My Dad was a simple man. You might say he was too simple in a world that is growing ever more complicated. But he understood that in everything there is a right way and a wrong way to do things and the only option is to do the right thing.

My Dad ingrained in me a strong work ethic, for working as hard as you can is the only way to have no doubts about yourself at the end of the day. He taught me to always help others, for some day we might need help ourselves and good deeds have a way of getting back to you when the time is right. He taught me to be strong for those around us, but not to be afraid to bend when you have to. He was a man that others knew they could depend on in their time of need. He taught me that leading by example was the best way to be true to yourself, and to those around you.

My Dad lived a hard life for the most part, he took that in stride and did the best that he could with the cards he was dealt. And in so doing, he taught me to do the same. Don’t cry about it, fix it was his philosophy, and it was a lesson learned. Most importantly of all, he taught me that we are not the most important thing in the world. Instead, the most important things were those around us. He lived his life being there for the people that needed him, and those who knew and loved him will always thank him for that.

My Dad always led by example and to those of us fortunate enough to know him, that example was a very good one. He was not a man to get lost in the fluff of life, instead he believed you should lay a solid foundation in the life that you have and then you build on that foundation until the structure is a good, strong structure. You build your character one deed at a time until the structure defines the person behind it. And then you open that structure up to your loved ones and friends so that they might be protected by it too.

My Dad was a great man. He loved his family with a passion that was unquestioned, and he was proud of each of us in so many ways. He is the reason that I have become the person I am today, and I thank him for that. For I can think of no better thing in the world than to be the legacy of this man. Thank you Dad for all that you’ve done.

You are so missed, but you live on in all of those you have touched.

It’s not very often that a piece of software makes me giddy. Xobni for Outlook does just that! Check this NY Times article…

Adam Smith was 12 when Microsoft introduced its desktop e-mail program, Outlook.

Jeff Bonforte, left, Matt Brezina and Adam Smith created Xobni to help organize Outlook e-mail.

Outlook is now the most popular e-mail tool in the world, used by hundreds of millions of people. And Mr. Smith, now 23, thinks that the program is so poorly suited for most people’s intensive e-mail habits that he has co-founded a company, Xobni, intended to fix it.

“Using Outlook today is like taking a Volkswagen Beetle into space,” Mr. Smith said. “People are kind of exerting all these stresses upon it that it wasn’t originally designed to withstand.”

Xobni, based in San Francisco, is introducing a new tool on Monday that plugs into Outlook. Mr. Smith’s general complaint — one that is shared by many users of Outlook — is that the more the program is used, the slower it gets and the harder it is to search for e-mail addresses and phone numbers.

To solve these problems, Xobni (“inbox” spelled backwards and pronounced zob-nee) has produced free downloadable software that, once installed, indexes all the e-mail in Outlook and makes those messages quickly and easily searchable. The software, available at www.xobni.com, will also be sold to companies.

Other programs, like Google Desktop, perform that same basic index-and-search function. But Xobni, which its creators call an “intelligent filter,” adds a few more features. When it scours the inbox, it extracts phone numbers it thinks are associated with the sender. So when a user searches for a person, Xobni presents the number in a side panel to Outlook.

The software also interprets the social relationships between people who are sending messages to each other. For example Xobni recognizes that if an executive sends a copy to someone else on each message he or she sends, it might be to an assistant or another colleague. When someone using Xobni searches for that executive in Outlook, the second person is listed as well.

Extracting these social networking features from e-mail is an enticing proposition in Silicon Valley these days, and as a result, the San Francisco-based company and its 14 employees have become a magnet for attention.

The company raised $4 million from the investment funds of Vinod Khosla, a Sun Microsystems co-founder, and Niklas Zennstrom, one of the creators of Skype. In February, Bill Gates demonstrated the program at Microsoft’s San Jose developers’ conference and called it “the next generation in social networking.”

Microsoft loves it when developers improve its programs, and Xobni is no exception. But executives at the start-up describe an “awkward dance” with Microsoft over the last few months. This year, Microsoft and Xobni held preliminary talks about Microsoft acquiring the startup. But negotiations broke down over price, the future independence of the company inside Microsoft and the willingness of Xobni employees to move to Seattle.

The company was founded by two former graduate students, Mr. Smith in computer science and Matt Brezina, 27, in electrical engineering, who met on internships in Washington in 2006. Last year the co-founders went through a Silicon Valley start-up boot camp, called Y Combinator, where they received an initial investment and temporary offices.

Xobni now has ambitions that extend well beyond Microsoft Outlook. Jeff Bonforte, a 35-year-old former Yahoo vice president, joined Xobni as chief executive in February. He plans to expand Xobni’s reach to various e-mail programs, like the popular Web-based services Yahoo Mail, Google’s Gmail and Microsoft’s Hotmail as well as social networks like Facebook and Linkedin.

Mr. Bonforte imagines that one day when people type a name into the Xobni search box, the software will find e-mail, instant messages and other online communications from that person even if he or she sent those messages on several Web-based services.

“We want to know about the relationships that exist in multiple inboxes,” he said.

Xobni will face competition in its quest to improve online communications. All of the major Internet companies talk about making e-mail smarter and more socially aware. And Web e-mail services like Gmail and Hotmail are growing much more rapidly than the desktop-based Outlook, where Xobni is planting its flag, for now.

At Yahoo in particular, Mr. Bonforte’s former colleagues have frequently spoken publicly about pursuing the next generation of “smart” e-mail.

“We feel like there’s a rich opportunity to create a smarter inbox by leveraging the people you are connecting to and contacting to most often,” said Brad Garlinghouse, a Yahoo senior vice president and Mr. Bonforte’s former boss. “That is a key initiative for Yahoo in 2008.”

It’s a whole new look at your email:

Xobni is the Outlook plug-in that saves you time finding email conversations, contacts and attachments.

After a quick install, you’ll see the new Xobni toolbar appear in Outlook - and suddenly information will become much easier to find. When a new email arrives, the sender’s full communication history appears in the Xobni sidebar, including past conversations, attachments and contact details. Xobni also includes a blazing fast email search tool.

Watch this quick tutorial on youtube …

I’m sure your convinced by now. Now go and get it!

This utility has been approved worthy by the Hiddenpcmaster Top Utility section

FEAR NOT!

Hiddenpcmaster’s Headquarters is not dead, but rather has been in a dormant state due to lack of anything decent to post. I like to think of my little world as a repository of information, utilities, family news, humor, hot deals, etc. But frankly, as I have continued to comb the internet for goodies, anything worth posting has been few and far between.

This is why I would highly recommend using a RSS newsfeed reader which would save you the time of checking a non changing web page, but rather an alert when a page has changed!

Both Lonnie of the Squirrelman blog and I have hinted in the past about the importance of an RSS feed reader and it’s revolutionary approach to web surfing. We can’t stress it enough.

Now…..

All of you Outlook users need to strap yourself in before you read my next post. It truly will propel you into a whole new way to use the tired old email client.

I’m still waiting for the day that all fax machines get the “send to email address” option.