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CreativeTechs QuickTips #60 Week of September 26, 2005

Tip One: Entourage improves Exchange compatibility!

Big news for In-House Creative Departments. If your company uses a Windows Exchange mail server, your email and calendar options are about to improve. Upgrade to the new Office 2004 Service Pack 2 for greatly improved Entourage/Exchange server integration:

Download MS Office 2004 SP2

The update includes several much needed improvements:

- Access co-workers shared calendars (finally!).
- Access global address lists with company email addresses.
- Access public folders & group calendars.
- Improved syncing speed and controls.
- Plus, a nice feature to group messages by conversation.

Before this upgrade, Mac users had to choose between using an old classic version of Outlook, or using a copy of Entourage with limited calendaring options. This release removes a significant limitation Mac users have faced when trying to integrate into many corporate networks.

[Source: CreativeTechs supports hundreds of in-house creative teams in the greater Seattle area. In the short time this Entourage update has been available, it has solved a number of annoying problems for many such departments.]

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Tip Two: Test your websites on a variety of browsers.

How can you easily test a new web project to make sure it looks correct on different web browsers and operating systems? Here are a couple services you should check out:

http://browsershots.org - A free bare-bones service. Enter your web address and click "Make Screenshots." After 5-30 minutes (depending on current queue) you'll get screenshots of your site as displayed on different Windows/Mac/Linux browsers.

http://www.sitevista.com - You'll pay to use SiteVista, but the interface is clean, friendly, and quick. They provide tests on a wider range of platforms -- with frequent updates. Try it out for as little as $9/day.

http://www.browsercam.com - BrowserCam provides testing on 50+ different OS and browser combinations (they offer a free 24-hour trial). BrowserCam also offers a special VNC remote access service that allows you to interactively test design elements such as pop-down menus, rollovers or animations.

[Source: Another great tip from the archives of creativebits.org.]

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QuickTips is a free weekly e-newsletter from CreativeTechs, Inc. Each week we publish a fresh mix of left-brain and right-brain tips based on our real world experience supporting hundreds of creative teams in the greater Seattle area. For a complete archive of previous tips, visit www.creativetechs.com/tips

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