Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual

Chapter 10. Email, Address Book, and Newsgroups

Life is complex. Just keeping up with the daily flow of information can be a full-time job. There are schedules to keep, phone numbers and addresses to file, tasks to track, long-range plans to make—and an unending avalanche of email to sort, file, and reply to. Who wouldn’t long for a personal assistant to help keep life and business on track? Make that a couple of assistants—or perhaps…an entourage? Takin’ care of business with an entourage like Elvis’s can get expensive—even if you don’t reward them with jewelry and Cadillacs. But when it comes to managing your computer life, Office 2008’s Entourage can TCB with the best of them. (And that can make you feel like the King.)

Much more than an email program, Entourage can help you schedule meetings, track your to-dos, and scope out your calendars. Since Office 2001, Entourage has sought to be a Mac fan’s personal information manager (PIM) and email program all in one, as well as being a vehicle to tie together all the individual programs. The Project Center, described in Chapter 11, is the nexus for this informational synergy.

Note

If Entourage is your personal assistant, Office 2008 introduces an under-assistant in the form of My Day. This diminutive, standalone program lets you keep tabs on the vital tasks and events of the day, and helps save you from falling into the black hole of your email when all you really need to know is the time of your haircut appointment. You’ll find My Day ...