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Back Online – and back to business
Dec 11th
We’re back online and we’ve got an updated version of MeshTop rolled out!
We had about a month and a half of down-time (kind of ridiculous, right?), but during that time we took a good look at MeshTop and were able to iron out a lot of major usability issues regarding the immense memory usage that was plaguing the platform. We’re still not 100% satisfied with where the usage is at, but we’re making progress =)
During our time offline we also brought on three more interns, and snagged one of our developers back from Minesage (who had been pulled into a project for a couple of months- we had dearly missed his support, but we’re glad to have him back now!).
Do check out our latest build, and please do connect with us on Facebook and Twitter we’d love to hear your feedback!
Crunch Time – New MeshTop for Outlook New Implementations Scheduled for October
Oct 9th
We’re all back at work here in Beijing after our eight day holiday to celebrate China’s 60th Anniversary. It was a great time to rest and catch up with friends and family around Beijing or back home – but now it’s back to crunching through our backlog and getting some of our ideas implemented into our next alpha release of MeshTop.
We should be aiming to have our first closed beta release by the end of October. Do send us an email to let us know if you’d be interested in receiving an invite to be a beta tester.
Beta Request Email: hello@meshtop.com
Outlook Productivity Tips and Tweaks
Sep 22nd
Outlook 2007 is the email client that I use daily at work, but as I was perusing through some of my archived articles on Google Reader I came across several articles on using Outlook as a project and task management tool, but had never gotten around to reading. I’m still in the process of working through some of these tweaks and tips, but I wanted highlight the top four tips that I’ve found most helpful in my daily workflow.
Outlook on the Desktop is a pretty cool application that puts a fully functional Outlook calendar onto my desktop. The hardest thing that I had to change and customize to use this calendar was actually my desktop wallpaper- since I had to find one that wasn’t too busy so that I could see my calendar clearly while still keeping Outlook on the Desktop somewhat transparent. Besides that little hiccup, its great to have my calendar visible- and the tray icon even displays the day of the month when I have other windows fully expanded. Outlook on the Desktop also includes the ability to switch between calendar, inbox, contacts, tasks and notes views, though I’ve only been using the calendar feature so far.
Sync Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook
I’m an avid Google Calendar user- I’ve used it through college and I’ve got my whole day planned out on Gcal. Fortunately – there’s a step-by-step walk through to sync up Gcal into Outlook.
Time Management with Microsoft Outlook
There’s an awesome blog post by 7Breaths that details how to use both OneNote 2007 and Outlook 2007 as a time and project management tool. Head over to the blog to read more about the specifics of the workflow, but the general gist of the process is as follows:
OneNote is used to collect ideas, and when a task or action step is identified, it is flagged into the Outlook ToDo list by using the shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+5. The Outlook calendar is then used along with color codes to map out commitments for the week.
I’ve grabbed a screenshot from 7Breaths’ article to show his color coded calendar layout.
Speed Up Microsoft Outlook IMAP
I work on both my EEE 1000HE netbook on the road, but also have my desktop workstation while I’m in the office- this creates the problem of how I access my email, since I want to make sure that the emails that I read on my desktop, will be marked as read (or correctly filed in its respective folders on the server). I found out that the solution for this is IMAP. However, one of the weaknesses of Outlook 2007 is that its implementation of IMAP is quite slow, and even causes my Outlook to hang. Fortunately (or unfortunately), I’m not the only one with this problem, and someone has figured out a small fix for this issue.
Apparently, the slow-down is due to the default Outlook 2007 setting which only dictates Outlook to download the email headers, so when you want to read the emails, Outlook stalls while it finishes downloading the complete email message.
To fix this, Press Ctrl+Alt+S in Outlook to to open the Outlook Send and Receive groups. Select the account you have set-up with IMAP and click Edit. The option that you want to select is under
‘Account Options’: Download complete items including attachments for subscribed folders.
This will increase the time of your periodic send/receive process, but will speed up the time that it takes to open up messages. Head over to the article to read some other tweaks to speed up Outlook.
Do you have any other productivity tips or tweaks that you’ve used to speed up your Outlook workflow? We’d love to hear them!
Incompatibilities | Support and Frequently Asked Questions
Sep 17th
Does MeshTop work with Windows 7?
As we all know, Microsoft plans to ship the final version of Windows 7 around October of 2009. Currently a few adopters and cooperators of MeshTop are enjoying their Release Candidate of Windows 7. They help us all the time during the later periods of MeshTop production and marketing with their feedback.
Till now we found some issues of MeshTop running in Windows 7, which is mainly about some differences in Windows Presentation Foundation or other components between Windows XP / Vista and Windows 7. For instance, we found MeshTop causes one process about WPF compatibility may consume more CPU processes.
However, most functionalities of MeshTop work fine in Windows 7, and MeshTop will continue its improvements on Windows 7 together with that on Windows XP / Vista.
Does MeshTop work with other Outlook plugins?
Till now we found there are issues in layout of sidebars when users try to work together with MeshTop and other plugins. The plugins may hide unexpectedly when the user switches the appearances between sidebar, panel and full view.
Using MeshTop | Support and Frequently Asked Questions
Sep 17th
What information do you send to your servers from my computer?
In the current version of MeshTop, we do NOT send any of the user’s personal information to any existing servers, except the requests to Social Network REST servers to retrieve corresponding public data.
MeshTop functions do not need any of the user’s personal information. However, if future builds require user information, we will make sure to request user permission first. Moreover, according to our privacy policy and information securities, we will never share user information with third parties.
Yes, MeshTop is free for personal use. A Pro version may be offered in the future.
Can I use MeshTop inside my business or enterprise?
Yes. MeshTop is free to use both inside and outside of enterprises. We will offer a version with additional enterprise features in the future.
System Requirements | Support and Frequently Asked Questions
Sep 17th
What are the system requirements for MeshTop to work?
Currently MeshTop runs on Microsoft Windows XP / NT / Vista and Windows 7 (RC) with Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007. .NET Framework 3.5 Client Subset is also required. MeshTop will help you to check and build the necessary conditions during the installation.
Considering the performance and functionalities of MeshTop, we suggest computers to have at least 1Mb of RAM free in common runtime. MeshTop supports almost all monitor resolutions, including resolutions on Netbooks through the flexible and smooth layouts with WPF.
Do I need Administrator privileges on my computer in order to install MeshTop?
Similar to many applications on Windows, MeshTop needs Administrator privileges to finish necessary phases in installation. After installation, any user account with privileges to run Outlook can work with MeshTop completely.
Does MeshTop work on Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3)?
Yes, we support MeshTop on Windows XP Service Pack 3.
Do you support web mail like Gmail, AOL mail, or Hotmail?
We are currently focused on creating the best add-on for Microsoft Outlook. If you do have Outlook, you can already set it up to import your Gmail, AOL, Hotmail, or any POP or IMAP-enabled mail account. Once you import these accounts into Outlook, you can use MeshTop to search and browse any information contained in those email accounts.
For more information about setting up these accounts in Outlook please see:
How to access Gmail from Outlook 2007
How to access Gmail from Outlook 2003
How to access Hotmail from Outlook
How to access AOL Mail from Outlook
If you do not use Microsoft Outlook, there is currently no way to enjoy the benefits of MeshTop.
Do you support any other email clients besides Outlook?
Not at this time. Our initial efforts are going into creating a great add-on for Outlook, but other desktop and web clients may follow.
MeshTop currently does not support Eudora, Lotus Notes, Thunderbird, Entourage, or Outlook Express, in any version.
MeshTop supports only Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 running on Windows XP and Windows Vista. Please see our System Requirements if you have any further questions.
MeshTop Features – Navigating Through MeshTop
Sep 7th
MeshTop has many different views: Network, Photo, Wall, Panel, Bar, Twitter Gadgets, Other Gadgets and so on, just to name a few. But it can get a bit confusing with so many views, so I wanted to highlight how to quickly navigate the specific features and views directly.
Navigating through MeshTop is quite straightforward – At the top of SidePanel view, there are five buttons for navigation. The first two arrow buttons expand or collapse MeshTop to the Bar view or the Network view. The following three buttons allow you to navigate to the three main views: Network, Photo, Wall.
At the top of the Expanded view are the same three visual buttons which toggle through the Network, Photo, and Wall features of MeshTop.
While in the Collapsed view, you can also navigate to these three main views using the navigational buttons at the bottom of the Bar view.
These are the three features that we’re highlighting in MeshTop at the moment, but we’re working on additional network and feature integrations as we finalize for our first release.
Stay tuned, and let us know of things you’d like to see in future releases by connecting with us through the feedback bar on the left, or through twitter!
The Relationship Between User Interface Design and Software Usability
Sep 4th
Taking a short break from the developer’s side of things – we have a guest post from the designer of our MeshTop team. She talks briefly about designing with the purpose of integrating a software into another as a plug-in.
“The main goal of user interface design, is to develop a way to allow users to use products simply and conveniently. The functions of any products are realized by the interaction between human and machine, including color matching, style, and design; so the the main factor of UI design should be focused on the human cognition, and should be reflected as the central idea in the design.
The overall design tone of the interface in MeshTop takes its basis from Outlook, in order to smoothly integrate MeshTop and Outlook in a manner that avoids any disjointed feel between the two interfaces. Harmony with Outlook, whether in the aspect of Color Site Text font or button design, is the goal for avoiding visual fatigue of users and also gives a comfortably meshed feeling for the users.”
Clearly, using the design of Outlook as a basis for the UI definitely isn’t the most exciting and creatively freeing guideline to follow, but it comes back down to the focus on the user – how will the user receive a plugin that is a creative masterpiece, but is disjointed and has no relation to the base product as an add-in software?
We would love to hear some of your experiences as designers who have designed within restrictions – what are your stories?
(Image from: Better By Design)
Quick Tips To Group Friends with MeshTop’s “Search and Tag” Feature
Sep 3rd
In our previous post we revealed some general features of our Network View of how you can use tags to group your friends one by one, and our integration of Facebook chat, allowing you to chat with your online Facebook friends.
This week, I’d like to give a brief tip about how to quickly group your friends with the search and tag function. On installation, MeshTop gathers all the contact information from your email address book, and social networks, allowing you to search through your whole network using the MeshTop search function. The MeshTop search not only searches through name matches but also email and company matches.
For example, if I wanted to search for all my colleagues in the MeshTop department I could perform a search on the query, ‘meshtop’, and the MeshTop search will identify the company name or email domain name ‘@meshtop.com’ matches. Each search query is automatically converted into a temporary tag, allowing you to quickly add this tag to your favorites. Utilizing the MeshTop search function with MeshTop’s tagging feature allows users to quickly sort contacts friends to different groups when you first use MeshTop.
Ye Sun
MeshTop Features – Organize Your Network Contacts With Tags
Aug 26th
Apologies for the long break between posts – its been another crazy week of developing and planning. We decided to postpone our release date slightly in order to squeeze in some more features and integrations into MeshTop before we release our version 1.0 – it’s a bittersweet decision to make since we’re aching to let our product loose, but at the same time, we’re really excited about the additional integration’s that we’ll be providing in this first release.
Apart from that – I wanted to highlight some of the Network Tagging features of MeshTop, and also illustrate how you can use the Network view to interact with your email, Facebook, and Twitter contacts from this single view. Select the Network View through the Network button on the MeshTop sidebar to expand the Network View window. Contacts from your Outlook address book, Facebook, and Twitter accounts will be displayed across this network view.
Since this network view can become quite complicated if you have a large amount of contacts, we’ve implemented a Tagging feature to allow you to group friends together in categories, and also a search feature to filter through friends quickly. Initially, there are some default tags in your tag list: All friends, Facebook, Twitter, Family, Close Friends, and Colleagues, however, you can also add your own custom tags to this filter.
The Network view also enables users to quickly filter and interact with their vast networks by right-clicking to reveal a drop down menu with various actions specific for both the Facebook and Twitter networks.
These are just a few of the basic features of the Network view in MeshTop – we’ll be revealing more of these features in future posts. By the way, please feel free to follow us on twitter, or to shoot us some feedback on what you’d like to see in an Outlook Social Network mashup tool!
Follow us on Twitter @hellomeshtop
Email us at: hello@meshtop.com
