Sperry Software

Over the past weekend, Sperry Software has made the beta build of the Think Green add-in available to the public.   Think Green is the newest add-in added to our family of products.  The add-in is simple, yet very environmentally friendly.  Here is how it works.  When you go to print an email or attachment from within Microsoft Outlook, Think Green will ask if you are sure you need to print this item.  Many items are better left in electronic form and Think Green helps verify that the item really needs printing.   The add-in does not stop you from printing, just asks for confirmation.  

I am excited about this add-in because it has great potential for additional features down the road.  The beta is free to download and try out.   All of our beta testers, those who submit the email to us, will receive one free license for the add-in when it is finally released. 

Think Green uses a new framework that we have been working on and is the first in this line of add-ins.   Due to the framework we use, the add-in is ONLY supported on Outlook 2007 and higher.  If you have any questions regarding the add-in, feel free to contact us.   You can get the add-in from http://www.sperrysoftware.com/outlook/think-green.asp.  More information will be following.

The common standard for moving contacts from computer to computer, or even application to application, has been the VCard.  A Vcard consists of lines of text containing data field with attributes and the value of that field.  These lines make up the properties of a specific contact.  Vcard’s are stored as VCF files.  Most vcard files only contain one contact per file.  More and more applications are supporting the ability to read and write vcard files that contain more than one contact per file.   This ability is limited in different ways depending on the software.

As I mentioned above, different software packages have different limitations when working with vcards.  Outlook, for example, will only read one contact from a vcard file, no matter how many contacts are actually in the file.   Outlook will also only write one vcard per file when you export contacts.  Lotus Notes and Mac products often will read multiple contacts from a single vcard file, but are limited to a specific length of data.  This means that If your vcard file has two hundred contacts, they might only read 100 of them.   This is different between different software packages, and I am not sure of the limits on each one. 

If you are working with a lot of contacts, say 1000, it is too much work to have to deal with exporting 1000 files and then the time it takes to import each file individually.  So instead, you export one file with 1000 contacts, to find out that the receiving application can’t handle the file.  Maybe it is too big, maybe it only processes the first 200 contacts.   So how do you save yourself from having to import each contact individually?  You will need to break up the large vcard file.   The file is only a text file and can be opened in any generic text editor (like notepad).  It will look hard to read at first but the key components you are interested in are the BEGIN:VCARD and END:VCARD tags.  These signify the start and end of a specific contact.  Now you must start the process of breaking the file into smaller files so maybe you have 10 vcard files instead of 1000.  Start copying text from a BEGIN:VCARD line to the END:VCARD line.  Make sure to include those lines in the copy.   Copy a bunch of the contacts out into their own file so it contains 200 or so items.   Most text editors allow you to search so you can check how many you have by searching for number of occurrences of BEGIN:VCARD.    Make sure the file starts with BEGIN:VCARD on the first line and END:VCARD on the last line.  Save it with a .vcf file extension.  Continue this process until the file is broken down small enough to import the contacts in just a few imports.

The process of breaking down the vcard file into multiple, smaller files adds just a small amount of work compared to working with 1000 different files.  It can save you time and make it easier to manage your files.  

We are currently in the process of updating the layout of the add-in web pages.  The site has used the same layout for the past few years and based on user feedback we are working on some changes to make information more available.  We get a lot of questions regarding the add-ins compatibility with Outlook 2007.  We are trying to make this information (which is already available) more prevalent on the page.

A new support section on the pages has been added to outline the support that every retail customer receives when they purchase a copy of the add-ins.  We hope that the modifications we are making will help users navigate the site and find the information they are looking for more easily and with greater speed.  I encourage any feedback regarding the new pages to be submitted using the Contact Us Form.  If you would like to see the new layout, Hide Fax Numbers already has the layout change.   The updates will be going on throughout the month of August and will hopefully be completed by September.   These updates will not affect users visiting our site. 

Many of the tech support questions that we receive are solved by the customer running our Add-in Reset Tool.  The tool can be found on the Tools Page.  This is just one of our tools that we have available to help resolve some of the more common issues found when troubleshooting the add-ins.   You may be wondering what the tool does and what issues it resolves. 

The Add-In Reset Tool is a pretty straight forward in functionality.  The tool un-registers and then re-registers all of the Sperry Software add-ins that are installed.  This is similar to uninstalling and re-installing the application through the control panel.  The advantage is that this process is much quicker than doing a re-install.  This is a convenient process to run when the Sperry Software Add-ins button stops responding to button clicks.

The reset tool is usually the first tool that is recommended for issues pertaining to the add-in suddenly stopping and not functioning.  It is a quick and non-invasive process.  It will NOT erase any settings for the add-ins. 

On some computers, Windows will warn you about running the tool because it is a third party tool.   This tool is safe and will not harm your Outlook or Windows setup.  Our tools are provided to help make complex tasks simple for the end user. 

One of the areas that interests me as a developer of tools that attempt to increase productivity are other blogs from individuals and companies doing the same.Deva Hazarika, CEO of ClearContext, wrote a blog about a new organization forming to help deal with the onslaught of email.
This new organization, the Information Overload Research Group (IORG), is an industry consortium designed to gather together some of the largest players in the field to help you, well, be more productive.

  I am personally excited about this because like you, I am inundated with emails - and after all, misery loves company - plus it helps you to deal with problems if you can work on them together.  To that end, I have outlined some goals for the IORG:

  1) Come up with a name to identify the problem so that the general public becomes aware of the problem (and hopefully how to combat it, but awareness is part of the solution).  Recognize that some interruptions you cannot stop (say, you’re a commission based salesperson), and some you wouldn’t want to stop - a commission based salesperson would probably not want to shut off his/her phone because it might be that one important sale that helps you make your sales goal that month, and you wouldn’t want to prevent an email from your boss cancelling the assignment you’re working on from reaching you.

  2) Recognize and enumerate the fundamental causes of the problem (i.e., lack of self-discipline, boredom at work, too many assignments or responsibilities (and thus too many emails) - I mean, it IS possible that you are attempting to do too much (or have been assigned too much work)).

  3) Identify general (non vendor specific) actions that people can take to reclaim their time…turn off the phone for periods during the day, lengthen the time between email send/receive, get senders to think about whether the email is important enough to send, etc.  [Note: I see that the IORG site now has a tips archive that does this…I’ll add more tips in a future blog.]

  4) Identify vendor specific solutions that are available now (ClearContext,  Gmail’s Email Addict).  Who knows, we may throw our hat into the ring at some point - there has to be short term solutions as a stop-gap measure since the problem will only get worse while the long term solutions get ironed out.

  5) Finally, create the goals that only large companies together can solve - for instance, it’d be a great world if I could specify a time each day that all my devices and methods of communication would stop attempting to interrupt me (and I mean my phones, email, and IM at least) for say, 30 minutes by default (and I’d use this much more frequently if it was as simple and reliable as turning on or off a radio).  For me personally, I get my best work done in the morning, so I’d want to be able to come into work, check the messages to be sure there are no immediate fires to deal with, then work uninterrupted until around lunchtime…after which I could come back and respond to the emails and phone calls as needed.  Perhaps even define a standard that cell phone companies and software vendors could adhere to if they so choose.

  Here at Sperry Software, we’re always interested in how you deal with what could only be described as “too many emails”.  Let me know how you handle it.  Email me at president (at) SperrySoftware.com - we’ll report back after we’ve heard from a few folks and let you know how others are dealing with the problem.

  In the meantime, back to work for me!

  Mike Sperry

  http://www.SperrySoftware.com

I spend a fair amount of time looking for ways to help improve our customers’ experience while they use our products.  Sperry Software has been wanting to improve the help system we have online to help customers get the answers they need in a timely manner.  One of the options we have had for a while is to implement a knowledge base.  Not only will the knowledge base have as much information as possible, it will have an advanced search feature to help the user find the information they need. 

I have found a package that I believe will greatly enhance the customer’s experience while looking for information on our site.   The package includes many features that one would commonly find in a knowledge base.  One of the nice features is the contact form it provides.   If you are unable to find the information you need, you can choose to contact us.   While you are typing in your question, the application will search your text and the knowledge base to find any possible solutions.  If one of the solutions works, you don’t have to submit the question.  If it doesn’t solve your issue, you can continue with submitting your question.  The greatest thing about this is that we are not asking you to do anything more than you would currently have to do to email us your question.   Just start typing your question and if the system can find a related article, great!!, if not, submit the question and our tech support team will respond.

The new knowledge base is not set to go completely live until July 1st.   We are doing a beta until then for anyone that would like to test it out.  Please keep in mind that the system is new so we are still working diligently to get as much information online as possible.  New content will be added as much as possible.  To access the knowledge base please go to http://www.sperrysoftware.com/kb. 

  We’re back from Tech Ed 2008! 

  It was a great event - the venue (Orlando Convention Center) was terrific, not to mention the largest building I’ve ever been in.  Shown in the image is James, along with our display booth.

  We’d like to thank the customers that stopped by to see us, like Majestic Realty and Con-way,  among others. 

  We’d also like to thank all the potential customers for coming by the booth.  We received several ideas for new add-ins, as well as feature requests for existing add-ins. 

  Remember that if you received the Tech Ed 2008 20% discount code, that it expires at the end of the month.

  Thanks again! 

  Mike Sperry

  http://www.SperrySoftware.com 

  Find 37 Outlook add-ins that can make a difference!

The first full day of TechEd completed last night at 9pm.  There were a lot of attendees that stopped by the Sperry Software booth.  I have found that it is actually pretty difficult to give a quick presentation about what Sperry Software offers because we have 37 products.  It is difficult to quickly determine what each attendee is looking for in a product so we never know which products to mention. 

The day was split into two sessions.   A session in the morning from 10am - 1:30pm and then an evening session from 6pm - 9pm.  The morning session was busier than I had expected.  I thought that while the classes were in session, there would be a slow down in visitors.  We actually didn’t have much down time at all.   We had a pretty steady flow of attendees during the entire session.  The evening session was a lot more relaxed. There were small appetizers and beer served during this session  The first part of the session was a little slow because everyone was more concerned with eating the food than talking to any vendors.   It slowly turned around and we were again pretty busy the rest of the night. 

We have already received some great feedback from the people we have spoken to.  I encourage anyone with thoughts or suggestions to provide those to me.   I am always willing to listen to what concerns you have. 

When creating a newsletter or some other form of mass mail, a lot of users prefer to use Microsoft Publisher as the editor.  To send the emails to the intended recipients, users prefer to use the Send Individually add-in from Sperry Software.  This add-in allows the user to create one email and easily send that same email, separately, to all the recipients.  At this time, the Send Individually Add-in for Outlook will not work when Publisher goes to send the email.   This happens because Sperry Software only has the Outlook add-in and a Publisher add-in would be needed in this situation. 

Thanks to a response from one of our customers, there is a way to get around this limitation.   The customer sent them Publisher template to themselves via email.  Once in Outlook, the user then forwarded the email to their recipients using the Send Individually function.  Before sending the email, remove the FWD: from the subject and any other text indicating a forward.  The result was that the recipients received the email and it appeared formatted correctly. 

We appreciate any tips or workarounds that customers provide us when they use our products. 

Will you be at Tech Ed 2008 in Orlando, FL this year?  If so, stop by our booth and say hello!  Since this year’s Tech Ed event is broken up into two parts (a developer’s conference and an Exchange administrator’s conference), we will be at the second half only - June 10 through June 13. 

If you haven’t made plans yet and would like to go, please contact us because we have a discount code good for $400 off the normal regular entry fee.  This offer is on a limited, first come, first served basis.  Just email sales@sperrysoftware.com to get the details on how to obtain your full conference attendee pass for just $1,595.

If you’ve ever wanted to meet us, please come by booth 430.  We’re excited to be there and to meet you as well.