Month: April 2019

  • How to use an Alias as “From” field with IMAP account in Outlook 2016

    Nobody knows the mail address of my actual mailbox. Instead, I always communicate an alias (for example: Me @ BeatificaBytes.be).

    Unfortunately, with the latest update of Outlook 2016, to use such an alias as “From” is not a piece of cake anymore… The trick is to use the good old “Mail” tool of the Control Panel.

    Click to Read More

    The reason for me to use an alias is that this alias is forwarded to a “gmail” mailbox, where the antispam is quite efficient. And gmail transfers the remaining emails to my actual mailbox (on my own server/within my own domain).

    I access next my actual mailbox via IMAP with Outlook. I never use the intermediary mailbox on gmail.

    With the latest version of Outlook 2016, I couldn’t configure a different mail address than the “user account” of my actual mailbox (which is the mail address that I want to keep secret 😉 ).

     

    I.e.: if I type Me @ BeatificaBytes.be in the config screen above, outlook will use that both for the “From” Field and as user account to connect onto my IMAP server.

    This is an issue as the alias Me @ BeatificaBytes.be is not valid as an account to connect on my actual mailbox.

    Obviously, I could configure Outlook with my actual account and define next my alias as a Reply Address. But than, the recipient would see my actual mail address.

    The easiest is to use to good old “Mail” tool:

    1. Open it via the Windows Control Panel > User Account > Mail (Microsoft Outlook 2016).
    2. There, click the “Email Accounts…”
    3. In the tab “Email”, click “New”…
    4. And here we go!

    As usually:

    1. Select the option “Manual setup or …” and click “Next”
    2. Select “Pop or IMAP” and click “Next”
    3. Type your name and your alias email address in the user information part
    4. Use your actual email address as user name in the logon information part (this is the ‘option’ never proposed by the new configuration wizard of Outlook 2016)

    Et voilà…

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  • How to add Rooms into several Home structures managed with Google Home

    Since I have defined several “home” structures in the App “Google Home”, I can only add new rooms in the last one created.

    Google Support told me that the only way to workaround that limitation was to delete all the homes, except the one to be completed, and re-create the others later.

    Click to Read More

    First, let me explain why I have created several home structure in the App “Google Home”: I wanted to grant my kids access on only a subset of the devices (lights, google home mini, chrome casts, blinds, …)

    So, I have created

    • a “Main” home with all the devices that I may access,
    • a “Kid 1” and a “Kid 2” to grant each kid access on his own devices (lights, blinds) and
    • a “Common” to grant everyone access to the common devices (TV, speakers, Google Home Mini).

    I have shared each “Kid” home with its owner and the “Common” home with everyone.

    Here is the standard way to add a room into a home when one has only one home (Thx to Thomas Ott):

    1. OPEN: Google Home (on a mobile device)
    2. CLICK: “Account” icon (lower right corner – looks like a person in a circle)
    3. CLICK: “Settings” (small gear)
    4. CLICK: The “Assistant” tab (between Personal info & Services)
    5. CLICK: “Home control”
    6. CLICK: “Rooms” tab (to the right of “Devices”)
    7. CLICK: The + button (lower right corner)
    8. PICK: An existing room name (or skip to Step 9)
    9. SCROLL: To the bottom of the screen
    10. CLICK: “Custom name”
    11. TYPE: The name of the new custom room
    12. PRESS: “OK”
    13. SELECT: One or more DEVICES by clicking on one or more checkboxes
    14. CLICK: Check Mark symbol at the upper right of the screen to save the new room & device(s)
    The advantage of grouping the devices into rooms is that you can simultaneously turn all of them on/off by saying the sentence:  “Hey, Google: Turn off(on) the lights in <the name of the room>”. If your Google Assistant in also assigned to that room, you can even skip the name of the room in that sentence.
    But since I have defined several homes, when I want too add new rooms in the home “Main”, they are news added into the home “Common”.
    I did contact the online support of Google to find how to do it properly. As always, they did their best to understand my specific case and suggest appropriate solutions. Unfortunately here, they could only suggest to delete all the homes except the “Main”, add next the missing rooms, and then recreate the other homes. It seems that there is indeed no “feature” to add rooms into a specific home for the moment (Can you believe that ???).
    Fortunately, I am hardheaded: I did search for an alternative to delete/recreate/reassign 10th of rooms/devices… and I found one. Using that workaround, I was able to create rooms in any of the existing homes.
    1. OPEN: Google Home (on a mobile device)
    2. CLICK: “Home” icon (lower left corner – looks like a house)
    3. SELECT: the home structure where you want to create a new room (at the top of the screen)
    4. SCROLL DOWN: to the very bottom of the screen. If you devices in a section “Linked to you – x devices not in home”, then go to §A here under – otherwise go to §B.

    A: if you have devices not yet assigned to any home, you can use it to create a new room into which that device will be automatically moved:

    1. CLICK: any not-unassigned device.
    2. CLICK: The “Add to a room” button (at the bottom of the screen)
    3. PICK: an existing “Home” where you want to create a new room
    4. CLICK: The “Next” button (lower right corner)
    5. CLICK: The “Move device” button (lower right corner)
    6. CLICK: “Add a custom room…” (scroll down the screen to find the “Create New” section) or any predefined name you would like to create
    7. CLICK: The “Next” button (lower right corner)
    8. EDIT: The name of the new room
    9. CLICK: “Continue” (lower right corner)

    You can loop on this § A to create one room for each device not yet assigned.

    B: if all your devices are already assigned to a home, use anyone to create a new room into which that device will be automatically moved and move the device back to the right room later.

    1. CLICK: any device already assigned to an existing room.
    2. CLICK: “Settings” (small gear in the upper right corner)
    3. CLICK:
      1. “Home” if you want to create a room in another home. Then go to step 3 of the §A here above
      2. “Room” if you want to create a room in current home. Then go to step 4 of this §B
    4. CLICK: “Add a custom room…” (scroll down the screen to find the “Create New” section) or any predefined name you would like to create
    5. EDIT: The name of the new room
    6. CLICK: “Save” (upper right corner)

    Once the new room created, the device being now assigned to that room, you must move it back to its original location (or loop first on this § B to create all the new required rooms).

    1. CLICK:
      1. “Home” if you want to move back the device into another home. Then go to §B.1.
      2. “Room” if you want to move back the device into another room of the same home. Then go to §B.2.

    B.1.:

    1. PICK: an existing “Home”
    2. CLICK: The “Next” button (lower right corner)
    3. CLICK: The “Move device” button (lower right corner)
    4. PICK: an existing “Room”
    5. CLICK: The “Next” button (lower right corner)

    B.2.:

    1. PICK: an existing “Room”
    2. CLICK: The “Save” button (upper right corner)
    Notice that you can empty rooms by moving the devices to other rooms. But a device can’t be removed from all rooms once it has be assigned once. This feature is also not supported…

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