Chapter 23: E-Mail and Newsgroups Using Outlook Express

Storing Addresses in the Address Book

One of the first things people did when personal computers were invented was store lists of addresses on them. It makes sense--the old-fashioned little black book quickly gets filled with scratch-outs as people move, change phone numbers, or get new e-mail addresses, and you always end up wishing you had left a little more space between Sloane and Smith.

The next good idea in address management was to make the address book into a system utility so that any program could access it. You shouldn't have to keep one list of addresses for your word processor, another for your e-mail program, and a third for your personal information manager. And you shouldn't have to wonder which list has Aunt Gertrude's new address.

The Windows Address Book is still not the perfect realization of this idea, but it is a definite step in the right direction. Address Book keeps track of almost anything you would want to keep track of; provides a space for notes; and is accessible from Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, and NetMeeting. Unfortunately, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft's e-mail server, has its own address book, so that your addresses may be stored in two separate places.

You can use the information from the Windows Address Book in Windows Messenger; only available contacts are listed. You may be able to use Address Book from older versions of Outlook, but not Outlook XP.

Running Address Book

You can access Address Book either from another program, or by choosing Start | All Programs | Accessories | Address Book. You see the Address Book window, as shown in Figure 23-4.

Figure 23-4: Your first view of the Address Book

The window lists the people you have entered into the address book (which the Address Book calls contacts) with the name, e-mail address, and phone numbers for each person. It also lists people who are on your Windows Messenger list and are logged on and available for chat.

Sharing the Address Book with Other People

Each user account has its own Address Book, with its own files of contacts. People who use the same user account access the same Address Book, but they can keep their contacts separate by defining different identities. You can also use identities to separate your home and work contacts. Only one identity is logged in at any given time. The different identities defined under a single user account share a Shared Contacts folder. Any contact stored in the Shared Contacts folder is available to any of the identities.

Switching Identities

You can tell which identity is currently logged in by looking at the title bar of the Address Book window. In Figure 23-4, for example, the Main Identity is logged in. To switch to a different identity, select File | Switch Identity. The Switch Identities dialog box appears, as shown here:

Select the identity you want to switch to, enter that identity's password (if any), and click OK.

Creating and Removing Identities

Creating, removing, and otherwise managing identities can only be done by opening Address Book as a stand-alone application (by selecting it from the Start menu, for example). If you open Address Book from another application, such as Outlook Express, the Switch Identity and Manage Identity commands are not included on the File menu.

When you first start Address Book, one identity appears: the Main Identity. If you want another person to store addresses in your Address Book, create another identity by choosing File | Switch Identity, clicking the Manage Identities button to display the Manage Identities dialog box, and then clicking the New button.

To remove an identity, open the Manage Identities dialog box as before, select the identity from the list, and click Remove.

To see the entries in an identity's part of the Address Book, click that identity in the list at the left side of the Address Book window.

Securing Your Address Book Information

If you don't want the other users of your computer to access the information in your Address Book, you can secure your identity with a password. However, you should realize that the protection this provides is mainly symbolic, like putting a Keep Out sign on an unlocked door. Establishing a password prevents other people from logging in as you, but they can still examine and even change the information in your contact files by selecting File | Show All Contents.

The only real way to secure your contact files is to have your own user account and protect it with a password.

To establish a password for your identity, choose File | Switch Identity, and then click the Manage Identities button in the Switch Identities dialog box. Select your identity from the Identities list in the Manage Identities dialog box and click the Properties button. Click the Require A Password box in the Identity Properties dialog box. Choose a password and type it in the Password and Confirm Password lines of the Enter Password dialog box. Click OK or Close in all the open dialog boxes.

To change the password on your identity, follow the same instructions as in the previous paragraph until you see the Identity Properties dialog box. Click the Change Password button. Enter your old and new passwords into the Change Identity Password dialog box. Type your new password a second time in the Confirm New Password line.

Entering Information into Address Book

You can get information into Address Book in three ways: importing information from your current address book program (described in the section "Importing Addresses from Other Mail Programs" earlier in this chapter), importing virtual business cards that have arrived by e-mail, capturing information automatically from Outlook Express, or entering information by hand. Once you have a list of contacts in your Address Book, you can organize them into groups. To see the entries in your address book, click the Main Identity's Contacts entry on the left side of the Address Book window. The entries appear on the right side of the Address Book window.

Importing Virtual Business Cards

Address Book can import addresses from vCards (virtual business cards), which arrive as attachments to e-mail messages in files with the extension .vcf. Select File | Import | Business Card (vCard). A Browse window opens so you can tell Address Book where your business card files are. You can also drag-and-drop vCards into the Address Book.

Capturing E-mail Addresses from Outlook Express

If you use Outlook Express as your e-mail program, you can set it up to add names and e-mail addresses to Address Book automatically whenever you reply to a message.

1. Open Outlook Express.
2. Select Tools | Options. The Options dialog box appears.
3. On the Send tab of the Options dialog box, check the box Automatically Put People I Reply To In My Address Book.
4. Click OK.

Entering Information by Hand

To enter a new contact into Address Book, click the New button on the toolbar and choose New Contact, or select File | New Contact from the menu bar. A blank Properties dialog box appears. Type in any information you want recorded, and leave blank any lines you want. To add or change information about an existing contact, select the contact on the address list and click the Properties button. The Properties dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 23-5. Enter or edit information on any of its tabs.

Figure 23-5: Detailed information about a contact

To add more information to an existing contact listing, choose the contact from the contact list and click the Properties button. Enter the new information on the appropriate line and tab of the contact Properties box. Notice the Properties box displays a Summary tab that you didn't see when you were entering a new contact. This tab is just for reference; each piece of information on this tab can be edited on some other tab. Any Web page listed on the Summary tab has a Go button next to it; clicking this button opens your Web browser and displays the Web page.

Address Book enables you to keep track of several e-mail addresses for a single person, with one of them specified as the default. To add a new e-mail address, type it into the E-Mail Addresses box on the Name tab of the contact Properties box. Then click the Add button. The new e-mail address appears in the list just below the E-Mail Addresses box.

To set one of a person's e-mail addresses as the default, select it from the list of e-mail addresses on the Name tab of the Properties dialog box associated with that person's name. Then click the Set As Default button.

Defining Groups

Having your customers, your coworkers, and your child's piano teacher all on one big alphabetical list can be confusing. Address Book enables you to give your contact list some structure by defining groups of contacts that have something in common. An individual contact can appear in any number of groups.

To define a group

1. Click the New button on the Address Book toolbar and choose New Group from the menu that appears. A group Properties dialog box opens.
2. Type a name for the group into the Group Name box.
3. Click the Select Members button. A Select Group Members window appears. Your contacts list is in its left pane; its right pane contains the members of the new group.
4. One by one, select names in the left pane and click the Select button to add this name to the group. You can add an entire group to the new group in the same way.
5. When you have finished selecting group members, click OK to return to the group Properties dialog box. The members you have selected are listed.
6. If you want to add new members to the group, click Select Members again. If you want to remove names from the list, select the names in from the Group Members list in the Properties dialog box and click Remove. If you want to add people who aren't already in your Address Book, type the name and address into the Name and E-Mail boxes at the bottom of the dialog box, and then click the Add button. (Names that you add in this way will not be added to your contacts list as individuals, but only as part of the group.)
7. Click OK.

Looking Up Information in Address Book

When you open Address Book, the first thing you see is the contacts list, as shown in Figure 23-4.

Viewing the Contacts List

Address Book offers you the same choice of views that Windows Explorer does: Large Icon, Small Icon, List, and Details. Choose among them on the View menu. The differences among Large Icon, Small Icon, and List are fairly trivial: Large Icon uses a large index card icon and lists contacts in rows, Small Icon uses a small index icon and lists contacts in rows, and List uses a small index card icon and lists contacts in columns. Details view uses small icons and presents the name, e-mail address, home phone number, and business phone number of each contact in four columns.

Sorting the Contacts List

In any of the views, you can sort contacts according to any of the information displayed. In Small Icons, Large Icons, and List views only the name is shown, so contacts can be listed according to first or last name, in ascending or descending order. Make these choices by choosing View | Sort By.

In Details view, you can list contacts according to name, e-mail address, home phone number, or business phone number. As in the Details view in Windows Explorer, click the head of any column to list contacts according to that column in ascending order. To list in descending order, click the column head a second time. To tell Address Book whether the Name column should be ordered according to first name or last name, choose View | Sort By.

Looking Up Detailed Information

Each contact has a Properties dialog box associated with it, as shown in Figure 23-5. To view the Properties dialog box for a contact, double-click the person's entry in the contact list. The entries on the NetMeeting tab refer to the conferencing server and address used with the NetMeeting program described in Chapter 25. The entries on the Digital ID tab enable you to send and receive encrypted information from the person.

Finding People

If you have a lot of contacts in your Address Book, you don't want to have to scan the whole list to find a particular entry. To search the Address Book, click the Find People button on the toolbar. If the Address Book isn't open, you can choose Start | Search | People. Either way, you see the Find People window, shown here:

Make sure the Look In box is set to Address Book, type in what you know about the person, and then click Find Now. Any fragment of information helps to narrow down the search. If, for example, you remember the phone number has a 456 in it somewhere, enter 456 in the Phone line of the Find People box. Or, if you recall entering "wears red ties" as a note on the Other tab of the Contact Properties box, you can find the contact by typing wears red ties in the Other line of the Find People box.

You can also use the Find People box to search other address directories. See the section "Using Additional Directory Services."

Contacting People

To send e-mail to a person or group on your contacts list, select the recipient(s) from the address list, click the Action button on the toolbar, and choose Send Mail from the menu that appears; or, choose Tools | Action | Send Mail. (To address a message to several people, choose them by holding down the CTRL key while you select them.) Your default e-mail program should start to compose a message to the person that you selected.

Printing Information from Address Book

You can print information from the Address Book in three formats:

• Memo Prints all the information Address Book has about the selected contact(s).
• Business Card Prints only the information from the Business tab of the contact(s) Properties box.
• Phone List Prints a list of phone numbers of the selected contact(s).

To print

1. Select contacts from the contacts list. Select blocks of names by holding down the SHIFT key while you click the names. Select individuals scattered throughout the list by holding down the CTRL key while you click the names. Select a group by clicking its name in the contacts list (not the group list). Select all contacts by choosing Edit | Select All. If you don't select any contacts, Address Book prints them all.
2. Click the Print button on the toolbar. A Print dialog box appears.
3. Select the Memo, Business Card, or Phone List from the Print dialog box.
4. Click OK.

To print addresses in any other format, export them (as described in the next section) to a database or wordprocessing program that can print the format you want.

Exporting Names and Addresses from Address Book

You can also export names and addresses from Address Book in Microsoft Exchange Personal Address Book format, in Windows Address Book format, in a comma-delimited text file, or as vCards:

• Windows Address Book format Choose File | Export | Address Book, choose the folder and filename to use (with the extension .wab), and click the Save button.
• Microsoft Exchange Personal Address Book format Choose File | Export | Other Address Book and then select Microsoft Exchange Personal Address Book from the Address Book Export Tool window. Click the Export button. (If you're exporting to Outlook, you may be better off to export as vCards.)
• Business card or vCard Select the person whose information you want to export, and then choose File | Export | Business Card (vCard). Specify the name and folder where you want to store the business card and click Save.
• Text file Choose File | Export | Other Address Book, choose Text File (Comma Separated Values) from the list that appears, and click Export. The CSV Export Wizard runs. Specify the name of the file in which you want to store the exported addresses, and then click Next. Select the information you want to include for each person, and then click Finish.

Using Additional Directory Services

When you choose Start | Search | People, you see the Find People window. In addition to searching Address Book entries, you can search other directory services--listings of names, e-mail addresses, and other information. These directory services may be public, such as the Web-based services Yahoo! People Search and Bigfoot (at http://people.yahoo.com and http://www.bigfoot.com, respectively). Or, they may be private, such as the employee directory for a large organization or the active directory used by your network logon server.

Windows XP comes with a number of public directory services already set up--click the Look In box in the Find People window to see a list. When you choose a directory service, the boxes in the Find People window adjust to match the types of entries the directory service can accept.

You can configure Windows to use other directory services, for example, for your organization. Windows can work with any LDAP-compatible directory service. (LDAP stands for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol.) To configure Windows to work with an additional directory service, run Address Book or Outlook Express, and then choose Tools | Accounts. (In Outlook Express, click the Directory Service tab.) You see the Internet Accounts window listing the directory services Windows knows about. To add a new directory service, click the Add button in the Internet Accounts window. The Internet Connection Wizard runs and asks for the information it needs to configure the new service.

To remove a directory service you no longer use, select the service in the Internet Accounts window and click the Remove button.