12-23-2002, 06:00 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Where's the Photo Field?
There are two technologies starting to come together that made me wonder why Outlook doesn't have a field for a contact photo. We have the proliferation of digital cameras (both stand alone and integrated into phones and devices) and PDA/Smartphones that sync with Outlook. On the Pocket PC Phone Edition devices we have third-party software that will bring up a picture, but it needs to be a specific size and format and as far as I know it's not tightly integrated with Outlook. I know that in Outlook you can paste an image into the notes field, but if memory serves that last time I tried that the result was very ugly on the Pocket PC.
What we need is an Outlook field for a photo of the contact. It should have a corresponding field on the Pocket PC, and in both locations it should be integrated cleanly into the user interface. I'm obviously not the first person to think of this, so I have to wonder why Microsoft hasn't added this feature to Outlook yet. Poor results from a focus group? Perhaps people don't want to share photos of themselves with others? Does anyone beta testing the next-gen Outlook if Microsoft finally added this in?
I also can't figure out why Outlook email messages don't have a hotkey/button/menu option for "Insert V-Card". I know you can drag/drop from your contacts folder, or attach one to every message by default, but wouldn't a button be nice? Or is there a better way that I don't know about?
UPDATE: Look at that! Even before I post this thought, I found a partial answer. It seems that Outlook 11 will have a "show picture in contact form" option. Now the question is, will this be supported in the next Pocket PC OS... :?
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12-23-2002, 06:35 PM
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Theorist
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 276
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Re: Where's the Photo Field?
I'd kill just to have Outlook have some basic features every other email program I've ever used. I'd kill to be able to select some text in the orginal message, hit reply, and only the text I've selected shows up in the reply window. Outlook also puts your .sig at the top of the message, not at the bottom where it belongs. And last but not least, I want the actuall email address to show up in the "To:' field, not the contacts name. Some of my contacts have several email addresses and unless you right-click on the name and do a properties, you don't know which email address your using. I could go on forever of all the little things that bug me about Outlook. MS needs to take a look at Eudora and Pegasus and see all of the nice little features they have add a few of those features that will not overly bloat Outlook.
Where do you think these pictures will be stored ? My PST file is already 200Meg. By looking that the Outlook link you point to I will be needing more memory and a bigger harddrive for the new Office 
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12-23-2002, 06:45 PM
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Mystic
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,768
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PPC PE
With the phone edition, it would be natural to have the photo show up along with the name based on CallerID look up as well. I know there is an app that already does this, but to have it integrated across the OS to the desktop would be ideal.
__________________
Jonathan (JonnoB)
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." -Edmund Burke
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12-23-2002, 06:50 PM
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Thoughts Media Review Team
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 599
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Re: Where's the Photo Field?
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Originally Posted by Jason Dunn
Perhaps people don't want to share photos of themselves with others?
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When I was designing the Intranet for the company I'm at, I added a section that would show who had joined in the last three months, along with their photos. After all, it is useful to put a name to a face. The photos were also used in the company telephone database.
You would not believe the amount of hassle I got when I went around trying to take photos of staff! They really hated it and, in the end, I gave it up as a bad job.
Shame, really.
--Philip
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12-23-2002, 06:51 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 238
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What's the name of that App?
Jonathan,
What is the name of that App you are referring to?
Matt
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12-23-2002, 06:52 PM
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Thoughts Media Review Team
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 599
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Re: Where's the Photo Field?
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Originally Posted by egads
I'd kill just to have Outlook have some basic features every other email program I've ever used. I'd kill to be able to select some text in the orginal message, hit reply, and only the text I've selected shows up in the reply window. Outlook also puts your .sig at the top of the message, not at the bottom where it belongs.
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I had to laugh at a fairly recent MS presentation about Outlook 11 where they said they were looking at what they could do to ensure that an email that had gone to-and-fro several times read correctly, with the oldest stuff at the top and the newest stuff at the bottom.
For those of us who have grown up with pre-MS email tools, we know only too well that the de-facto standard was ALWAYS to operate this way, and it is only Microsoft that tried to change things so that the newest bit was at the top. Just goes to show that they can get there in the end
--Philip
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12-23-2002, 06:56 PM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 1,185
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Entourage has had this feature for ages (As have many other programs that aren't from MS).
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12-23-2002, 06:56 PM
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Mystic
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,768
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Re: What's the name of that App?
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Originally Posted by MultiMatt
Jonathan,
What is the name of that App you are referring to?
Matt
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It is from a company called Vision to Reality. Here is a link to the website. It is called Caller2Picture
__________________
Jonathan (JonnoB)
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." -Edmund Burke
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12-23-2002, 06:58 PM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 1,185
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And another thing! Why don't the color coding of events from Outlook 02 Calendar come over to the PPC calendar?
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12-23-2002, 07:45 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 354
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One feature I would really like to see is a thumbnails view of the contacts folder / windows addressbook. Obviously this could be brought across to the ppc version too along with caller-id support for phone edition devices - the same could apply to an incoming email or messenger conversation.
You could have a standard set of "avatars" based on category etc and then over-ride these with images where you have appropriate mugshots
Peter
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Linear Mode
