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Gadgets, Technology, Public speaking and IT from an undergraduate's perspective.
Microsoft Office Outlook (Outlook XP/2002, Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007) Personal Folders (PST) Backup Tool
Many users use Microsoft Office Outlook (i.e. Outlook XP/2002, Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007) as their default e-mail client, contact list manager and daily management tasks organizer. Over time, it’s common to have Outlook contain all your important email messages, contacts information, calendar entries, appointment details, essential notes, critical to-do tasks and other personal data. To safeguard your important data against data loss and theft, it’s crucial to backup all your data — imagine what would happen if your hard disk got corrupted or if you accidentally formatted your computer and lost all your data!
Thankfully, the later versions of Microsoft Outlook stores all data in .pst (Personal Folders) files, which makes it very easy for backup and restore purposes. Each .pst file contains all of your Outlook folders, including the Inbox, Calendar, and Contacts. You can have a single .pst file, but you might also have an additional .PST file that you use for archiving.
Compare Personal Folders Backup, exporting, and archiving
There are three ways to back up your Outlook e-mail messages, contacts, appointments, tasks, notes, and journal entries — the Personal Folders Backup tool, exporting, and archiving.
Personal Folders Backup tool is used to copy your entire .pst file or files to your hard disk or to a network server or share.
Export is used to create a file containing Outlook information, but still keep the original data in your folders. You can only export one folder at a time.
Archive is used to move the items that you want to back up out of your folders.
Microsoft provides a Outlook add-in named the Personal Folders Backup plugin that can create backup copies of your .pst files at regular intervals (only for Outlook 2002 and later versions), backing up all of your Outlook folders easily and automatically.
Personal Folders Backup offers several options. For example, you can choose which .pst file you want to back up, and how often you want to back them up. Before you begin the backup process, you might want to check the size of your .pst file. If you have multiple folders in your .pst file, you must select the top-level folder to determine the total file size for all the folders. Make sure that the file sizes tally.
To install the Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders Backup tool:
- Download the tool from the Microsoft Office Online site by clicking the Download link and following the instructions in the dialog boxes
- Make sure that you quit Outlook
- Double-click the Pfbackup.exe program file on your hard disk
- Follow the instructions on the screen to complete the installation
- Start Outlook
Instructions for use:
- The Personal Folders file (.pst) that you want to back up must be open. If the file is visible in Folder List, it is open
- On the File menu, click Backup
- Click Options
- In the Backup these personal folders files list, select the check box for each item you want to back up
- Change the .pst file name shown. Or, to select a different folder, click Browse, navigate to the location you want, and then click Open
Note: The default file name and location where the .pst file is saved is shown in the File location box - To have Microsoft Outlook automatically remind you to make a backup copy of this file, select the “Remind me to backup every x days” check box, and then type the number of days between 1 and 999
- Click OK
- Click Save Backup
Note: The items selected will not be backed up until you quit Outlook
You can download Personal Folders Backup add-in for Office Outlook 2002/2003/2007 from Microsoft Download Center (OGA validation required). Or, you can also download the setup file pfbackup.exe from the following direct download links:
English (US) edition
Spanish edition
German edition
Simplified Chinese edition
Greek edition
Russian edition
Notes
- Personal Folders Backup tool only backs up .pst files. If you have an Exchange Server mailbox, your server mailbox folders should already be backed up by your Exchange Server administrator.
- If you are using an East Asian operating system with an English version of Microsoft Office, you cannot use this download.
The Personal Folders Backup tool is designed for use in Outlook 2002 and later, and provides a quick and easy way to back up your Outlook data to your hard disk or network. After you back up your information, you can even copy these backups of your Outlook data to a removable media such as a CD, DVD, or external hard drive. The backup files are exact copies of the original files and are saved in the same file format. You can receive periodic reminders to back up your files.
Tags: .pst, backup, Backup Tool, office, Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007, Outlook XP/2002, Personal Folders (PST), restore, Technology, Tips, WindowsRelated posts
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GMail Trick
Unlike most webmail services (e.g. Live mail or Yahoo mail), with GMail, you can actually do pretty neat stuff with your email address. For instance, did you know that you could put the + sign in your email, and still receive emails as per normal? So if your email address was yourname@gmail.com, you could actually send an email to yourname+testing@gmail.com, and still receive your mails! This is because Gmail doesn’t recognize anything after the + sign.
GMail does record that particular email address though. To see it, just click on the “Show Details” link to expand the email header. You’ll be able to see the email address to which it was sent.
This trick is useful when you want to track email addresses. For instance, you could give out yourname+your_school@gmail.com to your school-related stuff, and yourname+work@gmail.com for work related stuff. If you want to see who uses a particular email address, you can tag it, maybe with a descriptive phrase or even a number like this: yourname+124@gmail.com.
Tags: email, filter, gmail, Tips, tricksRelated posts
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Toastmasters Table Topic Ideas for Impromptu Speaking - Mixed Words
Write words on small pieces of paper and put them all in a bag. Have each Table Topics speaker pick up 3 pieces of paper and make up a story that contains all 3 words in it. If your chapter meeting has a “Word of the Day”, you can also require that the speaker use the “Word of the Day” as well.) Generally, you should make variations of the word acceptable. So for example, if the word is “run”, then “running” may be used in the speaker’s story.
Tags: Public Speaking, Tips, ToastmastersRelated posts
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Protect Your Wireless Network with MAC Address Filtering…A Bad Idea
To secure your wireless network, you can use a variety of means, and one of which is by selecting only what MAC addresses are allowed. This is known as MAC filtering, and it can serve as a basic deterrent against most opportunistic attackers.
However, just using MAC filtering alone will probably be a bad idea. It doesn’t take much determination or knowledge at all to spoof a MAC address. In fact, it’s actually quite easy to spoof a MAC address, and can be done within 2 steps.
Step 1. Download and run any freely available security tool, for example Nmap. Set it to listen in on network traffic and pick out the MAC address.
Step 2. Change your MAC address to the one you picked out.
In fact, Nmap even allows you to spoof your MAC address by running the “-spoof-mac” command line option. This was originally intended to hide the true source of Nmap probes.
If you don’t have Nmap, you can just spoof your MAC address with the software that comes with most operating systems.
Here are some examples:
1. Linux: ifconfig eth0 hw ether 02:a1:13:d4:00:12
2. MS Windows: the MAC address is stored in a registry key (location of that key varies from one MS Windows version to the next, but you can easily find that and just edit it yourself). Alternatively, download a free tool such as Macshift to help you change your MAC address.
Now that you know how easy it is to spoof your MAC address, start worrying even more, because these simple steps are run automatically and very, very quickly by malware. This means that if you are using MAC filtering to protect your wireless network, you should seriously consider something a little more robust.
Tags: cool inventions, mac address, mac filtering, PHP, protect wireless, Technology, Tips, wifi routerRelated posts
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What is the difference between Hibernate and Standby in Windows XP?
Standby and hibernate are 2 extremely useful functions that you can use because of the time it saves you from booting up your computer. Once you’re done with your work session, and need to leave your desk, simply choose standby or hibernate. These two sleep modes are fantastic for laptops as well.
But what’s the difference? Hibernate saves an image of your current session with all open applications and files. Then it powers down your computer (exactly as if you had turned it off). When you next switch your computer on, you will see exactly the same applications and files open as you had left them. In this state, your computer is exactly as though it’s turned off — no power is needed in hibernate mode.
Standby is a sleep mode that reduces the power that your computer uses to almost nothing. The keyword is “almost”. When you use standby mode, your computer cuts the power to your screen, hard drive, peripheral devices…in fact, anything except your computer’s memory (RAM) is cut. This is because the RAM will maintain a copy of your working session.
I’ve had people tell me that moving your notebook around while it’s in standby mode will shake up the harddrive when it’s spinning and cause hard disk problems. Utter rubbish. The hard drive is powered down during standby, much less in hibernate mode.
Tags: difference, Gadgets, hibernate, stand by, standby, Technology, The Big Net, Tips, WindowsRelated posts
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05 Apr 08 | Cool Stuff, Gadgets, Main, Operating Systems, Technology, The Big Net, Tips, Windows | Comments (0) |
About AlvinMy blog covers areas covering mainly IT, technology, and public speaking. My posts are usually about any useful things that I think are worth sharing, and of my research that I do. |
