Down With Global Distribution Lists!

Problem: Outlook/Exchange global distribution lists don't allow you to include members who are not Exchange users. This is very cumbersome in mixed workgroups where not all of the people are using the same email system. Hey, come on, the poor non-Exchange users deserve email, too, don't they?? Well, maybe not, but you might want to send them mail, anyhow.

Solution: Outlook/Exchange personal address books and Public Folders both allow you to add non-Exchange e-mail addresses to a distribution list. So, to solve the above issue, you can create a "Contacts Item" in the Public Folders, which are available to all your Outlook/Exchange users, and add any (non-Exchange) outsiders to a distribution list there.

Note: If you do this, anyone using this distribution list must also set the new "Contacts Item" to show as an e-mail address book, like this:

1. Right-click the new "Contacts Item" under the Public Folders.
2. Select Properties.
3. Select the Outlook Address Book tab.
4. Check the box labeled: Show this folder as an e-mail Address Book.
5. Hit Ok to save the change.

My First Survey

Problem: I really hate surveys. So, this "first" one might also be my last one. The problem is that they ask a lot of questions I don't care about, and there's always too many of them. The invitation always says something like, "Please take a few minutes to answer the following questions." Three hours later I'm asking myself, how in the hell did I get sucked into this? Or they say, "I'm trying to save the world from the scourge of acne." Well, I haven't had acne in 2 years (or so). Why would I care about that? You rarely run into a really good survey. For example, one time on Saturday Night Live, Father Guido Sarducci was doing a street survey and he was asking just one question, "If fish had ears, do you think they would be better listeners?" Now that's my kind of survey! Only, I don't recall if he ever got a good answer.
Anyhow, I guess sometimes surveys are necessary. So, if you have to do one for some reason then the question is how to do it with the least amount of grief on your part.....

Solution: Survey Monkey. Need I say more? What a great product! It practically does the whole survey for you.
I needed to learn something about the product so I could help someone at work use it. I decided to practice by doing my own survey. I found that you do need to sign up for the service, which I normally hate to do. But, I was willing to sign up because, with Survey Monkey, small surveys are free; there's no obligation. So, I signed up, logged on and followed the dialog; and in literally a few minutes I had a survey ready to be sent to my lucky respondents. If you're interested seeing how the process works, just go to SurveyMonkey.com and see for yourself.

Now, for my survey results:

1. If you've never done a survey before, what's the first thing you want to know? Is it how do we stop the next terrorist attack? Or, ...... Who will be the next American Idol? Or, ..... Will Hillary run? No. You want to know if people like you. To get the best results, you design your first question to dupe your respondents into answering the way you want. You do this by making 4 of the 5 possible answers favorable to you. (It also helps to send the questionaire to only family and close friends). Because of this, 90% of the respondents "like" me. The 1 that doesn't must have just slipped up with the mouse.
2. Then, you want to get to the real meaty questions. Like, "Is Keith Primeau faking his injury?" The answers to this one shocked and horrified me. Most of the respondents don't even know who he is!! Come on people, get into Hockey! (I guess McNabb or T.O. would make better survey material, even in the off season). Anyhow, the 2 people who know of Keith Primeau said he isn't faking.
3. Nobody wanted to buy the Taj Mahal. I guess this is no surprise since 2 of my respondents said they already own it. Come on now; there's only 1 Taj Mahal! So, .......which one of you really own it? Most of the respondents didn't want any of the things I suggested.
4. The favorite food, by far, is steak. Beer and pizza came in 2nd with equal percentages, and M&M's were a close 3rd. Since Pizza and M&M's both showed some good numbers, I'm surprised that only 1 respondent chose M&M pizza.
5. Question 5, "Are the questions on this survey fair?", was a trick question. All but 1 of my respondents thought the only answer was "Yes", so that's what they chose. I thought my questions were clearly not fair. One sly respondent simply skipped the answer rather than replying "Yes" (Bravo!).
6. Question 6 showed that only a few of people were even confused by question 5. The other 70% were almost evenly divided between not confused and don't care if it was confusing. Wow!
7. All respondents either refused to tell their age or just plain lied about it. Interesting .. :o)
8. Most of the respondents gave exact outside temperature readings, which really impressed me. I never know what the outside temperature is when I myself am inside. And then, some poor people sadly didn't understand the question; one person said, "cloudy."
9. The highest percentage of the respondents once owned "A little red wagon". Strangely enough, no one admitted to ever owning just a monkey or just a skunk. However, someone had multiple things from the list......(See below).
10. When I asked what people would do to me for making them take this survey, I got a wide variety of answers, mostly innocuous little threats. The only scary one is, "I'm going to send him my skunk with a pocket protector in a little red wagon." (See what I mean?). The only other response that's a little bit threatening is, "(I will) Try to forget he is my brother." I guess my sister thought I wouldn't be able to figure out who wrote that one (HAH!).

Anyhow, thanks for the help with my survey!!