Technology Tip of the Week - April 11, 2007
Backing Up Your Outlook 2003 E-Mail
Although many of us regularly back up our data files, e-mail may
be overlooked. If the worst happens and your hard drive crashes or a
virus invades your files, you may find that all your past e-mail
messages, contacts and calendar entries are lost. To avoid this
disaster you should periodically back up your Outlook 2003 e-mail
messages and save the file in a safe place.
The Personal Folder file (.pst / PST) is the place where Outlook
stores its data, including the Inbox, Calendar, and Contacts. You
may have a single .pst file (usually called "Internet Folders" or
"Personal Folders" in your Folder List), and you may also have an
additional .pst file that you use to archive messages (named
"Archive Folders"). By backing up these PST files you will be
backing up all your Outlook information . The hard part is locating
the files...
- Locate the pst files by right-clicking on
the Outlook Today icon found in your Outlook
shortcuts, or the Outlook Today icon found in your folder list
and then left-click Properties.
- Once the Personal Folders Properties dialog
box is displayed, click the Advanced.... button.
- The Path: shown below by the red
arrow, indicates where your Personal Folder file can be found.
- Write this path down and navigate to the
designated folder (Outlook in this example)
OR
use your mouse cursor to copy (CTRL + C) the
full path and paste (CTRL + V) the path into Windows Explorer
(Note: to get to Windows Explorer go to Start-All
Programs-Accessories-Windows Explorer OR right-click
on the Start button and choose Explore). Then
backspace over the "outlook.pst" at the end of the path and
press the Enter key on your keyboard. Explorer will
automatically open the folder containing your Personal Folder.
- Within the folder you should find
an outlook.pst file (
.)
Copy and paste this file to a USB disk, zip disk, or CD.
Note that If you archive your e-mail, you may want to backup the
archive.pst file as well.
ORENext week: Restoring
your e-mail from a backup
For more help with these features, please contact one of the IT Instructional Support team (Norm
Grant, Gene Grande or
Linda Beith) or faculty mentors
Tony Basilico or
Kathy Beauchene.
Website of the Week
Mashups
A mashup is one example of a new approach on
the web called social software. A mashup is a website or
application that combines content from more than one
source into an integrated experience. The combination of
data and functionality from more than one site on the
web allows people to map different sorts of data online.
One example of a mashup is a site for music lovers
called Podbop. Podbop asks you what city you live
in then shows you what bands will be in that city soon
and even delivers a song recorded by each scheduled band
that has put music online. Very cool!
Another mashup to explore is called zillow.com. This
website allows you to type in your home address and then
overlays a map of your neighborhood with the property
values of your house as well as the surrounding homes.
The property values are dynamically updated. Try this
yourself. Go to
http://www.zillow.com and then type in your street
address, town and state in the boxes provided then
click on Go. You will see a Google Earth map of your
neighborhood overlaid by an MLS feed of little flags
that represent houses in your neighborhood. If you click
on a flag, a description of the house will pop up
containing the estimated value of the property along
with the price it sold for if the sale was recent.
Fascinating!
Feel free to post your thoughts or opinions of this site in the
Teaching Forum message board.
These tips are provided by the Department of Information Technology
instructional support team. If you
have any questions on these tips, or wish to offer your own, please feel free to
contact Linda Beith at lbeith@ccri.edu. View an archive of past technology tips
at
http://it.ccri.edu/Training/Tips/tip_week.shtml.
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