Outlook 2003 has a great notification feature for new messages. A small pop-up window will appear above the notification area that has a quick summary of the new message. You can click this pop-up to read the message right away. The problem is that you have to be quick because the pop-up only appears very briefly.

You can configure the notification pop-up to stay longer by making a small configuration change within Outlook.

1. Within Outlook, click Options from the Tools menu.

2. Select the Preferences tab.
3. Click the E-mail Options button.
4. Click Advanced E-mail Options.
5. Click Desktop Alert Settings.
6. From the Desktop Alert Settings dialog box, move the Duration slider to the right. You can configure the pop-up to appear between 3 and 30 seconds.
7. Click OK at each open dialog box to save your settings.