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.

“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.

What is Google Wave?

Google Wave is a new internet communications platform that melds several concepts from existing web technologies into one application. It borrows the best features of wikis, email, instant messaging, and social networking.

Instead of me re-creating everything that already exists on the web about Google Wave, I’ve added a couple of videos that do a great job explaining what Google Wave is and some of its best features.

This first video explains how Google Wave relates to email:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDu2A3WzQpo

As you can see from that video, wave allows users to all view a single copy of a message rather than multiple forwarded, replied to, carbon copied, etc. messages. At one time in all of our lives, we’ve seen one of those monsters of email come charging our way.

You might be thinking, “So what? It’s email with a fancy interface, big deal.” Google Wave does more than just email-like tasks. You can embed videos, maps, polls and Twitter feeds into waves. You can also publish waves directly to your blogs, or even have the wave translated between participants in real time!

Check out the following video, exploring some of those features:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6pgxLaDdQw

The 80 minute video can be found here.

Google Wave Resources — Bots, Extensions, etc.

Let’s assume you get an invite, and are now riding the Google Wave, where do you find information about bots, extensions, gadgets, etc.? There are already some sites out there devoted to listing these resources. Below is a list of some that I’ve found useful:

• Google Wave Bots Wiki
• Featured Google Wave Extensions
• The Complete, Up-to-Date, List of Google Wave Gadgets and Robots

Riding the Wave Into the Future

How do we go from email as we know it, to waves? Rest assured, Google has a plan. Right now, Google is the only provider of wave-like communication and it’s only in closed preview. If they get their way, that will change in the near future with other providers using the Wave protocol to replace email. Google Wave is intended to be mostly an open source application, allowing third parties to build their own Wave services and for the public at large to develop their own Wave extensions (bots, gadgets, etc.).

Along with the open source Wave software, Google is developing a new open messaging protocol called the Google Wave Federation Protocol. It’s based on the XMPP (Jabber) protocol and is intended to mirror the ease of adoption of the email protocol, allowing communication regardless of wave provider.

I apologize if I lost some of you in those last couple paragraphs, my inner geek took over and made me get excited about protocols and source code.

The bottom line is that Google Wave is a new, powerful way for us to communicate. You can sign up for an invite to the service from Google or you can wait for one of your friends to have a block of invites given to them from Google.

…And no, I don’t have any extra invites!

• 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:

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:

1. Log into Gmail using your favorite web browser.
2. To access settings, in the upper right corner of the browser, click Settings.
3. To access the Undo Send feature, in the list of tabs, click Labs.

4. Scroll down the Labs page (lots of interesting additions, here!) and look for the Undo Send feature.

5. Click the Enable radio button.
6. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes.

Now, after you send an email via the Gmail and a web browser, you should see:

Currently, the Undo button is available for roughly 5 seconds, so you’ll have to move fast. It’d be great if this were customizable, but any Undo is better than no Undo at all.

Happy emailing!