I've been testing Bells & Whistles for Outlook for the past couple of weeks and it has become indispensable to me for two of the many features it offers. There are a number of utility add-ins for Outlook that do some of what Bells & Whistles accomplishes but most I've looked at cost significantly more (this tool is only $19.95) or add a lot of features I don't find terribly useful. Bells & Whistles has a Goldilocks-like "just right" set of features.

Of the 19 features this package offers, the two I have come to appreciate most are the ability to automatically add greeting text to my replies and a tool I have been desperately in need of since I first began using Outlook seriously - an add-in manager.

The greetings tool is a real time-saver for me as I send anywhere from 50 to 100 e-mails every day. What Bells & Whistles does is simple enough but ever so helpful. It looks for the recipients first name and, if found, automatically enters it into the body of the reply for me. If no recipient name is available or if I'm sending a reply to multiple recipients, it inserts the generic text I've selected, followed by whatever punctuation I select. The screen shot at right shows the default settings. If I'm sending Bob a reply, I get "Hi Bob," automatically inserted. If the recipient's name is not available, the greeting would be "Hello,".

My preference, when replying to a known contact is to simply begin my reply with their first name and a colon. So, in my setup, Bob's replies begin with "Bob:". When I'm replying to a group, or to someone whose name is not discernible from the original e-mail, they see "Greetings." This may sound like a small thing but it's saving hundreds (on a busy day - thousands) of keystrokes. The time and effort savings when I'm working in Tablet PC mode and using ink are even more dramatic.

The Outlook add-in manager included in Bells & Whistles is an absolute lifesaver for a heavy add-in user/tester like me. There are tools I've added to Outlook that I may want or need to disable during testing and, in the past, I've had to use the laborious process of launching Outlook, going to the COM+ add-in dialog in Outlook (buried about five clicks deep), and then restarting Outlook. Some tools have even forced me to uninstall them. The Bells & Whistles Add-in Utility allows me to open a simple dialog box to manage my add-ins before I even launch Outlook. It even shows those add-ins I have, in the past, been unable to control from within Outlook. This standalone utility is, in my opinion, worth the price of admission all by itself.

Even better, this utility is yours to keep even if you decide not to purchase a license for Bells & Whistles after evaluation (a 15-day evaluation is offered as well as a 30-day money back guarantee). When you uninstall Bells & Whistles, the uninstaller thoughtfully offers to return all of your disabled add-ins to their former state. And, by doing a custom uninstall, you can keep the Outlook Add-in Utility on your system. I consider this an enormous gift on the part of the developers.

Among the other features this package offers are the following:

• Easily track your messages exchange by adding customizable tracking IDs and reply counters.

• Write your Outlook emails faster by using quick email text templates.

• Quickly send personalized mass emails by simply using the BCC field for mail merge.

• Smartly manage your address book, by automatically adding to your Contacts people you reply to.

• Never forget again about adding attachments or message subjects.

• Organize your thoughts and notes by inserting email notes to Inbox emails.

While I don't use every one of these features regularly, I have come to appreciate each for those occasions when they have proved valuable. The BCC: mail-merge is a clever idea for a quick, individually personalized message and the templates feature, while basic, allows standard boiler-plate text I use all the time to be quickly inserted.

I test a lot of add-ins for Outlook. A new package has to offer compelling value for me to decide to stick with it and make it part of my standard installation. Bells & Whistles is one of the rare add-ins that has accomplished that.