Google calendar is a great tool for syncing your Outlook calendar events and appointments to your iphone automagically, over the air. You can configure the setup for one way sync, one way sync from google cal to Outlook 2010 or vice versa, or a 2 way syc so events added directly into the iphone are written to your Outlook calendar almost instantly.

Google knowledge base does not seem to have a solution for this type of sync issue (that is not an actual error code). In my experience out in the field everyday this is often and most likely related to corrupt cache data.

Close outlook. In Windows the directory is located in users/username/appdata/local/google/googlecalendatsync/data-files. Open data files and delete eveything in there. Restart your PC. Restart Outlook and test.

Today I had an ongoing email discussion with one of our suppliers and needed to recall various details from some of the emails, including one with the original invoice.

I have conversation view enabled so this made things a lot easier. All todays emails, both from sender and replies from me are grouped together so it’s easy to locate specific emails.

To enable conversation view click the view tab. You can click the “conversation settings” tab to modify settings and the set by date, sender, to and size are other options on display in the ribbon.

1. Password protect Word document
Computers are used for just about everything these days, including jotting down sensitive account details and passwords into Word documents.

Modern NAT routers and firewalls offer some level of protection against hackers, but there’s always the chance your computer will get stolen. A password protecting the user account is a small obstacle to a thief with some easily available know-how to bypass account passwords.

A password protected Word file offers similar levels of protection. Lose this password and you may be able to recover it using programs available on the internet. Still, we think it’s a handy thing to protect Word docs at the user level. You can find more information about protecting Word docs and removing user history here. Further information to restrict editing, or to add an invisible digital signature and mark the document as final can be found here.

To password protect a Word 2010 document

1. Open a new blank Word document
2. Navigate to the file menu
3. Look for the info tab and in the right hand pane choose permissions
4. Choose the Protect Document button

 2. Outlook Quick Parts

If you receive email enquiries regularly that you can answer with a standardised reply Quick Parts is for you!

Steps to enable and insert Quick Parts

1.  Click reply as usual to the email enquiry
2. write the standard reply
3. with the cursor in the body area of the email choose the insert tab in the Text tab
4. choose Quick Parts Choose Save Selection to Quick Parts gallery

In future you can use Quick parts to reply

People who have been using computers since Windows 98 or 2000 will remember the Microsoft Works suite that came bundled with Dell and HP computers. This was a low functioning productivity suite forword processing, budget planning, calendar scheduling, as an alternative to the full Office suites. You can still buy Microsoft Works but the new Office 2010 offering for entry level productivity is the Office 2010 Starter Edition.

There are major differences between Works and Starter Edition. Firstly, if your PC OEM manufacturer installs this for you on your new computer, it’s free.  Unlike Works you can not purchase the Starter pack in retail stores or after you purchase a new PC. It is only available through Microsoft authorized system builders. The free edition involves putting up with a small Microsoft advertisement in the lower right hand corner of the application.

The Starter Edition installation also includes the full installation of any of the new Office 2010 suites, such as Home & Student (no Outlook), Home & Office (no Publisher), and Office professional. You can easily activate the Office suite you need by buying a licence card from your OEM system builder.

As you expect from an entry level Office suite there are limitations such as no macro support or integration of add-ins. With Starter Edition you can create, open and edit Office documents and spreadsheets without spending a cent until you’re ready to purchase the full program.