Indiana University: IT Training Tips Blog

You may have a list of business e-mails already created in an Access table or Excel spreadsheet and would like to send a mass mailing using Microsoft Outlook.  Perhaps you would like to invite everyone on your list to a special event, or you would like to let everyone know that you are being promoted to a different department in your organization and, therefore, would like to provide different contact information.

If you have an Outlook profile set up on your machine, you can send multiple e-mails quickly to many recipients at once by using Microsoft Word and the Mail Merge feature. If no Outlook profile is set up, then when you try to send the e-mails, you will get a warning stating that no Outlook profile is set up on your machine.

Just follow these steps:

1. Open Microsoft Word.
2. Click the Start Mail Merge button on the Mailings tab of the Ribbon and choose E-mail Messages to define the type of mail merge you want to create.
3. Click Select Recipients on the Ribbon.
4. Choose Use Existing List…
5. Navigate to the Excel file or Access object that contains the data source with your e-mail addresses.
6. Click Edit Recipient List to choose those records that you want to include in the mailing. Click OK when you have chosen the recipients or filtered the list.
7. Write your e-mail message in the Word document.
8. To finish the merge, click the Finish & Merge button on the Ribbon.
9. You can either edit or view the individual email messages, or send the e-mail messages directly.

If you choose Send E-mail Messages, you will get this dialog box:

In the To box, using the drop-down arrow, choose the field in your list that contains the e-mail address. Add a subject line and choose the desired Mail format. Click OK, and the messages will be sent immediately.

Keep in mind that if you want any formatting, you must add formatting within the Word main document before completing the merge. You can also personalize the messages (such as adding a first name) by inserting merge fields into the Word document.

How would you react if I told you that email, as we know it, is about to disappear?

“Not my oxyge… er… email!”
–Techno-addicts everywhere

Most of us are addicted to electronic communication in one form or another.

Email was invented about forty years ago and it’s becoming a difficult, tired technology. The way we communicate has changed a lot since its creation. Forty years ago, technologies like Twitter, Facebook, wikis, blogs, etc. didn’t exist, and whether or not you like to admit it, they have drastically changed the way we communicate.

So, if email is growing old and tired, what will it be replaced with? As I gaze into my crystal ball, the image of the future begins to be covered by a dense white fog.

Email’s successor could come from many, many places, but one of my favorite candidates right now comes from Google in a service called Google Wave. Google Wave is currently in closed preview, but a couple of us at IT Training & Education have been able to get into the preview to see what it’s all about. I’m by no means an expert in how to use Google Wave, but I’ve been digging through it long enough to know a little bit of what it’s about.

NOTE: This article is not intended to be a “How-To Use Google Wave” article, rather an explanation of what Google Wave is and some resources to make your transition easier and more enjoyable.

Continue reading after the jump.
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How do I love thee, Google? Let me count the ways…

• Search engine is extremely effective
• Couldn’t have made it through grad school without Google Scholar
• Gmail provides a massive amount of storage space and unlimited number of free accounts
• Google Earth is awesome
• Picasa is the best free photo editing application available
• Google’s translate tool makes it possible for me to send messages to my Spanish-speaking friends, even though I know very little Spanish
• The company is creative and not afraid of looking silly (the constantly changing image on the search page proves this)

…and if that isn’t enough, a few days ago Google announced that they would provide free Wi-Fi in airports around the country through January 15, 2010.  That confirms it. My heart now officially belongs to Google!

To see a list of the 47 participating airports, or to read more about this recent announcement, click on the image below:

Ever hastily typed up an email, clicked the Send button, and, in the very next nanosecond, shouted, “Ohhhhh, nooooooo!”?

The mistakenly-sent email has happened to all of us – whether from distraction, anger, inebriation, or other happenstances out of our control – the end result is the same: a sinking feeling of self-reprobation (“How could I have been so stupid?”) or even just mild regret (“I just sent an email to a hundred people about my party, but I didn’t tell them what day or time.”)

Gmail’s recently added a feature that, if you catch your mistake within 5 seconds of clicking the Send button, will allow you to pull back the email before it’s sent. This new feature is called Undo Send, and here’s how you can add it to your Gmail account: (more…)

UniCom is a new way to communicate at IU. UniCom provides telephony, email, instant messaging, audio and video conferencing that you can access from almost anywhere. Microsoft Office Communicator and Live Meeting are the main applications you use. Any member of the IU community can join up! To learn more, see the video.