• When tried to start Outlook today I got an error message saying Outlook failed to start correctly last time – but that I could try starting it in safe mode
• So I clicked the button to start in Safe mode
• Outlook opened ok although it gave a strange message “you cannot close Microsoft Word because a dialog is active. Switch to Microsoft Word and close the dialog”. There was a dialog that had popped up at the same time: one saying that C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\STARTUP\PALMAPP.DOT contains macros – a message that has come up for years. I clicked Disable on the message (as usual) and then I was able to use Outlook
• But the next time I tried to start Outlook the same thing happened: I could only use Outlook in safe mode

Day 2 Problem: can’t open Outlook at all!

• When I tried to start Outlook nothing happened (the hourglass disappeared quite quickly but Outlook didn’t open)
• Tried again – same problem
• Tried opening in Safe mode (Windows Start menu -> Run -> typed:
  Outlook.exe /safe
  with a space before the   /          but still Outlook didn’t open
• A few hours later I opened the Windows Task Manager and it had 3 Outlook.exe processes showing

A partial solution: running “Detect & Repair” enabled me to open Outlook in safe mode

• Rebooted the PC and tried opening Outlook in safe mode again (as above). Got an error message “Outlook failed to launch in safe mode. Would you like to start Detect & Repair?”. I said yes, it asked for my Office CD which I inserted.
• Then I tried to Open Outlook in safe mode again: and it opened (with same messages as yesterday). Phew!
• At this point I thought ” a backup would be good” so exported to a pst file
• Came out of Outlook and tried to start Outlook again. Now the behaviour was slightly different: Outlook opened for a moment, then closed, error message “Outlook has encountered a problem and needs to close”; it restarted in safe mode but ran a check on the personal folders

The solution: rename a corrupt .dat file

• closed Outlook
• went to folder C:\Documents and Settings\Paul\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook
• renamed outcmd.dat (file with toolbar customisations) to outcmd.old
• Outlook now works!

Thanks to … http://www.howto-outlook.com/faq/outlookdoesntstart.htm
Before renaming  outcmd.dat I tried the same with extend.dat which lives in the folder
C:\Documents and Settings\Paul\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

Along the way I lost quite a bit of time pursuing other avenues:

Diversion no.1: solving the Word error messages

• In Tools -> Options -> Mail format -> deselected Word as email editor. Exited Outlook then back in: no change
• PALMAPP.DOT is something to do with Palm Desktop (something I haven’t used for years) integrating with Word. I tried to delete the PALMAPP.DOT file (see above). Even if Word & Outlook were closed it wouldn’t let me: said the file was being used by Word and indeed there was a temporary file sitting beside PALMAPP.DOT. After rebooting (even in Windows Safe Mode) , uninstalling Palm Desktop etc and still seeing teh temporary file there I clicked on the temporary file and found I could it and then delete the file itself (probably should have tried that a lot earlier!)
• Now I no longer get the funny word messages

Diversion no. 2: the Ad-aware email scanner

• To see what functions had been disabled by “safe mode” in Outlook I clicked on Help -> About -> Disabled items. That showed “Adaware email scanner (emailscanner.dll)” and said it had prevented Outlook from functioning correctly
• Clicked Adaware in system tray to both turn off “Adaware Live” and exit Adaware. Closed Outlook. Back into Outlook: same result as last time
• So then I uninstalled Ad-aware: no change; Then tried searching the C drive for the file emailscanner.dll. It wasn’t there. So in Outlook Help -> About -> Disabled items I clicked to enable emailscanner.dll, then out of Outlook and back in. Now Outlook no longer lists it as Disabled item (it probably stopped existing earlier in the process: just Outlook was still showing it!)

Perhaps now I should upgrade to a more recent (and supported) version of Word?

CTRL+TAB    = switch between tabs in browser

ALT+TAB    = switch between windows

CTRL+ALT+TAB    = display list of windows & select with arrow keys / mouse

Windows+TAB    = cycle through windows in 3D

CTRL+Windows+TAB    = stack windows in 3D & select with arrow keys/mouse

Menus & mouse-clicks without a mouse

ALT    = Menu

ALT+Spacebar    = open shortcut menu

Shift+F10    = Right mouse click (also many keyboards have a button for it to the right of the space bar)

Arrow keys often replace mouse clicks eg …

Right-arrow key in Windows Explorer    = expand a folder

Other

CTRL+Shift+Esc    = task manager

Windows key

Cycle through windows (see above)

Windows+M    = minimise all windows (Windows+D does same ie Desktop)

Windows+F    = Find files or folders

Windows+E    = My computer

Windows+L    = Lock (r switch user)

At Work

My work set-up is fixed: Outlook and an Exchange server. This is used for Email, Contacts, Calendar, Tasks (and I would like to have my categorised Notes too but at the moment that is an issue)

What I need on my phone

1. Contacts: work contacts & home contacts
2. Appointments: work & home
3. Tasks: work & home (although home ones could just be maintained on the phone)
4. Notes: work & home
5. I don’t look at emails on my phone (I have a home email address which I look at when home; and a work email address which I look at when at work)

Both work and home information is needed on the phone: work and home contacts, appointments, tasks and notes. This is the starting point for my thinking. It probably means that work and home PIM should probably always be stored together.

Home PC

I want to have Contacts, Appointments, Tasks, Notes and (home) Email. I prefer to use Outlook for these because it has excellent functionality, you can navigate very quickly between between different bits of information and the search is good.

Actually we have two home PCs now so having Outlook on both (synchronised) would be great!

What I would like

So the optimum solution would be to keep the following synchronised:

• MS Exchange at work (this I have to use)
• Outlook on my home PC (for excellent functionality) (and on the other home PC too if possible)
• my phone (currently a phone that runs Windows Mobile 5.1 professional although I could change to a different phone)
  Except I don’t want emails synchronised – want home emails at home, work emails at work, and neither on my phone – although I do use web access to occasionally access home or work emails when travelling

Problems

• Synchronisation: I use Windows Active Sync to synch my phone: wirelessly to Exchange and with a cable to my home PC. If I change any Outlook entries on the work PC I have to be careful that my next sync is to Exchange otherwise my latest changes can get overwritten (similarly if I change anything on the home PC I have to make sure the next sync is to the home PC). This is awkward and sometimes it goes wrong
• Notes: to get categorised Notes on my phone I had to purchase SmartphoneNotes. This synchronises to the home PC but not to work PC: a big problem for me. The synchronisation to the home PC is incredibly slow (I have over 1500 notes) and opening the program on the phone is also painfully slow. I tried Phatnotes instead but that is very slow when using the application (a least smartphoneNotes is quick to use once it’s open)
• Two home PCs Can I have Outlook (PIM and home emails) on both home PCs and synchronised?! If I use IMAP for downloading email then I can have emails in sync between an email web client and both home computers BUT that won’t help with tasks, calendars and contacts (and if it was just emails I was interested in I would probably abandon Outlook for Gmail).

Synchronising Outlook between two home computers

 I guess what I am really looking for is the power of the Outlook application on the PCs but the data to be held in the cloud and synchronised across the computers. There is software to synchronise Outlook between PCs (at a price) eg SimpleSyn, or Sync Outlook (runs in the background but $100!) and SynchPst (unfortunately have to run manually & needs Outlook closed!) – the last two are reviewed at http://freelanceswitch.com/working/two-ways-to-sync-outlook-between-computers/ - this post has many helpful comments on it (eg “try gSyncit: synchronises Outlook PIM with Gmail”)

Alternatively, if I’m going to pay money I could go for a hosted exchange ? eg everyone.net

CONCLUSIONS ………

1) Do notes separately from Outlook

One of the big problems at the moment (see above) is with Notes. There is no reason why Notes would need to be in the same app as emails, calendar or contacts. So I decided to look for an app that would do just notes and:

• sync notes between both home PCs, work PC and phone (and have them categorised on all platforms)
• notes need to be available offline especially on the phone (that rules out Evernote)
• categories, good search, tags
• import from Outlook
• quick and easy to use

Springpad might be a solution (if I can bear all the ads) .. BUT it’s not available for Windows mobile, which leads me to the next conclusion:

2) Maybe it’s time to change my phone to one that has a reasonable range of apps (Android or iphone I guess)

Install “Add-ins”

How do you activate “add-ins” in 2007? It’s hidden away …

1. click that Big Office button
2. Excel options
3. Add-ins

There is a good full explanation at http://peltiertech.com/WordPress/installing-an-add-in-in-excel-2007/

.

Things not in the ribbon

• There are loads of commands not in the Ribbon
• You can’t customise the ribbon
• So you have to add them to the Quick Access Toolbar

Eg Pivot Table Wizard; or “Send To” icon; or “Document location” (box showing the path for the current document: useful for copying and sending to others)

The Quick Access Toolbar is right at the top of the Excel 2007 screen. To edit it click on the little black arrow at its right-hand end and then select “More Commands”

.

Data: Synchronise List

This is one of the commands that is not anywhere in the ribbon! So you have to add it to the Quick Access toolbar as explained above. However when I opened an Excel 2003 spreadsheet that connects to some data in Sharepoint I got a more fundamental problem: “Excel cannot connect to the Sharepoint List”.

It was solved by this download:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=25836e52-1892-4e17-ac08-5df13cfc5295&DisplayLang=en

Actually you cannot synchronise to Sharepoint lists if you save the spreadsheet in the enw Excel 2007 format: you have to save it as an Excel 2003 file. More explanation on all this at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb462636(v=office.11).aspx

.

Control Toolbox & Design mode

To get these in Excel 2007 you have to turn on the “developer” tab in the Ribbon. To do that:

1. click that Big Office button
2. Excel options
3. Check the box beside show Developer tab in the ribbon”

.

Pivot Tables

Pivot tables seem to have changed quite a bit in Excel 2007. They no longer make spreadsheets quite so enormous or slow which is great. Unfortunately, though, a pivot table in an Excel 2007 spreadsheet cannot be opened in Excel 2003: it will just open as a read-only table.

So if a spreadsheet with pivot tables is being used in both Excel 2003 and Excel 2007, then you must make sure you save it as an Excel 2003 file (and not in the Excel 2007 file format)

.

Drawing objects not visible – ongoing problem

• Spreadsheet created in Excel 2003 and includes some drawing objects
• Open it in Excel 2007 and the text boxes and other drawing objects do not display
  When I click around the worksheet some of them display
  On print preview none of them show
  But when I print they all show!
• Page Layout -> Selection Pane -> Show All: now most of them show
  Some at the edges of the worksheet are still not showing but by clicking around the worksheet they all show
  BUT they disappear again if I click Print Preview, or scroll down the page, or  temporarily go to anotehr sheet in the workbook!

http://www.techonthenet.com/excel/index.php

http://www.dailydoseofexcel.com/

http://www.cpearson.com/excel/mainpage.aspx

General tip
 Right-click table -> table options -> deselect “AutoFormat table”
Also check “Preserve formatting”

Cell borders – problem!
Format of cell borders is NOT retained when you change the layout or refresh a PivotTable.
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/162028/en-us?spid=2512&sid=298)

Private Sub Worksheet_PivotTableUpdate(ByVal Target As PivotTable)
With Target.TableRange1.Borders
.LineStyle = xlContinuous
.ColorIndex = xlColorIndexAutomatic
.Weight = xlThin
.ColorIndex = 15
End With
End Sub

Solutions:

1) plug in headphones: they work

2) jiggle the headphone jack in its socket a bit & the “no sound” problem is solved completely.

I found this web page which explains it (apparently there is a little switch inside the barrel of the headphone socket which gets stuck):

http://forums.palm.com/t5/Audio-Video-Photo/Has-sound-suddenly-quit-on-your-Palm-Phone-or-PDA-with-no-reason/m-p/154875#U154875

Update 8 Aug 2011

Same phone a few months later … now I can’t hear music play even with headphones / earbuds.
+ when someone phones me the ringer doesn’t sound
BUT when I answer the phone with headphones on then I can hear them!
(although apparently they can’t hear me)

• So, as before, I pushed the headphone jack in & out several times, but the problems remained.
• Then,  following instructions in the link above, I put a bit of lubricant (GT85)  in the socket that takes the headphone jack
• Then I pushed a couple of different jacks in & out of the socket a number of times and eventually …  I could now hear sound through the headphones, but still couldn’t hear anything  without the headphones.
• Then after a bit more lubricant, and inserting and removing the headphones again, sound returned to normal. Phew!

1) Finding the icon in 2007 – interactive guide
You can use this guide from the web link or download it to yuour PC. It’s really helpfu: click a menu item in Excel 2003 and it shows you where the equivalent is in Excel 2007:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/guides-to-the-ribbon-use-office-2003-menus-to-learn-the-office-2007-user-interface-HA010229584.aspx?CTT=3

2) 2003 Keyboard shortcuts
In Word 2003, I used to use the keyboard shortcuts finding them quicker than icons. The 2003 keyboard shortcuts actually still work in Office 2007 (eg Alt O P to format a paragraph)

3) Office 2007 shortcuts
Office 2007 has its own keyboard shortcuts: press Alt and the ribbon-based ones are displayed.
Here’s a good list of keyboard shortcuts (eg CTRL Asterisk to select the current region)
http://www.leedr-project.com/it/access/excel2007-shortcuts.html#ctrl

Also worth knowing … CTRL Shift ! for number format with 2 decimals; or CTRL Shift ( to unhide hidden rows

3) Install the Excel 2003 menus into Excel 2007
free download:
http://download.cnet.com/Classic-Menu-for-Excel-2007/3000-2077_4-10637173.html
Or you can pay for something similar:
http://www.mrexcel.com/classicexcelmenu.html

and if you really don’t like that ribbon …
try CTRL F1

The problem

Well, after a year, the ”syncs nicely” changed. Notes get randomly deleted (fortunately they are in my deleted items in Outlook so I can get them back). Also some changes I made to notes in Outlook are not appearing on the phone!

Solution

1. I restored the “deleted notes.

In Outlook went to deleted items. Sorted it by icon so all the notes were together. I created a new notes folder (called “oldNotes”) and moved in there any notes that had been genuinely deleted. I highlighted the remaining notes and dragged them onto the “Notes” folder (thankfully they remember their categories).

2. I resolved that I would see my notes in Outlook would be my definitive set, and reviewed some recently changes notes to check they looked ok. I decided that I would now uninstall Phatnotes and reinstall it – so starting from scratch with the notes on the phone:

a) Backed up my Outlook notes
In Outlook:
- File à Export à select “to file” à select “pst file” à select Notes folder à next àBrowse à choose a filename that describes it (eg notesbackup) and a folder (can be a flashdrive) à I chose no encryption

b) Uninstalled Phatnotes from the phone
On the phone:
- closed Phatnotes – and disconnected phone from PC
- Start à Settings à system tab à Remove programs à select Phatnotes à Yes
- at the “delete notes database?” prompt: Yes

c) Uninstalled Phatnotes from the PC
On the PC:
- closed Outlook and ActiveSync
- Start àControl Panel à Add/Remove Programs à select Pahtnotes à Remove

d) Reinstalled Phatnotes
- connected phone to PC
- on PC: opened Active Sync and waited for sync to finish
- on PC: ran PhatnotesOutlook.exe (which I have saved on my PC)
- then a dialogue on the PC says look at phone screen. Phone screen asked where I wanted Phatnotes installed. I selected: Storage Card
- at next dialogue on PC: Finish (not necessary to select the options button unless have multiple notes folders in Outlook that you want to sync)

e) Synchronised phone to PC
- then did a Sync using Active Sync
- it now copies all the notes over to the phone
It took ages over an hour (I have over 1300 notes)

BUT!! the result was – all the notes in Outlook had been deleted (moved to the Deleted folder)!

So….

I restored the notes from pst backup (I could probably just have moved them back from the Deleted Items folder). Then I did another sync. This sync was very quick (a minutes?) and now all the notes are on my phone and in Outlook!

I tested creating and editing notes on each platform – and they sync ok

My setup
PC running Windows XP SP3
Palm Treo Pro running Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
Palm connects to PC using ActiveSync4.5
Store Outlook notes on my phone using PhatNotes for Outlook 5.2 build 5.591.0201

Program memory = the memory programs use (temporarily) when they are running
Storage memory = used to store files AND programs

Solutions:

1. I have a program called “KeepRecordin”. Changed this to save on storage card not in memory
2. Wondered what the large pim file is (59MB) – in root folder (ie in MyDevice). It’s apparently all my contacts, calendar and tasks
3. MyDevice/Windows/Rings. This contains my ringtones. Some are large files (5MB). So deleted some
4. In Notes changed the set-up to store on storage card (some notes can include graphics and audio so can be large files). Also moved existing notes from MyDevice/MyDocuments to Storage card
   NB the icon has a little picture of a storage card if the file is stored on the card
5. I could also … move programs to the storage card rather than the main memory (eg Phatnotes) (Think should probably do this by uninstalling and reinstalling the program)

My setup
Palm Treo Pro running Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional