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January 2002;| Sue Mosher | Outlook Tips and Techniques | InstantDoc #23147
Outlook Tips--Displaying Multiple Folders Within a View
Can I show more than one folder within a view—such as the Day/Week/Month view that combines Calendar and Tasks, only with different folders? —Brud Rossmann
Aside from the built-in Calendar + Tasks view and the Outlook Today page, Outlook out of the box provides no views that combine data from multiple folders. The solution is to use the Outlook View Control (OVC) in a folder home page. The OVC is an ActiveX control that displays a specific Outlook page. Folder home pages are simply Web pages, and they can host multiple copies of the OVC, each displaying a different folder. You can add the OVC to a Web page, just as you would any other control, and set the necessary properties.
The original version of the OVC had a security vulnerability. For Outlook 2002, visit the Microsoft Office Download Center and download and install the latest update for Outlook 2002. Any update after August 16, 2001, has the more secure OVC.
After you use the OVC to create a Web page, make it the home page for an Outlook folder by bringing up the folder's Properties dialog box and entering the path to the Web page on the Home Page tab.
For more information about the OVC, including sample code, see the Microsoft article "OL2000: General Information About the Outlook View Control" |
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Windows Video Editing Pulls Ahead Of The Mac, Part 2. Greetings,
In "Windows Video Editing Pulls Ahead of the Mac, Part 1" (available at the URL below), I compared Windows Movie Maker 2 and Apple Computer's iMovie. But the article caused an interesting backlash from the Macintosh community after various Mac-advocacy sites linked to the story. I think Apple's more virulent fans are missing the point. In the article, I compared two consumer-oriented products, not Adobe Systems' Adobe Premiere and Apple's Final Cut Pro, the professional-level tools that were inexplicably most-often cited as an argument against my apparent pro-Microsoft stance. But I've used Mac-oriented video-editing tools for more than a year and a half, and until Windows Movie Maker 2 arrived, I was firmly in the Apple camp when it came to digital video.
http://connectedhomemag.com/visual/articles/index.cfm?articleid=27312
As I noted in Part 1, however, I've changed my mind. Thanks to technology such as Windows Media 9 Series and excellent products such as Windows Movie Maker 2 and Sonic Solutions' Sonic MyDVD 4 (which I discuss below), Windows digital-video technology has pulled ahead of the Mac. I don't believe that Apple will sit still while Microsoft usurps its lead--indeed, an Apple rep recently told me that the company is working to make iMovie even simpler and more powerful than it already is--but Windows Movie Maker 2's superiority should be alarming to Mac fans. Windows Movie Maker 2 is so much better than iMovie, and its underlying Windows Media Video (WMV) 9 technology is so infinitely superior to MPEG-4 that I'm not sure what Apple can do at this point.
More Windows Movie Maker 2
In Part 1, I discussed the Windows Movie Maker 2 UI and how you can use the software to capture and edit movies. I glossed over the technical aspects of editing because Windows Movie Maker 2 includes an amazing AutoMovie feature that will satisfy most consumers' editing needs. But running AutoMovie doesn't necessarily mean you're finished with your
project: If you want, you can go back and manually edit an AutoMovie-edited movie--including changing titles and transitions--as you would any other movie. This capability makes Windows Movie Maker 2 a compelling solution for beginners and advanced users alike.
Whether you use AutoMovie or manually edit the movie, Windows Movie Maker 2 offers several options for saving the final product, many of which address limitations with the previous Windows Movie Maker version. After you select File, Save Movie File, up pops the stunningly simple Save Movie Wizard, which offers choices such as My Computer, Recordable CD, E-mail, The Web, and DV camera. For the highest quality, you might choose My Computer, which automatically selects "Best quality for playback on my computer" or lets you choose from various parameters, including fit to file size or a list of quality ratings from 48KBps to 2.1MBps. If you choose the latter option, the wizard displays important information such as bit rate and display size, which lets technical users understand how long the process will take and how many resources it will consume. The other Save Movie choices are similar. If you select The Web, you get choices such as Dial-up Modem, ISDN, and DSL/Cable Modem, or you can select from more technical, bit rate-oriented choices.
Windows Movie Maker 2 doesn't let you write to a DVD from within the application; Microsoft will incorporate integrated DVD writing in the next Windows version (code-named Longhorn). Microsoft tells me, however, that all recordable DVDs come with DVD moviemaking software, and that WMV 9 is compatible with virtually all these products. But until recently, most of these products weren't very exciting. Here's the product that changes all that.
MyDVD 4
At the PC EXPO trade show in June 2002, I got my first look at MyDVD 4, a consumer-oriented package for creating DVD (and CD-based) movies. Previous versions of MyDVD were decent but not exceptional. The new version, however, is best of breed. It features a Windows XP-style UI that looks like something Microsoft would have built; almost overly simple tools for adding movies, photo slideshows, and submenus to a disc-based movie; and a set of decent-looking and extensible themes that even include motion menus, similar to Apple's iDVD.
For people who want to use MyDVD 4 as a complete solution, Sonic includes basic capture tools and a bundled copy of ArcSoft ShowBiz in a high-end version; ShowBiz was previously my favorite PC-based video-editing tool. But when you combine MyDVD 4 with Windows Movie Maker 2 and the underlying Windows Media 9 Series technologies, these tools become a one-two knockout punch to consumer-oriented video editing and creation. MyDVD 4 couldn't be simpler: You can drag and drop your Windows Movie Maker 2-created movies directly onto a menu in MyDVD 4 or simply select the Get Movies button. Each movie has its own button along with a still frame from the underlying movie, and you can even select which frame in the movie you want to display on the button.
Creating photo slideshows is just as easy (although you might arguably better use Windows Movie Maker 2 for that task): Select the Add Slideshow button, select your photos, choose which photo to use as the button image, add an optional musical background, and you're done. Or you can also select the slide duration, the types of transition to use between each photo, and which background color to use; the aspect ration of most photos will leave blank space on the top and bottom (or left and
right) of the screen.
As you add content to the disc, a small graphic in the lower left of the application window displays the available space, so you always know where you stand. You can preview your creation in the application before burning the movie to disk and change themes on the fly. You can even create your own themes. MyDVD 4 has one small limitation: You can't edit the graphical links to submenus in the sense that you can't apply an image to these buttons. That's a shame, and the product's one glaring omission.
One final note about MyDVD 4: The product includes an intriguing technology called OpenDVD that lets you store special information about the DVDs and CDs you create that you can use later to reedit--and reburn--your creations. So you can create a disc and later choose to change it, even if you lose your MyDVD project on the hard disk.
MyDVD 4 costs about $50 ($70 for the version that includes ShowBiz). I highly recommend it for anyone who wants a simple and elegant way to create DVD movies on the PC.
Sonic MyDVD 4 [Connected Home EXPRESS - 27 Nov 02] [Eric's incoming newsletters] |
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Increase Efficiencies With Kerzner's Project Management Maturity Model
A growing number of organizations involved with application software development and integration are adopting structured project management methodologies. Unfortunately, this adoption of practices is often incomplete or piecemeal at the enterprise level.
Sometimes a single organization will implement structured project management practices at the departmental level rather than across the enterprise. This practice often undermines the potential benefits championed by structured project management, ultimately discouraging further adoption.
In order to address project management methodology adoption issues such as this, several strategic enterprise-level processes have been proposed. One approach is the Project Management Maturity Model, which was first offered by project manager expert Harold Kerzner. This model consists of a series of five adoption levels that indicate an organization's project management maturity status.
Conceptually in this model, you can determine an organization's maturity status by measuring the extent an organization exhibits or adheres to the requirements of project management effectiveness as described within Kerzner's model tiers.
Once an organization's level is determined, the maturity model provides a strategic plan or process to lead the organization to the next tier. This cycle continues as the organization exhibits increasing capability and adoption tier by tier, ultimately leading to the organization's full adoption of the model.
Here are the key elements of Kerzner's Project Management Maturity Model:
LEVEL 1: COMMON LANGUAGE
This level is typified by an organization's conceptual understanding of the importance of project management practices and of their potential benefits. The organization also understands the need for a common language to describe associated terminology.
LEVEL 2: COMMON PROCESSES
An organization recognizes that it needs to develop and install common processes so that it replicates one project's successes on subsequent projects. Organizations at this level also recognize the benefits and applicability of incorporating project management processes in other enterprise methodologies.
LEVEL 3: SINGULAR METHODOLOGY
At this level, organizations understand the synergistic effect of combining all corporate methodologies into a singular approach centered
around project management. The organization further recognizes that the singular approach simplifies process control.
LEVEL 4: BENCHMARKING
Organizations realize they need to monitor and benchmark processes to affect continuous improvement. The organization must analyze its own practices and processes to identify target elements for improvement metrics.
LEVEL 5: CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
The organization is fully incorporating project management principles and is continually monitoring the information obtained from benchmarking to determine if improvements should be implemented into the singular methodology.
By definition, once the enterprise achieves full compliance with the model, it's rewarded by the potential benefits associated with structured project management methodologies, including cost savings, improved productivity, increased customer satisfaction, best practices development, increased project efficiency, and so on.
Scott Withrow has more than 18 years of IT experience, including IT management, Web development management, and internal consulting application analysis.
[Builder.com - 27 Nov 02] |
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© Copyright
2002
Eric Hartwell.
Last update:
12/3/2002; 9:26:05 PM.
This theme is based on the SoundWaves
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"Data! data! data!" he cried impatiently. "I can't make bricks without clay."
— Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Watson in "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches" by
Arthur Conan Doyle.
"I
like deadlines," cartoonist Scott Adams once said. "I especially like the
whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
"There is nothing like that feeling of spending days and days banging your head
against a wall trying to solve a programming problem then suddenly finding that
one tiny obscure and seemingly unrelated piece of the puzzle that unlocks the
solution. Oh yeah!"
- Chris Maunder, CodeProject Newsletter 28 Jan 2002
"Management at eSnipe,
which is me, is also feeling the pain of the 2002 bear market. So rather than
pout about it, I bought some stuff on eBay that I really didn’t need, but made
me feel better."
- Tom Campbell, president of
eSnipe
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