This course will help you take advantage of the communication and personal information management power of Outlook 2003.

Thanks to a completely new user interface, Outlook is easier and more intuitive than ever before. Based on the proven layout standards of newspapers and magazines, its new design displays much more information without sacrificing readability. With Outlook's enhanced rules and new anti-spam features, you can filter out the junk and keep the good stuff. And you can organize your messages in ways that make sense to you without having to copy or move them.

When it comes to personal information management, this course won’t let you down. You'll use the new information views in Outlook 2003 to work with the Calendar, Contacts and other personal information management features. You'll also learn how to use the new Research Library, an incredible online reference tool that you can use without leaving Outlook.

You'll also explore the essential housekeeping tasks that keep Outlook running smoothly and your information safe, secure, and accessible. You'll learn the best ways to back up and restore your information. You'll be able to share information with only those people who need access while protecting yourself and your information from viruses and other nasty e-mail-borne problems.

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Syllabus:

All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do not have to be present when the lesson is released, but you must complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.

A new section of each course starts on the second or third Wednesday of each month. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.

Week One

Wednesday - Lesson 01

In our first lesson, you’ll get an overview of the course, along with an introduction to the revved up design that makes Outlook 2003 easier and more efficient to work with than earlier versions. We'll also take a quick look at the various ways you can get help from Outlook itself, and some keyboard shortcuts that will help you speed through some common actions.

Friday - Lesson 02

With the introductions out of the way, it’s time to put Outlook to work at its primary job: handling all your e-mail in one place. Whether you have one e-mail account or one dozen of them, Outlook can be the one place where you work with them all. This lesson covers the first step toward that by showing you how to give Outlook access to all your e-mail accounts.

Week Two

Wednesday - Lesson 03

In Lesson 2, we got Outlook talking to all of your e-mail accounts. In today's lesson, you'll learn everything you need to know to send and receive messages using those accounts. We'll go beyond the basics to cover topics like using formatting, signatures, and the spelling checker to make the messages you send look professional and get results.

Friday - Lesson 04

This lesson is a transition point. After a few tips to improve your e-mail productivity, we’ll be ready to move on. The Contacts folder and the Address Book are powerful tools you can use to stay connected with other people. Once you get these two working smoothly, you’ll have electronic access to all your contact information, be able to get rid of all those old business cards you have lying around, and actually find the information you need about people. You'll learn how to do it all in this lesson.

Week Three

Wednesday - Lesson 05

E-mail isn’t the only way to communicate electronically. Newsgroups and instant messaging are two of the other ways people communicate across the Internet, and you can take advantage of them through Outlook’s connections to two additional free programs, Outlook Express and MSN Messenger. I'll tell you all about them in today's lesson.

Friday - Lesson 06

It’s time for another change of direction. So far, we’ve concentrated on communication. Now we’re going to concentrate on the Personal Information Management, or PIM, side of Outlook. As we go through this part of the course, you’ll learn how to organize and manage the random bits of information that define much of our modern lives. In this lesson, we'll focus on the Calendar, which is the key to organizing and managing your personal time, undoubtedly the most valuable resource you possess.

Week Four

Wednesday - Lesson 07

In the last lesson, you learned the basics of the Calendar. This time around you’ll learn some of the more advanced capabilities of Calendar, things you won’t need every day, but that will really pay off when you need them—if you know how to use them. We’re talking about techniques that will save you major headaches if you need them!

Friday - Lesson 08

Now that you’ve mastered the most important folders in Outlook (Inbox, Contacts, and Calendar), it’s time to look at three other default folders: Tasks, Notes, and Journal. These three tools enhance and complement the PIM capabilities of Outlook and help make it the core of my computing experience. We'll explore them in this lesson.

Week Five

Wednesday - Lesson 09

Now we need to look at ways you can organize, manage, and print all the information you have in Outlook. In today's lesson, you'll learn how to add new folders and shortcuts, how to apply rules to automate the handling of information, and how to print information for those times when you just have to have it on paper.

Friday - Lesson 10

With all the information you'll stuff into Outlook, you'll eventually reach a point when you need to find some place to store old items. You’ll also want some help finding stuff you have in Outlook. We'll tackle both problems head-on in today's lesson.

Week Six

Wednesday - Lesson 11

We’re integrating the online world into our daily lives. Unfortunately, there are people in the world who want to read your e-mail, infect your computer with viruses, and even take your computer over and use it to attack others. In this lesson, I'll show you some features of Outlook that can help protect you from those creeps.

Friday - Lesson 12

In the final lesson of the course, you'll learn to customize Outlook to make it work more the way you would like it to work. Outlook offers many ways to change the information it displays and the way its menus and other controls work. It even lets you add new data fields for some items. You’ll pick up an assortment of Outlook customization tips, techniques, and procedures to tweak Outlook and make living with it better and more fun.

This course includes a knowledgeable and caring instructor who will guide you through your lessons, facilitate discussions, and answer your questions. The instructor for this course will be Bill Mann.

Bill Mann has been writing about software and the Internet for over 15 years and has relied on Microsoft Outlook to keep him organized and on track since it first became available. He is the author of more than 15 books, including two about Outlook: "How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office Outlook 2003" and "How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office Outlook 2007." He has led online courses on Outlook 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2007, and he is a contributing editor to OutlookPower magazine. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rochester.

Requirements:

Windows XP, Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 (please be sure to install this software on your computer before the course begins), Internet access, e-mail, and and the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Web browser. This course is not suitable for Macintosh users, nor for users of any of the 2007 versions of Microsoft Outlook.

NOTE: Some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) don't allow you to use Microsoft Outlook to read your e-mail, or they may charge you an additional fee for doing so. If you're unsure if your ISP supports Outlook, please contact your ISP and confirm that you can use Outlook as your e-mail client before enrolling in this course.

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