Do you have a lot of email clogging up your inbox and have trouble organizing it all? I’ve found this great (and best part free) plugin for Outlook that does it all for you.

It’s called Xobni, and works with Outlook 2003/2007 on XP and Vista Operating Systems.

One of the many features it has is when you open an email, the Xobni sidebar will show you all related emails from the sender, how many emails you send receive the them, and even a trend graph of what time you get emails from him/her.

That is one of many. Check out the Youtube video below for a tour of this plugin:

Got a call from mate the other day. His laptop running Vista appeared to be stuck installing an update (which we later worked out to be SP1), and continuously rebooting. The laptop was displaying ‘installing 3 of 3′ which didn’t really tell him too much.

The fact that he wasn’t even getting into windows severely limited his options on what he could do. Even trying to boot into safe mode was having the same result.

After a bit of searching around on the internet, I found a solution to his problem. And it looks like he’s not the only person that has experienced the exact symptoms.

Here’s what he did:
(Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for any unexpected results of following the steps outlined below. You do so at your own risk, but if you do have the same problem as my mate, then you really don’t have much option other than to try it)

1) Boot from the Vista install disc
2) Choose your language, time etc and select the “Repair your computer” option.
3) Start a command prompt and delete/move the following file.
C:\Windows\winsxs\pending.xml. You can just move it elsewhere on the computer if need be.
4) Restart the PC, you’ll get the same ‘configuring updates’ screen but after a while it will carry onto the desktop.
5) Turn off automatic updates and create a restore point. Wait until MS fixes the update.

Hopefully after that your PC will will be working normally again.

Please post any comments on success/failure stories.

Getting the iPhone released in Australia has been a long time coming for companies - more so the consumer. Peoples have been, up to now, relying on buying them from Overseas via Ebay and getting them unlocked so they can use them here.

In the last few days, Vodafone has announced that it will sell them, as well as Optus being rumoured to do the same. There is no doubt the iPhone will be a hit in Australia.

Today, Cnet has reported that Telstra will also sell the iPhone. This is great news, as Telstra’s decision to offer the iPhone points to an imminent release of a highly-anticipated 3G model.

Telstra have not made an official announcement as yet.

Read CNET’s article here.

Update 19/6/08:

According to The Australian:

IN a case of better late than never, Telstra, the gorilla of the telco market, will come to Apple’s iPhone launch party but may lag its rivals by almost two weeks with the handset.
Telstra will join Optus and Vodafone in launching the new 3G version of Apple’s new iPhone in July and Telstra chief Sol Trujillo may make an announcement next week.

Telstra stayed quiet as its rivals wracked up marketing points by standing in the glow of the local iPhone launch, but will now go ahead and sell the device according to people close to the company. The telco is targeting a date of July 22, they said.

The full story can be read here.

SP3 have now been added to Windows Update, and from all reports does make a difference in performance. A few people that I have spoken to have all said that boot times are reduced, and overall running seems to be quicker.

If you need to download it manually and/or hate windows update, here is a link to a page that lists the locations of the SP3 ISOs ready to download.

The most common/popular one will no doubt be the English ISO, so here’s the direct link from Microsoft for it.