MSN Buys LookOut
I wrote about LookOut, a great Search add-on for Outlook, a while ago. Now MSN has purchased LookOut. I hope this means it will become an official part of Outlook. Then again, it is owned by MSN, not the Office group, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s destined to become part of an ill-conceived combined Web and Local search on MSN.
But that’s the future. For the present, Microsoft’s first action as LookOut’s new owner was to take it offline. The LookOut site has been stripped down and conspicuously lacks a Download link. LookOut will still work, and will even update itself to version 1.2, if you already had it installed.
I’ve received a few emails asking me how to get a copy of the LookOut installer. I personally had good luck emailing LookOut as mentioned in this forum thread. If you have trouble finding a copy, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
I’m no user interface expert, but I suspect this may be a poorly-designed error message. For the full effect, imagine it popping up out of nowhere while you’re just sitting at the desktop doing nothing, and imagine having no idea which program has an error.