If you’ve been using computers and Outlook for as long as I’ve have, you probably have had occasion to need to migrate from one computer to another and take your entire Outlook with you. You’ve spent a lifetime configuring and getting Outlook to respect your tastes.

One of the things that happens when you migrate to a new computer and setup Microsoft Office on it and start up your Outlook for the first time, it goes and creates an empty “Outlook profile” for you. There is no simple way (at least from a UI perspective, IMHO) to go and stop this. Outlook will always go and create an empty profile for you, the first time you start it. This is basically the reason that you actually get the duplicate contact folders problem in Outlook.

The typical prosumer / geek way of backing up Outlook for moving it to a new machine involves finding the profile’ PST file (typically in C:\Documents and Settings\YourWindowsUserName\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook) and copying it over to the new machine. Suppose you do manage to attach the old data file to your new Outlook and get your basic email / tasks / calendar working again, the one thing that typically screws up is the Contacts. Outlook retains the old data file that was created (at least the Contacts part) and shows it to you in various parts of the UI. This can become most irritating especially when Outlook still retains the Contacts from the data file that it default-created as your default Contacts repository even though you have no contacts in it. All “To:“ button clicks, address book lookups, etc. will default to this Contacts repository with a UI option to switch repositories via a drop down list box which displays a stupendously amazing list of two items, both showing the single, innocuous word, “Contacts”, leaving you to figure out which-is-which.

Now for the good news: It’s a pretty simple matter to eliminate this problem. Just use the “Tools – Email accounts” option and instead of selecting the normal Add / Change email account option, notice the bottom portion that you have become trained to turn a blind eye to, “Directory”. Use the “View or change existing directory or address books” option to receive a heretofore undiscovered dialog that lets you figure out a way to set Outlook’s address book selection preference and optionally even delete an address book. Yup that’s what you want to do. Only, you’ve got to figure out which particular “Contacts” book you’ve to delete, they are both named the exact same thing.

So, if you’ve been following me so far, I think it should be a simple matter for you to figure out the correct address book and delete it. The other address book quickly becomes the default and Outlook starts looking up contacts correctly again.

Or you could take the 0.5 probability chance to just delete the repository that shows by default. Is it the first
item, could it be any one of the two, if you’re willing to take the gamble, you have a good 50% chance of success. I took it and was rewarded suitably enough to write this. However, I *do* recommend a full backup of your PST file if you’re actually going to go ahead and try this. DO NOT come back to me and tell me, “What you asked me to do ended up with me losing ALL my contacts.” You were warned.

Do tell me if you’ve ever experienced this problem, and your experiences with above solution. I’ve not taken the time/effort to create screenshots and upload them yet, but I will, if anyone finds it necessary. Do post a comment if you want this.

While listening to: Juno Reactor - Contact

A laptop / notebook computer really has the potential to change your life. At least your digital life, for sure. If you’ve been a long time desktop-only computer user like me (I keep saying that, don’t I? ), with 1 or more computers at work and 1 or more computers at home, then, like me, a pretty substantial portion of your life has been spent shuttling data between these computers; an account of my travails follows:A laptop / notebook computer really has the potential to change your life. At least your digital life, for sure. If you’ve been a long time desktop-only computer user like me (I keep saying that, don’t I? ), with 1 or more computers at work and 1 or more computers at home, then, like me, a pretty substantial portion of your life has been spent shuttling data between these computers; an account of my travails follows:

I have had a primary computer at home and a primary computer at work for a long, long time. The home computer is just about continuously downloading all sorts of goodies (we’ll go into what-I-do-with-my-bandwidth later. Maybe.). The office computer is my primary “work” machine, where most of my corporate communication, project related files and research lies. I often carry a lot of work home and this must include all the files that are being worked on. Similarly, a lot of my colleagues at work want the goodies I download at home and these must be carried to work ever so often as well.

A major complication in all of this is email. I’ve got several email accounts, some related to work, some private / personal that got made over the years. All of these email accounts get downloaded into Outlook email at both locations. A lot of my work is corporate communication, I send out and receive *important* email. If I send a mail out from home, I must have a copy of it at work as well. This usually means emailing a bcc copy of the email to myself while sending it out from home and then picking it up manually from the inbox and moving it to Sent Items at office, later. So I’ve got slightly different email stores at both my locations.

Over the years I’ve regularly tried several different routines to get some semblance of sanity into this whole soup. For files I’ve tried out:
Emailing / online storage:

Pros: “Ubiquitousness” of files

Cons: Internet is required at each location

Large files take looooooooooong to transfer, at both ends.

“Thumb” usb flash memory drives:

Pros: Miniscule physical footprint,

Cons: Large files are generally not possible.

Plug-play-copy functionality.

Rewritable CDs:

Pros: A more “hard copy” of your files that you can carry around with you

CDRWs go bad often – reliability is low.

Decent file size possibility.

Cons: Need to have a writer to write files

Rewritable DVDs

Pros: A bigger file size possibility

Cons: Same as Rewritable CDs with one added complication, not everyone has a DVD ROM drive yet, so you might be stuck with a “How do I….?” issue.

USB IDE hard disks:

Pros: A much bigger file size possibility

Standard IDE hard disks can be used – a typical “cheaper-than-ever” starter hard disk is easily purchased

File transfer is f-a-s-t!

Cons: A lot bulkier (and heavier) than a CD or a thumb drive

Power is external to the device – not only do you have to hunt for a power point everywhere, you’re forced to carry a stiff power cord with a bulky, heavy power adaptor brick in it.

USB 2.0 “Laptop” hard disks

Pros: Quick plug-copy/play alternative.

Single, thin USB 2.0 cord required, powered by USB

Transfers are fast enough that you can access content direct from the drive.

This is currently my transfer device of choice.

Cons: None that I can think of!

So what does all this have to do with the usage of a laptop computer being a life altering experience? Read on. I’ve recently had the opportunity to finally “move into” a brand spanking new laptop over the past 2 – 3 weeks. This, if nothing else, has been a consolidation drive for me as I’ve now only have ONE primary computer now!! I’ve managed to consolidate all my email accounts onto the new laptop, all the important files are always present, and I can completely avoid the embarassing / publicly humiliating spectacle of me emailing myself that business proposal document that is yet half done and must be continued to be worked on from my “other” computer, because the file is *already there*. On my laptop.

Of course, having a laptop with you has many other different life alternating consequences. Your primary computer is *always* with you. Wherever you go, it never leaves your side. Once you get settled into using a laptop all the time you start consolidating the rest of your digital experience *around* this laptop! You start accumulating gadgets that you carry around with you and can plug into your laptop at will. This includes that must-have portable wireless mouse, extra disk storage, perhaps an extended battery, a headphone / headset and a webcam for all those voice / video calls that you can now easily make over the Internet, anywhere! Everywhere you go, you frantically hunt for wireless Internet connectivity and are disappointed if you can’t find it.

All-in-all it’s been a pleasant experience shifting my digital life over to the new laptop and I’ve seen quite a productivity increase just because of this not so humble machine. If you’ve been thinking of going in for that laptop that you’ve been eyeing for quite some time and didn’t know whether it would actually work out or not or whether the “extra” laptop would ever end up being useful or not, trust me and go in for it, once you do get it, there will be no turning back. And laptops are continuously delivering more bang for a much lower-price so look around for the best deal possible.

If you’ve gotten so far, then you must definitely have identified with at least some of the problems / solutions that I mention. Do tell me about your own experiences. Just pop in a comment if you’ve got something to say, I assure you I read *all* comments.

Yes. I would love to say that I’ve spent the whole past half year creating this site. I’d love to say that this is the culmination of the efforts of countless hours of painstaking effort by me.

But I can’t.

‘Coz that would be a lie.

The system that this site is built on is in fact the results of the countless hours of effort of the Cynapse team. Over the past uncountable months we’ve gone and done some magic! And also learnt, burnt our fingers, learnt some more from experiences, improved, developed countless components for ourselves and numerous clients, field tested the whole platform under the most adverse of conditions, toiled at the CSS styling, and kept polishing our “precious” gem until it shines, so!

Total time to set up this site, including putting up this content: 15 minutes. Enough to silence all you critics. Yes, the picture on top looks really old and unmatched, I know. I’ve still got to work on finding a more recent photo.

This is the current setting for my new home. A brand new site. With no content in it except this pathetic attempt at garnering some undeserved empathy from you, dear constant reader.

No excuses. I didn’t get the time to really look into making the “new site” I kept talking about on the old one. The good news is that that’s about to change. Shortly. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

Keep checking, shortly the RSS feed should be up for the posts and then *you* won’t have to do the checking.

-Dhiraj.