Get a load of this: Facebook in Outlook!

Gather ye your ingredients and your tools and let's go:

Ingredients:

1. First, you must have Windows XP, Vista (no comment), or Windows 7 AND Outlook 2010, 2007 or 2003. And if you don't have one of those, what the...??? GO GET IT and then come back here!
2. Close Outlook. Otherwise it'll tell you to right when you're in the middle of installing it which is what usually happens to me. (See? I'm sharing my experience with you; I feel so much closer to you.)
3. Go to the download page for the Outlook Social Connector Provider for Facebook (hereby known as OSCP. Well—no. How about hereby known as "C4FB"? Let's see how that goes. I want 2 sound cool like txtng kids). I made that download link for link open in a new window/tab so that you can download C4FB and read this at the same time. I am so cool.
4. Read the Overview, the System Requirements...or don't. I am not the boss of you.
5. Take a look at the Instructions. I'm going to assume that most of you are not using Outlook 2010 64-bit. If you don't know, trust me: you aren't.
6. Scroll way down to Files in this This Download, choose the one you need, and click Download.
   1. The first one OSCFB-x64-en-us.exe is for those of you using Outlook 2010 64-bit. Again, if you don't know, you're NOT using it.
   2. The second one is for the rest of us: OSCFB-x86-en-us.exe
      
7. I don't think I need to hold your hand at this point: Now just download the way you usually do: say yes, say yes again, maybe again, accept everything, run through the setup (again: yes, yes, agree, wash, rinse, repeat, I love you, etc.).

Okay! Installation complete, now the fun begins. (It better. I hope.)

Open up Outlook. See anything? Me neither; at least not right away. Oh! Something popped up that is asking me to connect to my online social networks (Facebook and LinkedIn are what I have going right now.) So let's add our user names and passwords and click Connect. Mine seemed to work for me—you? (If not, maybe you entered your user name and/or passwords incorrectly; you could always head over to the sites themselves and try to log in and see if you're entering everything correctly and then try again.) Then click Finish.

Now what? Hmmm. (By the way, I'm using that cool Windows 7 snap feature so that I can work in Outlook AND write this post at the same time —each one is sharing half of the screen. (You know? The commercial with the guy in the shower who has to call his mother to tell her about it? OK — whatever. Just offering a little side tip.)

Here's where the magic happens: Click the View tab and you'll see something called the People Pane. Click the arrow, and then select Normal or Minimized and you'll see that People Pane pop up on the bottom of your Outlook screen! Now, when one of your friends emails you, you can see their status, all the mails they've sent to you, all the attachments, and so on.

Here is Doug's video so that you can see all that awaits you...

I had fun today; l did you?

Learn more about the Connector and the links you need in the announcement.

— Crabby