The sneakily named Xobni is a plugin for Microsoft Outlook that gives you some nice extra features to play with. The most important one imo is a search function that actually works! The one built into Outlook really doesn’t work that well if you ask me and Xobni replaces it with one that is lightning fast, but also adds additional luxuries you’ll find it hard to do without once you get used to them like the window that shows you all files you’ve recently exchanged with the contact who’s email you have currently selected in your inbox.

The Xobni window changes dynamically depending on what you are doing at the time and always seems to have relevent information displayed. You can minimize it when you don’t need it and a quick click of the mouse reopens it from it’s docked state.

Best of all its free, although there is a paid for version which provides extra functionality. But in my opnion the free version is a massive improvement over the built in Outlook search so give it a try and let me know what you think.

http://www.xobni.com

Something that I have often wondered why it hasn’t been included in Windows is the ability to rearrange the buttons on the taskbar. Want to move Outlook to the far left of your taskbar? Want to ensure all buttons relating to Word are together to the far right? Well, there is no built-in way to do this in Windows except to close every application down and reopen them in the correct order. Step forward Taskbar Shuffle.

This is a very simple but extraordinarily useful application that allows you to do just that. It works with all versions of 32-bit Windows and a 64-bit version is in development as of the time of writing.

Theres not much I can say about it as it really is such a simple concept. The installation is quick and fuss free, and once completed you can simply drag and drop the taskbar buttons to rearrange them on your taskbar.

You can even do the same with the systray icons, although you have to hold down CTRL while you do this. It’s a nice simple little app, and best of all, it’s free! (donations accepted by the author at http://www.freewebs.com/nerdcave/taskbarshuffle.htm).