Microsoft Outlook 2000

A standard in many offices--for the Microsoft name and for its wide variety of features--Microsoft Outlook 2000 is both a day planner and a mail client. Providing a computerized calendar, contact lists, address book, detailed file organization for your correspondence, and customizable rules to present, arrange, and view your e-mail, Outlook 2000 can fully manage your work life.

Arranged for those most comfortable with the Microsoft Windows interface, Outlook can be manipulated to display your personal management needs. Choose to display with messages organized by sender or date; display with a shortcuts menu offering one-clicks to your calendar or the Outlook for Today; or display by your own customized fields and settings to fit your business priorities. Filters and the Rules Wizard also clean up your display by weeding out your spam or filing the messages in your inbox in a specified order, providing extra visual space for those more important messages.

These customizable options let you organize a high volume of incoming and outgoing information, and the archiving tool saves old messages to your specifications for reference. Steady--except when handling corrupt e-mail or when sending or receiving large messages such as image files--Outlook is a helpful manager for your electronic mail. --Madeleine Miller