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Why does Outlook prompt you to download images with messages – instead of just getting them?
The ‘Click here to download images’ may seem like a nuisance but it’s there for a good reason
It may seem that getting an image to display on an email or web page is an innocent and harmless thing, but it reveals more about your computer than you might expect.
To show what is disclosed simply by getting an image, we've made a special 'image' that displays some of the details sent by Outlook when you ‘Click here to download images’ . The image will be included in this weeks Office for Mere Mortals. Here's an example:
A full explanation of the image contents is here.
Long time Office Watch readers probably won’t be surprised by what’s revealed in the special image. Years ago, Outlook security and privacy was a major concern and a big topic in Office Watch. But it seems some of the lessons from those times have been forgotten.
Back in the mid-noughties, Outlook had little Internet security. This was before Microsoft’s famous ‘conversion’ and starting to take security issues seriously.
It was quite possible to send an email which had links back to a hacker’s web site. The email could try to infect your computer simply by displaying in the Outlook preview/reading pane. All it needed was a tiny, almost invisible, 1 pixel image link.
... click here to read more at Office-Watch.com ...As part of an article on Outlook security Office-Watch.com made a special 'image' that displays, within an email, some system information sent by Outlook to the Internet.
This image will be included in this weeks Office for Mere Mortals
There’s nothing new in all this – we’re merely showing you something about Outlook and the Internet that is usually hidden away. It shows the importance of Internet security even for getting images to display an email.
It looks different for each person, depending on their computer, software, settings and the time. Here’s an example:
You’ll have to ‘Click here to download pictures’ link at the top of the Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2010 message pane.
As you can see, it shows:
All based on the information sent by your computer to request an image to display in Outlook or your browser.
Notes:
Every once in a while, spammers make a new email that bypasses even the High junk email setting in Outlook. When that happens you need to setup your own rule to remove them, until Microsoft’s spam filter catches up.
In this case, ATT customers need to make a filter which catches the fake messages and leaves the real ones in the Inbox.
Here’s some examples, as they sit in our heavily filtered Inbox:
Boy Genius Report is reporting that Microsoft will release versions of Microsoft Office for both Apple iPad’s and Android devices.
By this rumor, Redmond is aiming for a November 2012 release date. This would put it in line with the release of the next Office – aka Office 15.
Back in February, The Daily said that Office for iPad was ‘expected in coming weeks’. Microsoft firmly denied the story and said the accompanying photo was a fake. Three months later and there’s no sign of Office for iPad.
Office Watch has been reading MS Office rumors for more than a decade and we’ll believe Office for iPad or Android when we see it – not before.
Microsoft would prefer that people switch to their upcoming line of Windows 8 tablets which will have some version of Office 15. The corporate hope is that the lure of ‘real’ Office will get people to buy a Windows 8 tablet.
However they can’t ignore the popularity of Apple and Android devices. Microsoft’s fear is that someone will create a compelling Office suite rival based around non-Windows tablets. There are some apps to edit Office documents but none have become very popular. If that changes Microsoft Office will have a competitor. Microsoft has always been ruthless in beating down any attempt to grab a share of the Office pie.
Making even a trimmed down version of Office for Apple iOS or Android is a big job. Developers would have to start from scratch on an entirely different operating system. Look at how Microsoft struggles to keep Office for Mac up to date.
Microsoft will have a team working on Office for other tablets but it could be shut down at any time. Such ‘exploratory’ teams happen at Redmond. Many years ago MS developers worked on Office programs running in the Java environment until the project was shuttered as unnecessary and impractical.
... click here to read more at Office-Watch.com ...A few readers have independently reported that Dropbox is faster to upload files compared to Skydrive. We agree, though there’s not a lot you can do about it. For most Office documents it doesn’t make a lot of difference but for larger files, Dropbox will get the job done much faster.
This is a comparison of uploads using the desktop programs – not standard uploads via the web interface.
With the desktop programs you can simply put a file into the Skydrive/Dropbox folder and it will be uploaded in the background. For small files, like most Office documents, any time difference is minimal, taking a minute or two at most. For larger files (100MB plus) you may have to wait an hour or more for it to show up on the cloud listing.
For most of us their upload speed will be much slower than downloading. Mostly the difference doesn’t matter because we download a lot more than we upload. But cloud storage changes that and slow upload speeds are more noticeable. If you want to test your real download/upload speeds, as compared to ISP promises, head over to speedtest.net
Both Skydrive and Dropbox don’t use all the available upload capacity. They work in the background and leave some bandwidth for you to use. The upload speed difference between the products seems to be caused by their different systems working in the background and trying not interfere with your other work.
Skydrive seems to be more conservative, allowing more ‘room’ for other programs to upload at the same time. That makes for slower uploads.
Skydrive has no controls over upload speed – you’re stuck with Microsoft’s choices. A typical Redmond ‘like it or lump it’ attitude.
Dropbox takes up more of the available upload bandwidth which means faster uploads. It doesn’t take up all the bandwidth and there’s still room for you to work alongside.
The Dropbox Windows program has some upload control under Preferences | Bandwidth.
... click here to read more at Office-Watch.com ...Camera Upload is a great new feature in Dropbox which makes it easier to put photos into emails and documents.
Having a camera on your smartphone is great but transferring the picture to your computer is fiddly. You have to email the photo to yourself or link the device to your computer then copy the image across.
Cloud storage providers make it easier with the ability to automatically upload new photos to the online store then copy from there to a computer.
Apple device users have iCloud and the Photo Stream to do that.
Dropbox now has a similar Camera Upload feature for Android devices as well as Mac and Windows computers. Skydrive has no such feature.
Take a photo on your Android phone and it automatically gets uploaded to your Dropbox account online. No need to do anything except touch the camera shutter button to take the photo. From there it’ll be copied to any other computer where you have the Dropbox software installed.
We’ve tried this and it works great. Take a photo and in less than a minute it appears on the Windows computer via Dropbox online.
From there you easily can add it to an email or document in the usual way.
It’s also possible to use Camera Roll from your computer to upload images you copy from a camera. This might work for some purposes. Heavy photographers with many images and/or RAW files would quickly run out of Dropbox space but for a modest collection of JPG’s its worth considering.
... click here to read more at Office-Watch.com ...Here’s a bit of web humor doing the rounds.
It starts with the statement …
Whoever stole my copy of Microsoft Office, I will track you down
Followed by replies:
Not exactly up there with Tom Lehrer or Spike Milligan but Office related humor is rare so we had to share.
By the way, it IS possible for someone to steal your copy of Office. Actually they steal your Microsoft Office Product Key and use it to install on another computer (any matching install DVD will do).
As Office-Watch.com reader Bernard L. notes “My Live Mesh was automatically converted to a synced Skydrive folder weeks ago! ”
Bernard is right, the 5GB cloud storage element of Live Mesh was recently renamed to 'Skydrive Synced Storage' but it's separate from usual Skydrive storage even though both are under the same Windows Live account.
'Skydrive Synced Storage' is limited to 5GB, not the 7GB or 25GB of standard Skydrive.
Aside from the name, there’s no apparent connection between the ‘real’ Skydrive and the Live Mesh cloud storage. But it may well be a prelude to a further merging of the products.
Live Mesh continues to work, for the moment. But it's clear from Microsoft oblique statements and effective disbanding of the Live Mesh development team that they are letting it whither on the vine.
Microsoft’s default Windows Libraries mislead people into thinking libraries are for types of files (Music, Video etc). Libraries can be used for any heading or subject you like as long as they are separated by folder in their original location.
Let’s say a super-villain is has an evil plan to take over the world. The plan files are in several locations. A Windows Library could bring all those folders into a single view for easier access (eg by our hero with only moments at the computer before being caught by henchmen)
On the Libraries heading in Explorer, right-mouse click, choose New | Library,
Give the Library a name and then you have a library but no contents.
Microsoft has put a helpful ‘Include a folder’ link in the pane to get you started. Bring in folders from different places under the one library as our super-villain has done.
... click here to read more at Office-Watch.com ...Windows 7 has ‘Libraries’, a way to bring folders and files from different locations into a single searchable ‘location’ and that can include sync’d folders from cloud services.
‘Location’ in quotes because no files are moved or copied – it’s a virtual folder. By default, Libraries bring together ‘My Documents’ and ‘Public’ folders into a single library. For example the ‘My Music’ folder and the ‘Public Music’ folder.
Click on Libraries | Music and you’ll see all the music from both folders in a single list. You can search the library (ie all folders at once) using the Search pane on top right of the Explorer window.
The search should be quick because Windows should index the contents of the library folders.
... click here to read more at Office-Watch.com ...|
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