Still Life with MS OutHouse
Hey all! I thought I'd share this snippet from an email exchange with a friend. It's fun and educational rant about having to deal with MS and OutHouse [OutLook, for the uninitiated].
Enjoy!
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So, I've changed my jobs to another job w/in <multi-billion-$$-tech-co>.
And, in this new position, I'm now stuck on a Windows XP machine and MUST use Outlook for email/calendaring.
Holy cow, I did not realize just how much it sucks--check this out.
So I've got the Mac and want to move my ~130 address-book entries over to outlook. Fair enough, Apple lets you export a group as a file containing all of contacts as VCards (couldn't be more standard than that, literally).
So, I get the file of VCards moved onto the XP Machine.
2x click and it brings up the MS Address Book, which is on import, and is empty. O.o
So, goto Import and tell it to import and it does the same thing.
SO, goto Outlook >> File >> Import >> VCard and it says "That's not a VCard".
Googling says, "Outlook can import only ONE VCard as a time" (this is like, 5 minutes of programming effort that's been skipped by MS).
Fine--I know what to do. I put Perl on the system and write a program that splits the file into a directory full of individual VCards, by name. About 30m later, I've got a HUGE PILE of vcards.
So, opening the MS Address Book, I attempt to import them--but it won't let you import them as a batch-sequence. Insane.
So, via the OS, I select-all+open-all on the directory of vcards. This forces Windows to launch EACH in an AddressBook import UI. This takes the machine something like 1 or 2 minutes to even bring up the ~130 windows (which is abysmal performance--it's a 3GHz machine for c**ps sake!). Then I have to click "Import" and then "OK" on the next subsequent window
(kinda slow, that).
Finally, I have all my contacts in the MS Address-book--they even look correct.
So, I open up Outlook, but my addresses don't show up. Why? BECAUSE OUTLOOK USES A DIFFERENT ADDRESS BOOK. WTF?--why does the same freaking company have TWO freaking address books?
But it gets even more absurd . . . .
So I go back to the OS Address-Book, and tell it to Export >> Address Book. That goes fine, so I go back to Outlook and tell it Import >> Address Book from Another Program . . . and, guess what. MICROSOFT Outlook AddressBook cannot read MICROSOFT AddressBook O.o
At this point, I'm beginning to believe that the English language needs a new word for "incompetent".
Going back to the OS ABook, I try a different format that Outlook should be able to read--it can! Then Outlook states that "You can't do that unless you have this nearly-identically-named ABook format already created and it's 'Active'". There's no mention of HOW to create and
activate this in the UI or in OutHouse's "help".
Google to the rescue (again), I find out how to do that. Then I do that. Then I import and it says, "No can do--It's not ACTIVE". No where is there an explanation of what ACTIVE means or how to be ACTIVE or tell if something is ACTIVE or change its state of ACTIVENESS.
Gah!
Going back to the OS ABook, I decided to try exporting the book as a "comma-delimited list" (a technique I'm familiar with because I used to work with a Prime Computing Mainframe from ~1978 [which was much better technology than what MS has produced here]).
At last, OutLook can Import it.
As a final attempt to throw me, it didn't BY DEFAULT include all of the data (because, after all, who would, by default, want ALL their data?)--but I was prepared for that feeble attempt to thwart usability and checked first.
And, thus, I can now send you this email.
It's gonna be an interesting year . . . .
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Enjoy!
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So, I've changed my jobs to another job w/in <multi-billion-$$-tech-co>.
And, in this new position, I'm now stuck on a Windows XP machine and MUST use Outlook for email/calendaring.
Holy cow, I did not realize just how much it sucks--check this out.
So I've got the Mac and want to move my ~130 address-book entries over to outlook. Fair enough, Apple lets you export a group as a file containing all of contacts as VCards (couldn't be more standard than that, literally).
So, I get the file of VCards moved onto the XP Machine.
2x click and it brings up the MS Address Book, which is on import, and is empty. O.o
So, goto Import and tell it to import and it does the same thing.
SO, goto Outlook >> File >> Import >> VCard and it says "That's not a VCard".
Googling says, "Outlook can import only ONE VCard as a time" (this is like, 5 minutes of programming effort that's been skipped by MS).
Fine--I know what to do. I put Perl on the system and write a program that splits the file into a directory full of individual VCards, by name. About 30m later, I've got a HUGE PILE of vcards.
So, opening the MS Address Book, I attempt to import them--but it won't let you import them as a batch-sequence. Insane.
So, via the OS, I select-all+open-all on the directory of vcards. This forces Windows to launch EACH in an AddressBook import UI. This takes the machine something like 1 or 2 minutes to even bring up the ~130 windows (which is abysmal performance--it's a 3GHz machine for c**ps sake!). Then I have to click "Import" and then "OK" on the next subsequent window
(kinda slow, that).
Finally, I have all my contacts in the MS Address-book--they even look correct.
So, I open up Outlook, but my addresses don't show up. Why? BECAUSE OUTLOOK USES A DIFFERENT ADDRESS BOOK. WTF?--why does the same freaking company have TWO freaking address books?
But it gets even more absurd . . . .
So I go back to the OS Address-Book, and tell it to Export >> Address Book. That goes fine, so I go back to Outlook and tell it Import >> Address Book from Another Program . . . and, guess what. MICROSOFT Outlook AddressBook cannot read MICROSOFT AddressBook O.o
At this point, I'm beginning to believe that the English language needs a new word for "incompetent".
Going back to the OS ABook, I try a different format that Outlook should be able to read--it can! Then Outlook states that "You can't do that unless you have this nearly-identically-named ABook format already created and it's 'Active'". There's no mention of HOW to create and
activate this in the UI or in OutHouse's "help".
Google to the rescue (again), I find out how to do that. Then I do that. Then I import and it says, "No can do--It's not ACTIVE". No where is there an explanation of what ACTIVE means or how to be ACTIVE or tell if something is ACTIVE or change its state of ACTIVENESS.
Gah!
Going back to the OS ABook, I decided to try exporting the book as a "comma-delimited list" (a technique I'm familiar with because I used to work with a Prime Computing Mainframe from ~1978 [which was much better technology than what MS has produced here]).
At last, OutLook can Import it.
As a final attempt to throw me, it didn't BY DEFAULT include all of the data (because, after all, who would, by default, want ALL their data?)--but I was prepared for that feeble attempt to thwart usability and checked first.
And, thus, I can now send you this email.
It's gonna be an interesting year . . . .
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