Storing and Sharing Information

Outlook provides many methods for storing and sharing information. You can export information to Personal Folders files for backup and even transfer those Personal Folders files to others to share contacts, emails, tasks, journal entries, notes, and any other type of Outlook item. Using Exchange Server provides additional storage and sharing options, such as public folders and directly accessing another user's folder through folder permissions.

These days, more and more people are living in their email program. You can use email to communicate with coworkers, friends, and family. You can store travel arrangements, financial information, and even important documents right in your Personal Folders file or Exchange mailbox. Because email is used for mission-critical business applications and important personal information, making sure that the information you store in Outlook is secure is very important. Email cannot be used within a vacuum. You cannot use email and not have your computer connected somehow to the outside world, either through a modem or network connection. New viruses that have the capability of wiping your entire hard drive clean with one wrong double-click of a program are introduced every week.

Even if you have an effective antivirus program and always keep it updated, there's always the possibility your computer will fail. I once had a computer literally catch fire in front of me. It was only a year old and hadn't been backed up in a month. I lost a month's worth of digital pictures, files, and emails. It turned out that the power supply was from a bad batch that had a tendency to catch fire after about a year of use. Even though my computer was backed up fairly regularly, I couldn't avoid some loss of data from this minor explosion. Although that scenario was an isolated incident and likely will never happen to you, a computer failure is always possible.

Where is your computer located? If you work in an office, is your computer publicly accessible? Could other employees come in your office on your lunch hour and use your computer without someone stopping them? What sort of information would they be able to access if they did that? Could they send an email from your account without your knowledge? What would you do if that happened? These are all questions you should ask yourself when thinking about the physical security of your computer.

This chapter covers several topics: your computer's physical security, the integrity of your emailed information, and the security of your emailed information. You'll learn about sending and receiving encrypted email, as well as a new feature in Outlook and the other Office 2003 programs, information rights management.



Special Edition Using Microsoft Office Outlook 2003
Special Edition Using Microsoft Office Outlook 2003
ISBN: 0789729563
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 426

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