1. Download, install and run EagleFiler (Free 30-day trial/$40 to buy)
2. Close the how-to guide.
3. Create a new library in EagleFiler called Outlook Export (name doesn’t matter)
4. In Outlook, select the emails you want to import (use ⌘-A) and then press F1 (Fn-F1 for most Mac keyboards)
5. Let EagleFiler do it’s work. If you have Growl, you will see notifications as it processes the email into mbox format.
6. Repeat step 4 for all of the folders you want to import
7. Open Mac Mail and setup a dummy account if you don’t already have one
8. In Mac Mail – select File - Import Mailboxes and select Files in mbox format and select Continue
9. Browse to the location that you created your EagleFiler Library (mine was in Documents:Outlook Export) and select the Outlook Export Folder and Choose
10. After a bit of Searching for data… you will receive an Import box allowing you to select the folders you want to import. Check the ones you want and click Continue
11. Google makes it easier to get from Mac Mail to GMail by using the Google Email Uploader Mac. Go get, install and run it.
12. Google Email Uploader Mac will detect the Mac Mail account automatically. Enter your credentials for GMail or Google Apps.
13. Make sure you have Apple Mail selected and clock Import

It took me about 3-hours to upload 9500 messages but it worked. Special thanks to C-Command software for making a great product. I wish there was a donate button on their site so I could shell a few bucks their way for making this possible.

Source code

tell application "Microsoft Outlook"
	set newMessage to make new outgoing message with properties {subject:"Hooray for automation"}
	make new recipient at newMessage with properties {email address:{name:"Jim Shank", address:"jim.shank@example.com"}}
	open newMessage
end tell

After hours of searching, I finally came across this fantastic example from Bobby Kansara at Microsoft. Thanks to the early adopters and beta testers.

1. Download google-docs-upload
2. Create the script below in /Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts/transfer – Google Docs.scrp
3. Right-click on a folder in finder and select Folder Actions Setup…
4. Select the script and you are good to go!
5. Now anything you put in that folder will be uploaded to Google docs!

Source code

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving added_items
	repeat with aFile in added_items
		do shell script "java -jar /Users/OSX_USERNAME/Library/Scripts/google-docs-upload-1.3.2.jar " & quoted form of POSIX path of aFile & " --skip-all -u EMAIL_ADDRESS_FOR_GOOGLE_DOCS -p PASSWORD >> /Users/OSX_USERNAME/Library/Scripts/GDocs-upload-log.txt"
		end repeat
end adding folder items to

The script as-is will upload to your root folder in Google Docs, however, by adding the –remote-folder switch, you can specify where you want it to be. You could create a number of different scripts for different destinations.

Happy Birthday Angel!

I have had some minor problems with Virtual Box. The newest one is that I can’t save new documents to the shared directory between my mac and Win7 image. It seems to be common and I will look into it later.

I had to take a screenshot. Shift-Command-3 takes a full screenshot and puts it on your desktop, Shift-Command-4 lets you select a region and does the same. I miss putting it in clipboard a bit but it’s a minor issue.

If you are contemplating making the switch, go for it. I can say the water is safe and you won’t be stranded. If you have made the switch. I hope that last 7-days of my experience helped you. Please feel free to comment and post feedback and I will grow these articles to hopefully be a resource for others.

Happy Mac-ing!

My other challenge of the day was incorporating the MBP into my desk arrangement. My Dell had a complete docking station setup which, apart from the occasional refusal to switch to the external monitor, was quick and efficient. I had to buy a mini-display port to DVI adapter for my monitor. I will probably also need a mini-display port to VGA for projecting. I need to buy another power adapter that I can leave at my desk so I can route the cord instead of draping it behind the keyboard tray. I broke down a grabbed a mini-usb hub for my headset, keyboard and mouse, one too many devices for the inexplicably limited number of USB ports on the MBP. I also routed my Ethernet cable over to my MBP to be a good office mate and leave the wireless for those who were actually without a direct connection.

Due to the lack of productivity software, I spent another evening installing software in Virtual Box. It was the first time I have actually had problems with VBox. I have been futzing with the settings to try to make it have a smaller memory footprint and slowly reducing the memory allocation as well. The VM screen is all black until you move your mouse over it, it wouldn’t recognize a real DVD and it was hanging up a bit. It seemed to stem from the switch between resolutions due to the external display while using seamless mode. I will give the VM a reboot and see if that clears up the issue.

I installed wireshark which requires you to dump some files in /usr/bin. As a very competent Linux user I was comfortable moving the files but couldn’t get Finder to show me any of the system paths. My trusty Google led me to an article on showing all files in Finder. I guess that is one of my Windows steps, keeping the OS from hiding anything from me. The good thing is that I can see the whole file-system now, the bad thing is that the dot files are now showing up all over the place. It’s a good trade off and simple enough to turn back off should I need to. I feel better now that the OS isn’t hiding things.

At one point, I needed to access a file from my home computer (Windows 7) so I fired up the Microsoft RDC Client and tried to connect to my home machine without success. I Googled an article from 2004 which states that the Mac RDP client doesn’t support alternate port numbers and ignores the :port syntax at the end of the host name. I wasn’t able to verify this but this will have to be worked out somehow.

I also needed to do some advanced computing to setup a network device. I needed to run a DHCP server on my Ethernet port while still accessing the rest of the world through airport. The research lead me to believe it’s a fairly simple process but I have yet to implement it. This was something I did on my Windows machine regularly and was the first time I felt a twinge of regret at switching over. It’s the same pang I get when using Skype on the Mac, it just doesn’t feel right and seems to be implemented all wrong. I was also frustrated a few times trying to drive the machine with the keyboard. I never thought I would say it but I really miss Windows Explorer. I desperately wanted to hit Win-R and type out the full path to my software share but it seems the mouse must be used and Finder isn’t quite as powerful a navigator of the share world.

I am sticking with it and overall happy with the experience. I am hoping to get used to this brave new world.

I ended up installing Sun Virtual Box, installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit and got Microsoft Outlook up and running. That has always been my crutch and deal-breaker, I am an Outlook addict and it drives all of my daily activities. I have OpenOffice installed on the Mac side of things though and will do my best to stick with it for my daily office-esqe stuff.

The biggest thing I have notices is that there is a lot more to OS X than just the OS. StuffIt is a very complete compression program, I don’t need DaemonTools for iso mounting (honestly, it should be part of the OS). Still running with no antivirus and haven’t been worried yet. The oddest part is the lack of a hard drive light. My windows machines would freeze from time to time and the hard drive light would quickly indicate why. Since there haven’t been any OS freezes, I haven’t needed to check.

I am very, very pleased with Virtual Box. I will eventually give VMWare fusion a try but with Seamless Mode enabled, it just so naturally part of the environment that I haven’t been found wanting.

I found an article on installing FastScripts so I could have a quick shortcut to the terminal. My job requires quite a bit of SSH and instead of needing Putty, terminal does a great job with built in SSH. I had it down to a single keystroke in Windows and don’t feel like giving up on that.

Day 2 has been almost all building and not yet a lot of playing. I hope to get to productivity (ok, maybe a little entertainment) sometime tomorrow. Until then, this was a very pleasant conversion.

• Install Antivirus
• Install WinZip
• Fix Explorer so it doesn’t hide anything for me
• Firefox
• DAEMONTools
• Microsoft Office

I start my adventure by doing updates. People have been talking about Snow Leopard on twit.tv and other such podcasts and web sites. By checking the version, apparently I have it. Huh.

Since I have a Windows game plan, I will see how it works for Mac.

Antivirus – Skipping for now

Install WinZip – Macs seem to use DMG or disk images for installs, it’s build nicely into the OS so I don’t yet have a need for that. Stuffit Expander handles the rest.

Switch the OS into expert mode – I’m not crazy enough to try that yet. I don’t even know if there is an expert mode apart from the terminal prompt.

Firefox – I need at least something familiar in this odd jungle of a new OS. Safari is rumored to be faster but I need something to compare it to.

I have noticed the touchpad already, very nice. I am trying to get used to a click feedback since I have been tapping on the pad on my Dell D630 forever.

Noticed ctrl-click works in Safari – good. So far, very good experience.

Whoops, lost already. It shows dragging a big Firefox Icon to a folder with an A on it. Using brain leads me to guess this is the Applications folder, ah-ha, there is an icon like that in the dock.

Ok, now I am a little perturbed with the touchpad. Why when I hit the edge does it not keep moving the icon in the direction I was going. Fine, I will try again starting from further up on the touchpad, that will take some getting used to.

I click on the Applications folder and it nicely pops up the applications but I don’t see the happy FireFox icon. I finally get to reading the titles of the icons and see a missing icon one named FireFox. Clicking launches a download/setup and I am up and running in FireFox. I can see where someone would get lost in this process. Missing Next -> Next -> Next -> Finish install process that pops the icon on the desktop and in the Start Menu.

Installing LastPass in FireFox, easy, good.

DaemonTools – No idea, don’t have Mac software in iso format yet so no need. (Later I found out this is also, built-in, noticing the theme yet?)

Microsoft Office – I think I am going to try Open Office and see how close I can be to making a complete break from Microsoft. It may not work out but I can be idealistic.

First the process of actually getting the install to run. I had to remove Nero and Daemon tools to my dismay. Daemon tools had given me trouble before uninstalling so I went through the old process of finding the leftovers in the registry, reinstalling 3.47 and then removing it. Problem solved, Vista install is running. My best estimate is that it took about 5 hours to upgrade.

What was missing:

• Scrolling from my touchpad
• Bluetooth access to my Motorola BT120 from Skype
• Media Direct was totally buggered
• Quickset dies alot, hard to control the pretty XPS lights
• Visual Studio 2005 is incompatible???!?!
• Power management neutered?
• Symantec Antivirus CE 9 Dead

I am sure I will find alot more problems along the way but these were the major ones. Now that I look back, they are pretty unmajor. I was a little irked to find my system is runnning at a Windows Experience Index of 2.1 due to my processor but I am sure that isn’t a big deal in the long run. The one problem I did notice immediately was the glacial movements of my start menu. A quick googling told me to turn off the “Highlight newly installed programs” feature under Customize Start Menu. It worked although I am still unsure of the new start menu layout in general, I have a big start menu and don’t really like scrolling through everything. The Control Panel also seems a bit sluggish when opening.

Addressing My Issues

Issues 1 and 2
I was saddened to find Dell has taken a nolo contendere stance in the Vista scheme of things on their older (cry) laptops. I did a lot of digging into the hardware origins and found some drivers for other laptops using the same OEM hardware. For the Dell Wireless 350 Bluetooth Internal Card I found a download from the Toshiba Site. Same site had the ALPS Touchpad Driver version 7.0.302.3 whcih restored problem 2 on my list.

Issue 3
I plugged in my USB IR receiver and hit the Media Direct button, it wasn’t good. After punching enough buttons, Vista gave up and kicked into basic skin mode to support Media Direct but even then it was barely functioning. Another googling revealed that Windows Media Center did a pretty good job, but would it function like my beautiful Media Direct in XP? Yes, it worked beautifully, actually better that Media Direct. It was great. The only problem wat that when I hit the home key on my Dell remote, I would get both MD and WMC fighting to take control. I quickly uninstalled Media Direct and now have a very happy solution. Now I want to buy the TV tuner for my laptop so I can use the DVR functionality. Later Cyberlink PowerDVD popped up as well, a quick uninstall took care of that as well.

Issue 4
The volume controls actually do respond to the buttons as does the mute. I can use BIOS to do the rare change to my light configuration. There is a newer version of Quickset out there but it refuses to install on my system. I guess I will wait and see if Dell comes out with something for me.

Issue 5
I am installing Visual Studio 2005 SP1 right now, it’s a monster, there is supposed to be an SP that directly addresses Vista in Jan or Feb of 2007. We will see how bad it really is. I did fire it up (using the Start as Administrator option). Checked out a solution from my Visual Source Safe and closed it with no major issues. I will be digging into the development in the next few days to make sure all is well there.

Issue 6
I was wondering if my low processor score was due to processor throttling. I went into the power management control and was frightened by the lack of control over the various power management features of my XPS. I decided to create my own power plan only to find the same lack of options available. It turns out that after you create a power plan, you can go back in and Change Plan Settings, Change advanced power settings and there are all the missing items.

Issue 7
Upgraded to Symantec Antivirus CE 10.2. All seems to be well with it.

So, there you have it. I still look forward to finding a tool to control my XPS lights but not too worried right now. This post will be updated as I find new issues and resolutions.

I followed that one up with a little scripty that added a lot of good information about the system to the desktop background for technical people to know what was on the system at-a-glance. This was also published here.

Some days I miss being able to publish my work to the world but at least I can still drop hints and tips here.