Outlook 2003 Slowness Revisited
Okay, I’m doing it. I’ve known that there was something wrong with my MS Office 2003 installation for some time now; when I tried to install the first Service Pack, the installation failed, and from that point forward, I was unable to make any configuration changes to the setup of Office. The tip that I pointed to here requires you to turn off some options in Office’s setup, and since I can’t do that, it’s time I really fixed my installation.
I know, I know - how could I possibly leave it this long? I don’t really know. It’s mainly the prospect of having Outlook unavailable to me while uninstalling and reinstalling that has freaked me out. Addicted much?
Anyhow, Outlook slows down steadily, and relatively quickly these days over the course of about 2 hours to where it becomes unusable. I need to find the cause, and making sure I’m patched up to the latest Service Pack is the first step. Wish me luck!
And no, Chris, it’s not the plugins! (I hope.)
Is Your Outlook 2003 Slow?
I came across a great tip regarding Outlook related to speed. I have found my Outlook 2003 gets slower and slower over time - to the point where it’s basically unusable. Slipstick has some pointers on what could be causing the problem.
And no, it can’t possibly be all of the plugins and utilities I’m using. 
Eye Twitch
My left eye started twitching yesterday morning, and has continued almost unabated for about 30 hours. Of course I finally Googled “eye twitch”, and I was stunned to learn that eye twitches “usually stop within a week“. I was hoping for a matter of hours!
Update (April 8th): I originally posted this 9 days ago, and the twitch hasn’t gone away. I’m getting sort of used to it now though; like an old friend. I guess it’s time to ’see somebody’ about it. *sigh*
Update (April 23rd): Okay, now it’s really starting to get annoying. This eye twitch still hasn’t gone away! Before you ask, no, I haven’t gone to the doctor about it… I would feel so lame telling a doctor that my eye is twitching - that’s my problem. I’ll give it one more week.
Switching from Yahoo Desktop Search to Copernic
I was so excited when Yahoo released their desktop search application based on X1’s technology. X1 has the best desktop search offering available, but they charge too much for it, in my opinion. I’ve been using Yahoo’s version of X1’s product for a while now (about 2 months), and although I love the interface, it has what is for me a fatal flaw. Occasionally when I attempt to search for something, the entire index for my email is completely missing.
Really it’s just a bug of some kind, and something that I would be willing to investigate and patch up. However, Yahoo’s support for their desktop search offering is pathetic. Granted, it’s a free offering, but there’s not even a way to see if a newer build is available. The discussion forum for it is probably the worst I’ve ever seen for any product; there’s no way to search the forum’s messages for answers to your issues. From Yahoo, that’s just atrocious.
Given that Yahoo obviously rushed into the desktop search realm with this release, but appears not to be serious about supporting it, I’ve decided to switch back to Copernic’s Desktop Search offering which I first wrote about here. The latest build is 1.5 which is still in beta, but so far it looks like a winner to me. I really like the control Copernic gives the user over how aggressive the engine should be about indexing, and what rules it should follow to ensure it stays out of your way when you’re actively using the computer.
Sorry Yahoo. Better luck next time. Marc invited me to try Yahoo 360; hopefully I’ll have something better to say there.
The Old New Thing
Raymond Chen has been at Microsoft for years and years. His blog - The Old New Thing - is definitely one of the best ones by a Microsoft employee. Raymond discusses many different topics, but in my opinion the most enlightening subject he discusses is Windows backwards-compatibility, and everything that encompasses. So many times, some weird behaviour in Windows can be explained by the need to maintain backwards compatibility.
I have a particular pet peeve with Windows, so I decided to submit it to Raymond through his Suggestion Box. Here’s what I submitted:
One of my pet peeves is keyboard shortcut inconsistencies in Windows. I’m sure it’s a “legacy” thing, but the one that gets my blood boiling every time is the CTRL-Backspace shortcut to delete the previously typed word. It works in about 70% of the programs I regularly use, but fails to work in a select few that really drive me crazy: Notepad and Excel top that list. Is that keyboard shortcut something that has to be implemented on a program by program basis, or is it something more subtle?
Since he gets so many suggestions, there’s a good chance he won’t be able to cover this. But, if anyone knows why this happens, it will be Raymond.
