Sometimes ago, I started experiencing a crippling problem with email rendering (and particularly HTML email) in Outlook 2003. Before you cry fool, my regular MUA is Apple's Mail.app. But I do use Outlook 2003 for some customer-related mailboxes I have aside from my normal mailbox.

I have all the latest and greatest (hum...) patches installed and I really wondered what caused such a slowdown. Whenever I click on a message in the panel or start replying to an HTML mail, it takes a lot of time. Entering the right keywords in Google and "strolling" past the stupidity of some of the advices (uninstall security patch bla, modify this registry key and pray for a better world...) brought me the answer:

Sandi - Microsoft MVP
Please don't uninstall the security update. Try this instead.

This problem is often caused by a "protective" protocol that I do not
support or recommend, that is, loading down the registry by adding a slew of
sites to IE's Restricted Sites zone - sometimes tens of thousands of URLs.
Products that "protect" you by loading down the registry in such a way
include Spybot, IE-Spyad and Spyware Blaster.

IE7 has made changes to the way that the rendering engine interacts with the
Restricted Sites zone - the end result is that if you are using Outlook (not
2007), have IE7 installed and use HTML as your email format, then when you
type an email the IE rendering engine will check the registry for entries in
IE's Restricted Sites zone **every time you type a character***.

FIXES:

Remove all of those entries in the Restricted Sites Zone - a quick way to do
this is to reset Internet Explorer's settings (Tools, Internet Options,
Advanced tab)

I do use Spybot S&D and Spyware Blaster and I found many URLs in the Restricted Sites Zone. Since I rarely use IE as a browser, I removed the entries as advised. And Outlook started working normally again. Quick and clean. Thanks Sandi!

I also deactivated the Spybot BHO so that next time, it won't block URLs and cripple Outlook again.

We've been to Morocco from 27th May to 13th June 2007 inclusive. We spent about 15 days in Rabat with my family. We then went to Marrakesh for the last 5 days. We had a great time. The weather was awesome and I enjoyed spending two weeks with my family, which I don't see so often. Even my mother, who lives in the U.S. was there for holidays. And she has wonderful hands when it comes to cooking...Yummy. To compensate for the heavy food intake, I exercised almost daily. Either power walking, running or swimming. We stayed at one of my sisters' home which is located near a nice park (Nouzhate Ibn Sina) where I exercised, often with Gaelle my wife. In Marrakesh, we enjoyed (like always) the nice food of Chez Chegrouni, a restaurant located in Jemaa El Fna. Highly advised.



I have posted a few pictures of our trip.

Yesterday I went for a power walk in the Angers countryside, where my wife's parents live. There is a nice circuit that I usually take. It's about 4 kms long. The road crosses a few farms with real cows(tm), and features nice, big trees on its sides. There are also very nice country houses made of stone. You can also hear birds singing (I'm not speaking about Paris-invading pigeons).

When I started, the weather was fine. Sunny, with a few clouds, and the temperature was excellent. As I strode across the road for about fifteen minutes, massive clouds arrived and it started to run very heavily. I was wearing sports shorts, a tshirt and a light sports sweatshirt. I looked for cover but only found a few trees around. There weren't efficient at protecting me from that rain because of the wind. So in about a minute or so, I was soaked to the bone. I had three options: wait under "cover" until the rain stops, run for it, walk for it. The first option was ruled out immediately by looking at the sky. There were big, grey clouds everywhere. The second option was not advised. I had walking shoes, not running ones. But more importantly, I didn't want to risk an injury in case I slipped on the wet tar. So I started walking again faster than ever. Five minutes later, I was "rescued" by Bibi, Caroline's boyfriend. She is my wife's sister. He took his car and came to pick me up.

After drying myself up, I took a book and relaxed. Five minutes later, the superb weather was here again. *sniff*. Not such a big surprise, given the 4SAD (4 Seasons A Day) we have currently in France. And they said Summer is only a week away... I just spent about eighteen days in Morocco and we had awesome weather almost all the time. I believe it's a Murphy conspiracy ;-)

J'ai effectué une visite hier chez un dentiste. Ma précédente remonte à plus de trois ans. A l'époque, le dentiste que j'avais consulté m'avait dit que mes dents étaient tellement bonnes que je pouvais me passer des visites annuelles et passer à une consultation bi-annuelle voire plus. J'aurais dû me doûter que ce n'était pas un conseil très judicieux.

Mon nouveau dentiste m'inspire beaucoup plus confiance. Il m'a passé un sacré savon pour avoir attendu aussi longtemps avant de consulter. J'avais beaucoup de tartre qui rendait mes gencives malades. Il y en avait tellement qu'elle a du faire deux séances pour en arriver à bout. Au passage, elle m'a donné des informations fort utiles et quelques conseils dont je voudrais vous faire profiter :

• La visite annuelle est obligatoire, même si vous avez des dents d'acier.
  
• Le choix du dentifrice est très important. Actuellement, il n'y a que deux dentifrices dignes de ce nom : Colgate Total (en grande surface) et Elmex (en pharmacie et para-pharmacie). Le fluor utilisé est de type aminé. Il se fixe plus rapidement que la variante minérale qu'on trouve dans tous les autres dentifrices fluorés et ne se dissout pas aussi facilement à l'eau.
  
• Manger des chewing-gums n'est pas proscrit si on choisit une variété sans sucre. Bien sûr, il faut éviter l'excès qui peut causer des problèmes gastriques. Après un repas, il est recommandé d'en consommer si on n'a pas accès à sa brosse à dents. Ils aident à équilibrer le pH, rendu acide par la nourriture.
  
• Les chewing-gums à action blanchissante (selon le département Marketing du moins) sont généralement inoffensifs. Tout le contraire des autres produits qui contiennent des oxydants dangeureux. Les utiliser revient à passer une pierre ponce sur les dents. Leur action blanchissante est plutôt abrasive. Bye-bye l'email.
  
• Il est recommandé d'utiliser une brosse souple et d'employer du fil dentaire le soir pour aider au nettoyage des endroits difficiles d'accès. Il existe plusieurs types de fils. Demandez conseil à votre dentiste.
  

Edité le 17 juin 2007 pour ajouter : Le fil dentaire doit être ciré. Bruno Favre, a.k.a. nobz, précise que son dentiste lui a conseillé la marque Oral B. Les brosses à dents électriques sont aussi une bonne option pour peu qu'on s'attarde sur chaque dent. Merci pour ces informations nobz !

It's been a long time that I didn't post anything on this weblog. It's been a pretty hectic time for me lately. Anyways, now you can see that I am back and the website has a new design! The third in about 18 months. I hope that you'll enjoy it. As always, feedback is more than welcome.