Monthly Archives: October 2007

How To Make A Distribution List In Outlook 2003

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Like most of the tutorials I put up here, I was recently asked how to do something. So, I’m putting it up here for posterity. This might be outdated soon, with the adoption of MS Office ’07 gaining momentum.

Anyways, in case you don’t know; a distribution list is a quick way to send an e-mail out to a bunch of people at one time, without having to put all of their names in the ‘To:’ fields of outlook. So, if you find yourself writing emails to the same people often, it’s a good idea to have a distribution list setup to make your life a little easier.

So, fire up Outlook 2003 and navigate to the ‘Contacts’ folder. Click the down arrow next to ‘New’ and find the menu item, ‘Distribution List’:

How To Make A Distribution List In Outlook 2003: step 1

Select the ‘Distribution List’ option, which will give you a new window, which will be similar to the following:

How To Make A Distribution List In Outlook 2003: step 2

Now, Click on the ‘Select Members…’ button. This should give you yet another window, which should look similar to the following:

How To Make A Distribution List In Outlook 2003: step 3

Now, go through your contact list as you choose. It’s worth noting that the picture above shows that I was selecting contacts in the ‘Global Address List’. This is a list available throughout your network. It’s not important that you understand the concept of that, but it is important that you know you can change where you’re looking up people from.

If you select the drop down box that has ‘Global Address List’ in it, you will see other places for you to find contacts in. The most likely place you’re going to want to find other contacts is in YOUR contacts folder. So go ahead and select that, and find the ones you want. Just double click the names to add them to the list.

When your done, review your list of contacts, and give the list a name. I named min ‘Tutorial’. Here’s what I have:

How To Make A Distribution List In Outlook 2003

Select ‘Save and Close’ and you’re done.

Keep in mind, all Distribution lists are saved in YOUR contact folder! So, in order to use them, you’ll have to find the contact in your contact folder. To illustrate this, write a new message, and select the ‘To:’ button. Then switch where you’re looking for contacts, to your ‘Contacts’ folder. Finally, find the name of the Distribution list you’re looking for. All distribution lists are bolded, which makes them a bit easier to find. Here’s mine:

How To Make A Distribution List In Outlook 2003

And that’s it! As always, I welcome your comments!

Florida Creatives

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Last night, Bender and I went down to the Crooked Bayou for the Florida Creatives event over there. I couldn’t stay long, but I still had a good time. I was able to talk to a lot of friends, and meet some new people

I spent some time talking to my buddy Greg about business. I’ve always felt a certain level of camradre with Greg. Both he and I don’t come from CS backgrounds. We both work out a lot, and we both drink lots of beer. Greg has some interesting ideas up his sleeve. That guy’s a businessman, through and through.

I had the opportunity to talk with Jason of Rails Envy , about the hillarious videos they keep putting out. I’ve never really had the opportunity to talk to Jason before. I’ve met Gregg a few times, and he’s a nice guy. However, it was really good to meet the other side of that effort. If you haven’t seen what those guys are up to, you owe it to yourself to check them out.

Erik Hersman was there as well. Erik’s a strategy guy, who has made a living on predicting where web trends will go, and advising businesses how to capitalize on them. Erik can shame the best of geeks with his industry knowledge. So, I had to ask him a few quick thoughts about my upcoming side project. Erik was understandably brief (we were at a bar, and there was loud music playing), but he gave me some tips I’ll take to heart.

Much of the rest of the time, I was getting phone calls from clients. It figures I suppose. I shouldn’t be upset about it. They’re paying my bills, and right now, I could use the extra cash.

A few other attendees that I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to: Alex Rudloff, Etan Horowitz, Chris Scott, Ryan Price, Meagan Fisher , and a multitude of others that I can’t remember.

Good times.

Food & Wine Festival

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I’ve been outspoken that Orlando is more than Mickey . Today however, I enjoyed the benefits of tourism in Orlando. My wife, Melissa, and I went to the Food & Wine Festival held at Epcot.

We left the house around 3:30pm and made the drive on I-4 down there. I had been working all day on my new side project, so I hadn’t eaten anything before I got there. That probably explains why I pounded empinadas and margaritas for the first half hour when we got there.

After we settled in, we took our time to enjoy the cheap booze and food from ‘Around The World’. Our first more leisurely stop, was appropriate for me: Ireland, and Guinness. Then we headd over to China, so Melissa could pick up a Green Tea Plum Wine Cooler.

After that we skipped over most stuff and headed over to Germany. That seems fitting, given that some coworkers at NFi and I are heading to Germany this Thursday. We took our time there, and I asked a guy (supposedly from Munich), where to go while I was there. He was predictably vague, but he did mention some general areas I had an inkling to go to before.

From there we continued on, sampling food and drink from America (ha ha ha), Morocco, France, England, and Peru. When we had gotten ‘Around the World’, we went around again. I guess we just couldn’t resist the opportunity

To wrap up the night, we stayed for the Illuminations show Epcot shows every night. I should be able to recognize the corporate motivations for the show. However, it was so well done (especially after a better than $150 bar tab), that I couldn’t help but be moved by it. We hauled ass to get out of there afterwards, which is tricky with thousands of clueless tourists.

Overall, I’m glad we went to the Food & Wine Festival. It’s easier to be less picky, given we didn’t pay to get in (which is up to $65 for entry). However, we had a really good time, and I recommend it to anyone, who might spend the money elsewhere.

I’m Never Watching Football Again

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I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ve voluntarily kept myself away from football for over a decade now. Actually, make that closer to 15 years. Somehow I let myself ‘get back in the game’. That was a big mistake for me.

When I was 14, I was at my mom’s house for thanksgiving, watching a football game, I had hyped up for months prior. In short, my team lost, in an embarrassingly close game.

When I freaked out afterward (what I had done countless times prior) my mother told me to calm down. That only turned my relentless anger towards her. I have to apologize to her even to this day, for the hurtful, terrible things I said to her that day.

Fast forward to today. A few friends of mine over at NFi got me interested in UCF football again. I kept interest, especially after we nearly toppled Texas in our opening game for our new stadium. For a while it was a welcome interest. That while was short lived.

The last few weeks have proved to be more than I can bear. With back to back heart breaking losses for UCF, and Florida, I’ve had to hold back that same overflow of emotion that caused me to hurt my own mother years ago.

No more.

Some folks are addicted to beer, drugs, sex, gambling. Not me, I’m addicted to winning football. When I don’t win, I’m a dangerous guy. It would probably be less of an issue if I was a smaller guy. However, I’m 270lbs, and I routinely bench-press better than 315lbs, and dead-lift well over 405lbs. So when I lose control of my temper, the consequences can be severe.

It sucks to know that something is just too much for me to handle, but football really just is a far too dangerous temptation for me. I’ll leave the commentary up to Alex. He’s really good at it.

Happiness and Success

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I’m sitting on my couch on a Sunday morning, pondering the meaning of happiness and success. I’ve been questioning a lot what that means to me lately. It’s pouring rain outside, which always make for a good time to reflect.

My 10 year high school reunion was this weekend. I didn’t go. I had originally planned to go, but when money was due, I was broke. It’s frustrating, since now, I’ve got cash falling out of my pockets. Another reason I didn’t go; everyone I still knew from high school said they weren’t going. Still, I can’t help but think what it would have been like to see everyone. Furthermore, I wonder if I’m trying to gauge my own success on where they are in life.

That gets me to where I’m at today. I should be enthralled about where I’m at in life right now. I have an amazing wife, a sweet dog, a good job, a new house, new TV, new computer, and a lot of opportunity going for me.

However, I can’t help but think of what I don’t have.

  • I’m still a bit overweight.
  • I’m not completely debt-free
  • My sites don’t pull anywhere near the traffic of some friends of mine.
  • Millions of other, far too personal reasons, why I don’t feel like ‘King Cory’

It’s all tricky, since I know thoughts of doubt, only bring on real examples to keep bringing more thoughts of doubt. It’s a viscous spiral of negativity that only serves to bring us down. I say ‘us’ here, because I know I’m not isolated in feeling this way.

So what’s the real reason for it all? I guess unrealistic metrics for happiness and success.

  • I may stlll be a little overweight, but I do bench-press 315 regularly, and I’m far from fat. I’m comparing myself to ‘The Bachelor’, and I really should be smarter than that.
  • I may not be completely debt-free, but I’m not starving, and nobody is coming to repossess anything of mine.
  • My sites don’t have the same kind of traffic draw of some friends of mine, however, my sites do a lot better than plenty of other sites. My Alexa ranking is under the million mark, my technorati ranking is still higher than the vast majority of people I personally know, and I have a page rank of 4. Alex is always going to have more activity on his site than I do, I just have to accept that.

So the next question; why can’t I set realistic goals for myself, and be content with reaching those goals? I always find myself setting the bar so high, I never fully accomplish what I set out to do.

Here’s where I turn this around to the audience (assuming there is one, please see the previous stuff), why do any of us do this?

Is this the ‘evny’ thing? is this the ‘covet’ thing? Does this ever stop?

The truth: The world is a bastard of a place to live in. The more we allow ourselves to fail, the more we will. There’s only going to be a few places where you can really find empathy, friends and family. So it’s a good idea to keep them close. Those are the folk that get you back on track, when you can’t do it yourself. The alternative is to stay in the rut you’re in, and allow yourself to fall apart. It sounds pretty stark if you ask me.

Hmmm.

I need to buy a suit. Maybe I can also go buy a better attitude.

Orlando Improv Closes!

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For a few weeks I’ve known that the Orlando Improv was might be about to close. They were facing a few issues that they were trying to overcome to stay in their current location. But there were a few issues why they might have to relocate. My wife swore me to secrecy about it, so I’ve kept my mouth shut. Today however, I noticed my buddy Alex had the story on his own site. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to be beaten on the story, that I felt I had the heads up on.

Figures.

The story is that the new owner of the property the Improv leases, Cameron Kuhn, had agreed to provide a liquor license to the Improv as incentive to stay in the largely vacant historic Church Street district. The day before their existing liquor license was due to expire, Cameron reneged on his side of the bargain. Corporate management for the Improv decided to vacate the location, and sue for breach of contract.

Here’s where it gets interesting…

When the story hit the news today (dammit), Cameron decided to change the locks on the building to effectively lock the Improv out of their leased space. The only reasons I can come up with as to why he would do such an obviously dumb move, is

1.) Bullying – perhaps he thought he could scare Improv management out of a lawsuit.

2.) Collateral – Maybe Cameron thought if he removed Improv imployees immediately, he might be able to steal some valuable property of theirs, and use it as leverage against any possible lawsuite.

3.) Spite – The most auspicious of all possible reasons. Cameron might just be mad at the thought of being sued over something he thinks he has the right to do.

My good friend, was recently promoted to at the Improv after a debacle with the former GM (**details removed upon request**). That’s another story entirely. WFTV talked to her about it for their 11pm broadcast It’s always cool to be interviewed, I guess.

I called her after the broadcast to let her know they spelt her name wrong. She was typical about it, but she did mention how she won. The original locks are back in place, and they might just turn the space into a haunted house until they’re required by law to leave.

So, you might just have a downtown haunted house to go to this year! I guess there’s always some silver lining to be had.

Here’s what still frustrates me about this: Why would a developer who’s known to be broke right now, evict a stable tenant from a property that isn’t producing stable tenants!!?!!??!? Furthermore, Orlando needs steady downtown entertainment to keep people coming, and push business downtown .I can’t imagine why someone with such a vested interest in downtown Orlando (something over $50 million) would do anything to sabatoge that.

Well, the cat’s out of the bag now. All of the local news stations have it out for Cameron, so he may wind up in a similiar situation to what Lou Perlman faced before him. It’s unbelievable how people with so much to lose self-destruct in the most obsurd ways.

UPDATE October 17, 2007:

Upper Improv Orlando management has made a decision on where to move to. I’m under oath to not say where. However, I will say it’s in a more ‘touristy’ area of town