Winnowill update!

[annathepiper]

So I ran into a couple of snags that will prevent me from being able to shift completely over to the Mac for another little bit.

One is that the test drive version of Office 2004 that's on the box is a couple of revs too old to be able to talk to the software I've purchased for syncing the Mac with my frob. Grf. The test drive version is 11.2.1; the software wants 11.2.3. Which means I can't really properly set up Entourage as my main mail client, not yet.

There's also that I am having difficulty getting my offline mail out of Outlook and over onto the Mac in a format that's readable by either Mac mail or by Entourage--because Outlook pretty much only exports to PST format, and nobody else in the world talks that. I have so far tried to use Thunderbird to import from Outlook, which was only partially successful--Thunderbird screwed up a couple of folders, possibly because they had slashes in the name, and completely failed to actually pull mail in for other folders. Like, say, the Inbox. I need to figure out if I can suitably rearrange the folders to make them less complex and try Thunderbird again, or if there's another option. Suggestions on this are hereby solicited.

I also managed to torch a good bit of my computer-side music collection, entirely by accident. All is not lost--all the files are still in the hidden directory on the iPod, as I discovered by accessing it from the terminal shell when it was plugged into Winnowill's USB ports. However, if I want to cobble my computer-side library back together, the only way I've found to do this so far is to go painstakingly through each and every file off the iPod and import it into the library. This is because the iPod stores the files with random four-character names, so I can't easily tell which song is which until I actually load 'em up. Doable, but super-tedious. I'll be working at this probably throughout the week.

Fortunately iTunes defaulted to manually managing the sync with the device, possibly because it's Windows format still. I'll have to be grateful for that, since it's what's kept me from having to re-rip every single song I own. I just wish I'd figured this out before I tried to slurp some of my music files off my machine at work!

Comments

[eveshka.livejournal.com]

Floola (http://www.floola.com/modules/wiwimod/) should help you recover your files, and I use Gmail exclusively now for email, even for my eveshka.org POP accounts.

[annathepiper]

Oh, I can get the files just fine--I can go straight to 'em on the iPod (yay for clever terminal shells) and copy 'em right off of there. However, managing them once I have 'em, that's the tricky part. Floola sounds potentially useful, though! Thanks for the link. :)

I always look at my mail via Gmail from work anyway, so that's totally doable. I still need to get to my offline archived mail, though!

[annathepiper]

I have the PC laptop, which isn't going anywhere any time immediately. :) Thanks for the link!

[agrimony.livejournal.com]

Actually, do a websearch for a program that will transfer music from your iPod to your computer. For my PC, I used iCloner when I switched PCs, which saved me from having to figure out a way to transfer all those music files (not that I have /that/ many, but still... more than my previous thumb drive could handle) successfully. I'm sure that there's a program for the mac, especially as I recall having a frustrating time finding one that /wasn't/ for macs. :)

[annathepiper]

eveshka and onetimeoffer have both provided links, yay! I shall check out their recommendations. :)

I've got a boatload of music, nearly 4000 songs and about 15GB. So yeah, a bit much to squeeze onto a thumb drive!

[fleetfootmike.livejournal.com]

Senuti is the program to do the job.

[annathepiper]

Heh, that's three recommendations so far! Thanks!

[annathepiper]

Followup to this: I tried Senuti last night and it is exactly what I wanted! Thank you very much for recommending it. I'm still having to go through the collection slowly, but now it's an album at a time rather than a song at a time, and this is only in case Senuti gets confused about where it's plunking songs.

[ddelony.livejournal.com]

Just install NeoOffice (http://www.neoofice.org), the Mac OS X version of Openoffice.org. You can view and save Office documents that people send you.

[annathepiper]

I've already installed OpenOffice, which itself can run on OSX, but thank you for the link. :)

This should suffice me nicely until I decide whether it's worth my time and trouble to buy either iWork '08 or MacOffice 2008. aerialscribe has pointed out quite correctly that the revision marks functionality in Word is extremely helpful for writing purposes; it's come in handy more than once when soliciting feedback from my beta readers.

[blargh.livejournal.com]

I would like to point out the perhaps questionable decision of naming a laptop after a meglomaniac who found some... interesting... ways to control her minions to the point of turning them into stone, etc. may turn out to be prophetic. :)

[annathepiper]

*snicker* This issue has already been raised, but hey, it's a sleek black laptop, what can I say?

Also, you're chiming in too late, Her Lordship won the poll anyway. ;)