[off-topic]I'll post about it in the other thread... I'm loving it with Outlook 2007 but haven't tried it with My Documents, so will set it up and let you know![/Off-topic]

have not had problems with Outlook 2003 not exiting but with Xobni neither task (Outlook or Xobni Service) exit when I close Outlook - ever!

Sorry to come in so late on this thread but have you tried using Knockout, Carol? http://sunflowerhead.com/software/knockout/
It will close down Word and Outlook if necessary. To quote the developer (Jensen Harris) "From a notification area icon, KnockOut can show you if Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Word are running on your computer (even if no windows are showing on your taskbar). If one of these applications is in a hung state, you can terminate them right from the KnockOut menu. This will help clear up rare mystery situations, in which you think Outlook is not running because you see no windows on your taskbar, but when you launch Outlook again nothing happens because it is actually running in the background."

I originally started using it when Outlook 2003 began failing to close properly when hooked up with the outliner, PocketThinker. Recently I have had problems getting Outlook to close down gracefully when used alongside Zoot32. Knockout seems to do the trick, although I'm not clear (I just don't know) if it does it any more safely than would be achieved by using "end task" from the Task Manager.

Derek

PS My only concern with Knockout is that one is STILL terminating Outlook's process, rather than letting it exit gracefully (which is what Shutdown Add-in does).

Shutdown Add-in claims to do both... sort of. Its author states that it hooks

into events triggered by Outlook and invoking a series of commands to help Outlook exit. After a certain timeout period, if Outlook still doesn't exit, then the process is forcefully exited

Carol, you've forced me to look at something I hadn't given much thought to before. My reading of the above is that this is simply automating what Knockout does and what I do with TaskManager - looks for Outlook's process running and kills it if Outlook has been closed. I'm not sure how the events are hooked into and what commands are invoked to "help" Outlook close, but that is the functionality that I've always associated with Shutdown Add-in. I bought it years ago because I grew tired of finding six or more Outlook processes hogging my processor and RAM (with 128MB at the time) and killing them with TM... Realistically, if all Shutdown Add-in is doing is forcing Outlook to close, this might actually be causing PST corruption as I've no idea how often it's simply terminated Outlook over the years.

Bother.

Note - scour your harddrive for and Apple installers folder (I'm pretty sure it's under Documents and User Settings somewhere) and delete whatever you find... That should solve iTunes re-installing add-ins? I've been iTunes free for the last six months or so and love it, so I can't be sure that this will work anymore, but it's worth a shot. I really wish there were some other way to play iTunes files (ie without using iTunes).

I really wish there were some other way to play iTunes files (ie without using iTunes).

There is - either use SoundTaxi or similar to convert them to MP3 or burn them to CD and then import them to a proper music player.

Trouble is I keep meaning to do this but I have a large number of files to convert and there isn't a quick way to do it.

Thinking about it the Outlook plugin is probably related to syncing  contacts and calendars etc. with iPods and iPhones.

I really can't see why Apple can't include simple tick boxes during installation of iTunes to allow you to choose whether to install iPod support etc. Why should every PC user that installs iTunes have loads of iPod crap permanently running in the background when they haven't got a stupid f************ !

OK - it's been six months... anyone out there still using Xobni? I've been thinking about alternative ways of organizing Outlook and have been looking at Xobni and NEO and thought I'd ask for post Sp-3/dust settling opinions of Xobni. I'm particularly interested in Carol's thoughts as I know she's a fan of NEO and wonder is she's still using either or both applications? They do similar things differently...

FWIW, my organization at the moment is centred aroud X1 Desktop Search and a lot of rules and folders!

I really liked it, but I use my laptop for mail and its only got a 1.5 celeron and the performance hit on outlook was just too great.

Fudge and banana peels... How recently have you used it? Just curious as I know the performance hit was problemetic in March of this year, but was hoping to hear that things have improved!

Anyway, thank you for replying 

I looked at Xobni about a  month ago and the website still said they hadn't resolved SP3 issues. Not sure now.

As for Neo - I sort of liked it but I have stopped using it. It strikes me that managing Neo is pretty time consuming to configure the way you want it and until you do it just adds another layer of things to do to Outlook (and another reason for Outlook to get its knickers in a not). Having reinstalled my system after a crash a while ago I couldn't face installing it and reconfiguring it. Also Neo give the impression that it is still an ongoing project but there have been almost no updates since I bought it over 2 years ago. As far as I can tell there was one minor update to make it work with Outlook 2007 but there isn't much (if any) new functionality.

Nowadays I filter all my email through a GMAIL account. The spam filter is very effective (infinitely better than the Junk Mail system in Outlook 2007 which only seems to give false positives and ignores most spam - anyone know how to turn it off?) and about as good as my experiences with Spambayes and POPfile. I then use filters to sort incoming mail in Outlook into folders and delete anything of a temporary nature after reading it before archiving to MailStore Home Plus.

Outlook is now effectively a store for recent emails only (last 60 days) so it keeps the PST file small and I use the contacts, calendar and tasks etc. for keeping track of my life (for what it is worth).

Hmm... thanks people! I'm going to do... nothing for now. Carol, your experience with NEO sounds more or less like my impression of it when I tried it a couple of years ago.

FWIW, my organization at the moment is centred aroud X1 Desktop Search and a lot of rules and folders!

I'm sure that this is working well. If only X1 could be snappier... Oh well. At least, I got (and still use) the free version.

hummmm... I've got version 6 too, and I still find it a bit sluggish... Oh well. 

ClearContext... I've just taken a look. Interesting. I does look similar to Xobni, though I can't tell if it has the same indexing features. One thing that strikes me about the Pro version is that the developer is touting things like the ability to turn e-mails into tasks and calendar appointments at the click of a button. DOn't know why I'd want to pay $90 for a feature that is already in Outlook 2007! (Perhaps it's not in 2003?).

Further, Xobni tracks and displays relationships between contacts - I'm not sure if ClearContext does this, either...