richardgoodwin.com

Review (no sign in needed) here:

http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20060615.html

Ok, bear with me, as this one is a tad convoluted

The Problem:
Blackberry won’t sync well w/ Outlook inside the Parallels virtual machine. The USB support is flaky at best, and I can’t seem to make it work consistently. Plus it’s a pain to constantly fiddle w/ the virtual connection.

The (sort of) Solution:
PocketMac is available for free, and syncs fantastically with iCal (and AddressBook, but that is something to tackle later…). But wait…iCal isn’t Outlook! Richard, you are crazy! Keep reading

How it works:
Outlook can be made to export your calendar to iCalendar format, via a number of ways, but the best one I found was this script called (amazingly) outlook2ical.js from Ryan Watkins. This script will (at default) output a file called calender.ics.  Using the standard scheduling and ftp commands inside of Windows, and the FTP server and iCal features in OS X, you can automatically get that file published to iCal in OS X and then easily sync natively with Pocketmac.

Now, the steps:

1. Enable the FTP capabilities in Sharing pane in OS X.
2. Download the outlook2ical script, and put it somewhere in your Windows virtual machine
3. Write a txt file that contains the commands needed to ftp the file over to OS X. This file will be read in by the ftp program using the -s:scriptname parameter. (see “samplescript.txt” below)
4. Write a batch file that runs the outlook2ical script, and then calls ftp to move the file (see “putcal.bat” below)
5. Use Scheduled Tasks to run the putcal.bat as often as you see fit.
6. Subscribe iCal to the calender.ics file in your ftp location with this url: “ftp://localhost/calendar.ics”. Then set iCal to update it as often as you see fit.
7. Install PocketMac and set it to sync with iCal on connection.

Code listings:

“samplescript.txt”
open 172.25.2.2   <– note that this is MY Mac IP, you need to put yours here (and read below)
put_your_username_here
put_your_password_here
binary
put c:\calender.ics
quit

“putcal.bat”
c:\outlook2ical.js
ftp -s:samplescript.txt

Now, a wise man can also see that this could work for BootCamp users to SOME extent, if you had some kind of startup script in OS X that would go grab the calender.ics off the Windows partition and put it into the proper FTP location. However, it would be infrequently updated at best, and if you’re using BootCamp, why not just sync under Windows

I did try using RemoteCalendars first, but this method has some issues:

• You have to setup WebDAV on your OS X box, which can be a little tricky
• There doesn’t seem to be a way to automate the update of the publishing of the Outlook calendar to the WebDAV share (I had to click it manually every time).

At any rate, this seems like it will work, but of course any time my Wifi IP (172.25.2.2) changes, things are going to break. Perhaps some kind soul can help me figure out a way to address my OS X by hostname to get around this?

Comments and suggestions are heartily welcomed

I heard this mentioned by Wil Wheaton and then J Wynia, so I got on board

(Obligatory post follows for registration purposes!)

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 8365553

My first shipment from Valleyschwag arrived today!

The contents are as follows….

• RubyRed t-shirt - (which ironically is pastel blue… /me doublechecks that I have “boy” in my profile )
• PerplexCity cards
• Goatsesighting.com stickers - ouch…on many layers
• eff.org sticker
• tiny buttons from women2.0 conference (yah, still says “boy” in profile…mmm), and minty
• ioda alliance sticker
• abazab.com temp tattoo

All in all, I have to say I’m a little disappointed for the first shipment. Of course, I realize they went from 50 to 1500 subscribers almost overnight so some shortage is expected :)  If I could give some advice…

1. Gender matters - I loves me some women, but not some women’s schwag
2. Goatsesighting…how does one explain that to mum?
3. More shirts!  How can I possibly hope to displace every respectable piece of clothing I have with a slow trickle of branded tees like this?

Anyway, I’ll give it another month (since I think they may have already charged me for it anyway) and see what happens.

Check out the my photos here and other valleyschwag pics here!

Technorati Tags: valleyschwag, schwag, rubyred, perplexcity

Fortune has smiled upon me and I was selected to be an early tester of Codeweavers Crossover product for the Mac. (The link is to the Linux version, no Mac product page available yet!)

So far, I have been able to run quite a few apps to some degree or another, which is pretty amazing. The list includes:

• Office 2003 - Mixed success. Word runs, but has some font and occasional crashing issues; Outlook is in a bad way (but CW knows this and is working on it). Excel and PowerPoint seemed to work quite well!
• Mirc (for fun!)
• FlashFXP - Runs surprisingly well, was able to do file transfers and other activities at pretty much full speed
• FastStone Image Viewer - Was able to browse thumbnails, perform image editing functions, etc.

All in all, it’s pretty amazing for a first alpha. 
 
It has lots of helpful features, like…

• software installation wizard: helps install software from CD, folder, or .exe or (in some cases) will pull the files right off the net.
• Crossover Menu: adds all of your programs into a special Crossover menu for quick launching. However, at this stage the menu is IN Crossover, which is kind of annoying They are working on an exporter that will put app aliases right on your desktop or elsewhere
• file associations(!): When I copy over .doc and .xls files, they get actual Word/Excel icons and opening them launches Crossover+Word (or Excel). Tres cool!

At any rate, it’s early going, but looking VERY promising. Maybe I won’t need Parallels
for all of my apps

If you have requests for screenshots, or specific apps you want tested, let me know! Email wordpress c/o richardgoodwin.com

Update: AOL 9.0 Screenshot as requested…

Technorati Tags: mac, osx, crossover, office

While the forum is and continues to be a great resource for capturing
info about Parallels Desktop for Mac, I thought it would be very useful to get something a
little more persistent in place.

To that end I’ve created a Wiki at my site, and kicked it off with some basic structure. The wiki can be found here:

http://richardgoodwin.com/tw/tiki-index.php

I’m going to leave it open for anonymous editing unless we have some
miscreants trying to wreck things. It’s free, persistent (daily
backups!), and I hope it can become a great resource for PD users
everywhere! Editing is very simple, just click the “edit” box or icon
on any page and then look at the help below the box if you need more
info.

Please feel free to head over and start putting in your information (including hardware compatibility!) when you have some time.

@Parallels: I hope this isn’t impinging on you guys in any way. I’ve made it pretty clear that it’s “not official!”

Technorati Tags: parallels, OSX, virtualization