Thunderbird to Windows Live Mail

Migwiz really is a Wizard. It just works

Have a I mentioned how much I like the migwiz? Easier to type than "Windows Easy Transfer"

Just make sure the Old Computer has email in OE, Outlook or similar first. (Export it to that if need be). Getting it in in any other format is doable, but tricky.

But if you don't use OE

Here's how to get out of Thunderbird and into WLM (Windows Live Mail - and presumably Window Mail for those poor Vista straglers).

On the OPC (Old Computer), install and run the quaint little program. (gotta look it up again..) Watch out - it appears to fail on first run, but succeeds after a few tries. Found the HowTo here. The process is an export to .eml files using Tbird2OE and then import into Mail using OEImportEml. Both need to be installed. The import failed for me as I think there were some dodgy and/or large email files, so I manually dragged the files by folder (as described below) ..

Then copy all the resulting folders and files across to the NPC. (New PC)

Create the same folder structure in WLM. Select all the .eml files and drag and drop into the respective folders, (or just lump everything into the Inbox and forget about folders - who needs 'em?!

It might pay to use a dos batch file to move all the .eml files into one folder (eliminating the folder structure altogether) if you are not going to use folders in Mail.

Hang on, you can't do that as the .eml files are named 0000001.eml, 00000002.eml .. in each folder. You could rename them in the batch file  I suppose - didn't try that.

(Don't worry, they translate OK back to meaningful subjects, to and from etc as they were originally).

I have to say that this is one case where drag n' drop really does work.  (In fact I'm not sure there is another way to get the files into Mail)! Import is available on the file menu, but specifying the source each time would be a pain.

A interesting "by the way"

From a second hand PC, I have seen it pull in the complete email profile from the former owner! The current owner had no idea that info was on there - and I bet the former owner would not have been pleased either...

Another FYI, use the Win7 version of migwiz (copy it onto a  usb stick and run from there on the OPC) Don't use XP's version.

Hallelujah - all praise be to win7 (and free apps that really work)

Windows 7 needs more than 40GB on C

Just an FIY (or should that read Just a FYI (?)

Being too clever by half, I partitioned a 160GB drive into a 40GB C drive so that I could have two more 60GB partitions.

Long story short  - this is NOT enough space for Win7 Pro. (Not sure what all is taken up by all those giga flops!??!)

The good news is that there is an easy fix.

Disks can be resized, but using Windows 7's disk manager, only onto contiguous space (free space adjacent to the partition you want to change).

To resize non contiguous partions, I found a neat little gui that allow you to move (by sliding) any drive in the way across to the right a bit. A reboot and not-too-long nervous wait completed the process.

Found here: http://en.kioskea.net/forum/affich-67251-how-to-merge-windows-partition-to-increase-c

and the program is  Easeus Partition Master Home Edition here (http://download.cnet.com)

Hallelujah - all praise be to win7 (and free apps that really work)

Which links do you click on in a google results page?

Is anything on the second or greater pages of google results worth a look?
That depends entirely on a few things:

• The number of words and thus the completeness of your query


• The subject matter involved (technical IT problems make it easier than other less esoteric endeavours I would guess)

but most important

• A little skill and experience in interpreting the results.

For example, pretty much anything on Fixya leads to just more unanswered questions (although I have found a few good answers here).
Technica leads to promising content but is pay as you go - so rules itself out immediately.
Anything at petri.co.il is sure to be detailed yet succinct, correct and not out of date. (Not sure how they manage this).
Vendor-specific queries are often but not always held on the company's own or allied forum/s (I often forget this avenue). And even instant chat is now offered if you look around for it. To my mind this is the best resource of all, as you have near real time, free, opinion in back and white from a rep of the company.

Tek-tips.com has always been good and Tom's hardware guide has always been reliable, if a little narrow in scope
Dani's web, always sounds a bit scary to visit - but is usually good. Howtogeek is getting good too.
If none of these resources hit the mark, I narrow down the search by including site:experts-exchange.com.
Despite appearances the answers are mostly free to view - you just have to scroll down a bit (a lot ;)
But for researching (read "reading around") a topic, the best choice is to choose the "Discussions" filter down the left column. This means you don't have to do the filtering mentally to chuck out the chaff.

Last but not least, the vendor's own or allied forum site located off their support link, is a great place to start. Often an Instant Chat can be initiated - which in my opinion, is the greatest step forward in the Internet age of recent times. It gives you near real time, free, company opinion on the topic in question - and the bonus is you have it in black and white if there are any future come backs. And you don't have to wrangle with accents over a low quality echoey phoneline to Outer Siberia (or other cheap labour location).

PS Did anyone mention Microsoft's site at all? (No need as it rarely comes high up, and if so, you know to skip those links anyway ;) Inevitably, if you do choose a MS  page, it will confirm the problem, and helpfully let you know that the latest Service Pack has resolved that issue. Or you find it has a solution only for different versions of Windows than the one you need. Either that, or step you through a dozen pointless t do's, with no contingency should it not go perfectly according to their plan (grrr) Oh, and you'll need some admin tool off the cd you long ago confined to the bin, and will have to go to a third party to get again. And then learn the syntax to. Rant off.

Submit your best resource sites that give you the answers you're after.

Desktop Publishing in Open office Draw

Today I had to create a print ad for the XNET Fusion that we are promoting for World eXchange. I used to use MS Publisher for this sort of thing back when I thought Windows was the only option and even though I tried with earlier versions of Open Office I always got a little frustrated and would end up digging out my old Publisher Disks.

Well I have OO 3.0 now which is not even the latest version and it was just too easy.

The earlier versions of OO could not rotate stuff on the page which is the something that I often want to do in promotional material. No problem for OO draw now.

I also used to get frustrated with scaling stuff. It would be very jittery and snap to odd positions.

The point I am trying to make is that if you have tried OO and didnt like it maybe its time to give it another go.

Not all routers are created equal

A mentor once instilled in me the following mantra:

"it shouldn't be that hard".

In other words technology should "just work".  (Unfortunately we all know this is not entirely true all the time.)

Yet I try to live by that mantra, and not get sucked in by the "complicated fix". But over the last three days, I have been doing battle with routers - or more specifically one router in particular. A Cisco WAG310G.  I installed successfully as the end point for a VOIP solution.  [That part went very well, by the way and WAS simple].

However, in trying to get a VPN to work through the new router, I'd forgotten to apply the check the simple things first...  (no, not "is the damn thing plugged in?",) but, "did you read the spec of the machine to see it can do what you are asking it to do?". The answer is "no".

In my defence, the fact that the router had the GRE47 protocol as  a service that could be chosen for pass-through, would have indicated ( I would have thought) that the router was capable of VPN.

I mean, is not a VPN a simple, basic requirement of all modern routers?

One would have thought so.

To confound matters, I was also blinded by the oft and varied reports of Win7 and the troubles of getting a VPN to work with that new beast. The old, stable XP-based VPN was still working fine - even with the new router installed. (But actually it, too had stopped and I hadn't noticed).  grrr

On the support site for this router - there is a prominent link on How to setup a VPN.

http://www.linksysbycisco.com/ANZ/en/support/WAG310G

A much more helpful article has screengrabs that show the missing VPN tab in the security settings of the router's gui:

http://linksys.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/linksys.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=4239

and if you are "encountering difficulties" try:

Encountering Difficulties Connecting to the VPN Tunnel Using a ADSL Gateway

not that this will help if you don't RTFM !

Keeping a Win7 printer share shared to XP SOLVED

Just when I though Win7 was infallible - Vista-like inconsistencies appear where you least expect them...

I needed to share a printer off Win7Pro to an XP Home machine. Despite all the best efforts going both the old-fashioned way [create identical userid and password on both machines], and the new way every says it's done: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-7/share-files-and-printers-between-windows-7-and-xp/.

No cigar. I still got prompted for the userid and password after each restart. (As reported by lots of other posters.)

However, it occurred to me that by mapping a shared folder using a simple net use batch file, the user id and password if valid for the share, would eliminate the need for it again when reconnecting to the printer share.
Voila.
It worked.
net use z: \\win7pcname\foldershare /user:win7pcname\username passwordhere

Now put THAT in your pipe and smoke it win7 !

XNET & HHA

A couple of years ago when were shifting the Office for HHA we decided to have a look into a VOIP system. After deciding on XNET from World Exchange we haven't looked back.

A big concern for any business is that the phones keep working and it has taken us this long testing the XNET VOIP offering to get to a stage were we trust it enough to recommend it to our customers. We have now signed a reseller agreement with XNET and will be offering their services to our clients.

The first thing that attracted us to a VOIP system was not the cost, which is what attracts most people, but the flexibility of the system. Once voice data has been turned into IP data it makes it a lot easier to manage. We have the most basic XNET package but with that we get features of a PABX which 10 years ago would have cost thousands.

PABX's also become a lot simpler. Standard computer hardware can now be used to route voice traffic within your business, voice menus, Automated call systems, recording phone conversations and a whole lot more. At a fraction of the cost of traditional systems.

If you are interested in giving a VOIP system a go give us a call.