Rock Productivity With the Xobni Outlook Plugin

by Josh on January 10, 2008 · Comments

xobni_logo.pngEmail, and especially Microsoft Outlook, can get really convoluted with all the foldering, contacting and searching. The Xobni plugin makes the day to day email task much easier.

xobni-screenshot.jpgWhy it’s Cool
After you install Xobni, it indexes everything in Outlook in less time it usually takes you to search for that email you sent Jim about that bad meat he sold you. You’re organized right away. No making lists, moving stuff, importing contacts. It does it all, right off the bat.

It’s actually functional too.
You have all the people you contact the most right up front. The search capabilities alone are enough to drop your sandwich, slap your melon and gape in awe. In one pane you have email stats with info on your contact and email. On another pane you can organize your appointments, to-do’s and see how long it’s been since you contacted (avoided) someone.

The program is in Beta, but the first 10 people that comment will get an invite code to try it out.

More?
Xobni was recently featured at the Techcrunch40 Event as one of the great productivity apps. You can find out more and see videos on the Xobni website.

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  • What a useful looking tool. I can't wait to try it out. Thanks for keeping us up to date with all the latest productivity tools. See ya next week!
  • Josh-

    Do I see 3,349 e-mails in your Inbox? Great Caesar's Ghost!

    Devon
  • Shawn M.
    Very cool. Can't wait to try it out. Thanks for living on the bleeding edge!

    PS.
    Speaking of bleeding edge...have you seen this?
    http://tiddlywiki.com/
  • Looks like a great tool. As always I'm watching for where it breaks down in actual usefulness, but it's looking really good.
  • Beth C.
    I like the way you can see the files without having to look through e-mails to find them. Looks like fun!
  • Looks pretty awesome Josh. And kill off some of those emails! :)
  • Shawn,
    I have looked at the tiddlywikie before, but have not yet figured out how I should use it. Any suggestions or have you been using it.
  • Shawn M.
    Rod,
    I just discovered it today so haven't fiddled with it much. However, I can see using this as an extremely lightweight information repository that I can port around however I like. For example, you can use it strictly off-line by keeping a copy on your USB drive. Or for a online/off-line solution, you can keep the "master" on a web-server but work off-line with the USB drive. Then synchronize when appropriate. No PHP or SQL to deal with. I'm sure there are ways to use with a group as well, but haven't looked into it.

    I ran MediaWiki for a while and it was great but then I rebuilt my server and haven't set it up again. This seems like it will be a nice replacement considering I was using as suggested above.

    Also, the interface is quite impressive upon initial examination. Especially considering everything is contained in a single html file (assuming you have Java already installed - who doesn't?).
  • It seems cool, but I miss a point here, does it organize Outlook, or it is a replacement of it..??
  • It helps organize it, but the more I use it, the more it replaces how I usually use Outlook. I do all my searches through Xobni. I start emails from it. Grab attachments. If the Outlook interface was gone, I wouldn't mind at all. One thing they need to work on is being able to set up new tasks and to-do items. you can search and open them, but not create any.
  • Shawn M.
    Exactly. It lets you ignore Outlook's dated interface for many search and filtering tasks. It's extremely fast as well.

    I wish I could manage email threads (conversations) rather than just view them. They need some right-click action as well. But I'm sure that's all in the works.

    Thanks again for the tip, Josh.
  • aWhatmough
    WOW, I love it. I am going to create a post on it on my blog. What a great way to manage you inbox!!!
  • John
    Bummer - number 13.... oh well - I'll catch the next go-around.... thanks for the info.....

    John
  • Thanks for the very helpful reply Shawn, I am going over to Tiddlywiki and download it right now and start experimenting with it.
  • Josh,
    I have installed the plugin and all I can say is WOW! I just used the search and BAM, there was the email I needed to reference. Thanks for passing on the information about this awesome piece of software!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • FYI

    One of my favorite tools, Microsoft Desktop Search, searches e-mails very well.

    Devon
  • Matt Baron
    Any more invite codes?

    Thanks...

    Matt
  • Paul Ferrill
    I'll take an invite if you have any left.

    tnx
  • Nick
    It would be awesome to try this out if you still have an invite available
  • Another way to increase the value of MS Outlook is to access trough it to another platform like Google.

    We just launched KiGoo, a free tool that allows Google users to fully manage (create, read, update and delete) their Calendar and Contacts from MS Outlook.

    Also KiGoo manage the Free Busy information of your Gmail contacts for appointments if they shared their FB status.

    Currently we support Windows XP and office 2007.

    http://www.getkigoo.com
  • Doyle
    Xobni is not beta any longer. But still it is not time to celebrate. For me xobni is a good example that if you want too much, you have to accept a lot of things which are more or less useful, very few things that are okay, and nothing that is really good. It seems that they wanted to put so many things into xobni that they forgot the main function... searching e-mails in outlook, because I think this is something xobni is not good at. I prefer lookeen, a search tool which may not have as many options as xobni but which is very good for searching your mails.
  • yeah, you're right Doyle. Xobni search is kind of hard to get use to. I like the idea of it and it's muc hfaster when it does find what you're looking for, but some filters would definitely be nice.
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