With the release of Mac OS X Tiger, Apple has removed the option to import Outlook Express emails – so that poses me with a problem with our XP transfers.As always the solution is simple if you know where to look.(Note: If you are using Outlook, open Outlook Express and choose File / Import / Messages / Outlook)
- Open Outlook Express. Click on Tools / Options / Maintainence / Store Folder and make a note of it. (It’s nearly always C:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\NUMBERS\Microsoft\Outlook Express)
- You need to convert the .dbx files (that’s the format OE uses for mailboxes) into .mbox files (that’s the format Apple Mail uses for mailboxes). Go and grab dbxconv (download) and dump it into the same directory you noted above.
- Run….
dbxconv -mbx -mbxextmbox *.dbx
….and wait, will take a while depending on how large your mailboxes are. 1-2Gb should not take more than about 40 minutes.
- You should now have a directory full of files with the extension .mbox. Get all of these files to your new mac (FTP / Intranet / CD Burn Etc.) Open mail and enter your account detials (default opening on Tiger). Then click File / Import Mailboxes / Other and then find your .mbox files on your computer (where ever you put them). The .mbox files will be grayed out so click choose and on the next screen click OK to begin the import. This may or may not take awhile depends on the amount of mail!
- Easy peasey, lemon squeazy. Your mail now has a new home!
If you can’t run dbxconv for some reason you can always use Entorage (use a trial, installed on all new macs, or download from Microsoft) – Just drag your mail messages out of outlook and into a folder(s) (organised of you wish), move files to the Mac, boot Entourage and drag the messages in (.eml files). Once they are all in you can click Import / Entourage in Apple Mail.
Added 21st May 2010:
The link no longer works, but a simple google search will find the program elsewhere for you.
I hate installing a new OS – I know…. it’s a time to clean up my laptop / desktops and make them all run super sweet again, clear out the junk, tidy up my directories, recreate backup schedules etc, etc. The fact of the matter is that I simply don’t have time for all that – my MacBook Pro has about 7Gb of free space left on it and it’s in constant use. Anyway I really wanted a couple of Leopard features and seeing as how eventually I’ll have to come up with some kind of enterprise upgrade strategy for the rest of the macs I figured I’d use lappie as the guinea pig – success for the most part.Went for the upgrade rather than Clean or Archive and Install – that’s what the sensible folks do – not me. I only went through a few basic steps for this procedure detailed below:
So, I finally ditched Tiger and went for the newness that is Leopard – not without its problems which I will explain in another post. My problem? My shiny iPod touch won’t mount / sync or even be recognised by iTunes – it charges but that’s it (and I suspect the charging is down to USB not iTunes). What to do – fix it like this.
One of the most common presets, a brush is a collection of brush ‘tips’ which can be literally anything. Let’s say you have a collection of grunge patterns that you use frequently, rather than loading the individual file everytime and then moving it to a new layer for editing / masking, you could put all these ‘files’ into a brush preset, select, paint, save time. Brushes always end with .abr file extension. Put them in ‘/presets/brushes’.Some good sites for brushes:
Second only to the widespread use of brushes are the shapes, dumped into ‘/presets/custom shapes’ they always have the .csh file extension. You can access these shapes with the ‘custom shape tool. There are loads of great shape sites out there and I tend to find that I keep all my arty-farty floral patters in shape files, but they can be literally anything. Shapes are ‘vectors’ and so can be scaled to any size and keep their resolution.Some good links for shape files:
Actions are ridiculously powerful little ‘mini apps’. If you’ve ever played with macros then you need to read no further, for the rest of us: Actions allow you to perform a series of actions on an image and record them, you can then save them to a file and at the click of a button redo it all with nought more than a single click. Example – You need to duplicate a layer 3 times and independantly adjust the R, G and B channels, but you need to do this for 20 images that were washed out. You start recording, perform the actions on a single file and save this to a action file, which you can then call up at will on the remaining 19 images all at a single click – get your head around these, the real time-savers. Actions always have the .atn file extension. Put them in ‘/presets/actions’.Some good sites for actions / tutorials:
A swatch is a collection of colours organised into a file. For example if I’m working on a new site but I have a specific colour scheme in mind I put all of those colours into a swatch file and then load it into Photoshop, that way I only have to worry about the 3 primary’s and 10 of so secondary colours I’m using on the site – no more colour dropper when trying to replicate colours. A real time saver when working with a specific colour set. Swatches always have the .aco extension. Put them in ‘/presets/colour swatches’.Some good sites for swatches:
