Sync Contacts between Outlook and Gmail? —— Pre Owners take note!

As you may or may not be aware, the Palm Pre does NOT sync with Outlook.

It’s simply not built to do “Old School” syncing. This is all very well if you use Exchange or another enterprise email system but if you use a simple POP account and your contacts and calendar  are stored in Outlook then you’re S.O.L.

Palm’s recommendation? Move your email to Gmail. Thanks Palm.

Now to be more helpful…

Yes you can use Gmail, but you don’t have to move your whole email system to it. Just set it up as a conduit to sync Outlook to your Pre, and here’s how you do it;

• Get a Gmail account if you don’t have one already.
• Sign up for Gmail Calendar – or rather activate it once you have a Gmail account.
• Download the Gmail Calendar Sync (from Google)
• Download the Contacts Sync from WebGear.

Quite why Google gives us a Calendar sync but NOT a Contacts sync remains a mystery, however the nice people at WebGear have been kind enough to provide this tool. It’s still Beta but it’s Open Source so hopefully will improve over time.

Thanks Palm, for not giving us an option to sync with Outlook…

Using command line compression in Windows

After a long a fruitless search to use a command line option for Microsoft’s “Send To > Compressed (Zipped) Folder” I saw the light and found 7-zip.

7-zip is an open source compression tool that allows it to be used in a command line way as well as a GUI. Go to http://www.7-zip.org/ and download the latest version, then when you write a script, here is a quick and dirty example of a command line for the app;

“c:\program files\7-zip\7z.exe” a “d:\backup files\compressed.zip” “c:\working files\uncompressed.txt”

Multi App installer anyone?

In short http://ninite.com/ – word of caution. I’ve not tested it yet (neither has my buddy who recommended the site)… I will in the next few days but until then consider the site to be… from an untrusted source.

I had a quick look and it seems awesome. It contains lots of the standard tools I use and they claim to install on a standard use policy i.e. don’t send me emails, don’t crap all over my HD with stuff I didn’t ask for. Don’t trick me into installing your tool bar (thanks for the option!) etc. etc.

Will update when I’ve installed a few apps to see if it really is as good as it seems.

Mac Startup Keys

OK so I’m feeling guilty about cutting and pasting so instead here is a link to the source;
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343
Enjoy

Labor Day Tips

I found several things I wanted to note down today.

First, which I perhaps should have known is how to turn off the crappy Windows Simple File Sharing. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to actually find it. Coming from a network admin role I always found it quite annoying when I tried to take ownership of a folder or simply setup sharing of a folder without Microsoft forcibly holding my hand.

This will help me tone down my frustration somewhat with Windows Hand Holding…

To Turn off Windows Simple File Sharing, simply follow these steps;

1. Click Start, and then click My Computer.
2. On the Tools menu, click Folder Options.
3. Click the View tab.
4. In the Advanced Settings* section, click to clear the Use simple file sharing (Recommended) check box.
5. Click OK.

*You should note that in my version of Windows XP Pro that I used this on, there was NO Advanced Settings, I just scrolled down the bottom and it was right there.

The second thing I wanted to write down before I forget is a list of useful Apps I’ve found over the last few weeks;

• TrueCrypt – a great Encryption tool for making disk images that you can mount when you need them. Works with Windows and Mac.
• Eraser – Simple file “shredding” tool – seems to be quite good but I’m still fleshing it out.
• FileZilla – awesome FTP utility that works with Windows and Mac.
• VLC – wonderful video playing tool for Mac. (and Windows) Includes all the decoders you should need unless you’re heavily into alternatives…

Mat’s Tips

More tips from Mat. I checked a few of these out and found them to be very interesting. The paint app is awesome – I never knew web apps were so advanced!

Here is his email;

first off, free audit pc software http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/Free-PC-Audit.shtml very nice like cpuz but lists all installed software and also processes running, and its portable so just an exe no install needed.

second a handy tool to rest sids , We imaged a load of pc’s with out syspreping them , this resets the local sids so fixs the issue. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897418.aspx

thirdly, not really useful just rather stunning. So we have google apps (office suite online) this is an online paint app http://www.sumo.fi/products/sumopaint/index.php?id=0

another cool portable app. It shows you the processes and dll behind the svchost files and is jsut an exe as well http://svchostviewer.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=22914

another good one. a tool that will tell you the password of a pst file, i have had a few times where people forget it and are screwed lol. Only issue is symantec deletes this tool as its a “hacktool” http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/mailpv.html

There you go.Sweet tools from a super dude.

Thanks Mat.

more Xcopy arguments

as well as the /E /C /Y options if you want to exclude some then make a file (call it anything you like) such as exclude.txt and inside simply add the extension of the files you want to exclude like this;
.mp3
.mov
.m4a
etc
Each on a new line. Then in the Xcopy argument you simply type /EXCLUDE exclude.txt and it will look to the text file you created for the exclusions.
Nice for a simply backup script where you don’t want to include the users terabytes of music and movies.

telnet email… quick reminder

telnet mail.server.net 25
helo me
mail from : me@server.net
rcpt to : me@server.net
data
blah blah blah this is the message
.
quit

xxcopy

OK so XXcopy – it’s basically xcopy but can cope with longer path strings than 255 characters. This is quite useful as most machines hit that limit.

Go to www.xxcopy.com scroll to the botttom, make sure you are using it for non-commerical use (otherwise I think you have to pay some money or something) and then download, and install.

The arguments are the same as xcopy so you should be able to hit the ground running. Great tool, plus it has a /clone function which I’ve yet to check out but sounds promising

Xcopy Arguments

Sorry but I found that with a little research and perhaps an updated version of Xcopy, the arguments have changed.

What you need is this;

/E /C /Y -  means the following;

/E – This actually takes care of /S as well so by putting in /E you’re actually putting in /S and /E.

/C – Continues copying even if errors occur.

/Y – Suppresses the prompt to overwrite files. Don’t ask me why but even if I delete the destination folder before I copy I do actually get the overwrite prompt on occasion – go figure.

… older stuff below (might be the only option for older versions of xcopy)…

to be curt /S /E /C – when using Xcopy make sure you put the /C in there so that if it runs into any errors it doesn’t just stop, but continues with the copy. Oh and just for reference, the /S means any subfolder under the initial folder and the /E means copy over all folders even if they are empty.

Thought I would add it here because I’m waiting for the amended script to finish