(Information Technolgy) IT is used to apply to everything having to do with computers, networking, and information systems. The "IT HUB" means the Personel and Industry that surrounds configuring, installing, and keeping computers running. .. Now enjoyeeeeee the news about IT.
BY: Amresh Anjan
What a disaster! Could Microsoft have assembled a bigger failure if it tried? Well, possibly. But Microsoft wasn't trying to make a failure — it was trying to make the best of the best. The result was the worst of the best.
2: NeXT
I have to qualify this entry, because NeXT did inspire a lot of software for the Linux desktop (such as AfterStep), and the NeXTSTEP did eventually become the foundation of OS X. So NeXT wasn't a complete flop.
3: BeOS
What is it with the capiTalIzaTion? Although BeOS has been resurrected as Haiku, the BeOS (and all the cool hardware it promised) never really got off the ground. The PC that promised to be the dream machine for the media crowd fizzled out before its fuse could really be lit.
4: Cobalt Qube
The Cobalt Qube looked cool. If you're lucky, you can still find one on eBay going cheap. Underneath that tiny blue exterior lay a beefy 64 MB of RAM and an 8.4 Gig HD that was ready and willing to serve up your Web site, your mail, your DNS, or anything else you needed. Ah, but those were the glory days — and short-lived at that. The serious IT crowed quickly realized that function held sway over form, and the cool blue Qubes went nowhere. Even after Sun bought the Cobalt company, these devices did nothing.
5: Y2K
I can't resist including this one. The entire world was supposed to cave under the pressure this little bug promised, wasn't it? I even read plenty of sci-fi books based on that premise. But nothing happened. Banks didn't lose all of your money, the world's security didn't fall to pieces, and all IT professionals woke up the next morning collectively saying, "Was that it?"
6: MP3
I know, I know — it isn't a flop, exactly, but the MP3 format is on this list because of all the licensing issues it has caused. On the Linux operating system alone, MP3 isn't installed on most distributions, by default, because of licensing issues. As a result, users scramble to get MP3 support built into their various tools. This causes as much hair loss as MP3 causes audio quality loss. There are much better formats out there without the licensing issues, people!
7: Richard Stallman
This man was supposed to be the champion of open source — but he endangers open source at every turn. Instead of making ridiculous claims, RMS should stand down and let someone with a modicum of tact and sense to take over as the voice of open source software.
8: WordPerfect
What I should actually place here is Corel, the maker of WordPerfect, instead of the software itself. WordPerfect was an outstanding word processing tool. Corel, however, was not outstanding in its ability to market and sell something as good as WordPerfect. So instead of a piece of software that should have single-handedly toppled the Microsoft juggernaut, WordPerfect died. This should never have happened. Any other company could have pulled off this win.
9: IPv6
Should this already be in place? Should something so simple really be that hard? The 'net could run out of IP addresses and there is no solution in place yet. Why? Because we don't have the problem yet. But didn't everyone panic with claims that the "IP sky is falling"? Wouldn't it be smart to go ahead and put this in place? Maybe the powers-that-be are waiting until that very last IPv4 address is issued and we have to say, "We have no more!" At that point, no one will really know how to implement the solution and it will be Y2K all over again.
10: Mesh networks
At one point, wireless was going to cover the entire planet and everyone was going to have free wireless networking, thanks to wireless mesh networks. It didn't happen. It sounded like a great idea, and sites popped up all over the place trying to get users to set up their own mesh networks to further expand the "net." It was a grand idea, based on a grand ideal, but it just never got off the ground. That's a shame, since a "mesh Wifi" would have enabled anyone to be online anywhere. Of course, I am sure the telecoms had NOTHING to do with the fall of mesh networking.
Your turn
Do you agree or disagree with the items on my list of biggest IT failures? What's missing from the list? Join the discussion and let us know.
Business buzzwords can be annoying — but everyday language can be far more treacherous. BNET UK's Jo Owen lists a dozen seemingly innocuous words that are often used to distract, misdirect, and deceive the listener.
1: Just
This is used to make a huge request or error seem trivial, as in, "Could you just do this (500-page) document by Monday?" — a request best made late on a Friday afternoon.
2: But
Remember, whatever is said before but is b*****ks, as in, "That was a great presentation, but…" or, "I would like to help, but…".
3: From
From is much loved by advertisers, as in "Fly to Rome from £10″ — excluding £100 of taxes and other "optional" extras for a flight leaving at 4 AM and going to an airport about 100kn away from Rome, and only if you book the ticket one year in advance.
4: Might (and any other conditional verb)
Might is used to achieve two thing. First, it sets up a negotiating position, as in, "I might be able to do that if…" Second, it lays the groundwork for excusing failure later on: "I would have done it, if only…"
5: Only
Closely related to just, this is an attempt to make a big request or problem seem small. "It was only a small error…. We only dropped one nuclear bomb over London…".
6: Important (and urgent)
This is used to puff up any presentation: "This important new product/initiative…". Important to whom? And why? Maybe it is important to the speaker, but why is it important to me?
7: Strategic
Important, with bells on. See Strategic Human Capital Division, formerly known as the Personnel Department. It's alternatively used to justify something that has no financial justification at all: "This strategic IT investment (which costs £100 million and has no identifiable payback) is essential to the survival of the business."
How many ways are there to avoid saying straight up: "We are going to lay off staff"?
9: Thank you
Normally, thank you is good — except when used by automated voices at call centres saying, "Thank you for calling; we value your call… (and we have so much contempt for our customers that we can't be bothered to answer your call promptly, so we will put you on hold until you give up and try to use our impenetrable and useless online help instead)."
10: Interesting
Fear this word. When your lawyer uses it, you are doomed. When your doctor uses it, check that your will is up to date. The recession is certainly interesting. A slightly less interesting time would be preferable.
11: Opportunity
Because the word problem has been banned in business-speak, all problems have become opportunities. This means many opportunities are problems. There is a limit to how many opportunities I can solve. Interesting and strategic opportunities really scare me.
12: Investment
Investment was first hijacked by the British government to justify wild and uncontrolled public sector spending. Spending is bad, but investment is good, so it simply reclassified all its spending as investment in the health, education, and future of the country. The businesses that followed the government's lead by going on a spending/investment splurge are now going bust — unlike the government, they can't print money or raise taxes.
IT is often a popular target for corporate cost-cutting. So the more you can identify and control unnecessary spending, the better you’ll be able to fend off the budget axe. Here are a few areas where IT dollars often go to waste.
Back in the golden days of IT, when companies had plenty of money to throw around, it didn’t matter so much if there was a little wastage here and there. Today, however, budgets are tight and there aren’t many dollars to spare. That means IT departments need to take a good, hard look at where the money is going and where cuts can be made — before someone higher up does it for you. In this article, we look at 10 ways you might be letting precious dollars slip right through your fingers. Some of these may seem to be just common sense, but there are organizations out there right now that are wasting money in all these ways.
1: Wasting energy
Despite some reduction in power costs over the last year, rates appear to be headed back up. The electric bill is still a large expense for most companies — and the IT department is a big user of energy. You can save more money than you might suspect by adopting some energy-saving policies. Sure, most of the servers need to be accessible all the time. But IT personnel are often careless about leaving workstations running when they aren’t doing anything and won’t be accessed remotely or substituting the use of a screensaver for turning off the monitor (you should do both). With the power settings available in modern operating systems, there’s really no excuse for it, but some IT pros turn off power-saving features in favor of higher performance.
How about the practice of leaving lights on in offices and server rooms when no one is there? Most people don’t think about the cost, but it can add up. Using more energy-efficient lighting and buying Energy Star rated equipment can also save big bucks over the long run.
2: Spending too much on mobile technology
Mobile phones and devices are “fun toys” for IT pros, but company-provided equipment and plans may be costing more than necessary. A recent survey showed that only one out of four employees uses 75% or more of the voice minutes that their companies are paying for and almost half (48%) have services on the plan that they never use at all. As this article explains, many companies don’t have viable policies regarding mobile device use.
3: Not allowing employees to work from home
Company managers sometimes fail to recognize the significant cost benefits — to both employer and employee — of allowing employees to telecommute all or part of the time. One reason they oppose such an arrangement is that they won’t have as much control over workers who aren’t on site. IT departments sometimes support this position for fear that remote workers will present a security threat. However, with modern technologies such as NAP/NAC and DirectAccess, you can ensure that remote systems connecting to the company LAN are properly configured and protected and that the connections are secure.
Allowing more employees to work from home enables the company to save money on office/parking space and heating/air conditioning. Employees save money on clothes, lunches, and transportation. They also often enjoy work more, so they end up putting in extra hours that raise productivity and benefit the company. Many IT-related jobs, such as those of in-house developers and Web designers, can be done from home.
4: Using consultants when the job could be done by staff
It’s a common scenario: Employees have been telling management for months or years that changes need to be made, but they’ve been ignored. Then the company hires a consultant, who charges tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to do a “study” and arrives at the same conclusion, providing the same advice staff members were trying to give away free.
If you have people on staff who have expertise in a particular area and have the time to do a job, it’s generally more cost effective to allow them to do it than to bring in an outsider who has to spend many (billable) hours getting up to speed on how your company operates and what its specific needs are.
If you do find that you need to bring in a consultant, check credentials and references carefully. There are many good, hard-working IT consultants. The field is also a great target for rip-off artists who talk over your head about specialized technologies and try to push the latest and greatest on you — whether you need it or not — or attempt to sell you on specific products that you may not really need.
5: Hiring full-time employees when contractors would be more cost effective
The flip side of the previous item involves being afraid to use consultants or contractors when it’s appropriate. Hiring full-time employees to handle a workload that’s likely to be temporary leaves you with idle workers who end up costing you money because there’s not enough for them to do to warrant their salaries — or forcing you to go through the pains (to those employees as well as to the company) of layoffs. In these situations, when you don’t have the current manpower or expertise on staff to get the job done, it’s often more cost effective to hire independent contractors. Not only can you limit the duration of the commitment, but you don’t generally have to pay for fringe benefits, such as insurance and vacation/sick time. You also don’t have the administrative overhead of withholding taxes and filing the paperwork that’s associated with regular employees.
6: Making unnecessary upgrades
There are good reasons to upgrade your software and/or hardware. When new operating systems or applications provide functionality that your users need or that can help them get their jobs done more easily or more rapidly, it makes sense to upgrade. When existing hardware won’t run those programs you need, it may be necessary to buy new computers.
However, some companies follow a set upgrade schedule whereby they replace old systems every X number of years. Or they migrate to the new operating system or major application version X number of months after it’s released, or as soon as service pack 1 comes out, or in response to some other arbitrary trigger — much like the old timer who “takes a bath every Saturday night, whether he needs one or not.”
It makes more sense to carefully evaluate how the systems and software are being used and whether there’s a real need to upgrade. You can save the cost of new licenses and administrative overhead costs — and often, make users happier and avoid deployment headaches — by sticking with what you have now if it’s still working fine for your company’s purposes.
This applies to servers, too. It’s nice to have the latest and greatest running on the most powerful machines, but will it make a real difference in terms of productivity, security, and other important factors or do you just want it so you’ll have a new toy to play with?
7: Failing to upgrade old, inefficient equipment
On the other hand, some companies are going overboard when it comes to squeezing every last drop of use out of their current systems. If the computers are getting so old that they regularly break down and require repairs, if your servers go down so often that users of the network can’t get their work done or customers can’t access your site, if you’re putting sensitive data at risk because you’re depending on old software that’s full of vulnerabilities, if the hardware costs considerably more to operate than more modern machines because it’s so energy inefficient, it may be time to think about investing some capital to lower operating costs and save money over the long run.
Remember that neither software nor hardware upgrades have to be an “all or nothing” proposition. Some departments or individuals may need to be upgraded while others can get along for a while longer with what they have. And when you’re considering a major upgrade, such as a new OS, it’s often smart to roll it out with a pilot group first so you can work out any unanticipated problems before deploying across the entire organization.
8: Overspending on hardware
While buying new hardware can save you money, too much of a good thing can waste it. Some companies are still not utilizing virtualization to the extent that they could to reduce both capital and operating expenditures. Instead of buying multiple mid-priced servers to run Web services, mail services, collaboration and communications services, etc., you may be able to save substantially by purchasing one or two more powerful machines and consolidating servers with virtualization technologies. Not only is the total capital outlay often less, but you reduce the cost of extended warranties and maintenance contracts since they apply to fewer machines, and operating costs are often lower because the total power usage is less.
Another way some companies waste money is by purchasing equipment for a project that requires very intensive computing resources — but only for a limited time. When the project is over, you’re stuck with the expensive equipment. An alternative is to use services such as Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and similar cloud-based services that allow you to purchase capacity that can quickly scale up or down to fit your needs. Then, at any given time, you’re paying only for the resources you actually use.
9: Not using the training budget effectively
Technology is always changing and it’s important for IT personnel to stay current, but some departments waste money on training that could be done as effectively for much less. Do employees really need to travel to a distant site for training or can it be done on-site less expensively? Perhaps instead of sending several employees, one can attend and then come back and share what he/she learned with the others. Or the same training may be available on DVD or through live online instruction at a fraction of the cost.
Is the department paying for certifications that may not be necessary? Certification provides assurance of a certain level of knowledge and in some cases, having certified employees on staff enhances the company’s reputation or allows it to participate in vendor partner programs. But some IT professionals collect multiple certifications — at company expense — that may not benefit the company at all (although they may benefit the employee in looking for a new job).
Ongoing training is important, and having well-trained personnel can save a company money in the long run. But when budgets are tight, it’s also important to get the most for every training dollar and cut out the waste.
10: Wasting money on travel expenses
Training isn’t the only reason employees travel on the company dime. Members of the IT department may be called upon to attend meetings at company headquarters or give presentations at another branch office or go to a different location to help set up equipment or troubleshoot software problems. In a tight economy, it’s smart to examine whether this things can be done via online meetings or through remote control software.
Sometimes, though, travel can’t be avoided. In those cases, you can still save money by staying in more reasonably priced hotels, putting a cap on meals reimbursements or instituting a per diem, and even taking shuttles instead of cabs for small savings that add up.
When traveling only a few hundred miles, consider driving instead of flying. Given the hassle factor at airports today, it may not take much longer and can be a more pleasant experience, and the savings really accrue when two or more people travel together by car instead of plane.
Lie 1. My solution is the one that best meets your needs
When I said, "My solution is the one that best meets your needs," what I meant was that I'm going to do my darnedest to shoe horn my product into your world so that you'll buy my stuff versus the competitors.
You [shouldn't] buy products because they have this or that. [B]uy them because of what they'll do for you and the ecosystem you operate within.
Key questions to ask the sales person: What 3 companies are your fiercest competitors and what would they say they do better than you? The last time you lost a deal to your competition, what were the main reasons given?
Lie 2. My solution does not require much of your company's IT resources
When I said, "My solution does not require much of your company's IT resources," what I meant was that with a 95% degree of certainty, your IT department will be the biggest roadblock to success that we'll encounter in this project.
Key questions to ask the sales person: When (not if) you run into smoke screens, road blocks, and obstacles thrown up my IT department, are you prepared to deal with them and how? If we cut through all of the crap, how much time does it really take to deploy this solution, excluding training?
Lie 3. My solution is supported well
When I said that, "My solution is supported well and my company hangs its hat on the best service in the industry," what I meant was that when you call, a human will pick up the phone and get on your problem right away, delaying someone else's due date for customized solution delivery.
The bottom line with custom software in the enterprise is that it breaks. How many times have you rebooted today?
Key questions to ask the sales person: Do you have an automated system or a human system when I call your support line? What bug tracking or trouble ticket solution to you use? What your average time from call in to resolution? What is your process for escalation?
Lie 4. My solution will save you time and money
When I said, "My solution will save you time and money," what I meant was that your company will probably achieve enough Return On Investment to pay for the solution…but you'll end up using 10% of what the solution can do and end up frustrated after the honeymoon period.
Most enterprise solutions have evolved because complex businesses have insisted that new features be built as a condition of sale.
Key questions to ask the sales person: What percentage of features in this system do your clients typically use? If I want to reduce the training required by half to save money, will you let me?
Lie 5. That will take 2…maybe 3 weeks to develop
When I said, "That will take 2 maybe 3 weeks to develop", what I meant was I really don't know how long your customization will take so I'm throwing out a number that will get you to bite…not balk."
If the delivery dates of complex customizations seems unrealistic…even to you, they probably are.
Key questions to ask the sales person: What is your process for documenting change requests? If your development efforts fall behind schedule, what's my compensation?
Lie 6. Here are my prices
When I said, "Here are my prices", what I meant was "My price is totally flexible and within reason I'll probably say yes to lowering them because we need your upfront money and recurring revenue more than I need my pride."
Pricing enterprise solutions is far more art than science. Often it's more about discovering the target's pain tolerance.
Key questions to ask the sales person: How much does the solution cost? What's the typical payback or return on investment you've measured when companies like mine have deployed your solution and can you provide me case studies?
Lie 7. Here are my contract terms and conditions
When I said, "Here are my contract terms and conditions", what I meant was "This is pretty much a boiler plate agreement that no one reads so if you challenge some terms…you'll probably get what you want."
[M]ost enterprise solution firms don't even know what the terms in their own contract mean. If something appears strange to you or is unclear, challenge it. Don't be afraid.
Key questions to ask the sales person: Is this agreement flexible and negotiable? What's the one contract term that clients challenge the most?"
THE PROJECT FAILURES ANALYSIS
If you're contemplating an enterprise solution, read Doug's book to help protect your own hide from evil, miscreant, and wayward sales people. I really enjoy how his sardonic humor matches the subject matter. For example:
On lying:
Is lying requisite? No. Sales people are not lying, they are simply framing the truth in a way that closes the deal and provides a big payday [for the sales person].
On enterprise solution (ES) pricing:
The ES is often quite expensive to buy upfront. This upfront price loading is where the ES software company recovers the immense cost of sales associated with the ES including commissions, bonus payments to company officers, investor dividends, and really nice cars for the President.
On the subject of enterprise sales people:
Better enterprise solution selling organizations send two people on the tactical assault mission: One suit. One techie. The suit acts as translator when the techie…lays out something intelligent for your consumption. That back and forth tech translation orgy is meant to disarm the prospective buyer or baffle him sufficiently into writing a check for the panacea product that will make his boss happy with him…or close out the never ending 6-Sigma project from hell.
Here's Dan's list of six tricks enterprise vendors use against customers, but the descriptions are mine:
The magic demo. Using presentation slides and canned demonstrations, the vendor claims to solve the customer's most challenging problems. It's all good, except when there is no real product to back up the promises.
Underbid, then overcharge. A beautiful trick often played elegantly by consulting companies and system integrators. These folks neglect to inform the customer that the initial software purchase price does not include much higher associated costs for equipment and implementation services.
The customer headlock. One of the cleverest tricks in the book, this one uses high switching costs to lock-in customers. The time, cost, and hassle of swapping enterprise systems mean vendors have their customers by the… well, you know what.
The billing "mistake." Really a utility services game, providers over-charge customers with incorrect invoices, knowing few will notice and complain. Sleaze at its finest.
The forced upgrade march. Upgrades make the software business a beautiful thing-for the vendor. The customer's system may work well, but when vendors tell customers to upgrade or lose support, the buyer has little choice but to play sheep.
The clueless customer. Less a trick than an unpleasant fact, remember there are two parties to all these tricks: vendor and customer. Inattentive or inexperienced customers are often their own worst enemy.
The project failures analysis
Strategic enterprise software purchases are complicated to buy and expensive to implement. Since these products automate core business functions, they reflect genuine complexity in the buyer's organization. Some vendors use this complexity unfairly to manipulate potential customers into making uninformed and poorly considered purchases.
In general, the software itself is not to blame; these are human, not technical, issues. It's worth noting that some observers incorrectly believe that faulty software causes most IT failures. That perspective is wrong and misinformed.
Enterprise customers should treat software purchases with the same care and attention as buying a home: research the vendor, talk with other customers, and ask objective, third-party experts for advice. Although enterprise software is a minefield, many customers do buy and implement successfully.
The tricks described in this post range from subtle persuasion to outright deception. However, they all rely on aggressive vendors taking advantage of uninformed customers. In the end, caveat emptor applies and education is the great force for achieving success.
Have you seen vendors play these tricks or others? Please share your thoughts!
10 things you can do to keep Outlook running smoothly
Author: Erik Eckel
1: Don't click on attachments
It should go without saying, but I still encounter clients every month who infect their machines and cripple Outlook (and other applications) because they absentmindedly click on executable files and other attachments received in email messages. One of the best defenses against email borne viruses and infections is to simply avoid clicking on attachments or hyperlinks received within email messages.
2: Empty the trash
Outlook stores messages, including large attachments, in one file (typically known as the Personal Folders File, which uses a .pst file extension, or Offline Folder, which uses an .ost file extension). That storage file includes the Deleted Items folder. When users fail to empty the Deleted Items folder, deleted email continues contributing to gargantuan mailbox sizes. Regularly empty the Deleted Items folder.
Better yet, configure Outlook to automatically empty Deleted Items when exiting the email application. To do so, click Tools, select Options, click the Other tab, select Empty The Deleted Items Folder Upon Exiting, and click OK.
3: Archive mail
Microsoft set default mailbox quotas at two gigabytes in Exchange 2007, which is actually larger than prior platforms. That said, I regularly encounter clients whose Outlook.PST files or Exchange mailboxes exceed five and even six gigabytes. That's a recipe for reduced performance, if not data corruption and disaster (lost information).
Outlook performs optimally when using smaller information stores. Regularly archive mail by clicking File and selecting Archive. Or configure auto-archiving by clicking Tools, selecting Options, clicking the Other tab, and clicking the AutoArchive button to configure appropriate settings. This will create separate, standalone archive files and maintain reasonably sized mailboxes.
4: Minimize add-ins
Incompatibilities introduced by third-party search tools, security applications, and other software frequently cause trouble within Outlook. Worse, these add-ins are often difficult to track down and isolate as the cause of intermittent Outlook errors. Minimize the use of third-party add-ins to encourage better Outlook performance. To manage your add-ins, choose Options from the Tools menu, click the Other tab, click Advanced Options, and then click Add-In Manager. In Outlook 2007, click Tools, select Trust Center, and highlight Add-ins.
5: Avoid large attachments
Whenever large attachments are sent via email, there's a risk that the recipient's email server (or even the sender's server) will refuse to process the message. Messages with attachments larger than five megabytes are often discarded by many email servers. Avoid including attachments, especially those larger than three megabytes. Remember, when messages with attachments are sent, the attached files remain within the Sent Items folder, thereby contributing to larger database stores. Send too many file attachments, and the Sent Items folder alone can quickly grow to an unwieldy size.
6: Abandon stationery
Stationery, or the pretty templates Microsoft includes within Outlook to make messages appear more attractive, only complicates an already complex communications medium. Simplify the process be removing unnecessary graphic elements, which place a processing load upon recipients as well (unless they use text-based email readers, in which case they'll never even see your stationery anyway).
7: Eliminate third-party spam software
I've seen Outlook become so corrupted by third-party spam applications that the only solution was to uninstall the third-party email filtering software, uninstall Microsoft Office, and reinstall the Microsoft suite. Save yourself the hassle. Leverage Microsoft Exchange and Outlook's built-in junk mail filtering tools or turn to a trusted external spam solution, such as that offered by Postini.
8: Perform mailbox maintenance
Occasionally, Outlook's storage file becomes corrupt. Microsoft includes the Inbox Repair Tool with each copy of Outlook. The utility analyzes the mailbox storage file for errors. Scan.pst and Scan.ost (for Personal Folder files and Offline Folder files, respectively) can identify and correct issues with data and directory structures, headers and lost folders, and lost items. Users should consider running the file monthly, if for no other reason than it offers the option of creating a backup file as part of the repair process.
9: Trim/forward multiple accounts
Most users process just one or two email accounts within Microsoft Outlook. Others manage eight to 10 separate email accounts. That means that every time Outlook performs a send/receive operation (and many users configure their machines to perform this operation once a minute), Outlook must initiate and complete communications with 20 servers (10 outgoing servers and 10 incoming servers for each user account). That's a lot of network traffic, especially if most of the email accounts aren't necessary.
Reconsider how many email accounts are really required. If several legacy email accounts are still set up in Outlook but are no longer used, remove them. Choose E-Mail Accounts from the Tools menu, select View Or Change Existing E-mail Accounts, click Next, and then select and remove the obsolete account. In Outlook 2007, click Tools, select Account Settings, highlight the unnecessary account, and click the Remove button.
Alternatively, if multiple email accounts are required, consider whether there's an opportunity to consolidate several using Gmail. Users can create free Gmail accounts and forward several email accounts to a single holding account. For example, if a user receives email for info@ companyname.com, support@ companyname.com, serverstatus@ companyname.com, sales@ companyname.com, customerservice@companyname.com and similar addresses for the same domain, all those separate email accounts could be consolidated by pointing them to a single email address (such as administrative@companyname.com).
10: Simplify signatures
Logos, badges, business cards, and other fancy graphics are unnecessary within email messages. They may display improperly within recipient's email clients, or they may not display at all. Worse, graphical signatures lead to unnecessarily bloated email message sizes.
Stick to fundamentals. Configure Outlook to paste your name, title, company name, and contact information within every message. (Select Tools, choose Options, click the Mail Format tab, and click the Signatures button to access signature settings.) Just do so using simple text. Such contact information is critical and should accompany each email message you send (whether you're creating a new message or responding to another). But don't clutter messages, mailboxes, and server queues with unnecessary graphics and other superfluous elements.
If Excel's automatic recovery mode fails, there's a manual feature for recovering a corrupted workbook:
Choose Open from the File menu. In Excel 2007, click the Office button and select Open.
Using the Look In control, locate and specify the corrupted workbook.
From the Open button's dropdown list, shown in Figure A, choose Open And Repair.
If this is your first attempt to manually recover the workbook, click Repair in the resulting dialog box, shown in Figure B.
Figure A
Attempt to manually recover a corrupted workbook.
Figure B
You can repair a workbook or extract the data from a corrupted workbook.
If you're lucky, Excel will repair the file. However, this feature recovers files when something goes wrong with Excel, so it won't recover every corrupted file. Once you've made every attempt to recovery the file, you might have to make do with recovering just the data. When that's the case, click Extract Data in step 4.
2: If the corruption occurs while the workbook is open
If corruption occurs while the workbook is open, do not save the workbook. You'll just save whatever corrupted the workbook along with the most recent changes. Instead, revert to the last saved version. Doing so, without saving first should discard the corrupted component. You'll possibly lose data, but often, you can rebuild quickly enough (a good reason to save your work often).
To revert to the last saved version, do the following:
Choose Open from the File menu. In Excel 2007, click the Office button and select Open.
Using the Look In control, locate and specify the corrupted workbook.
Click Open.
You're really just reopening the workbook — there's nothing special going on.
3: Disable automatic calculation
If Excel fails to open the file on its own or via the Open And Repair option, try setting the calculation method to manual and try again. To reset the calculation setting:
Open a new blank workbook.
From the Tools menu, choose Options and click the Calculation tab. In Excel 2007, click the Office button, click Excel Options, and select Formulas in the panel to the left.
In the Calculation section (Calculation Options in Excel 2007), click Manual.
Click OK.
Then, try to open the corrupted workbook. Sometimes Excel can open a corrupted workbook if it doesn't have to recalculate.
4: Try Microsoft Office Tools
If Excel can't open the corrupted workbook, give Microsoft Office Tools a whirl:
From the Start menu, choose All Programs (in Windows XP).
Select Microsoft Office.
Choose Microsoft Office Tools.
Select Microsoft Office Application Recovery.
In the resulting dialog box, shown in Figure C, choose Microsoft Office Excel.
Click Recover Application. The process could take a few minutes.
Respond to the Send Report To Microsoft prompt.
Figure C
Office Tools might recover a corrupted workbook.
The recovery tool will close Excel and then restart it, displaying a list of recovered workbooks (if any). If you're lucky, your corrupted workbook will be in the list. Simply open it and count your blessing.
5: Move the file
Sometimes, a corrupted workbook isn't really corrupted in the traditional sense. It just isn't accessible as usual; networks and servers often mask errors as corrupted files. If you encounter a seemingly corrupted workbook that Excel can't repair, move the corrupted file to another folder, drive, or server.
6: Let the competition try
Some people claim extraordinarily good results using OpenOffice Suite, a free open source alternative to Microsoft Office. This suite's Excel counterpart, Calc, should open a corrupted Excel file. Unfortunately, it means a lengthy download, but if it works, it's well worth the effort.
7: Open the corrupted workbook in WordPad or Word
If you can't repair the workbook, try opening it in WordPad. If it works, WordPad will convert everything to text — but you'll be one step closer to recovering important data. Unfortunately, this method won't recover formulas. On the other hand, unlike many other data recovery methods, WordPad will recover your VBA procedures (macros). Simply search recovered text for Sub and Function to find them.
You might also be able to open the corrupted .xls file in Word, but the results will be limited. For this method to work, you must install the Microsoft Office Excel converter. And unlike WordPad, Word won't recover your procedures.
8: Use external references
Sometimes, you can recover data by referring to the actual cells in a corrupted workbook. You won't recover formulas, formats, charts, macros, and so on, but recovering the data is better than recovering nothing. To recover data by referencing the corrupt workbook, do the following:
Open a new workbook and enter into cell A1 a formula in the following form to reference A1 in the corrupted workbook: nameofcorruptedworkbook!A1. (You don't need to include .xls in the filename.)
Press Enter.
If the corrupted workbook isn't in the same folder, Excel will display the Update Values: nameofcorruptedworkbook dialog box. Use the Look In control to locate the corrupted file. Select the file and click OK.
If the Select Sheet dialog box appears, as shown in Figure D, select the appropriate sheet and click OK. Excel will display the value in cell A1 of the corrupted workbook.
Select cell A1 and drag it across as many columns as needed to accommodate the data in the corrupted file. If Excel displays the Update Values: nameofcorruptedworkbook dialog box, select the corrupted file and click OK.
Repeat step 5, copying row A down as many rows as necessary to accommodate the data in the corrupted file.
Select the data and choose Copy from the Edit menu.
Select Paste Special from the Edit menu and choose Values, as shown in Figure E.
Click OK.
Figure D
If the corrupted file has multiple sheets, specify a sheet.
Figure E
Replace the referencing formulas with data.
9: Try SYLK format to recover data
Microsoft recommends using the SYLK format to filter out corrupted elements, especially if the corruption is printer related. You must be able to open the corrupted workbook for the following to work:
From the File menu, choose Save As. In Excel 2007, click the Office button.
From the Save As Type control, choose SYLK(Symbolic Link) (*.slk), as shown in Figure F.
Give the active sheet a descriptive name, such as corruptedworkbooknameSheet1. If the workbook has only one sheet, this step is unnecessary.
Click Save.
If the workbook has multiple sheets, Excel will ask you if you want to continue because the selected format doesn't support multiple sheets. Click OK.
If Excel prompts you with a warning that the workbook might contain features that aren't compatible with the SYLK format, click Yes.
Figure F
Save each sheet using the SYLK format.
It's important to know that the SYLK format saves only the active sheet. However, you won't notice that the format has stripped all of the pages but the active one until you close and reopen the .slk file. To recover data from all the sheets, you must reopen the corrupted workbook and save each sheet individually. That's why step 3 instructs you to give the sheet a descriptive name. You'll find those names helpful when reconstructing the multiple-sheet workbook.
After saving all the sheets to the SYLK format, open one of the .slk files and rename it using the .xls format. Be careful not to use the corrupted workbook's name. Once you've reconstructed the workbook, you can discard the corrupted file or rename it, freeing up the original name. Don't replace it until you're sure you've recovered as much data as possible. Then, reconstruct the workbook by importing or copying data from the .slk files. It's a tedious process, but worth the effort if nothing else works. This method saves values resulting from formulas, but not the formulas themselves.
10: Recover macros
If you can recover data but not macros via one of the previous tips, you can still save macros — at least sometimes. To try, do the following:
Open Excel, but don't open the corrupted workbook.
Set the calculation mode to Manual (see #3).
Choose Macro from the Tools menu, select Security, and choose the High option. In Excel 2007, click the Office button, click Excel Options, and choose Trust Center in the left panel. Then, click the Trust Center Settings button, select Macro Settings in the left panel, select Disable All Macros Without Notification in the Macro Settings section, and click OK twice.
Open the corrupted workbook. If Excel opens the workbook, you'll see a notice that the macros are disabled. If Excel shuts down, this method won't work.
Press [Alt]+[F11] to open the Visual Basic Editor (VBE).
Using the Project Explorer (press [Ctrl]+R), right-click a module, and choose Export File.
Enter a name and folder for the module.
Repeat steps 6 and 7 as many times as necessary to export all the modules.
Close the VBE and exit Excel.
Open a new blank workbook (or the newly constructed workbook that contains recovered data from the corrupted workbook) and import the modules.
