Importing Outlook 2011 to GMail or Google Apps

My company finally made the switch to Google Apps. I have been using Outlook for the last few years to access my email from a FirstClass server and upgraded to Outlook 2011 a few months ago. I love the Google Email interface so now it's time to ditch Outlook completely. Unfortunately there isn't a direct import utility from Outlook 2011 to GMail or Google Apps so I combined a few. Here's  how:

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.

Automating Outlook 2011 with Applescript

I am continuing my automation work with folder actions and applescript and had a desire to be able to email from the new Mac Office 2011 using Outlook. There are several examples for how to do it with Entourage but the syntax has changed regarding mail to recipients. Without further delay, here is a working script:

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.

OS X Folder Sync with Google Docs

Here is a little script that I adapted that allows you to assign a Folder Action that uploads anything you add to that folder to Google Docs. Here's how:

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!

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!

Mac Me Baby! Day 7

I am officially up and running on this (hopefully) long and fruitful journey with my Mac. I am currently installing the Codex application developer tools on my system so I can use make. I needed it today to compile dhcpd and couldn't believe it wasn't already there. A little search through my original box and there was the original install disc.

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!

Mac Me Baby! Day 5

Monday was the first day back at work with the MacBook Pro after a weekend of installing software. This is trial by fire for me since there isn't much time to fix anything that has gone wrong. I moved my Dell into another bag and left it in the car for the day. Far enough away that I wouldn't chicken out and grab it at the first sign of difficulty but close enough that I could get to it in an emergency. I ran into some minor missing software, things that OpenOffice didn't handle like Microsoft Project and Microsoft Visio files I needed to reference. I was lucky that some of them were in PDF format so I could at least reference them, if not edit them.

Mac Me Baby! Day 2

Man have I been busy with this new Mac. I figured out how to turn on tap to click and the trackpad is now my best friend. I adapted to it's functions so quickly that the trackpad on my Dell is now a joke as far as functionality.

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.

Mac Me Baby! Day 1

I sit at the virgin screen of a new MacBook Pro with no idea what to do next. I have been a Win/PC expert since Star Trek: The Next Generation was running new episodes. I can bring up a new Windows system in my sleep.

Windows Vista Ultimate on Dell XPS M170

I installed Windows Vista Ultimate on my Dell XPS M170 laptop with all the fixin's 3-days ago. I actually did the upgrade process and am now (pretty) happily up and running. I haven't had alot of time to play with it until today since I received a Nintendo Wii for my birthday from my wonderful wife. I finally got into fixing all of the little things today.

Systray icons here to stay

For almost a year now, I have been having problems with my system tray icons disappearing intermittently after startup. I assumed one of the 30 or so startup applications was crashing dropping the explorer process and therefore, only the following tray icons were appearing. I finally had some free time and was in the process of looking for a program to debug the startup process when I hit an interesting link. Apparently, this is a more common issue than I thought, so common that there is a fix called the Ostuni Workaround detailing that disabling the UPnP subsystem will fix the problem. I couldn't really believe that one thing had to do with another but after following the directions and a quick reboot, the problem went away. 5 reboots later, still no problem. I don't have to wait an hour to login or do any other voodoo to get this working. As a nice side benefit, I noticed that the system appears to be running faster. Network browsing is quicker and no longer hangs showing UNC and description of My Network Places. Absolutely great!

Novell Cool Solutions still rules

Wow, I just got another email from a reader of the Novell Cool Solutions articles. The little bit of fan mail that I get just keeps my ego (or is it eggo, which one do I put syrup on?) inflated just enough that it's difficult to get into my office. About 2 years ago, I was deep in the trenches trying to deploy Windows 2000 and Windows XP to about 1000 users.

Virtual PC/Windows CE Emulator Error

I was working with my brother Jeff about a week ago testing out some PocketPC software he is writing for a class and ever since I started the project and installed the Virtual PC Emulator, I have been getting the error:

'Virtual PC/Windows CE Emulator' will cause Windows to become unstable. Windows has prevented these drivers from loading. Click here for more details.

I looked this up and found out it is due to PAE (Physical Address Extension) mode being enabled on a processor. From what I found, my AMD Athlon64 processor has this detected and enabled automatically in WinXP SP2. More here. I ended up running notepad c:boot.ini and adding the /NoExecute=AlwaysOff to disable DEP (Data execution prevention) which turns off PAE as well. Now the emulator works great and I no longer get the error. The system actually seems a bit faster too.

Here is the boot.ini for reference

[code lang='css'][boot loader]
timeout=3
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=AlwaysOff[/code]

Hope this helps if someone else runs into this issue.

Skype with Dave

Working with Dave on Skype today. Seems that the Mac OS X client isn't working quite correctly. It seems that Skype out works fine but we are getting errors Skype to Skype (OS X-> WinXP clients). Nothing on the basic NG search helps. I will keep looking.