Home»Tag: Outlook for Mac
April 5, 2013 Austin Leach

It’s time to throw a retirement party for Office 2008 for Mac!

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Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac was released on January 15th, 2008. It replaced Office 2004 for Mac and was the first version of Office to be released in a universal binary format, meaning it was compiled for both PowerPC (found in older Macs) and Intel (found in all new Macs) processors. It was supposed to be roughly equivalent to Office 2007 for Windows, but was lacking key features like VBA support, the Ribbon interface, and compatibility with Visio documents.

Mainstream support for Office 2008 for Mac is ending on April 9th, 2013. That means that Microsoft will no longer be releasing any updates or security patches after that date. You can read Microsoft’s official support lifecycle page for Office 2008 for Mac here for more information.

If your organization is still using Office 2008 for Mac, it is definitely time to upgrade. Office 2011 for Mac is a significant improvement over the 2008 version. Here are some of the new features:

  • Entourage has been replaced with Outlook, which will seem much more familiar to users comfortable with the Windows version of Outlook
  • Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is supported
  • Support for Office Web Apps and Windows Live SkyDrive

The mainstream support end date for Office 2011 for Mac is January 12, 2016, so this version is going to be around for a while.

One important consideration is that Outlook 2011 requires Exchange Server 2007 or later, so it may be time to upgrade your server software as well.

Do you have questions about using Office for Mac 2011 or integrating Macs into your workplace? Call our Mac team at Everon!

 

September 4, 2012 Austin Leach

It’s time to throw a retirement party for Exchange 2003!

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Exchange Server 2003 came into this world on September 28, 2003. It brought with it a host of new features, including improved migration tools to ease the transition from older versions of Exchange, enhanced heuristic message filtering to help direct spam into the Junk folder, and, if you had Service Pack 2 installed, a database size limit of 75 gigabytes. This was unimaginably large for the time.

That was eight years and eleven months ago. In that time, we have also seen Exchange Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2010 come into the mix as well. If your organization is still running Exchange Server 2003, here are some reasons why it is time to upgrade.

  1. Microsoft created a handy chart to break down the differences between Exchange Server versions.
  2. Modern desktop mail clients like Outlook 2010, Outlook for Mac 2011, and Apple Mail all require Exchange Server 2007 or later, and they won’t talk to Exchange Server 2003 at all. So if you get a new Windows machine with the latest version of Office or one of those shiny new Macs, those users will be stuck using Outlook Web Access webmail to access email, calendars, and contacts.
  3. Outlook Web Access on Exchange Server 2003 forces browsers other than Internet Explorer to use “Light” mode, which just means that many of the features and options beyond simple sending and receiving email are disabled or invisible to anyone running a different browser (such as Firefox, Chrome, or anyone on a shiny new Mac).
  4. The 75 gigabyte size limit I mentioned before applies only to Exchange Server 2003 Standard, but there is a lot more email being sent today than there was 9 years ago. It does not take very many users with large mailboxes to hit that size limit, and when you do Exchange Server 2003 will shut itself off to prevent database corruption or data loss. That means no more email until the size of the database is reduced. The newer versions of Exchange Server do not have this limitation.
  5. If the software package is nearly 9 years old, chances are that the hardware running it is on its last legs too. While it might be running just fine, it is most likely out of warranty and may even be in End Of Life status, making replacement parts hard to find, making disaster recover more difficult, and increasing costs and downtime.
  6. The prospect of replacing an Exchange server can be a daunting one, costing many thousands of dollars. One way to avoid this expense and to simplify your office network is migrating to a hosted Exchange system in the cloud instead. By getting rid of your old office server, your business can keep running if there is an internet service failure or power outage in your building. Take a look at Everon’s own cloud email and business continuity solutions.
If you are considering retiring your old server hardware running Exchange Server 2003, there has never been a better time. And Everon can help you do it. Call us at 888-244-1748 if you have questions about server migrations or our cloud email solutions.
February 24, 2011 Everon TechTips 24

Business Logo Signatures and MAC Outlook 2011

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Hello everyone,

Today we are going to show you how to insert a picture, such as a business logo, into your signature in Outlook 2011 for the MAC.

It’s fairly easy to do, but rather frustrating if you try and do it directly from Outlook…Because you can’t.

In other versions of Outlook such as the ones on the PC you have a nice editing palate that includes a formatting toolbar similar to they way you edit a new email. Using this toolbar you can easily click add or insert picture from the options and insert your Logo. In the MAC version there is no such thing. There is however a format drop down menu that allows you to edit font, color, add hyperlinks, etc. But if you want to add your business logo you will have to go about another way.

To sum it up, simply use Microsoft Word as the “Missing Palate” and when your done you can copy and paste it into your signature in outlook. Here is a quick video to show you how.