Consume patterns&practices Guidance Explorer Via RSS Using Outlook 2007

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patterns&practices recently released new version of Guidance Explorer [GE]. One of the most important addition was enabling RSS on the online GE store. What does that mean? It means you can consume distilled security, performance, and Visual Studio wisdom in any RSS reader of your choice. It means you can leverage familiar environment to consume close to 4000 technical gold nuggets.

This post describes how to set up RSS feed inside Outlook 2007 to read GE’s content.

Summary of steps

  • Step 1 – Download latest GE bits
  • Step 2 – Create designated offline PST file
  • Step 3 – Subscribe to GE’s RSS feed in Outlook 2007
  • Step 4 – Test drive GE’s content using Outlook 2007

Next section describes each step in detail

  • Step 1 – Download latest GE bits. Navigate to GE’s releases page and review latest release notes. Also review GE’s FAQ’s. Download latest release – it appears in upper right corner of the page. Extract downloaded zip file and navigate to bin folder. Double click GuidanceExplorer.exe file. GE appears on your screen.
  • Step 2 – Create designated offline PST file. Switch to Outlook 2007. Open “Data File Management…” found in “File” menu. Click “Add…” in “Data Files” tab to create new PST file. Name it GE [or whatever you like]. Saving GE’s items in dedicated offline PST file will keep your Outlook’s online store from overflowing and it is easier to back up too.
  • Step 3 – Subscribe to GE’s RSS feed in Outlook 2007. Switch to GE. Right click on “patterns & practices Library” node in GE and choose subscribe to RSS feed:
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    Internet Explorer will open and will try to display the feed. Do not get scared by the message telling you that IE cannot show the feed as follows:
    image
    Just grab the URL from the address bar – highlight it and copy it to clipboard [ctrl+C]. Switch toOutlook 2007. Right click “RSS Subscriptions” node and choose “Add a New RSS Feed” as depicted below:
    image
    Paste [ctrl+V] the URL from the clip board into the dialog and hit OK. Hit “Advanced…” button in the next dialog box and configure the feed to sore the items inside the newly created PST file:
    image
  • Step 4 – Test drive GE’s content using Outlook 2007. After Outlook 2007 finishes downloading the items you can test drive familiar functionality such as instant searching or forwarding the items as an emails.

Heaven.

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