If you want a better traveler, you can skip some of those how-to penned by armchair road warriors pounds

Instead, you start up your laptop computer and open Microsoft Outlook. Yes, I'm talking about the ever-present application that handles e-mail, scheduling and some word processing tasks.

Make the Most of Your Laptop

The chances are very good that you have a copy of which I have installed on the laptop, and that your portablewith when you're on the road. (For the last point, a poll by Harris Interactive found that more than one quarter of all notebook PC owners say that their machine is one of their most valuable possessions, and nearly one third said she had regretted it at home Travel and turned around to him be accessed at least once.)

Outlook is for travelers, which is a paper clip on MacGyver. It is much more than you think. (I apologize to those who are not familiarwith a TV show that had its heyday in the 1980s and 90s.)

With Scheduling Features for a Trip

Marielle Barnes, a consultant in Bangalore, India, focuses on scheduling features of Outlook for their trip can be in place to make. "I have to use Task Manager to keep my 'to-do" list in order, "she says." I organize the tasks, the city, and the type of function so that items get grouped and can be easily in a track to be completed. "An alternative is to keepRoute to a calendar or a personal digital assistant. But if the laptop comes along for the ride at all, why not, what you have (especially if they have a bigger screen than a PDA)?

Robert Hanson relies on Outlook and a third-party application called Xpressions to his e-mails from a phone - a clever feature if you just leave the access to your laptop at the hotel. "Outlook saved me wasting money for a plane ticket to finding the same day that I bookeda non-refundable ticket, which was adopted by the meeting was canceled to participate, "says Hanson, from Wilmington, Del." So I was able to cancel the flight without penalty. "

Outlook has saved me a few times, too.

My favorite feature is the contact management, which has rescued me more often than I'd care to admit. How is that? I usually print a full itinerary with phone numbers before I leave on a trip. (Call me old fashioned, but with a piece of paper that you have neverWorries about a weak battery.) Being hopelessly absent-minded, that schedule has gone on several occasions. Luckily I was able to retrieve the key addresses and phone numbers from Outlook and not completely unpack my luggage in the middle of the terminal.

A Traveler-Friendly Upgrade

To say that Outlook would have been underestimated by the jet set in the past is an understatement. But that's changing. Microsoft Outlook 2003 is designedeven more with the traveler in mind.

Here are a few of the many practical features:

Find help quickly. Outlook helps you make sense of all e-mail you receive on the road. The new Search Folders - "virtual" folders that contain views of all e-mail items that match certain criteria - you can quickly separate the important messages from the ones you want to ignore. Search Folders also flag priority messages first, so that you do not waste time readingSpam. Keep separates spam from. Speaking of spam, the new junk e-mail folders, the most of your junk mail into a separate folder, to help un-clutter your inbox. Working without a net. If you e-mail account through Microsoft Exchange Server, you can work offline while you are away from your office, or if your connection is too slow. Outlook tries to connect only on the server when you invite them to or if you decide to do so in the"Send / Receive" groups. Mine build your business contacts. The new Business Contact Manager feature, which integrates with Outlook, turns your address book into a powerful tool that can pursue to create, and manage your business contacts , sales leads and opportunities. Perhaps the best thing about Business Contact Manager is that it as intuitive as the old Outlook, so you need not spend hours reading a manual before you can use it. Cool "Feel"Outlook 2003

Think of the latest version of Outlook as MacGyver trading in his screwdriver for a power tool. Both gizmos worked fine, but somehow that drill just looks cooler. (In fact, the new icons and "feel" of Outlook have my friends, the older versions or other e-mail systems drooling.)

But the best thing that promises to Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager to me more productive on the road.

As a publisher of a travel e-mail newsletter, I wasParticularly impressed with integrated features that allowed me to send personal messages to designated contacts, with the help of List Builder. In an era where customers are less likely to accept: "I was on the road" as an excuse for missing deadlines, that have something that I probably hold the customer's help I will. And maybe find some new ones.

With Outlook 2003, the learning curve is steep on a few functions - I'm still trying to figure out how I get my navigation paneto do what I want, for example - and users of the old Outlook some adjusting to do.

But it will not be long until you get the hang of. And if you do this, the new Outlook to a larger base (if you need one) with your laptop to make a trip.

Christopher Elliott writes about small business and mobile computing, and publishes a weekly travel newsletter

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