Sort/Group Your Outlook Email by Conversation Like Gmail

I’ve been using this “trick” for quite some time, but finally got around to posting a blog about it. This basically outlines, step-by-step, how to make your Outlook email act like your email in Gmail. That is of course, grouped by conversation.

I’ve grown so used to having all of my email conversations grouped into one set in Gmail (so I don’t have to go chasing them all over the place), that I wanted the same convenience for my work email, which uses Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. Not only will it make you 10 times more productive, it will also help to prevent that embarrassing late response to an email that has already been answered (since all messages in that conversation will be grouped together visually).

Anyway, here’s how to set up your Outlook to act like Gmail:

1) Be sure that your inbox (or folder) is not already arranged in a group (it is often grouped by date by default). To make sure this is off, right click on the header bar, go to Arrange By –> and make sure Show in Groups is unchecked.

2) Right click on the header bar and select Field Chooser. The Field Chooser window appears.

3) In the Field Chooser window, select Conversation and drag it to your header bar.

4) Close the Field Chooser window.

5) Right click on the header bar and select Group by Box.

6) An area above the header bar will appear that says, “Drag a column header here to group by that column.”

7) Select the Conversation column header and drag it into that area above the header bar.

8 ) Your inbox (or folder) is now sorted and grouped by conversation like Gmail.

Awesome right?

Sometimes, when you’re looking for a specific email, you’ll want to sort by “Received” or “From” or “Size”, etc. What do you do then?

• Just drag the Conversation box back to the header and you can sort by any column.
• When you want to group by Conversation again, just drag the Conversation column header back to that area above the header bar (step 7 above).

Hope this helped y’all! Have fun!

Disable the Zone Alarm Security Options Pop-Up Window

This article is to help any of you ZoneAlarm users get rid of that annoying “ZoneAlarm Security Options” window that keeps popping up when you start your computer.

A Little Background:
Quite a few updates ago, the good people at Check Point Software Technologies, LTD (formerly Zone Labs) decided to sell out and get all commercial on us cheapskates who continue to mooch off of them by using their free ZoneAlarm Firewall. They decided that a friendly pop-up/reminder (to upgrade to their for-pay Security Suite package) every stinkin’ time we start up our computer would be the way to go. D’oh!

ZoneAlarm Security Options Pop-Up Window

I’ve just been living with it for the last, I don’t know how many months, but finally got fed up. Searched for the solution and found one that worked. Finally stopped being lazy and put together this article to share with you what I’ve learned. Enjoy!

The Non-Solutions:
– There is nothing in the pop-up itself that allows for an opt-out to this. Clicking “Tell Me More” or “No, Thank You” or even “X”-ing out of the window entirely will not work.
– There is nothing in ZoneAlarm’s Control Center settings that allows for an opt-out to this. At least I couldn’t find it.
– There is nothing to disable in Startup processes (in msconfig), and I don’t even want to attempt to touch the registry for something so small.

The Solution:
1 ) Right click on the ZoneAlarm icon in your taskbar (bottom right corner of your desktop) and select “Shutdown ZoneAlarm”

Shutting Down ZoneAlarm

2 ) Go to the ZoneAlarm folder in Windows Explorer (Windows Key + E). In Windows 7, it should be here: C:Program Files (x86)Zone LabsZoneAlarm .
3 ) Right-click on zlclient.exe and select “Run as administrator”. It may ask you for permission. Just agree and allow it to run.

Run as administrator

4) Now double-click zlclient.exe to run ZoneAlarm.
5 ) Once it’s done starting up, reboot your computer.
6 ) Walah! The pop-up should now be gone.

Hope this helps y’all! Happy mooching! 😉

The application Email (process com.android.email) has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again

It appears as though this is a common issue for many frustrated Android users out there, so I’m posting what I did – which actually worked! – in the hopes that it will help at least a few of you out.

A Little Background:
I purchased the Droid on opening day, but never set up my Exchange email until recently (more than two months after the fact). Just never had the need really. After setting it up, it ran pretty smoothly for several weeks. I’ve (apparently) been fortunate enough to not run into the dreaded “The application Email (process com.android.email) has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again.” error message… Until Now!

The Problem:
From what I’ve read, the root of the issue is a bug in the Email app/program related to unparsable email headers. When you get an email with such headers (which sorta explains why my email was working fine for a while), you will get the error message above.

The Non-Solutions:
– Killing the app (with programs like Advanced Task Killer Free) and restarting the app doesn’t work.
– Rebooting and restarting the app doesn’t work.
– Killing the app PLUS Rebooting and then restarting the app doesn’t work. Trust me, I’ve tried several times.
– Attempting to kill the app in “Manage applications” doesn’t work (well sorta) because it’s not readily listed and not easy to find (see solution below).

The Solution:
1 ) Go into your email from your desktop client and delete or file away (archive) the latest emails that you suspect may’ve started to cause this issue.
2 ) From your Android device, go to Settings.
3 ) Select Applications
4 ) Select Manage Applications
5 ) Hit your Menu option/button (the one with four lines usually between the Back/Return button and the Home button)
6 ) Select Filter
7 ) Select Running in the Filter Options pop-up menu.
8 ) Scroll down and select Email. (If it’s not in the list, you probably killed it. Go back and start it first and then return to step 1.)
9 ) In the Email app’s Application Info screen, press the Clear data button. (Be advised that this will essentially clear all of your account info from the Email app, causing you to have to re-set everything up again like your login name, password, server names, etc. The exact prompt says, “All of this application’s data will be deleted permanently. This includes all files, settings, accounts, databases and so on.” Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean it will delete your emails on the server.)
10 ) Open up the Email app again and it will prompt you to set everything up again (log in name, password, servers, etc.). Walah! The error message should now be gone.

Some Linkage:
* Google Code string
* Motorola Support Forum string

Hope this helps y’all! Happy Droiding!