Juniorbird.com

I’ve kept all of my e-mail since 1995, and I don’t have any intention of losing it just because I switch from a Mac to a PC. I needed to export my mail from Mailsmith and import it into Outlook. The process I came up with acutally works to import mbox files into Outlook from any program that can make .mbox files — including Netscape Mail, Apple Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, Pine, and, well, probably anything that runs on *nix systems.
Now, “some folks”:http://fkeeps.com/fmorph/fmindex.htm will want you to give them money to import your mail from an .mbox file into Outlook. My procedure has the positive side effect of being free.
Since I was using Mailsmith, and not something like Netscape Mail or Apple Mail that uses mbox files as its native store, I had to export everything first. Fortunately, BareBones provides “a simple Applescript to do just that”:http://www.barebones.com/support/technotes/tech_import_export.shtml.
Outlook won’t just go and import mbox files. It does import from Eudora, which uses .mbx files with associated .idx files that keep some sort of an index of something (I am too lazy to look inside). Eudora does import straight .mbox files and will generate .idx files for them. So, the “Light or Sponsored version of Eudora”:http://eudora.com/products/eudora/download/ is your friend, and our middle step in this process.
Eudora is very liberal in what it considers its mailstore; specifically, it will consider any .mbx file you put in your user folder as its mailstore and display it as a folder. To import all of your mbox files into Eudora, you just need to rename them with a .mbx file extension. You can “use the shell to do this”:http://www.secretaboutbox.com/site/articles/extensions.php.
Once Eudora’s open, you’ll need to open and rename each folder to make sure that Eudora builds an .idx file for it. Sadly (since I have 90-some folders), I couldn’t figure out a way to automate this. Probably would be a quick job with some Visual Basic and COM, if you already knew Eudora’s object model.
Now that Eudora has built an .idx file for each folder, Outlook will be more than happy to import all of your mail. For free!

Why must everything take a few extra steps in Windows? Why must everything be hidden behind thre menu options or only accessable with a right-click? Why can’t things just be put nicely, cleanly, in one place? Why must everything important be controlled by an eensy-weensy icon in the bottom left of my screen? Why, why, why?
Yes, I’m talking to you, print server that requires me to change every single networking option on my computer to set you up. And you, shitty wireless router from Dell, you don’t help at all, dropping the signal all the time, requiring a hard reset. Why, my four-year-old Apple Airport gave me a stronger signal.
This is just a bitch for today. Tomorrow: “useful tips”:http://daringfireball.net/2004/05/writing_for_google.

So far, I actually like my new system pretty well. I’m configuring everything just the way I like it, and am becoming comfortable with Windows XP. Then Apple comes along and announces “Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger”:http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/ and makes me jealous.
Tiger offers almost everything I am looking for in an operating system. In addition to all of the “wonderful things in OS X 10.2 Jaguar”:http://juniorbird.com/archives/000212.html, Tiger adds clever things like easy-to-hide little utilities, pervasive and fast search, real accessability, and an easy way to make automatic, repeatable tasks. Stuff that real people who really want to use their computers *better* can take advantage of. Stuff that Microsoft has promised for Longhorn, in 2006 or 2007.
So, I’ll be jealous for a bit. I’m sure that, when I start using the PC-only applications promised in my orientation packet, and start easily collaborating with my classmates, I’ll appreciate this PC.
Until then, oh yes, I’ll be plenty jealous.