually a good product.

It works as a sidebar, every new functionality is there in the Xobni sidebar; a different approach from ClearContext, for example, that integrates its services in the standard Outlook menus and windows.

Just installed, let's see how it works... and let's see if ClearContext AND Xobni can live together!!!

Outlook 2007 (was) painfully slow!!!

I hope I managed to solve this issue, that was causing me a lot of trouble and of wasted time.

What I was experiencing: from a certain date on OL2007 was really slow in opening, then in updating headers, then it hanged for seconds while I( was composing new messages, then... in a word it was going to be completely un-usable.

After googling and discussing for days, trying different ways, that went from disabling RSS feeds to checking out encryption in transmission between OL and Exchange, finally I understood that my real problem was... the mailbox size. And the corresponding OST file size on my hard disk.

What i understand is that in OL2007 MS changed the underlying data structure of PST and PST files, in a way that requires a lot of disk access when the file size is big. So the solution for me has been "simply" to split my OST archiving some hundreds of messages in a new .pst file.

I think that I need some more archiving work, to really solve the issue; but even now OL reacts much better than before.

hope this helps... :-)

Pocket Informant and Handango "Free App Friday"

I discovered this last week that handango has this "Free App Friday". Put simply, every friday (considered in Central Standard Time), they will offer for free a mobile application from their (huge) catalog.

This last Friday the chosen app was Pocket Informant 2007, a very good time management application for Windows Mobile. I downloaded it, now it's running on my mobile, and I'm really happy with it.

Some time ago I bought Agenda Fusion 8, so I can try a comparison between the two.

And after my first two days of Pocket Informant, I can say that PI2007 is faster than AF8, both in terms of first load and using it (for example I can access my long contact list in a fraction of time, and this is really a good thing).

Maybe AF8 wins in terms of graphical details and rendering, but PI2007 views are effective and clear. There are a couple of functionalities that are present only in AF8 (the project view is not present in PI2007, or at least until now I did not find anything of the like), but what is needed is there, and works.

AF8 is a good product, don't take me wrong; but on my device (not a cutting edge one, WM5 with a lot of installed software) PI2007 works better... and I'm happy with it!

ClearContext IMS

If you use Microsoft Outlook and like me receive a huge load of emails during your work day, give a look to ClearContext - it's not free, but it's really a great software, helps a lot in clearing and sorting tour inbox, and "getting things done".

I'm in the 30 days trial period, but I think that I will buy this one.

What you get after setup is a new Outlook toolbar that will help you categorize your email and file single mails or threads to folders (that ClearContext will create for you), and give you shortcut to new functions like prioritizing your contacts (so that email from high priority contact will display with greater emphasis), or turn off email notifications for - say - 30 minutes or an hour... but actually the things that ClearContext can do for you are many, and you will get e netter service :-) if you jump to their site and give a look to some of the very good video tutorials offered!