Your contact database is becoming an increasingly important hub linking your personal, professional, and social life. So it's not fun when that data gets messed-up.
If you are like me, over time, I combined contact records from different sources (e.g., cell phone, Microsoft Outlook, and web-mail accounts). At some point, I ended up with more duplicate records than I wanted to handle manually.
The real issue was that not all the duplicate records were really "duplicates". Some of the information was the same, but other information was different. I wanted something that let me pick and choose what to keep, what to get rid of, and what to merge.
It's not just duplicate records; lots of other things can go wrong too. For example, somehow many of the birthdays in my contacts database got shifted by one day. That meant someone whose birthday was July 27th, didn't show up on my calendar until July 28th. That defeats the purpose of setting birthday reminders, doesn't it? I had an older backup saved on the hard disk; but what about all the additions and changes I made since then?
I have used several versions of this software over time. Contacts Scrubber was already a fine solution to a messy problem; yet it keeps getting better. It handles most things automatically, while still giving you control (when you want it).
I'm happy to say that it worked beautifully. If you ever run into this problem, I suggest you give Contacts Scrubber a try. It might save you a lot of time. Bottom-Line: it is the easiest way I've found to merge & purge and end-up with accurate Outlook 2010 contact records.
Your contact database is becoming an increasingly important hub linking your personal, professional, and social life. So it's not fun when that data gets messed-up.
If you are like me, over time, I combined contact records from different sources (e.g., cell phone, Microsoft Outlook, and web-mail accounts). At some point, I ended up with more duplicate records than I wanted to handle manually.
The real issue was that not all the duplicate records were really "duplicates". Some of the information was the same, but other information was different. I wanted something that let me pick and choose what to keep, what to get rid of, and what to merge.
It's not just duplicate records; lots of other things can go wrong too. For example, somehow many of the birthdays in my contacts database got shifted by one day. That meant someone whose birthday was July 27th, didn't show up on my calendar until July 28th. That defeats the purpose of setting birthday reminders, doesn't it? I had an older backup saved on the hard disk; but what about all the additions and changes I made since then?
I have used several versions of this software over time. Contacts Scrubber was already a fine solution to a messy problem; yet it keeps getting better. It handles most things automatically, while still giving you control (when you want it).
I'm happy to say that it worked beautifully. If you ever run into this problem, I suggest you give Contacts Scrubber a try. It might save you a lot of time. Bottom-Line: it is the easiest way I've found to merge & purge and end-up with accurate Outlook 2010 contact records.
It was a strong week for the markets. Normally, to get a sense of what's happening, I focus on the U.S. equity markets. This week, however, I thought it made sense to start with a look at emerging markets around the world. These markets are often referred to as BRICs.
Emerging Markets Lead Stock Rally.
At this point, foreign stocks are leading the U.S. stock market higher. Here is a chart showing that Emerging Market iShares recently broke above its June high. Moreover, after breaking above the down-trend since April, it successfully re-tested that line (from above) and bounced higher. From a technical analysis perspective, those are bullish signs.
Here in America, it is earnings season, and companies have been reporting better news than most expected. The economic news hasn't been stellar; but the markets have held up well. This chart shows the S&P 500 Index at the top of hotly contested resistance level.
Many would take a sustained move above the 1120 level as a strong bullish sign.
With that said, business expansion is dragging and slowing the economic recovery, and it
seems everyone is searching for reasons.
Debt Overhang.
In his new paper, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland researcher Filippo Occhino says a contributing factor may be something called debt overhang. Simply put, when companies have too much debt it discourages them and their investors from taking on projects because the debt consumes any profits the investors might make, even in situations when the investment raises equity in the company.
It was a strong week for the markets. Normally, to get a sense of what's happening, I focus on the U.S. equity markets. This week, however, I thought it made sense to start with a look at emerging markets around the world. These markets are often referred to as BRICs.
Emerging Markets Lead Stock Rally.
At this point, foreign stocks are leading the U.S. stock market higher. Here is a chart showing that Emerging Market iShares recently broke above its June high. Moreover, after breaking above the down-trend since April, it successfully re-tested that line (from above) and bounced higher. From a technical analysis perspective, those are bullish signs.
Here in America, it is earnings season, and companies have been reporting better news than most expected. The economic news hasn't been stellar; but the markets have held up well. This chart shows the S&P 500 Index at the top of hotly contested resistance level.
Many would take a sustained move above the 1120 level as a strong bullish sign.
With that said, business expansion is dragging and slowing the economic recovery, and it
seems everyone is searching for reasons.
Debt Overhang.
In his new paper, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland researcher Filippo Occhino says a contributing factor may be something called debt overhang. Simply put, when companies have too much debt it discourages them and their investors from taking on projects because the debt consumes any profits the investors might make, even in situations when the investment raises equity in the company.
We're all embedded in vast social networks of friends, family, co-workers and more. Nicholas Christakis tracks how a wide variety of traits — from happiness to obesity — can spread from person to person, showing how your location in the network might impact your life in ways you don't even know.
His work shows how phenomena as diverse as obesity, smoking, emotions, ideas, germs, and altruism can spread through our social ties, and how genes can partially underlie our creation of social ties to begin with. His work also sheds light on how we might take advantage of an understanding of social networks to make the world a better place.
Christakis explains that he and James Fowler (co-author of Connected) have become obsessed
with trying to figure out how and why we form networks and how and why
they affect us.
Once you start mapping these networks — they’re so intricate and so beautiful and so interesting — you just can’t help but wonder why we humans make them. Why does a spider weave its web? Why does the web have a particular kind of shape? It’s not a coincidence. You look at these webs and you think, “My God, what purpose do they serve? And, how do they affect us?”
It may be a little after Father's Day; but it still seems like a good time for a video like this. Tongue in cheek, a little faux rap, and fun … Watch Dad Life.
It may be a little after Father's Day; but it still seems like a good time for a video like this. Tongue in cheek, a little faux rap, and fun … Watch Dad Life.
It is earnings season again. However, note that the year-to-year
comparison no longer refers to the recession. Instead, the comparisons
get harder than last year. Moreover, the economic data has been ugly … and so has sentiment on quarterly earnings. The question becomes: how tough will it be for Wall Street to battle back from the latest sell-off?
Market Commentary
The chart below shows a daily view of the Nasdaq composite index since January. Note, however, that this market has been making lower highs and lower lows since April. That is the classic definition of a downtrend.
In addition, chart watchers often pay attention to a pattern called a Death Cross. This occurs when the short-term (50 day) moving average crosses beneath the longer-term (200 day) moving average. As you can see, a death cross happened last week. It is highlighted in yellow and circled in orange. Since then, the market has fallen further.
Is a Leading Indicator of Economic Activity Drying-Up?
If you are looking for insight into global
supply and demand trends, the Baltic Dry Index is one of the purest
leading indicators of economic activity. It
offers a real-time glimpse at global raw material and
infrastructure demand,
as well as the supply of ships available to move this type of cargo.
According to Bloomberg, Commodity shipping rates ended their
longest losing streak in almost
15 years on speculation owners are refusing to offer vessels at
current hire rates.
The index has had a particularly bad run of
35 consecutive drops, the longest since November 1995, during
which the measure lost 60 percent of its value. Since
making a short-term peak in late May (about a month after equity
markets peaked), the index has declined about 60%.
Just in case you wanted more fear fodder to chew on, Here is a chart that is making the rounds.
De-Leveraging the Credit Bubble.
It purports to show that the total leverage within the world financial system currently
stands at 60 to 1, where we are leveraged 60 to the 1 of real reserves
we actually have.
The point of emphasizing it's from
the end of WW2 is that we are not talking merely about a banking crisis,
or whatever. We are talking about the deleveraging of the greatest
economic/finance bubble in history. Once the level of leverage reached
60 to 1, it becomes impossible to stay ahead of the deleveraging, even
for central banks. The implications are staggering. Every major economy
in the world is involved. The outcomes of deleveraging this monster
bubble, represented by the green oval, will be what I term Credit Crisis
II. At 60 to 1 leverage, a loss of 1 to 2% wipes out the capital.
Let's hope that doesn't happen. On the other hand, there has been a lively debate about what the chart really means. For further insight on this, check-out the comment section on the Business Insider's
It turns out there is an application that neatly fixes things in situations like those. It's called Contact Scrubber for Outlook by TeamScope.
