michal, author at CodeTwo Squad Blog

What CodeTwo has in common with Bournville College?

Posted on September 23, 2011 by michal

CodeTwo develops highly-specialized software for Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Outlook environments. Bournville College, as well as Kingston College are British schools of further education, offering a number of courses for youth and adults. Silgan Containers Corporation, in turn, is a main provider of metal food packaging in the USA, while PKP Energetyka is a leading seller of electricity in Poland. What do these companies have in common with CodeTwo? Continue reading...

Top 5 free Outlook Add-ons from CodeTwo

Posted on August 31, 2011 by michal

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UPDATE: We are sorry, but CodeTwo AutoConfig and CodeTwo Attach Unblocker mentioned in this article have been discontinued. You can check the list of currently available CodeTwo products here.

We are presenting 5 top wanted freewares from CodeTwo, designed for Microsoft Outlook users*. The list below depicts the most frequently downloaded Outlook boosters that you can find on CodeTwo’s website and many popular on-line software services, such as Cnet, PC World, Brothersoft or Tucows.

Check out the ranking below and find out why people esteem these apps! Continue reading...

CodeTwo Exchange Sync – don’t miss the update

Posted on July 20, 2011 by michal

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CodeTwo Exchange Sync has been updated to version 2.2.0. The program enables an automatic, real-time synchronization of selected Exchange folders and allows users to access this data on their mobile devices, such as Blackberry, Android, iPhone, etc.

The new version includes a number of important fixes and improvements, such as:

Enhanced compatibility with Windows 7;
Better support for MAPI libraries in Outlook;
More convenient save folder location for log files – they are now saved in /ProgramData/ instead of the installation folder of CodeTwo Exchange Sync;
Synchronization process has been enabled or improved for:

– recurring files;
– items containing attachments, categories or “Subject” modifier;

Recipients do not duplicate anymore;
Problem of Outlook profile changing automatically to C2ExchangeSyncAdmin profile after the installation of CodeTwo Exchange Sync has been eliminated;
An issue with opening message store has been fixed;
The mechanism of meeting requests’ synchronization has been rebuilt to eliminate possible errors caused by this action.

We advise all users of CodeTwo Exchange Sync to download and install the new version. This update is free of charge and can significantly enhance the program’s efficiency, making your work with this application much more convenient.

See a complete version history list for CodeTwo Exchange Sync.
Lear more about syncing your mobile with Public Folders of Exchange Server.

How to boost your marketing campaigns using fancy CodeTwo’s e-mail labels collection

Posted on June 29, 2011 by michal

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As all marketers know, eye-catching images are sometimes more than compelling words. Keeping this in mind, our Marketing team prepared something special for CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro users. Once you are in the Template Editor in HTML preview, click on the Picture icon on the ribbon, select From Image Library … and enjoy a brand new collection of various icons and labels that are designed to help you attract attention of your email recipients. Below I present how to open the Image Library:

The program’s library offers images that can be used for many purposes:
– as auto-replies, when, e.g., a staff member is away or to confirm that you have received a client’s message;

– to stress an important information enclosed to your e-mail, such as a legal disclaimer.

– to promote products and spread the word of the hot seasonal offers.

And the last point probably draws your attention the most, since such a simple image added to your email may visibly increase your sales or website traffic. People get hundreds of emails every day. If they open them, it is a half of success, but then they just quickly scan its content. A vibrant image can be most likely to attract their attention rather than just a plain text or big aggressive font, usually associated with a typical spam. Besides, a stylish graphic added to you e-mail looks more neat and professionally.

To illustrate this theory, look below to compare a standard advertising e-mail with the one prepared in CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro HTML editor, with a use of its reach library of images.
A plain commercial e-mail with text links:

An e-mail prepared in CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro with a clickable graphic:

Using the image library provided with CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro you can freely create beautiful email signatures with your contact details, logos and photos, as well as promotional banners, visual hyperlinks, greeting e-cards, random citations and professional autoresponders. See the new Image Library Manager below:

To make CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro even a more useful marketing tool, the program enables you to set time frames for each individual campaign. The function can be found in the Options Tab and it is called Rule Date Range. As you can see below, there are a few fields that you can complete according to your plan and then be sure that all promotional banners are sent in a right time

Since an e-mail is now one of the most popular means of business communication, the way you manage your correspondence gives a picture of your service quality. Do not let your company stay behind the technology wave. Equip yourself with a multi-functional program that has been created to let you administrate your e-mail in a professional way.

CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro – take a tour
Email branding – learn about adding signatures and disclaimers to your email
See how the program works in your company – get a free version

The quickest way to make professional email signatures for all employees

Posted on June 14, 2011 by michal

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Over 100 professional email signatures, banners, labels and disclaimer images have been made accessible for free in a built-in library of CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro. What does it mean? It means simply that making beautiful and modern branding of your corporate electronic correspondence is now a matter of a few clicks and can be real fun!

Once you have created your rule in the administration panel of CodeTwo’s program, there are only 3 steps to make a professional email signature that can be automatically attached to all messages sent from your company’s mailboxes. In addition, it can contain names, contact details and even individual photos of each employee pulled from Active Directory.

Step 1: Find a proper action

Go to the Actions tab, click Add in the List of Actions and choose Insert disclaimer/signature. On the right hand side you can see two buttons: Options (a quick, handy function to define a position of your disclaimer – top, bottom, left or right) and the Edit template… . Click on the Edit template… button to open the Template Editor.

Step 2: Check-out the new library full of ideas

The Template Editor that facilitates CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro has everything you need: it simple to use, rich in functions and contains an impressive library of fancy visual propositions prepared for your own use to help you establish your new, stylish e-mail branding. So even if you have to make everything from scratch and your mind goes blank as you do not know what to start with, a whole palette of lovely inspirations is already there. Simply click on the Library tab and go quickly through the list of various designs to select the one that best suits your needs (see some of the examples below).

Step 3: Use Template Editor to make your magic!

Ok, you have chosen something that looks pretty cool, but there are still no names of your company, employees’ phone numbers, e-mail addresses etc. Do not worry. Each of signatures contains Dynamic Fields that pull data, such as names, contact details and even photos from your Active Directory. They are marked with brackets: { } and can be easily edited in HTML, RTF or Plain Text preview. See below:

And that is it! The program will automatically add a customized signature to all e-mails sent by your company members specified in the Conditions tab. In the latest 1.2. version, you can not only pull contact details kept in Active Directory to your signatures, but even add senders’ photographs.

If want to know more about creating and modifying your email signatures, there is an extensive knowledge base available on CodeTwo’s website, in user’s manual and other blog posts.

Learn more about making e-mail signatures and disclaimers in CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro
See other features of CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro
Download a trial version and test it in your environment

New version of CodeTwo Attach Unblocker released!

Posted on June 9, 2011 by michal

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If you are a Microsoft Outlook user you probably know a common problem with blocked attachments that you can neither open, nor save to your hdd.. The most common files of this type are: .exe, .bat, .asp, .url, gadget., .js, .reg etc. Outlook blocks these files automatically due to the security reasons and Microsoft’s strategy aiming to protect Outlook users from virus attacks. Nevertheless, this method is not always convenient and pretty often becomes unacceptable for some people. Unblocking disabled attachments is not an easy thing to do. There are numerous questions in this matter regularly posted by irritated users on social forums and IT blogs. So to save your time spent on digging in manuals and in advanced settings of the program, CodeTwo has created a quick and friendly application that immediately brings you back a control of all attachments coming to your inbox. The tool is called CodeTwo Attach Unblocker and is totally free of charge. The program has been successfully serving Outlook users for the last four years. Now we are happy to show you this handy add-on once again, as it has been improved.

What is new in CodeTwo Attach Unblocker 1.2.4?

Apart from a completely new, ‘refreshed’ user interface, the program is now independent from Outlook and can be launched and running even when Outlook is offline. The installation file automatically checks bit version of your Microsoft Outlook and installs a proper version. We have also eliminated a problem with Windows 2000 installation error.

To define the attachments types that you wish not to be blocked by Outlook anymore, you just need to create your own list by entering file extensions in a proper field (see a picture below). After restarting Outlook all attachments from your list will no longer be blocked and you will be able to open, save or forward them.

Learn more about CodeTwo Attach Unblocker
Download CodeTwo Attach Unblocker

New premises for CodeTwo Marketing and Web Development

Posted on May 20, 2011 by michal

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Our Marketing and Web Development Departments have expanded so much that we had to get a bigger office. And so did happen. :) This week we moved to our new premises that is located just across the road from our headquarters. Sadly we are now slightly separated from the rest of the team, but the good thing is that we can enjoy a beautiful view of the Giants Mountains and have a large space for making new ideas. After a few hours of re-locating and a hard physical work…

… we could finally arrange furniture and computers and find our feet in the new specious office. And even though the rest of our work-mates may get a little bit jealous, we just have to show you the view from our windows…

We want to stress however that we are not sitting with our heads in the clouds! ;)

CodeTwo Home Page
CodeTwo on Google Maps

Using Template Editor’s status bar to work easily with complex and fancy e-mail signatures

Posted on April 27, 2011 by michal

2 Comments

Hi Exchange admins! Let’s focus today on the next feature of CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro which definitely deserves your attention – the status bar in your Template Editor. As you already know, CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro is an e-mail management software, providing a sophisticated Template Editor that allows you to create beautiful and stylish e-mail signatures, banners and footers. Bearing in mind how important it is to maintain a professional look of your brand identity, the application has been equipped with highly advanced edit features that let you efficiently and pleasantly work even with the very complex signature layouts.

See below an exemplary e-mail signature, imported from the built-in signatures library of CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro.

As you can see, all the top elements of the signature are placed in the table. It is obviously a preview table that will not be visible in a message (unless you set a border size above 0). You can identify at the first sight, some of the most popular edit functions displayed in the Template Editor’s ribbon. So if you want to modify your signature details, such as a phone number, e-mail address or web page name, you might highlight them like in the image below:

The next thing you are most likely to do, is to go to the top ribbon’s section called Font and select a proper font type, size, colors etc. Will it work this way? Yes, it certainly will work in this case, but how about modifying the table’s cell or row? You will not do it analogically, because the visible ribbon’s settings do not apply to the HTML elements, such as row, cell or a whole table. If, for example, you want to change a background color of the chosen single cell, you should now look at the bottom bar of the editor. It is more functional that you may expect as it displays the selected HTML elements of the table, e.g. <BODY>, <TABLE>, <TR> or <TD>. See in the picture below, the whole cell is being selected, so the <TD> element is being highlighted in the bottom status bar.

Now you can access a full palette of options and modify the selected element according to your needs. You just need to use the Properties section that appears on the right hand side. Notice that the Properties table also informs you what HTML element has been tagged (see the name next to the Tag cell in the second column of the table). Using the Properties options, you can easily change a background color of the selected cell (let’s select a blue color for the presented cell) or go to the Style window to work with more advanced settings of the cell’s fonts, background and border. For the exemplary e-mail signature, the cell’s border-style is being now selected as grooved, thick and green. See below:

This is what it looks like after the settings have been applied:

As you can see, each HTML element of your signature or footer can be modified within a few clicks. This is all you need to know about the status bar. Just remember that this feature is always at your fingertips to streamline your design work when making complex e-mail signatures.

If you want to find out more about Template Editor’s functions, see our user’s manual. If you do not have a program yet and wonder if it suits your company’s needs, go to the program’s information page and see all its main features.

CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro overview
CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro – download
CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro – take a tour
Compare the program with MS Exchange