Mac Outlook 2011 Calendar Sync Issue w/ iPhone

Okay, here’s the bottom line. If you own a Mac and use Microsoft’s Outlook to manage your calendar, it will not synchronize w/ your iPhone or iPad, period, and Microsoft has know about the issue since last year!  This is why I am furious, and become more angry each day! My nightmare started several months ago when I made the decision to transition away from PC’s over to Mac. I prolonged this decision as long as I could for one reason and one reason only. I had used Microsoft Outlook to manage my business for almost 20 years and I knew they were getting ready to release it for the Mac instead of their Entourage product and that I would be able to import my valuable PST files over to my Mac! I literally timed my exodus based on the release of one piece of software, Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac.

Microsoft has addressed this issue several times in the past and assured thousands of us that the glitch would be addressed soon but nothing has happened. Most recently the team answered questions from several other unhappy users and totally avoided my question, be sure to read the comments. There was a point in April where we got our hopes up that Microsoft was releasing a service pack to address these issues but nothing ever came of this promise either. Microsoft, being the software company, designs software to run on Apple’s hardware. That’s pretty cut and dry right? Well, here’s a release where Microsoft actually blamed Apple for the synchronization issues

I have been reaching out to the Office for Mac team on their blog recently hoping to get some answers but haven’t been contacted by a single person as of today. Well, many of you that know me can attest to the fact that I can be somewhat persistent if aggravated, well I have reached that point. Today I reached out to the Office for Mac team on their Twitter account and their Facebook Page.

I honestly feel as if Microsoft has betrayed their loyal user base and feel no remorse about their actions because they have the only show in town when it comes to business management, scheduling, task management, collaboration, email, and shared contacts. I also feel as if Microsoft owes me personally a complete refund for $600 that I spent putting their software on all of our new Mac’s in addition to potentially more money that I can prove in loss productivity and revenue.

What’s In Your Toolbox?

It’s going to be a long weekend…

imageWith the help of my good friend Keith Crawford, I plan on reformatting my primary development machine today and doing a clean install of Windows 7. This project is long overdue, I can’t remember the last time I reformatted my drive, in fact this SATA drive that I am using now initially ran XP and then VISTA before I upgraded to WINDOWS 7 last year.  Fortunately I am pretty diligent when it comes to backups, so the project isn’t as daunting as it could be.

Where to Start Reloading Software??

While preparing my plan of action last night I went through my list of installed software to see what I would need to reinstall once I got the OS reloaded.  After going over the list I realized that I don’t use half of the programs that are installed on my machine.  This got me to thinking, what else is out there that I might be missing out on? What tools / software do you use to develop client projects?

Here’s a list of the software and desktop applications that I use, please leave me a comment and let me know what you are using and if there is something on the market that I need to look at…

  • Microsoft Outlook (Productivity) – Email, Calendars, Tasks, Notes, etc.
  • Evernote Desktop (Productivity) – Notes.
  • Microsoft Office Ultimate (Productivity) – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.
  • Microsoft Live Writer (Blogging) – WYSIWYG Blog Editor.
  • Jasc Paintshop Pro (Graphics) – Lightweight compared to PS and faster for some jobs.
  • Adobe Photoshop (Graphics) – All of the Bells & Whistles for Graphics.
  • Adobe Illustrator (Vector) – I haven’t found anything else that compares for Illustrations.
  • Adobe Dreamweaver (Code Editor / WYSIWYG) – My favorite WYSIWYG editor.
  • Notepad++ (Code Editor) – Probably my favorite straight up code editor.
  • Eclipse (Code Editor / IDE) – Rarely do I use this anymore.
  • Xlinesoft PHPRunner (Code Editor / IDE / Generator) – Saves a ton of time
  • Microsoft Expression Web (Code Editor / WYSIWYG) – Rarely do I use this anymore.
  • Coda (Code Editor / WYSIWYG / CSS Editor) – Very nice but only works on my MacBook.
  • TopStyle Pro (CSS Editor) – I haven’t found anything that compares
  • IPSwitch WS-FTP Professional (FTP) – All of the Bells & Whistles for FTP
  • Filezilla (FTP) – Fewer features than WS-FTP but a lot faster.
  • Camtasia (Screen Capturing / Recording) – I haven’t found anything that compares.
  • SwishMax (Flash / Vector Animation) – A lot faster than Flash to work with .SWF files.
  • Audacity (Audio Editing / Recording) – I haven’t found anything that compares.
  • Garage Band (Audio Editing / Recording) – Only works on my MacBook
  • EZ Audio CD Ripper (Audio Editing / Ripping) – Fastest CD to MP3 Ripper I have found.
  • Skype (Communications) – My favorite chat, voice, video conferencing app.
  • RingCentral Call Controller (Communications) – Ties into our corporate phone system.
  • SSH Explorer (SSH) – Rarely do I have to use this anymore because we have an admin.
  • MySQL Administrator (Database) – I occasionally use this to connect to databases.
  • TJPing (Ping) – I sometimes use this instead of command line.
  • PuTTy (SSH, Telnet) – Rarely do I use this anymore because we have an admin.

Installed Parallels on MacBook Pro

parallelslogo I blogged a few weeks ago about how I had recently purchased a MacBook Pro after having using Windows based PC’s my entire professional life.  I knew going in that the transition to a Mac wasn’t going to come fast, I had spent years learning shortcuts and applications inside the Windows environment and honestly some things about the Mac are total opposite.  While I still have continued to use my Dev1 and Dev2 machines for client projects and actual production, I have been tinkering around w/ the MacBook as much as possible to familiarize myself with it.

Going into this whole thing w/ the Mac, I knew that I would have to have some sort of virtual environment for me to run native Windows applications because some of my day to day applications don’t have a Mac friendly counterpart.  Two cases in point, PHPRunner and WS-FTP Pro.  Well, in the case of WS-FTP Pro, the manufacturer, IPSWITCH, has a Mac alternative called Fetch, but you can’t import from WS-FTP Pro into it.  To the normal user, this probably wouldn’t be an issue, but for me, I have over 700 client FTP connections loaded in WS-FTP Pro and I wasn’t about to re-enter a single one of these by hand.

Well, I looked into Boot Camp, a free product from Apple that would basically allow me to boot up in Windows or Mac OS, but to me that just seems a little too much like work.  I then checked out the VMWare product for the Mac and it didn’t impress me as much as the Parallels solution so I installed Parallels.  A short while into the installation process it asked me to insert a Windows XP or Vista disk.  I found an old XP Professional and loaded it up.  The Parallels solution installed Windows XP on my machine and I now have a start bar docked w/ my native Mac applications as well as my IDE, PHPRunner, which also is a native Windows application.  I also was able to install Office Professional 2003 very easily and now, instead of trying to wrestle with getting my .PST files from Outlook imported into Entourage, I can just run Outlook on my Mac.

The best thing about Parallels that I can tell right now is that it allows Windows and Apple based applications to coexist w/out having to boot out of one OS into another.

Outlook .PST to Entourage

Update: Eric Caldwell turned me onto a solution for doing this conversion / import, plus a whole lot more email migration related tasks.  It’s called Emailchemy.  You can pick that tool up here for $29. Well worth the money if you ask me.

outlook-entourage-logos-cottonclubOkay, so I posed a question today on Twitter to some of my friends who are hardcore Mac users as to how I can import my Windows based Microsoft Outlook .PST files (containing 11 years worth of business data) into Microsoft Entourage on my new MacBook Pro.  I know that there has to be a way to do this, I did a little research the other day and found some possibilities but none have panned out yet…

2 Possible Solutions that Didn’t Work Out…

  1. O2M – this solution just works if you are bringing Mac based Outlook 2001 files into Entourage 2004 (and up) and will do nothing for you if you have .PST files originating in a Windows Environment.
  2. Microsoft PST Import Tool – ran into the same situation w/ this solution as well.

There has to be a way to do this…

I know that there has to be a solution out there for handling this type of migration, but for the life of me I can’t seem to find it.  It looks like to me if Mac wanted to grow into the business sector, they would benefit greatly by coming up w/ some sort of conversion / import functionality and distribute the heck out of it.  I am still looking while juggling a few projects today but will update this post as soon as I find a solution.

In the meantime, until I can spend some quality time researching a solution for doing this, if any of you out there have any suggestions for me, I would love to hear from you, please fee free to leave a comment…

Rumors About Microsoft Opening .PST Data Format

pstformat If you follow the information technology industry very close you might have heard some rumblings that Microsoft plans on opening up their proprietary PST data format documentation to developers under the OSP, or Open Specification Promise.  The documentation they release will contain how data is stored, guidance for accessing the data, and how to navigate the folder hierarchy and how various objects are stored.

By allowing this data format to be made open, developers can now read, create and interoperate with data inside client or target .PST files.  This is absolutely huge in my opinion, and I know that I don’t often compliment Microsoft for doing good things, but this is one case where I am applauding them.  Microsoft Outlook, which utilizes the .PST data format is by far the industry leading business email client.  Personally I have been using Microsoft Outlook since I left the farm, my entire business history is contained in my .PST file, that’s past appointments, archives, contacts, tasks, etc.  It’s mind boggling to consider until you start looking at alternative solutions (and there really isn’t one on the market right now).

Regarding the move to open up the .PST Format here are some comments I found online at ARS Technica:

The company says that providing access to the documentation will facilitate interoperability by enabling customers and vendors to access their data in .PST files across a variety of platforms. Organizations that need to exchange key corporate data in and out of Outlook, upload to the cloud, or comply with corporate governance policies, will find this particularly useful.

On the one hand, this could improve Microsoft’s chances to make the .PST file format the unofficial standard in the area of e-mail data storage, while it’s equally possible that it could help Outlook and Exchange competitors make it easier for companies to switch away from Redmond’s products. Microsoft wants its message to be that this is a good move, as it will make the data more portable across various applications and platforms.

Rackspace recently published an interesting outlook on their blog too about the future:

Longer term, Outlook could become an apps platform where we see all sorts of third-party apps being developed that add value to the core feature-set of Microsoft Outlook, similar to what you see with Facebook Apps today but on your desktop.  However, in order for this to play out, Microsoft will need to do more than just open up the storage format.  They will have to also redesign Outlook with apps in mind so that apps can be easily developed and can feel like an integrated part of Outlook.  They’ll also need to launch some sort of an “app store” model for third parties to distribute their apps, such as what has worked so successfully for Apple’s iPhone apps.

I also found a little bit more official post on bink.nu regarding this announcement, while I am not for certain if this announcement came directly from Microsoft or not, it sounds promising:

Data portability has become an increasing need for our customers and partners as more information is stored and shared in digital formats. One scenario that has come up recently is how to further improve platform-independent access to email, calendar, contacts, and other data generated by Microsoft Outlook.

On desktops, this data is stored in Outlook Personal Folders, in a format called a .pst file. Developers can already access the data stored in the .pst file, using Messaging API (MAPI) and the Outlook Object Model—a rich set of connections to all of the data stored by Outlook and Exchange Server—but only if Outlook is installed on the desktop.

In order to facilitate interoperability and enable customers and vendors to access the data in .pst files on a variety of platforms, we will be releasing documentation for the .pst file format. This will allow developers to read, create, and interoperate with the data in .pst files in server and client scenarios using the programming language and platform of their choice. The technical documentation will detail how the data is stored, along with guidance for accessing that data from other software applications. It also will highlight the structure of the .pst file, provide details like how to navigate the folder hierarchy, and explain how to access the individual data objects and properties.

This documentation is still in its early stages and work is ongoing. We are engaging directly with industry experts and interested customers to gather feedback on the quality of the technical documentation to ensure that it is clear and useful. When it is complete, it will be released under our Open Specification Promise, which will allow anyone to implement the .pst file format on any platform and in any tool, without concerns about patents, and without the need to contact Microsoft in any way.

I guess we will just have to wait and see how this unfolds.  For me personally I will be setting up Google Alerts because I want to know the exact minute it happens.

Advantages to Outsourcing Business Class Email

This past weekend my business partners and I went away on our annual corporate retreat to discuss our existing business model and to evaluate each of our products and services.  We each agreed that our most popular solution is one that we don’t spend a lot of time promoting, our premium email solution. There are several advantages to businesses that chose to outsource their email to us, in this post I plan to cover a few of these bullet points.

I am also including a presentation that I put together regarding our solution, click on the play button below to start the presentation.  If you would like to learn more about business class email solutions, please feel free to drop me a note and I will be glad to schedule a time w/ you to discuss your needs in more detail

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These are just a few of the high points from my presentation:
  • You Get Our Team of Experts - When you turn to a hosted solution, it’s as though you suddenly have an entire staff of experts working for you—serving as an extension of your IT department and allowing your in-house team to focus on the other critical aspects of your infrastructure.
  • Our Cutting Edge Technology - Since hosted solutions, like ours, focus on their specific area of expertise, we can stay on top of the latest advances in their industry. We also have the resources to implement and maintain a variety of technologies.
  • Reliable Access - We guarantee 100% satisfaction. If you’re not satisfied, we’re not satisfied. This is why we won’t force you into long-term contracts. If we fail you, we’ll give you your money back and help you take your business elsewhere.
  • No Setup or Maintenance Concerns - When you turn to a hosted solution like ours, you immediately have a fully equipped, top-of-the-line system that will be continually updated and maintained. This saves you thousands of dollars in server hardware, software, upgrades, and the expertise to run it all.
  • Reduced Costs - You can take these system deployment and maintenance expenses out of the budget. You will always benefit from the latest in hardware and software technology, managed by experienced engineers, with no additional costs and no unexpected fees.
  • Scalability - When your company grows, your infrastructure must also grow even faster. Since hosting providers, like Pleth, have extensive hardware and software resources, we can scale smoothly and easily. Cloud hosting, in particular, is especially designed for scalability—since you use only the infrastructure resources you need.
  • Scalability: Cloud Computing Advantage - We’re always ready for your growth. Thanks to the elastic nature of cloud computing, we can automatically add hardware and adjust settings from the cloud so that you don’t miss a beat—and you only pay for what you need, and nothing you don’t.
  • Automatic Backups & Data Recovery – As Hosting Providers we know that you have entrusted us with your invaluable data—so we design their systems to protect that data. We have the resources to implement exhaustive backup and data recovery systems. We back up your data every night, in multiple geographic locations, in our top-tier data centers. And if a user accidentally deletes an email or email folder, you can restore it easily through our control panel at no cost—even up to 14 days after the data was deleted.
  • Storage & Transmission Security - Businesses can spend thousands of dollars to protect their data—or they can save thousands by turning to a hosted system like ours. We integrate extensive security measures to protect your data from physical threats—such as theft, overheating, power outages, and fire—as well as technical threats from hackers or prying eyes. Our data centers are designed to protect your data from all physical and technical threats. And to secure your data during its journey through cyberspace, our system uses DoD standards-based protocols, as well as extended SSL encryption, and we meet all PCI DSS data security requirements for information security.
  • Automatic Software Upgrades - When you choose hosted apps like ours, you don’t need to worry about downloading and installing software upgrades or security patches. Your system will always be up-to-date. We stay on top of upgrades and security patches around the clock, so you’ll always be using the latest versions of all system software. And we partner with leaders in the security industry, to give you the strongest level of protection available.
  • Data Access - With hosted apps like ours, you benefit from having a wide range of data access options. This flexibility helps your employees to be more productive, compared to employees who are limited to using only a specific computer or specific software. Location is no longer an issue. You can access and manage data from any Internet-connected computer or mobile device. And your data transmissions are secured, to avoid any possibility of data leakage.
  • Federal Regulations & Compliance – We stay on top of the regulations so you don’t have to. We provide the storage, compliance, and retrieval features needed for audits, legal requests, and other business needs. Our optional archiving service is designed to meet e-discovery, regulatory, and industry guidelines for data retention, and is ideal even for companies that need to adhere to the highest levels of compliance.

Microsoft Outlook 2010 Enhancements

image I have been a power Outlook for as long as I can remember and I have used it to schedule every aspect of my life for as long as I can remember.  In fact, as much as I hate the way it performs sometimes, I wouldn’t know what to do if I had to abandon it and find another desktop solution.

The biggest competition to the Outlook application that I have seen so far would have to be Thunderbird, but unfortunately it doesn’t have all of the features that Outlook has out of the box right now. With the Office 2010 suite is soon to hit shelves, I found a great post on Web Worker Daily that outlined some of Outlook 2010’s enhancements.  Here’s an excerpt from the article…

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If you are interested, there are some additional screenshots on Web Worker Daily’s website…

Backstage View.

Personally, I think the addition of the Backstage View in Office 2010 applications sets a new level of application accessibility and usability, especially in Outlook 2010. Clicking on the Office button gives you access to Outlook settings and account information, including account settings, automatic replies to email, mailbox cleanup, and rules.

Bringing all this information into one interface should be a boon to productivity, since users will no longer have to hunt around for management features in various Outlook menus.

Schedule View.

Although there were different “views” of Outlook data in previous releases, the implementation meant that they weren’t that useful. However, Outlook 2010 includes better control over views, and I recommend anybody test driving it to spend some time using them.

A case in point is the new Schedule view, which provides better insight into your daily schedule, as recorded in your Outlook calendar. Moreover, as with the other views, you have the option to set different time scales to provide a granular look as to what is going in your day. The new Time Scale feature enables you to scale your schedule view from 5-minute to 60-minute increments.

Task Notes.

Office 2010 includes OneNote 2010 integration with the main Office applications, including Outlook. From the Outlook Tasks List, click “Task Notes” and the “Select Location in OneNote” dialog box appears. From this dialog box, you have the option of selecting a section or page for your task notes. Even if you are currently a big OneNote user, the introduction of Task Notes in Outlook 2010 may cause you to reconsider your existing OneNote organizational schema.

I see the integration of OneNote with Outlook and other Office 2010 applications as one of the highlights in this upcoming Office release.

Publish Online.

The new Publish Online feature gives the promise of a geographically-dispersed project team being able to publish their personal and team calendar data online, and make it accessible to the team.  With Publish Online, you can publish your Outlook calendar to Office Online, or a WebDAV server. I like the options here because it won’t tie you to an expensive online collaboration solution.

Customize Common Tasks.

There have been few (if any) changes to how you perform common Outlook tasks in quite some time. With the launch of Outlook 2010, you have the option to customize how you perform common tasks like sending meeting invites to your team, sending emails to your whole team, and forwarding emails. You also have the option to create your own “quick steps” from scratch. These options are available from “Quick Steps” in the Home ribbon or from the “Quick Steps” dialog box. The best part is that these options are dialog box-driven, with no knowledge of macros required.

Outlook 2010 and Your Productivity

While I lamented in a previous post that Outlook 2010 needs to be more social, the productivity enhancements present in Outlook 2010 offer a lot for everyone from novice to power users. My history as a writer and computer book technical reviewer on Office topics goes back to Office 2000; the Office 2010 Technical Preview — especially Outlook 2010 — show a lot more promise at this stage than previous releases, so I’m looking forward to checking out the final version.

What productivity features are you looking for in Outlook 2010?

Week One with the iPhone

apple-iphone-3g The other day I reluctantly went into the local AT&T store to find a replacement for my Palm Treo that I had been hoping would hold out for me until January when AT&T was supposed to get in the new Palm Pre but it just wasn’t meant to be.  I went in w/ the intention of checking out the BlackBerry Bold but the more I looked at the iPhone the more I realized that the touchscreen keyboard wasn’t too bad (that was my holdout from day one w/ the iPhone).

Another holdout that I had w/ the iPhone was that I had heard that it wouldn’t synchronize with Outlook.  For me that is a huge deal because the past 15+ years of my life are archived in Outlook as well as my notes, tasks, and client data going back as long as I have been in business.  Leaving that kind of business intelligence behind was not an option.  I asked around and a few people told me that it was possible to sync up w/ Outlook but person after person at the AT&T store told me that the iPhone would not synchronize with Outlook, but I knew that I trusted my friends who had said that it would do it so I went ahead and brought a 3gs home w/ me to test it out.

Sure enough, on the first attempt it synchronized right up with my Outlook Contacts and Calendar.  Someone should tell AT&T to send out a memo to all of their sales people and let them know this because apparently it’s not common knowledge to them.  Long story short, I was able to sync up my contacts and my calendar but not able to hook up w/ my tasks.  And a few months ago the tasks thing would have been a deal killer for me but my partners and I recently moved over to Basecamp to do our project management so I was able to just load an app to handle my tasking and I was all setup.  Even better than I had hoped for…

Social Outlook Plugins

I tagged two plugins on delicious this morning for Microsoft Outlook that I am going to install and take a closer look at this week.  Both of these plugins serve a very practical purpose in my opinion.

If you are like me and utilize Microsoft Outlook to manage your calendar, tasks, email, and contacts, you probably leave it open all day long while you work, this is not uncommon.  If you utilize social networks like Facebook and Twitter to communicate with your friends and business associates as well, you probably have an app for Twitter that you like and probably keep a browser tab open all day dedicated to Facebook as well.  With all of these apps running it can hinder your systems performance a bit (we all know Outlook is a resource hog already).

These two apps, one for Facebook, called FBLook, and one for Twitter, called OutTwit, both add on to Outlook as toolbars to help you manage your accounts on both social networks.  How well do they work, and how much do they tie up resources?  I will let you know once I have had a chance to play w/ them but I can appreciate the need for both of them.

OutSync – Home

I had someone ask me today how I managed to synchronize my Facebook Friends w/ my Microsoft Outlook Contacts and I referred them back to an earlier blog post I had made about the product OutSync.  If you are trying to manage contact information for your friends in both Facebook and Outlook, you should give this application a try.

OutSync is a free Windows application that syncs photos of your Facebook friends with matching contacts in Microsoft Outlook. It allows you to select which contacts are updated. So you can update all contacts at once or just a few at a time.

The main benefit of OutSync is for Windows Mobile users. Updated contacts are automatically synced with Windows Mobile devices by Exchange server or ActiveSync. Thus new and fun photos appear during calls and other places where contacts are used.

OutSync is compatible with Windows XP, Vista and Server 2003. It requires Outlook 2003 or 2007.

Visit the OutSync page on Facebook for discussions, reviews and more.

OutSync – Home