You Don't Always Need to Pay Top Dollar

Have you shopped at Sears Outlet or JC Penney’s Outlet stores? Then you know there are good deals to be had. But what about computers? Checkout http://www.dell.com/outlet the Dell Outlet store. If you’re looking for a new system for home, check out the deals. If you see a great buy, add it to your shopping cart, because they do disappear fast (the shopping cart will keep an item reserved for you for up to 15 minutes).
Thanks to Bob Epp and Nick Greenup for this tip.

Finding Those Hotspots

Are you traveling soon and needing wireless access for your laptop or handheld device? Go to http://www.jiwire.com/ and in the left margin, indicate your search criterion (try Lahaina, Hawaii) and click the Find Hotspots button. Go down to any of the listed Hotspots. You’ll find 16 hotspots near the center of Lahaina including everything from McDonald’s to Barnes & Noble to Penny’s Place Bed and Breakfast on the list. If you're looking for local wireless Internet connectivity, just list Overland Park or Lenexa or whatever city you wish.

No Need to Worry About Obsolete Skills

While my usual practice is to list tips and techniques that help add to your "digital skill bank," there are some skills that you probably do not need to acquire. Just for fun, check out: http://obsoleteskills.com/Skills/Skills.

Scheduling Meetings in Outlook

There's an easier way to schedule a meeting besides sending multiple email messages to everyone and waiting (hoping) for a response. If all participants are using Outlook and the Outlook Calendar, you can:

1. Click Calendar.
2. On the Actions menu, click Plan a Meeting.
3. Click Add Others, and then click Add from Address Book.
4. Type the desired name(s) in the Search name field or scroll through the list of names and double-click to add to the Required list of attendees.
5. For each name entered, by default their attendance is Required, but you can change to Optional (The Required and Optional attendees appear in the To box of the meeting request).
6. Click a time when all invitees are available. You can use AutoPick Next to find the next available free time for all invitees. If you don't like the first AutoPick time, click AutoPick Next again, and again.
7. Click Make Meeting to actually schedule the meeting.
8. In the Subject box, type a description.
9. If you did not schedule a room, enter the location in the Location box.*
10. If you want to make the meeting recurring, click Recurrence, and then select the recurrence pattern.
11. Select any other options you want.
12. Click Send.

Each invited guest will then receive a meeting request in their email and can accept the invitation, tentatively accept, decline, or suggest a new meeting date and/or time.

*You can also attach the agenda for the meeting either as a separate file or in the text window at the bottom of the Meeting dialog box.

So why are you not using the Meeting Request feature of Outlook?