Address Book Export Saga
May 26, 2006I momentarily lost the contents of my address book today, and certain individuals (who shall remain nameless) used the opportunity to gloat about my misfortune, and to chalk one up for PCs/Windoze. Fortunately–just like a football player who’s team is winning the game and receives some ’stick’ from the opposition–all I have to do is “point to the scoreboard“. I’m well ahead on that score!
Anyway:I was trying to export my contacts to a .csv file and–much to my chagrin–discovered that Address Book (Version 4.0.3) can only export vCards. Problem is you can’t import vCard data format into Excel (or Spreadsheet in OpenOffice).
So, with the power of google at my fingertips, off I went in search of a utility. Sure enough, I found one via the Apple website. It didn’t have all the features I wanted, but it looked like it would do the export. Well, export it did–all of my contacts. It did not copy them out, it moved them out! Shit. And without knowing this, I trashed the export file after I discovered that the format was not particularly useful. Double shit.
Thankfully, my mobile phone proved to be my saving grace. I regularly sync the laptop with the phone and was able to use the phone’s ’send all contacts’ feature to retrieve the data. Back to normal. I also have a backup procedure in place, which was the non-preferred option as the data was probably a little older. This serves as a reminder to make sure that it is up-to-date.
Oh, and in the process, I did manage to find a nice little utility that does exactly what I want it to … AddressBookExporter-2.1.2. I recommend that you check it out for yourself if you need to export your data in the more useful text format.
Flu Hangover
May 24, 2006I’ve been laid up with the flu for the last few days. Despite being relatively fit and not being on the high-risk list it has really knocked my around; headaches, dizzy spells, weakness. Messy.
Don’t feel much like writing, but at least I’ve managed to catch up on some reading! I’ve had my head in a couple of books–real paper ones. Online activity has been sparse — I can’t stand staring at a monitor for too long. Don’t think I’ve missed too much. Looking forward to being back to ‘normal’.
Rogue Intellect?
May 18, 2006Fellow ‘generalist’ Dr. Terry Rock’s attempt to put a framework around his vocation:
“… I suppose you could say I’m a generalist … I thrive when I’m charged with applying my accumulated knowledge, including seemingly esoteric management theory, to real-world problems. And I prefer to do that work as part of a team that challenges my thinking and stimulates my sense of humour while moving the whole endeavor forward.”
Memorable Quotes — Neville Smith
May 17, 2006“Thinking strategically is accepting the intellectual challenge of creating the future.”
Inner Serentity
May 16, 2006I was watching Denton last night and he did a fascinating interview with Lee Stringer–a former crack addict–and best-selling author. Stringer came out with some really memorable quotes and anecdotes about his writing experiences.
Firstly, he described the feeling he got from being published as “a high … but a connected high, not a disconnected high“. Asked about how he handled success as a writer, his reponse was; “gaining by inches on inner serenity.” Poignant.
I guess people have different motivations for writing, but this struck a chord with me. Writing is, for me, often an inner release of thoughts and feelings; and can often be quite a cathartic process. What are your writing motivations and experiences?
