An often overlooked, but extremely important part of an e-mail is the signature.  It acts as an information and marketing block that provides pertinent and important information about you or your company to anyone that corresponds with you via e-mail.

Your signature should include all or some of the following:

• Your name
• Your title
• Company name
• Phone number(s)
• Fax number(s)
• Website address/Facebook Address
• E-mail address
• Logo

These are the basics of what you need to communicate in your signature. This information will allow anyone that receives an e-mail from you to quickly locate an easy way to contact you or your business.   It also adds a certain level of professionalism to each outgoing email. If you happen to have any seasonal promotions or anything that you’d like to draw their attention to, you can add this to the end of your email signature as well. Maybe you want to make a quick note about a coupon code, for example.

To create your signature in Outlook 2007

1.  Click “Tools”, then “Options”.  This will open the “Options” dialog box (shown here).  Click on the “Mail Format” tab, then click on the “Signature” button, about 3/4 of the way down the dialog box.  This will open the “Signatures and Stationery” dialog box.
2. Click “New”, then give your signature a name.
3. In the text area, type your signature.  To change fonts or font sizes, add bold or italics etc, simply use the buttons and drop down boxes above the text area.
4. Click “Save” when you are finished.
5. [OPTIONAL] You can set up more than one signature if you like.  Simply click “New”, name your new signature, and type your new signature.

To make your signature automatically appear when you type a new email, or reply to an email in Outlook 2007

1. Again, in the “Signatures and Stationery” dialog box, you can select your favourite signature for new messages, or replies and forwards.  Simply use the two drop down boxes in the top right hand corner of the “Signatures and Stationery” dialog box.

This new tool will record each and every step a user takes and document the entire operation in both screen captures and step-by-step details. When stopped, the Problem Steps Recorder will save the recorded information as a compiled HTML file and package it up in a ZIP file that the end user can then e-mail to their IT Support Staff.

Launching the tool

You can launch the Problem Steps Recorder by typing PSR in the Start menu’s Search box and pressing [Enter].

Recording a problem

The user interface for the Problem Steps Recorder is very straightforward and bears a close resemblance to Sound Recorder.  To begin a recording operation, you just click the Start Record button.

Once the Problem Steps Recorder has begun recording, its title bar flashes the words “Recording Now” and the icon on the Taskbar shows a red flashing dot. At this point, you can begin carrying out the steps that lead to the problem.

Once you are done recreating your error, click the Stop Record button. At that point, the Problem Steps Recorder displayed the Save As dialog box and prompts you to name the file, which it then saves as a Zip file.  To assist your IT Support Staff with troubleshooting errors you will send them the Zip file you just saved by attaching it in an email.

If you open the Zip file, you’ll see the compiled HTML file(s).

When you double-click the compiled HTML file, Internet Explorer will launch and open the recorded session and display the screen shots and a step-by-step account of the entire procedure.

What’s your take?

What do you think of the Problem Steps Recorder? Do you think that it will be a valuable tool?

Excel 2007 makes it easier than ever to transpose data from rows to columns or vice versa.

Have you started entering data in rows, but then decided that you would rather have it arranged in columns instead?

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