Kiran’s Blog

OutTwit’s latest release (#39) is packed with a number of powerful features – For example: Ability to save sent tweets, Keyboard shortcuts for posting tweets, Ability to filter incoming tweets based on Tweet type (FriendTimeline,@replies,Direct messages) to name a few.

In addition to all of that, one feature that I find particularly useful.. is the ability to Tweet my Outlook Tasks and Appointments.
OutTwit makes this almost painfully simple.
Follow these steps:

1. Go to your Tasks folder, select a Task.

2. Select “Retweet” from OutTwit drop down menu.

3. Change the tweet text if you’d like, and hit Update.

That’s all.
Along the same lines, you can Tweet your Appointments, Email messages.

How to receive reminders via Twitter
If you would like to get more fancy, follow these steps to receive reminders for your Outlook tasks, as Direct Messages in Twitter.

In order to do this, you’ll have to add rtm as your friend on Twitter. After completing the setup, follow these steps.

1. Pick a task from your Tasks folder.

2. Invoke Retweet command from OutTwit drop down menu.

3. Prepend the tweet text with “d rtm” and specify the reminder interval as needed. For example:

Twitter will send you a reminder for your Outlook Task item, as Direct message, at the specified time.

You can find more RTM commands here.

Tech GTD, OutTwit, rtm, Tech, TechHit, tips, Twitter

In the previous post, we have seen one way to stay on the top of tweets from a specific set of people.
Let’s look at another way to achieve the same results, using Outlook’s Search Folders feature.

You can create a new “Search Folder” in Outlook and set it to display only tweets from particular senders, or only tweets that contain a particular word, or match any other criteria supported by Outlook filters.

Follow these steps:

1. Install OutTwit if you haven’t already. Complete the basic set up.
Open Outlook. Go to the mail box containing your tweets.

2. Go to “File->New->Search folder” in Outlook.
Outlook displays a “New Search Folder” window.

3. In that window, under “Select a Search Folder“, choose “Create a custom Search Folder”.

4. Next, click on the “Choose” button in that window.
Outlook opens a “Custom Search Folder” window.

5. Give a name to your Search folder. I am calling it “MyTwitterSearch“.

6. Click on the “Criteria” button to specify search terms.
In this example, i’d like to search for all the tweets that contain the words “mashable” or “Lifehacker” in them.

7. Click on OK and return to the “Custom Search Folder” window.

8. Click on “Browse” and select OutTwit’s Twitter folder. (This is the folder you’ve configured in OutTwit).

Click on OK.

9. Your search folder is ready! Go to Mailbox->SearchFolders->MyTweetsSearch.
You can now have a look at all tweets that contain the words “mashable” or “Lifehacker” in them.

This is just one example. You can play around with Outlook’s Search Folder options and tune it according to your needs.

Combine Outlook’s Search Folders functionality with OutTwit and boost up Twitter’s Signal-to-Noise ratio

TechHit Add new tag, OutTwit, Productivity, Tech, TechHit, Twitter

Twitter could be overwhelming, when you follow a lot of people.
Often times, you might find yourself in a deluge of tweets and it is very easy to miss tweets from your closest friends, or other sources of interest.

OutTwit offers a very simple way that lets you quickly check what your sources of interest are tweeting about.

Follow these steps to create your own Twitter group:

1. Install OutTwit if you haven’t already. Complete the basic set up.

2. Click on OutTwit drop down menu in Outlook toolbar. Select “Search/Track Keywords”.

3. Click on “New”

4. In the “Search for” text box, add the Twitter ids you are interested in, to the group.
For example: “from:Lifehacker OR from:mashable”

5. Click on “Select Folder” and assign an Outlook folder for your group. I’m calling it “MyGroup”.

6. Click on Save and return to the “Manage Searches” window, and hit “Close”

That’s it… MyGroup is ready.

Open My Group folder in Outlook and check out tweets from people in your group.

By creating your own Twitter Group in Outloook, you can filter out signal from noise. You no longer have to dig through a pile of tweets searching for tweets from your friends.

There are tons of other possibilities with OutTwit+Twitter Search integration.
Check out this page for supported search operators.

The beauty of OutTwit lies in its seamless integration with Outlook, which you probably have open all the time anyway. So, that’s one less application on your desktop.

Make use of the Search/Track feature in OutTwit and boost up Twitter’s Signal-to-Noise ratio.

TechHit OutTwit, Productivity, Tech, TechHit, Twitter

OutTwit conveniently lets you post & read tweets from Outlook, without having to open another desktop application or a browser window.

OutTwit’s latest version (0.5.2.34) comes with an extremely handy Preview feature that lets you read and post tweets from the Outlook toolbar itself.
Twittering had never been so easier!

Screenshot

Preview supports the following actions:

• Mouse over – displays the entire tweet.
• Click – opens the tweet in its own window.
• Shift+Click – if the tweet has a URL in it, open the link in a browser.
• Ctrl+Click – compose a direct (d) reply to the sender.
• Ctrl+Shift+Click – compose an @reply to the sender.

More details here

Microsoft Outlook, Productivity Addins, Tech, TechHit, Utilities, Windows GTD, Outlook, OutTwit, TechHit, Twitter

Exporting Outlook data from Windows to Mac (Apple Mail, Entourage) is quite a cumbersome task.
If you aren’t planning on using any additional software, you’ll have to go through Outlook express or Thunderbird. The steps are far from being easy, yet the results are quite error prone.

There are some shareware products available out there. I’ve taken them for a spin, and the best & easiest one seems to be MessageSave. It’s yet another highly useful product from the Productivity tools company – TechHit (the makers of Simplyfile).

The tool is quite intuitive. And it literally took me a couple of mouse clicks to
export my Messages, Contacts, Calanders.
(Open Outlook, goto Tools->MessageSave->Apple Mac Export ->Export Messages/Calendars/Contacts)

Then I transferred those exported files to my Mac, and imported them to AppleMail, Addressbook, Calander, Entourage etc.

That’s it…! Cowabunga!

Here’s more info on exporting messages, contacts, calendars.

Microsoft Outlook, Productivity Addins, TechHit Email, Export, Import, Mac, MessageSave, Outlook, TechHit

Another glowing review on my favorite GTD software – TechHit’s Simplyfile.

Take Control of Your Outlook Inbox

Planning on writing a separate post on Simplyfile, soon…

Microsoft Outlook, Productivity Addins, TechHit Addin, GTD, Outlook, Productivity, Simplyfile, TechHit