If you are like me, my Outlook mail have too many folders storing different types of emails. Searching for your folders can be messy.

Here are some tips on how to add your frequently use folder in your favourite list.

Favorite folders are shortcuts to your most commonly used folder. Think of it the same as your desktop shortcut. To create a favorite folder, simply drag any folder up to the Favorite Folders area and drop it.

Remember though, if you drag “too many” favorite folders then you will end up with the same problem. So it should some selected folders that you always use

Favorite Folders in Outlook

The next time you need to access the folder, just click on the favorite folder.

To remove a favorite folder, just right click and select “Remove from favorite folders”. Do not, do not delete as it will delete the original folder as well

Try out Office Community Clip. This is a useful tool that allows you to record your voice and all the activities in the screen in your desktop.

It is very useful tool for you to:

• record your presentation and share it with others
• Share your tips and tricks via video rather than text

Download the Office Community Clip and try it out..

Wanna know more about how VB 10 looks like.  Visit the links and download the sample codes.
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/vbfuture.

TechNet MSDN Returns

Book your calendars if you want a sneak preview of Windows 7. Microsoft is having an Technet MSDN event to showcase the latest in technologies.

This event will be taking place in Kuala Lumpur Convention Center on the 15th January 2009.

They’ll be showing a 2 hour Microsoft client and server platform demo-relay and a sneak preview of Windows 7!

Go to www.microsoft.com/malaysia/events/technetmsdn/ to reserve a seat.

A friend of mine asked me what software to install to print office documents to PDF. Microsoft provides an Add-In to allow Office documents to be save as PDF format.

Hope this is useful for people who don’t know about it.

Microsoft Save as PDF

Just found out from Scott Gu’s blog that there is a new charting tool for ASP.NET. You can download it from:

Download the free Microsoft Chart Controls

There are many sampels and documentation on how you can use this control. Now this is much more easier for developers to create interactive charts.

Check out the AJAX enable charts, that’s my favourite

ASP.NET chart Controls

When doing excel calculation, sometimes I want to display value as 1/3 instead of 0.33333. I just learnt that you can do that in Excel with just a few simple steps.

Microsoft Office Excel can display, and take data entry as, fractions as well as decimal numbers. To enter a fraction, simply prefix it with a zero and a space.

So to display the fraction one-third, type 0 1/3. This will display 1/3 but will have an underlying value of 0.33333333. The cool thing about this, is when you do a simple calculation, it will automatically convert it to fraction for you.

EG. 1/3 X 5 will convert to 1 2/3.

Try it out, I guess this is some of the hidden secrets of Excel that not many people know. At least I don’t, until now.

I presented in the Application Lifecycle Management Workshop on 18 Nov, Tuesday on “Governing Software Quality with Visual Studio Team System”.

Here are my slides

If you have a webpage still running on ASP, you can use this tool to check for SQL injections vulnerabilities. Microsoft Source Code Analyzer for SQL Injection

Everytime when I try to focus on doing work, I always got distracted by those pesky email notification. It pops up everytime there is any incoming email. Here is how you disable it.

Turn Off E-Mail Notifications
Because an e-mail notification icon appears whenever you receive new e-mail, it’s tempting to stop work and open new messages immediately. But you can turn off the notification and then check your e-mail when it’s convenient for you. Here’s how:

1. In Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, click Tools, click Options, click E-mail Options, and then click Advanced E-mail Options.
2. In the middle of the dialog box, clear the Display a New Mail Desktop Alert check box.

Spend a lot of time on duplicating formats of your Word, Excel or Powerpoint document? There is an easy way of doing this. Use Format Painter.

The Format Painter tool duplicates the formatting from one part of a document to another. So less manual work. How to use it?

1. Select the text whose formatting you want to replicate. Click the Format Painter toolbar button.
2. Then duplicate the text by selecting the target texts.