The Entourage Help Blog

Hello! Thanks for taking the time to check us out. We are a group of long-time Entourage users who enjoy sharing our expertise with anyone who wants to make better use of Entourage. We'll each be posting at irregular intervals, so check back from time to time or subscribe to the RSS feed to be alerted when something new is added. We hope you find our blog interesting and enjoyable. Our goal is to provide more in-depth information on current issues for Microsoft Entourage:mac users. If you need help with troubleshooting or learning about Entourage visit The Entourage Help Page.

You are welcome to make comments to any specific blog post or

Rather than using your mouse, use the spacebar to easily go through your mail. Tap the spacebar to go to the next message, or hold down the spacebar to scroll down through a message slowly and continuously.

This shortcut is known by most Mac users, but for if you are new to Mac this shortcut is a time saver.

“Will there be a public beta for Entourage?”

The answer is highly unlikely. There has never been a public beta for the Mac Office applications. Software Activation is not available for Mac Office. Without software activation, the software pirates could produce bootleg copies of the software from the beta version.

Microsoft has offered a “Test Drive” version for both Office X and Office 2004. I’m confident that there will be a “Test Drive” for Office 2008. You’ll just have to wait for the Office 2008 Test drive to be released to give it a try.

As the adage says, "past performance is not a reliable indication of future performance" but don't get your hopes up.

Are you ever confused over whether your Office update was successful? You check Entourage under the About menu and it says 11.3.3, but the latest update was 11.3.5. What gives! Are you updated or not?

Sheridan Jones, Lead Marketing Manager for Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit (MacBU), confirmed that Office 2008 (version 12.0) is now in private beta. Folks eagerly awaiting the release of Office 2008 see its coming as “just a matter of time”. But let’s use this announcement to also set some expectations.

I’ve posted an update to my EntourageExchangeSetup AppleScript on The Entourage Help Page that incorporates some needed fixes and finally includes the ability to set all properties of the Exchange Server, public folders server and LDAP server.

I've replied to a few folks in the newsgroups who were upset that Outlook for Mac no longer existed. Not to be confused with Outlook Express for Mac, Outlook for Mac was only used in corporations with Exchange email servers. Some corporate Mac users prefered Outlook and wanted to know why Microsoft replaced it with Entourage.

They didn’t really. This is what happened.

Microsoft has released the 11.3.5 update for Office 2004. (58.5 MB) The update is a cumulative update that incorporates all prior Office 2004 updates. Download it from Mactoptia, use the Microsoft AutoUpdate application or simply select the Check For Updates command from the Help menu in any Office 2004 application.

Emailer-talk was a very social list. We would often go off-topic to discuss Mac issues during lulls over Emailer issues of the day. During one of these times, a new list mom decided to lay down the law with the list. The result was a modern day Boston Tea Party.

The following is an excerpt from an email sent by John Gilmore to the list shortly after hordes of subscribers began to defect:

“The Internet treats censorship as interference and routes around it” Miss Vicky, you have killed a fine list ... but it did not die, in a matter of but a few dozen minutes a new list has sprung up no different from the last list save for one major difference, YOU DON’T CONTROL IT!

Omar Shahine immortalized the revolt in his “Intro to Sociology“ paper.

In the beginning, there was Claris Emailer. Mac users came to know and love the application. When Apple banished Emailer saying ‘you can no longer be developed‘, users cried in anguish. Fleeing the land of the banished, Emailer's developers took their ideas and moved to the land of Microsoft.

To understand Entourage’s history, you have to go back to its roots in Claris Emailer. Emailer began it’s life when developer, Jud Spencer worked for Fog City Software. Emailer was purchased by Claris in May 1996. Jud packed his bags and moved from Texas to California to continue work on what was to become one of the best Email applications for Mac to date.

One of the reasons I really enjoy using Microsoft Entourage is that it’s scriptable. I can report all my spam in one fell swoop to SpamCop, access my company’s GAL from home, organize messages in my Inbox and send quick canned messages. Scripting isn’t for everyone but it is an essential tool in a company administrator’s toolbelt or great timesaver for a Mac poweruser. I received my May issue of MacTech Magazine today and was glad to read an article by Ben Waldie intended to provide an introduction to AppleScripting Microsoft Entourage.

The MacWindows.com website today is reporting that a recently released hotfix from Microsoft corrects a problem where Entourage users would receive the error message "Login failure: unknown user name or bad password."