I found a program (actually several) that allow me to extract mail from an Outlook PST file to different file formats. We had a need at work to do this, and I also had some uses for it. All the tools worked great, but I chose Outlook Extract 1.3.x. I can pull out entire messages, and attachments into txt and html files, while keeping Outlooks file structure. I can keep the attachments with the email or dump them into a folder someplace. I am now extracting mail out of bloated 2gig PST files. What is funny is that I thought lots of 1kb files would be larger on the disk than the one big PST store, but I was wrong. It looks like the individual messages take up less space on the disk!
Technology
The New Razr
I bought a new Razr (Motorola V3 Razr) last week. After a week of issues with getting it shipped, the place I bought it from on eBay came through and dropped it to me via Fedex Saturday delivery. I guess they had issues getting the phone unlocked like the auction said. After a (minor) fit by me the guy got the new phone to me before my trip. I charged it up yesterday and I am now trying to use it as my main phone. The Treo is not going away just yet. Since I cannot find a palm with a good keyboard the Treo will remain at least as a PDA for a while. I also do find times where I like to put the SIM in it and use it instead of the Razr. I did that with my old Sony Ericsson T-610 for the past week and a half.
First impressions on the Razr is NICE! Besides the address book, I find the phone very nice. Slim, good sound quaility, nice screen, etc. It was trivial to sync with my Powerbook.
Like I said the only issue I have is the address book. I don’t like that it doesn’t have 1 contact for each person, with a sub section for each phone number. Instead it has a different entry for every phone number for every contact.
Setting up the Razr to be a wireless modem for my Powerbook was also simple. I found the scripts for the phone allong with some nice tips off of some guys blog and he was dead on.
Remote Problems
Tuesday I had to deal with problems while I was 2000+ miles and 3 time zones away. First we are having lingering issues with a mail server. No one can log into it locally but the email services are running. so for now we are in a wait and see state with it. we are making sure we have good backups of everything on the box before we mess with it more. Also Kai and I being away isn’t helping.
A reporting function of Zeacom failed again. The only solution is to reboot the system. This is what the brain trust at Zeacom support tells us. Rebooting that system is not without its own risks. Kai and I are the only ones who have rebooted it before. Brian will do it tonight, but it will be his first time. He has seen Kai do it so hopefully we have no issues.
We also had performance issues with Jabber and some other minor crap. I had to juggle this, Dan complaining of site performance issues and 4 lectures. it was a busy day. The problem with the site performance issues is we see nothing wrong on our end. Dan is just frustrated. Not sure what else we can do (from my end) right now. it is not like the local director is acting up again (thank goodness), that I can make a change and magically it is all better. that is what he is hoping for.
Why Don’t They Make This Stuff On The PC?
So if you have been reading this site recently you will have noticed that I am on a “Mac is great” kick. I am becoming one of those people. Yup. There is a reason though. Some of this software that integrates on the Mac is fantastic. either there is nothing like it on the PC, or it is just easier (allot easier). For example I found a Bluetooth product called BluePhoneElite. It takes your bluetooth phone and uses your mac to do some crazy stuff. It flashes caller id on the mac screen when the phone rings, then when you answer it the software pauses any dvd’s or itunes you may have playing. Once you are done with your call it turns everything back on. How cool (and actually useful) is that? You can also dial numbers and send SMS mail from the program, see signal and battery strength, and more. It even changes your iChat status to away when you walk out of range with the phone and changes it back when you return. Why can’t I fund useful software like that for the PC that actually works? Another reason why I use my powerbook more and more each day.
I also just got Merlin. It is a MS Project like program for the Mac. It is half the price, and writes to Project files or Project XML files. I did a test and it imported and exported a 200 line project file I did in no time. The integration into the mac iCal and Address book was also very useful. I use project on my PC, but this just seemed to work better. Maybe I am just caught up in the whole coolness factor, but I felt this product was just simpler and more powerful to use than MS Project. Another program that I don’t need windows for!
Jayson and I are spending more of our spare time recently finding replacements to our old standard Windows programs. He is happy working on his thinkpad with a dual boot of Suse 9.3 and Windows XP. He almost never uses XP anymore. He is using more open source software than I. He has to since he is using Suse, and I am on my Mac. I am going to dual boot my thinkpad when I get back from my trip.
Mac or Thinkpad?
Mac or Thinkpad T-43? What do I take with me for a week away? For personal trips I would take the Mac hands down. Now I am going away for work next week. On one hand I get the Thinkpad from work, and I like it. On the other hand I have been working off the Powerbook as my primary machine since I got it. I use it as my main email, web, chat, and document editing platform. That is allot of my day, but not all of it. I still use my Thinkpad or desktop PC for terminal sessions (not a huge fan of the mac RDP client, and the MMC plug in for remote desktop still rocks), and VMWare. That is allot of my day also.
So what to do? The Thinkpad has IP Communicator on it, so I can VPN into work and then use my phone extension. My powerbook has Skype, and the Xten VOIP client for Broadvoice if I choose to setup my account for it. I can use bluetooth headsets with both machines, but the mac works better hands down. The Thinkpad has a bigger screen, and since it is work property I am less concerned about beating it up (but I know I still care so that is not such a big issue). Of course the bigger screen is also harder to see since its resolution is so small. Bad for me and my glasses:(
Thinkpad had good battery life and I have 2 batteries. Shall I go on? I am thinking if the Powerbook works fine with the new Cisco VPN client I will just take it. I have grown accustom to using it. Even though somewhere in the back of my head part of me says take the Thinkpad.
Why do I care what I take? Why should you? For me it is what will I use as my lifeline to the office while I am away for a week. Hopefully wont need it, but if I do it is a big deal. Why should others care? I don’t know. I felt like writing about what I was thinking. Also it kind of boils down to the age old question, Mac or Windows? For me the answer is both if you can, but if you have to choose I think I will edge over to the Mac side!!!
Dual Headed Monitor
Chris demoed me a dual monitor setup a few weeks ago when I was visiting. I know dual monitors is nothing new for most tech people, myself included. I remember when my cousin Wayne showed me it once a several years ago with 2 15″ flat panels. This was back when 1 flat screen was a big deal, but 2 was just decadent.
I had played around with the dual monitor concept just once over a year ago. I setup 2 flat panels (15″ Samsung’s) side by side. It was cool, but took up desk space. my thoughts at the time was why not just have 2 computers setup? And that is exactly what I did. I had 2 monitors with 2 computer setups. one with a KVM and up to 4 computers and another one for my laptop. Yes I know I was geeking out. But this was for work, so that makes it ok.
Recently as a few weeks ago Jayson had tried the dual monitor thing, but gave it up because of desk space issues.
When seeing Chris’s setup I realized the advantage of actually using two displays. One for general work stuff, and the other for terminal sessions (in full screen) or leaving our monitoring tools up on screen all day. I found a video card I could use (already with dual monitor support built in so I had no need to find a PCI card to go along with my AGP one) and put it in my desktop box. Besides having the dual head setup looking really cool with the matrix screen saver running on both monitors, it was also practical since I left our monitoring “threat board” up on a screen all day. I did loose some desk space, but I got rid of the monitor stand I had so I think it evens things out. Not sure if I will keep this setup, but for now it is working out for me!
Bye Bye Treo, Maybe?
I got fed up with my Treo 650 this weekend, and it may be time for it to hit ebay. I am not sure if my problem is T-Mobile or the Treo but I had problems with people not hearing me yesterday. I heard them but they could not hear me. A phone reboot solved that problem. Today I rebooted the phone for some reason (at 7PM) and I got notification that I had 6 messages from that morning. All of the messages were import work related issues that needed to be addressed quickly. Well needless to say they weren’t.
I have had issues off and on for a while. Rebooting the phone solves lots of issues, but should I have to do that? Jayson thinks I should wipe all the extra software I have (i have allot) and see if the phone works fine then. He is right, and the phone probably will work but the whole point of a palm phone is the ability to use the “SMART” features. If my distinctive ring or other apps wont work, why would I want a big phone like that?
The problem is what to do? I have a Blackberry that I need to carry for work, so I get my realtime email. I have been using my SE T610 off and on for a week. I broke down and started using it tonight full time until I can find a permanent replacement to the Treo, or until I calm down and start using it again. I already ordered a Motorola V3 Razr off of ebay. I have been eyeing it for a while and I figured now was the time to get one. I will continue to use the Treo as a palm for now. When I finally decide to dump it I will need to find a new PDA. The Razr should be able to connect to most new PDA’s via Bluetooth so I hope to keep some of my wireless internet features. I will find out when it arrives later this week.
Data Center Move Completed
Jayson and I finished up our data center move this morning. We have allot of free space that Bob will use up right away. It is also as neat as we are going to get it. We had some interesting moments configuring up the network. We were putting in Gigabit uplinks between all the switches and ran into some problems. The ports were configured weird by Keith. Jayson didn’t understand half the crap that was setup, and neither did i. We cleaned it up and we were good to go.
We also had a problem with one of our servers Promise IDE disk array. this is like the 3rd time we have had trouble with this array, and the incalculable time we have had trouble with these IDE arrays. We spent hours trying to make it work, but it does not seem to have worked. Danny and our DBA staff was working on some alternatives I suggested today while Jay and I got some sleep.
As it stands now that server is still causing problems. Contingency plans are already in the works to replace it:(
Data Center Update
After working all day Saturday, Monday night, and Tuesday night, we are about 90% done with our move to the new cage. We have 3 servers and 3 desktops (don’t ask) to move, along with a core switch and the firewalls. We will do that Thursday night. The new cage looks good. Some of the cable management could be better, but Jayson assures me that it will be cleaned up when we are done. We already started taking apart the old cage. it is/was a mess.
Since Saturday I have done nothing else but deal with this move. Once it is over I will be very happy. The good news is we think we were able to squeeze out even more space savings than we originally thought. that is good news since we are planning on expanding with a bunch of new servers soon.
Sleep
My sleep habits are all screwed up now that I worked nights two days in a row. Tonight I don’t have to do an overnight. We got allot done yesterday so we didn’t have to go in today. I do have to go back one more time on Thursday night. I got home at 6AM this morning and slept till 2PM. Now it is midnight and I am not tired. I figured I would write a bit and then hopefully sleep would come.
My building’s maintenance crew gave me a new AC unit today. The on in my living room was not cooling. Now I am nice and cold while I sit here and write! When I called they said it would be a while for them to send someone out so I ended up going to the office for a few hours. It was that or goto Starbucks and pay for internet. At work, it is free (for me)!
I went over to Macy’s after work to try and do some shopping, but the lines were really long for the changing room. I decided to try back some other time.
I also went over to the Cingular store. I still think they are an evil company, but I bought a pre-paid SIM card to test out their service. I have been having intermittent reception issues with my T-Mobile phone. So much so that this week I have been using my work Nextel and leaving forwarding calls to that. The pre-paid SIM was cheap, so I will try it for a few days and see if I like it or not.
I also re-organized part of my living room. I had for a while 2 monitors on my desk. They took up allot of space. I had another half of the L of my desk with nothing but piles of crap on it. I cleaned it off, bought a power strip and put my 20″ Apple Cinema display on the other desk. Now I have my powerbook plugged into that and I have more room. I also moved my printer to a shelf out of the way. I still need to clean up my place, but I am lazy since I have been out of it with these weird hours. I keep telling myself I will clean this weekend.
Besides that, I tried to rest allot today. More exciting things this weekend, I hope!