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Category: Technology

Using Mail Merge With Custom FROM: Addresses in Word/Outlook 2007 or Word/Entourage 2008

October 29, 2009/Technology

The following was written for my lab group at work, however it strikes me as something everyone may benefit from. Mail Merge is an awesome tool, and this makes it much more useful when a group shares an incoming e-mail address that replies should be directed to (e.g., sales@ or info@ etc.. instead of the individual who sent the mail). I’ve had to sanitize some of the screenshots to remove private information, however it shouldn’t detract from the overall message!

You’ll need:

  • A copy of a mailing list, in either excel format or CSV.
  • Microsoft Word
  • Microsoft Outlook or Entourage
  • An SMTP username & Password to send out through SMTP Servers that require encryption.

First-Time Setup

You’ll do these steps once per computer you use this on. I’ve broken them down by Outlook 2007 or Entourage 2008, with screen shots. The basic process is…
Outlook 2007:

  1. In Outlook, click on “Tools” then “Account Settings”
  2. Click New to set up a new e-mail account
    Screenshot%20-%2010_26_2009%20%208_35_53%20AM
  3. Choose “Microsoft Exchange, POP3, IMAP, or HTTP”, and click “Next”
  4. Click “Manually configure server settings or additional server types”, and click “Next”
  5. Choose “Internet E-mail” and click “Next”
  6. Fill out the information in the box as is appropriate using your group e-mail and a valid username and password that can authenticate to the SMTP server. Then click “More Settings”Screenshot%20-%2010_26_2009%20%208_40_29%20AM
  7. After hitting “More Settings”, choose the “Outgoing Server” tab and configure as follows (Assuming you need SMTP Auth):Screenshot%20-%2010_26_2009%20%208_41_45%20AM
  8. Then click the “Advanced” tab and configure as follows if you need to specify SSL or TLS:Screenshot%20-%2010_26_2009%20%208_46_06%20AM
  9. Click “OK”, click “Next”, then click “Finish”. On the accounts box, select the new POP3 account you just created and click “Set as Default” so that the box looks like this:Screenshot%20-%2010_26_2009%20%208_43_02%20AM
  10. Hit “close”. You should now be set to use Mail Merge. Be sure to change your default back when done (See below for this step under “cleanup”)

Entourage 2008

  1. In Entourage, click on Tools, then Accounts.
  2. Click on New, then MailScreen%20shot%202009-10-26%20at%208
  3. Click on “Configure Account Manually”
  4. Choose “POP” then click “OK”
  5. Configure your account like the setup below, putting in your SMTP username and password:Screen%2520shot%25202009-10-26%2520at%25209_004
  6. Click on the button under SMTP Server that reads “Click here for advanced sending options”
  7. Configure as follows depending on your server, the following is for one that requires TLS encryption:Screen%2520shot%25202009-10-26%2520at%25208_002
  8. Click OK, and return to the Accounts window. Select your new account and choose “Make Default”. You’ll want to change this back later:Screen%2520shot%25202009-10-26%2520at%25208_003
  9. Close the Accounts window, you should now be ready to mail merge!

Running the Mail Merge (After Setup)

Word 2007/Outlook 2007

  1. Open Word, Choose “Mailings” tab from the Ribbon, and click “Start Mail Merge”, Then choose “Email Messages”Screenshot%20-%2010_26_2009%20%209_04_32%20AM
  2. Next choose “Select Recipients” and then “Use Existing List”. In the dialog that pops up, select the CSV file containing the mailing list:Screenshot%20-%2010_26_2009%20%209_05_12%20AMScreenshot%20-%2010_26_2009%20%209_06_40%20AM
  3. Clicking on “Edit Recipient List” should show you something like this:Screenshot%20-%2010_26_2009%20%209_07_41%20AM
  4. Click OK. Now you need to use “Match Fields” to make sure that title, firstname, lastname, and e-mail address are all matched up properly (The file in my example doesn’t have headings on the rows, so the first row values (my information) is what Word feels is the best identifier of each field):Screenshot%20-%2010_26_2009%20%209_09_54%20AMScreenshot%20-%2010_26_2009%20%209_09_31%20AM

    Screenshot%20-%2010_26_2009%20%209_09_43%20AM

  5. With everything all matched up, you can now type your letter including Merge fields as you’d like. Here’s my example:Screenshot%20-%2010_26_2009%20%209_12_51%20AM
  6. After you have everything written, click on “Preview Results” and you can see the “live version” that your readers will receive:Screenshot%20-%2010_26_2009%20%209_31_37%20AM
  7. Once you’re satisfied, hit “Finish and Merge”, then “Send e-mail messages”Screenshot%20-%2010_26_2009%20%209_32_18%20AM
  8. In the box that pops up, find the e-mail column in the the “to:” drop down. Enter a subject as well, and hit OKScreenshot%20-%2010_26_2009%20%209_33_17%20AM
  9. Mail Merge will rev up and spit a bunch of files into your Outbox in Outlook, and these will eventually go out to the masses
  10. Cleanup: Remember to go to tools -> Account Settings and change the default back to your usual email account instead of the account you created in the “First Time Setup” above!!

Word 2008 / Entourage 2008

  1. Open Word 2008 and choose “Tools” then “Mail Merge Manager”
  2. In the window that opens, choose “Form Letter” under “Select Document Type”, then under “Select Recipient List” choose “Open Data File”Screen%20shot%202009-10-26%20at%209
  3. Chose the CSV file that contains your mailing list.
  4. Drag and drop placeholders where you’d like them in your mailing. Here’s my example:Screen%2520shot%25202009-10-26%2520at%25209_005
  5. Under “Preview Results” click “View Merged Data” to see the resulting e-mailsScreen%2520shot%25202009-10-26%2520at%25209_003
  6. Click “Generate e-mail messages” on the “Compete Merge” tab. NOTE: If Entourage is not your default mail client, this button will be grayed out. To make Entourage your default mail client, go into Entourage preferences and click the button that says “Make Entourage my default mail client”.Screen%2520shot%25202009-10-26%2520at%25209_002
  7. Fill in the appropriate values in the Mail Recipient dialog, and click “Mail Merge to Outbox”:Screen%2520shot%25202009-10-26%2520at%252010_002
  8. Because the world is a scary place, Entourage pops up a warning message like this below. Go ahead and let it send your mail since you know what script sent it!Screen%20shot%202009-10-26%20at%2010
  9. Cleanup: After the mail merge is done, you’ll want to go to Tools -> Accounts and set your e-mail default back to your original account so that you send as yourself and not as the group e-mail address you used for mail merge.

So there you have it, mail merge to any particular list you have, with a custom FROM header.

Migrate A Google Sites to a Google Apps Installation

October 21, 2009/Technology

After much gnashing of teeth and cries of angst, I was able to move a Google Site to a Google Apps Installation. In the end, it was actually really simple…

The first approach was to use the Google-Sites-Liberation tool, published recently on Google code, which looked very promising. However I soon found 2 issues with our particular domain (This one and this one) which unfortunately prevented me from using the tool. I also didn’t have much time to devote to debugging it. Desperate, I pieced together the following method through a few inferences and forum posts. It’s pretty simple: Copy the site from your account to your apps account!

You’ll need to be an “owner” of the site you’re trying to migrate to do this, and will probably need GMail enabled on the destination apps installation, here are the steps:

 

1. Log into the google site you want to migrate and bring up sharing properties.

image 

Next, share the site to your Google Apps account’s e-mail address

image

 

2. Log into your Google Apps GMail and you should find an e-mail telling you that you’ve been added as an owner to the original site:

image

3. Click on the link (you may want to sign out of your original GMail account here so that you enter the site as your Apps identity). You should see your Apps e-mail address in the upper right, not your GMail address. If you see the GMail address, sign out and then click the link again from your Apps GMail.

4. click on “More actions” then “Manage Site”

 

image

 

5. Click on General in the left link bar.

image

6. On that page, click “Copy This Site”

image

7. The dialog box for copying should be for your Apps domain, not for regular Google Sites, it should look something like this (With your apps installation name where I’ve blacked out):

image

8. Click Copy Site (Unchecking revisions if you have a lot of them, and site members if you don’t want them), and you should now have an exact copy of the Sites site in your Apps installation!

9. You’ll probably want to close off editing of the old site to the new, if applicable to you. Now pop some champagne and enjoy!

Add Facebook Friend’s Birthdays to your Calendar Automatically

October 11, 2009/Articles, Technology

Lifehacker recently published an article detailing a few ways to help remember the things you actually care about, as opposed to those you don’t but remember anyway (such as the MVP of the 1996 All-star game). One of the little gems that was tucked in the article was the application fbCal which integrates your Facebook Birthdays and events with the calendar of your choosing. I have this now set up on my Google Calendar and am extremely happy as it’s A) always up to date and B) putting information where I’ll actually look for it, not where I don’t look (e.g., a sidebar on facebook.com)

To get it set up, all you need to do is install the fbCal application to your facebook account and allow it offline access (So you’ll have two prompts to hit “OK” to when installing):

image

Once it’s installed, you can then choose how to export your calendar. The tool exports in the standard iCal format, so it’s easily imported into desktop PIMs like iCal on the Mac and Outlook on the PC. It not only includes birthdays, but can include events as well:

image

Since I use Google Calendar, I clicked on the Google Calendar link and was taken to my calendar, then asked if I wanted to add the new fbCal calendar to my list of calendars. It adds as a shared calendar, which means that it will automatically update whenever I add a friend (Or I guess if a friend changes their birthday!). It gave a very long and annoying name to the calendar, so I changed that by drilling into settings and changing the name:

image

Now on my Google Calendar main page, I have the FB Birthdays calendar, which I can toggle on and off as desired:

image

All of this took around 10 minutes, and the feed took about an hour (for some reason) to show up in my calendar. Now it’s working just fine and I thought it was cool enough to share here! Happy calendaring!

Get Off Your Lazy *** and Set up Google Reader!

September 24, 2009/Articles, Technology

I often talk with people who spend just as much time as me (or more) surfing various blogs and sites to keep up on news in a broad array of areas. One complaint is usually that people miss material, or material is posted so rapidly that they feel overwhelmed. A solution to this is to use an RSS reader, a favorite is Google Reader, to read your news. When I mention this, I often hear  “No, that’s too much work” – quite a funny statement since once it’s set up, the RSS reader will actually save hours and hours of time wasted surfing to pages and refreshing them.

And it isn’t even a lot of work in the first place – you can be up and running with Google Reader in under 10 minutes, and here’s how.

1. Get a Google account if you don’t already have one.

2. Log in to Google Reader

3. Once in, it will look pretty empty. However never fear – you’ll soon have your news and blog posts show up. Click the “Add Subscription” button and enter the web address of the page you want to add. Most blogs and news websites now have their RSS feed links set up so that Reader can automatically find it:

image

 

Once you hit “Add”, you’re done – the news items from that site will now appear. Occasionally you may need to track down a specific feed address (for example, some larger sites have feeds just for certain news items, like Science news or Entertainment news). If you need to find those, go to the site you’re reading and look for the RSS icon: image  – clicking on it should take you to the RSS link. You can then copy and paste it from your browser’s address bar to the Add a Subscription box in Reader.

Once you have reader set up, all you need to do to read your feeds is log into reader, and click All Items:

image

It will then display all items from all of your feeds in the right hand reading pane. You can spend more time reading and less time loading pages.

 

I estimate it would take a medium-to-heavy blog reader around 15 minutes to add all of their feeds to reader, and then most likely save them about 5 minutes per day in page load times, bookmark clicks, and such. So after 3 days, reader’s setup has paid for itself time wise, not to mention you’ll sound cool since you can actually tell everyone all of the cool things you’ve read – not have them say “Hey, didn’t you see that article on X blog about…”

Backup & Restore Android Apps Using ADB

August 25, 2009/Android, Technology

Android is an interesting platform for a number of reasons, one of which is it’s openness to developer and debugging tools, and the fact that it runs a modified form of Linux as an operating system. If you’re like me and quite fond of jumping around from ROM to ROM on your Android devices, a quick and easy way to backup your program files (and even settings) is quite desirable. Here’s my solution, hopefully it will help you. I know there are easier ways, but for a diehard geek who has the setup ready, this is the fastest way.

First step: Install Android Debug Bridge (adb)

adb is a tool found in the Android SDK, which you can download here. Once you unzip the SDK, add the directory to your path so you can call adb.exe from the command line (or just always run it from it’s tools directory). Once the SDK is installed, you can connect your device to your computer and make sure you SKIP the driver detection Windows automatically starts. If you don’t, Windows will install a generic USB device driver and adb won’t work. If you accidentally do this, follow the steps outlined here to fix the problem. You may want to use pstools to run Registry Editor as System to fully delete out the entries that the fix tells you to delete, otherwise it’s a long process of taking ownership of directories, giving yourself permission, and finally deleting the directory. Repeat 15 times. Sounds like fun right?

So how do you know you have adb installed and working? Well if you plug in your device and run the following command:

adb devices

and you get back something that looks like this:

List of devices attached

HT845GZ67642 device

then it’s working. If you get a message saying that no devices were found, then it isn’t!

Second step: Backup the applications (and settings)

Now that you have adb working, open a command line and make a new directory. To backup the apk files (The package files that store the program’s executables and libraries), run the following command:

adb pull /data/app ./

and you should see a long list of apk files being downloaded to your computer. UPDATE: if you’re using a ROM that places your applications on the SD card for speed and backup purposes, the above command won’t work. Instead use the following command:

adb pull /system/sd/app ./

Settings are a slightly different beast. They’re stored under /data/data on the device, and you may have to hunt around a bit to find what you’re looking for. running the following command will let you access your phone in the same way you’d SSH into a unix/linux machine, or work at the Mac command prompt:

adb shell

Some examples are below of often-backed-up files you may want to grab off your device:

MMS/SMS data: /data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases/mmssms.db

Browser settings: /data/data/com.android/browser

System WiFi Settings: /data/misc/wifi

Once you have everything you want backed up, it’s time to restore!

Third step: Restoring data

Assuming you want to restore APK files, and you have all of those in 1 directory, you can run the following command on a mac to install all those apk files:

find ./ –exec adb install {} \;

If you’re on a Windows machine, your command is a bit longer, and this assuems your apk files are in c:\backupapps

for %%f in (“C:\BackupApps\*.apk”) do adb install “%%f”

Alternatively, from a command line window in the directory you have your backed up apps, you can run the following on a Windows machine:

adb install *.apk

After the applications, you can restore whatever data files and settings you backed up. Oh, and for you apps2SD users that may have a really bloated extended partition and want to wipe clean, try the following to clear the EXT partition on your SD card so you can move new apps over (useful for those who are doing completely clean installs on SD cards that were previously used with apps2SD). You should do this from the Recovery image, not the actual live running version (e.g. reboot and hold Home to get to recovery image.)

mount /system/sd
rm -rf /system/sd/*

Hopefully this little walk-through was somewhat helpful for you! If so, leave a comment!

Amazing what we can do these days eh?

April 10, 2009/Technology

Automation is pretty crazy. As I type this, I’m unsure what is actually going to happen when I hit Publish. You see, up until a week ago, I had a pretty jury rigged system where I posted something to a Joomla based CMS that was rather clunky, and then I twittered about it, and that twitter post went to my facebook status. Along the way a component for Joomla would download entries from my other blogs and Pocket PC Thoughts and dump them into the database. This seemed to work out pretty well, but I thought perhaps a more up-to-date system would be nice. Especially with all the changes coming up in the next few months, why not have a better site?
So I’m typing this in the backend of WordPress (Being on a Linux laptop I’m unable to use Windows Live Writer or Word right now), and I have a bunch of gizmos turned on to do various things. First of all, I’m tagging this with a Twitter tag, which I THINK is supposed to trigger some plugin I have to push this out to Twitter and a bunch of other websites (e.g. statuses on Facebook, Myspace, etc..). I’m not sure if it will work. At the same time, the same plugin should push this out as a note on Facebook, but who knows if it will (If you’re reading this there, then I guess it worked).

Now Twitter poses a bit of a problem for me because when this publishes out, I don’t want it sucked back in. Why would it do that? Well, my status updates need to be archived for glory on JonWestfall.Com, and if my status update advertises my blog item and then the status update actually upstages the blog item, it just creates a self-referential storm of junk on the homepage. So I hopefully found a solution using Yahoo! Pipes that should block from my twitter feed any items with [JonWestfall.Com] in them from EVER appearing back on the homepage. Ugh.

If this sounds confusing, that’s because it really is. All I want is everything I write to A) appear on JonWestfall.Com in some form and B) my friends to know I’ve posted something (in whatever medium they’re using or accessing). I guess those two are mutually exclusive to some extent. So what will happen when I press “Publish”? Who knows, but hopefully something good.

Take The Internet With You When You Go!

May 24, 2008/Technology

About a year ago, I switched from Direcway Broadband Satellite internet to a Sprint EVDO Rev A card for my home internet service. The choice was easy – the Sprint card was cheaper and had better speeds overall than the satellite. For awhile, I put my broadband card into a spare computer and had it share the connection via Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) in Windows XP. Then I found a router online (The WRT54G3G-ST) that would let me pop the card right into my router and avoid the ICS hassle. The best part about using a broadband card for your internet service is that when you leave, you can simply take the internet with you when you go. However unless you want to install the broadband card drivers on every laptop in the family, there is no easy way to share (Unless you think setting up an adhoc network in Vista and sharing the internet – reliably – is easy!). My Solution? A cheap and easy rig that will let you pack “The Internet” with you when you go!

Step 1 – Parts

You’ll probably want the following (At least my rig is set up like this). My rig allows for the internet to be powered through AC or DC, depending on if you’re in a car or hotel room. Here are the parts:

  • Broadband card (Duh…)
  • Broadband Router (The WRT45G3G-ST in my case)
  • Short power strip (Optional, I suppose)
  • Some sort of Power Inverter (DC to AC). Mine is 400W, however you may be able to get away with less!
  • Box (Either an actual project box from somewhere like Radio Snack, or in my case, two Avon box lids)

 

Step 2 – Construction

You’ll probably want to plan out your rig before actually constructing it. I did mine visually, however for the sake of easy explaining, I’ll do up a small diagram (Click on it to see it a bit clearer!):

Next you’ll probably want to cut holes for vents, ports for cords, the hole for the antenna to stick out, and the power strip access. I used a simple swiss army knife as it cuts through cardboard quite nicely (What doesn’t…) and used masking tape to secure each item to the base of the box (I do want to disassemble this when I get home to put everything back where it normally goes). Feel free to improvise here – you may want to add more power ports, etc..

My design was specifically made to allow for AC or DC powering, and it works like this. When using AC, the power strip’s cord runs straight out the port to the right of it, and into a wall outlet. When on DC, it loops around the inverter (and plugs into the outlets at the bottom of the inverter. The Inverter’s cord then comes out the port to the right of the power strip, and into a car cigarette lighter. I’m planning on bringing an extension cord for the DC cord, as it is shorter than the power strip’s.

Step 3 – Complete & Accessorize

Here are some pictures of my completed rig. Note the snazzy title I gave mine (The Internet, complete edition, in color!). Accessorize to your heart’s content, just don’t block the vents!

(Edited to remove SSID – I’m paranoid…)

That’s all folks. Feel free to register and post your comments or suggestions!

Jon Westfall is a research psychologist and confirmed techno-geek. He’s a contributing editor for Pocket PC Thoughts, as well as a Microsoft MVP for Windows Mobile. This blog is where most of his longer articles reside, however jonwestfall.com also has other goodies and more than you want to know about him.

Registered and Ready To Go

April 14, 2008/Technology

Well, I’m registered, checked-in, and now the proud owner of a Microsoft MVP shirt. Unfortunately since my body is still thinking it’s on the east coast, I’m up extremely early for my normally sleep-loving self! It’s 8:54 local time now, but feels much later (Perhaps around noon?). Our first official meeting is “Lunch” which is scheduled to start around Lunch time, e.g. later than I’m thinking lunch should be. Anyway I had a breakfast sandwich to hold me over, and am psyched about getting to meet some MVP friends (Although not sure how I’ll meet them, I figure I’ll seek out Jason sometime in the next few hours, once I’m relatively sure he’s gotten in as he was flying down this morning).

Seattle weather is the norm – rainy, and around 45 degrees. Now this is different from 45 Degrees in Ohio, as there is no frickin wind to whip you around. 45 Degrees here isn’t bad, and I’m quite comfortable with my vest and sweatshirt.

I’ll be posting pics pretty much all week and they’ll all end up on the homepage at jonwestfall.com (Even though this blogging is being done to my Confessions blog – it just works nicer sometimes, especially for editing posts in Word). The pics usually get rotated screwy, but I’ll try to log in and change the rotation as best as possible.

Stay Tuned!

Ubuntu 7.10 Taking FOREVER…

October 20, 2007/Technology

Arcane Code has a nice write-up about installing Ubuntu 7.10 in Virtual PC. He’s right about one thing (among many others..) – it take FOREVER to install. Not Forever in the sense of 1990 386-processor forever, but forever in the sense of 2007 dual core with 2 GB of Memory FOREVER… it’s been 10 minutes already, probably around 15 more. Way too long

Device Change!

October 19, 2007/Technology

OK, I do this often enough that I figured I’d start blogging about it more so I can see just HOW often I do it, and my reasoning.

Since I received it in early September (The 7th I believe), I’ve been using the awesome HTC TyTN II. Tonight I decided to put it to rest for a bit and switch to the T-Mobile Dash! The TyTN II therefore logs 42 days & 7 hours or so of work.

Why the switch, well for a few reasons

  • The TyTN II’s initial ROM is a bit buggy, and no patches have been released yet. Once one is released, the TyTN II will most likely come back out for a bit.
  • In my daily life, The Dash is actually a bit easier to carry (lighter) and use if I’m not doing anything too complex. I’m pretty sure before I head off to Long Beach next month for JDM that I’ll switch back to a touchscreen device!
  • I am a gadget Junkie and own several Windows Mobile devices for a reason – so I can switch!!! So switching doesn’t always need a big reason.

So Dashy gets back in business for at least a few weeks probably, or maybe a few months, or maybe a few days – who knows. It was a tough call between the Dash and the Treo 750v. Perhaps the Treo will get some love before the end of the year. Oh, and for sure the JasJAR will make an appearance when JDM rolls around for gaming on the plane and composing emails on the go.

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