Bogus Email Error

I am running NIS 2011 on a Dell 4300 laptop with WInXP.  My email appl is Outlook2003

 

I recently received an "email error" that does not make sense. 

 

First, I was notified of the error by a "Email Error" item that appeared on my task bar.  The item had the NIS logo so I assumed it was from NIS.  But no amount of clicking (right or left) had any effect.

 

So, I opened NIS, clicked on History and found a High severity error about an email message that did not get sent out because of a server interruption.  After checking a few things I concluded that an email sent out at 11:00 AM did not get to its destination.  But the error message said that the problem occured at 12:14 

 

After I sent the 11AM email, I made sure the Outbox was clear and exited Outlook (I received no indication that the email was still in the OutBox -- Outlook will always check when you exit).  I put my laptop in StandBy about 11:15.  About 12:15, I woke up the laptop and saw the error message.  The 12:14 and 12:15 are close enough that NIS apparently posted the error to the History file when the laptop woke up; not when the problem apparently happened. 

 

Questions:

why is the item on my task bar "dead"?

why did NIS post the error approx 75 minutes after it happened?

 

Any help would be appreciated.