Declan's Blog

I’ve found that the trick to staying on top of email is to have a fast system for handling mail that requires no action on my part by getting it stored outside of my Inbox, as fast as possible. To do this, I’ve created a Macro in Outlook that moves the currently open email into a folder named for the Sender.

For this script to work, you must have a folder Called “People” under Inbox.

To implement this Macro in Outlook, go to Tools… Macro… Visual Basic Editor

You’ll see a blank workspace. Cut and paste the code below into the workspace.

Sub movetoPeople()
On Error Resume Next  ' We'll handle errors ourselves

    Dim myOlApp As New Outlook.Application
    Dim myNameSpace As Outlook.NameSpace
    Dim myInbox As Outlook.MAPIFolder

    Dim destprefix As Outlook.MAPIFolder
    Dim dest As Outlook.MAPIFolder
    Dim item As Object
    Dim fname As String
 
    Set myNameSpace = myOlApp.GetNamespace("MAPI")
    
    Set item = myOlApp.ActiveInspector.CurrentItem
    
    fname = item.SenderName
    
    Set destprefix = myNameSpace.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox).Folders("People")
 
    If Err.Number <> 0 Then   ' Check to see if anything has failed yet
    MsgBox (fname)
    MsgBox (destprefix)
        MsgBox "Problem"
        Exit Sub
    End If
    
    Set dest = destprefix.Folders(fname)
    
    If Err.Number <> 0 Then    ' An error here means the folder doesn't exist
        Err.Clear
        destprefix.Folders.Add fname
        Set dest = destprefix.Folders(fname)
    End If
    
    item.Move dest
    
    If Err.Number <> 0 Then
        MsgBox "Problem"
        Exit Sub
    End If

End Sub

Then just quit the Visual Basic Editor. It will automatically save your changes.

Now we want to add this Macro as a button on all of the emails we open.

• In Outlook 2007, open any email and right click on the Quick Access Toolbar.
• Select Customize Quick Access Toolbar…
• In the Choose commands from: pull down, select Macros.
• Select Project1.movetoPeople and hit the Add >> button. (I like to move the button to the bottom of the list so that it is easy to see on the Quick Access Toolbar.)
• Hit the Ok button, and notice that you email now has a little Macro icon/button. (You can change the icon by hitting the Modify… button before hitting Ok if you like.)
• Hit the folder button and the current email will be moved to the Inbox/People/SENDER folder.

If there isn’t already a folder named SENDER, the script creates it. The email is also closed and you are presented with the Inbox list of email.

If you want to call the folder something other than “People”, just change:

Set destprefix = myNameSpace.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox).Folders(“People”)

to something else:

Set destprefix = myNameSpace.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox).Folders(“SOMETHINGELSE”)

and make sure you’ve created the Inbox/SOMETHINGELSE folder.

Older versions of Outlook have similar methods of adding buttons to new emails.

The script is for Microsoft Outlook, but the methodology is built in to Eudora, and I’ve hacked it into GroupWise using a third party scripting application called Formativ. I haven’t figured out how to similarly enable Thunderbird yet, so any suggestions would be great!

I just drove back from BarCampLA. Here are all my Flickr pictures:

I’m now an Associate Producer for the 1 Second Film!

I decided at the last minute to head up to LA and visit BarCampLA

Photo by Lisa

When

November 10 – 11, 2007

10am Saturday through 5pm Sunday

Where

Technical Training Resources

6920 Miramar Rd., Suite 105, San Diego, CA 92121

directions | map

Go edit the page and sign up now!

For a couple of months, I’ve been doing a practice podcast with my friends Dan and Damon. It’s called MacVeritas and centers mainly on Mac news. I’m not the biggest mac head in the world, but I know a little tech, so it’s fun.

Here’s the link:

http://tinyurl.com/ysv7m8

Enjoy!

Yep, I’m a geek, but it was fun! Well, other than fixing www.ucsd.edu and working on looking for whoever smashed Nathan’s car.

Here’s a link to the conference, wordcamp.org.

Here are a lot of wordcamp2007 flickr photos!

Here’s a link to OneMansBlog.com where the videos will be posted.

I’d especially recommend Matt Cutts’ presentation on White Hat Search Engine Optimization.

Dave Winer is always entertaining as well.

I get a fair amount of guff for using twitter.  I really like this article by Clive Thompson who describes twitter as a 6th sense into a group of friends’ lives, letting you keep connected even though you may not see each other on a regular basis.

Clive Thompson on How Twitter Creates a Social Sixth Sense

Two Marches ago, I met Chris Messina at the O’Reilly Emerging Technologies (ETech) conference. He told me and Gabe about barcamp, an unconference and social networking experience that sounded pretty cool. We hopped on the barcamp.org site, added a SanDiego section and started drumming up interest.

We mainly needed a venue, and it looked like the Price Center at UCSD would be great, once the students left for summer. We talked to the people in charge, and it all looked good until we wanted to stay overnight and have booze. Funny how these little things put the kibosh on so many good ideas… 🙂

We lost momentum after that and the idea languished and rose again a few more times as various people tried to get it moving along. Check the revision history of the wiki if you’re really bored. Someone should use that as a basis for a doctoral thesis in social interaction.

Anyhow, ETech rolled around again this year and I got an odd IM from a buddy who stayed late one night and told me he’d been talking to a guy with my name tag. I rushed out to the car and saw that my tag was still there. Turns out a very clever young man had found a dupe of my card and hacked his way into the conference. I hopped onto the #barcampsd irc channel and we chatted for a while.

His name was Dan and he also wanted to see BarCampSD happen. We batted some ideas around, included some more people, and finally started a dialogue on the group mailing list. A few ups and downs later, a meeting was convened in a loud restaurant in Hotel Circle, then moved to a quieter venue across the parking lot. I think all of the key players were there, and people started grabbing tasks – fund raising, food, recording, venue, etc. It was loud, disorganized, uncoordinated, and perfect.

I didn’t really see anything I could do directly, and honestly I was kind of tired and put off by a lot of what had happened in the last year. There was a lot of energy and enthusiasm around the table, so I just listened and enjoyed the atmosphere, and maybe a margarita, I can’t remember…

The group had subsequent meetings that conflicted with my schedule, but they were great about mailing the list and chatting on the irc channel. After a few weeks, it all got put together and they pulled of an excellent event.

Some impressions of the event itself:

The people were warm and open. I was struck by how many social activist organizations were there. Aid for Africa, StuckInBed, empowerthyself, all kinds of interesting folks.

Geeks who wanted to use their talents to help. This was the whole feel of the team that put it together, and the people who showed up.

I saw very little pushiness. No one was really proselytizing that their tech was better than others’. People were genuinely interested in what other were doing. I’ve seen this before at a session called “Desktop of the Alpha Geeks” at ETech – a look at what tools, processes, and widgets that other smart people use to run their lives. I think this is why GTD has taken off so much.

There was a great mix of people. Many sizes, shapes, genders, backgrounds.

Schedules do not need to be agonized over:

It’s ok not to know exactly how it’s all going to work. Post-its are cheap.

A lot of cool tech doesn’t have a keyboard:

Something about chickens. And beer. Lots of beer:

I look forward to being involved with the next BarCampSD in November.

If you want to get involved, go to barcamp.org/BarCampSanDiego

For more of my pictures, click here.

For a lot more pictures of the event, click here.