More ways to get outlook data into mail.app

macosxhints.com - Import Outlook Express (PC) emails into Mail

Mac OSX Hints has lots of posts on this topic.

LaunchBar - There's so much more

I've used LaunchBar for years. It's astonishing. I'm disappointed they never did a Windows version; even today the Windows imitators I've seen are worthless fakes.

Despite all my use, I've never tweaked the default configuration, nor explored all the advanced options. In part this is because my wife has first dibs on the iMac, and I make do with a pathetic XP box (sniff).

Today though, I became fed up with a longstanding annoynace. I want to use Launchbar to quickly navigate to folders, but the default setup indexes file names that clutter my search results. I prefer other methods to find files (Spotlight for example), LaunchBar works as my app launcher.

It turns out that it's only a moment's work to reconfigure Launchbar to ignore files and only index folders. Nirvana! I index applications, folders, and the address book -- nothing else. Works great.

I'm even experiencing with indexing the folder structure of my XP box, and scheduling an index update each night. I have a hunch that will work exceedingly well. I really do need to get my hands on a new MacBook.

If you don't use Launchbar you should, and if you do use it, browse the excellent web site. There are capabilities you don't know about ...

The NHL on Google Video

Hockey is hard to find on TV -- outside of Canada. Now you can get it on Google. They have the MN Wild game from November 2nd, the games come with ratings.

On my iMac the sound is very good, but the picture is pixelated. Even so, it's watchable and didn't hang.. (The fan on my iMac spins up when doing this -- highly annoying.)

The game can be downloaded as an mp4 file for the iPod or PSP. A 1 hour game is 270MB. I'm going to give it a try.

This could be a very handy tool for when I have a restless 8 year old.

The choice of hockey for this initial deployment is very interesting. I bet this will be quite popular. The game I'm watching now has had 869 views -- and it's the Wild vs. Canucks ...

Travel router and access point

I'm shopping for a travel router/hub/access point. I'd actually prefer a very compact 4-5 port wired switch to a wireless access point, if only to reduce security concerns and wireless interference options.

I'll post on what I buy here, but credit first to bloglines search. Google searches turned up nothing readily, but a bloglines sesarch on travel router got great hits, including this one: Tablet PC Thoughts: Travellers Wireless Solution ... Access Point and Router.

Blogs rule.

Exif, not EXIF: a Wikipedia primer

Exif is the main way digital cameras store date and other information. Capturing date information is hugely valuable for most home shooters, so you'd think there'd be a robust standard around this type of metadata.

Wrong.

The Wikipedia article is excellent. Read it, understand why image editors routinely wreck Exif metadata, and weep. The article could be improved by mentioning Adobe's XMP, I'll add a comment to that effect.

The modern hard drive: Apple tech note is geekily interesting

Apple is implementing Intel's specification for the organization of data on hard drives. This will take OS X beyond the 2TB limit. The Technical Note (TN2166: Secrets of the GPT) is surprisingly readable and, for a geek, is a neat introduction on how very large storage systems work.

Monitors for adults with poor vision

In the old days it was easy to put a decent display together for someone with poor vision. You'd buy a CRT and run it at a low resolution, something that gave 64 pixels/inch. (You could try using XP's option to change how those pixels are used, but it really doesn't work. OS X 10.4 doesn't have that option, 10.5 is supposed to be scalable -- so more pixels/inch can just mean better display of objects of unchanged size.)

With LCDs things don't work that well. Dan's Data has ideas. The one I favor is bolded.

Dan's Data letters #178

1: Get a good-sized CRT monitor, like a 19 or 21 incher, and run it at a suitably low resolution. 1024 by 768 on a '21 inch' screen with a 20 inch real viewable diagonal gives about 64 pixels per inch.

2: Get a big LCD monitor and run it at less than its rated resolution. That'll give you a fuzzy picture as the monitor spreads displayed pixels around its physical pixels, but you should get sharp results if you can run at exactly half (or even a quarter) of the rated resolution.

The advantage of this strategy is that if someone with 20:20 vision wants to use the computer, they can crank the resolution back up. And some large LCD monitors actually cost about the same as similar-sized LCD TVs with much lower resolution. Dell's popular (jf: 24") 2407WFP is the best example; it currently lists for $US720 or something, has a rated resolution of 1920 by 1200, and should be easy to run and good-looking at 960 by 600. That'd give about 47 pixels per inch.

3: Use an LCD TV that does fit on the desk. There are plenty of mid-sized options, and a lot of them have 'RGB' inputs suitable for computers - many have a plain old 'VGA socket' on the back, and that usually means they can sync to normal computer output scan rates (you can't bet on a TV with a DVI socket on the back being able to take input at various resolutions or refresh rates)...

Dan likes the TVs because they're ppi are low compared to a computer display. I like the LCD option, but it's expensive. You have to pay a LOT to end up with something that's a bit better than an 800x600 display. Maybe an old CRT is really the best option.

PS. I checked my iMac. It has a 21" display and the resolutions are 1680x1050 (what I use) and half that is 840x524. I didn't think 840x524 was any better than 1024x768.