Xobni
With its hint of bubble gum visuals, Xobni is a free Outlook add-on that quickly searches through your e-mail. Just as Xobni's name comes from spelling 'in-box' backwards, so does its search philosophy, which is all about contacts. Finding contacts and message subjects routinely takes a fraction of Outlook's chugging.
Without ever using up more than three-quarters of the reading pane (and often much less when you collapse it,) Xobni can reply, forward, or open a message, or even a file. Its ability to throw in public information scraped from Facebook, Skype, LinkedIn, and Hoovers can add extra context. Dataheads will be intrigued by the stats analyzing your e-mail relationship with the contact, including the rank assigned to your most frequent correspondents. The analytics haven't figured much into my usage, but the Facebook pictures and quick-find searching do. Every day.
This Outlook add-on scours the signature block in an e-mail and creates from it a full contact record in Outlook's address book, going far more in-depth that Outlook does when you attempt to perform the same function by right-clicking a contact's name. Business users who volley e-mail back and forth with unknown recipients will find Gwabbit to be a savvy way to fill in the digital Rolodex.
Google Calendar Sync beta
It's in Google's best interest to sell office workers on the proposition of using Outlook's calendar and Google's, and it's in your best interest to let it. This free beta program has been relatively static for quite awhile, but that shouldn't stop you. Install it and you'll be able to sync events to or from one calendar or the other. Two-way syncing is also an option. You'll pick your time interval, and leave the rest up to Google. Be forewarned that you do gain the calendar icon in your task tray. The good news is, you'll be able to access the settings from here.
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