fredag den 24. juni 2016

Importing contacts and folders into Thunderbird

Many of us like to use an offline e-mail program, this no matter if you are on Linux or Windows - Thunderbird is a bit of both worlds, as it also can handle the online folders in your e-mail account - that is why I chose it(and it came pre-installed with Peach OSI).

There is a problem importing contacts from Windows Live mail into Thunderbird, there is an article about it here:

http://thunderbirdtweaks.blogspot.dk/2013/03/importing-csv-files.html

I did not follow the whole article, because of the way I have set up my contacts -  What I did, were to make a new contacts-new.csv file from within Thunderbirds Adressbook and open it in LibreOffice Calc - then open the one from Windows Live mail in LibreOffice Calc and copy details over to the new one(anything under the first column).

When you do this you have to put the the mouse where you want to start and click 1 time, then use the arrow keys + shift to navigate and mark - it will not work if you use the mouse to mark - then rightclick on the marked area and choose copy. Then do the same in the new .csv file, but this time choose paste(make sure you have the same amount of columns). When finished, save the new .csv file and import it into Thunderbird from within Addressbook - Not from Thunderbird itself! 

Importing folders from storage folders, doesn't work either, you have to install this add-on:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/

Then rightclick the Local folder you want to import you folders to(make a new folder), then click on Import/ExportTools, go down to Import all messages from a directory, then click on: also from its subdirectories

Find the folder you want to import(from your backup or on the windows drive), then click Open and all the messages in that folder will be imported.
 

mandag den 13. juni 2016

Peach OSI instead of Windows

As I have told previously, I have switched from windows 7 to Peach OSI which is an heavily modified Linux distrobution based upon Xubuntu. I'm running this on a Lenovo Thinkpad R500, with 4GB ram and 500GB harddisk, 15.4" LCD and Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T6570 2.10GHz. This laptop had problems with Windows 10, because of the lack of updated drivers.

The installation went without any problems and were, including the initial setup, finished within 20 min. - thats alot faster than Windows. Internet, sound and video worked out-of-the-box, so did the mouse, but I had to setup the tapping(I don't like that).



After this I started customizing it to my liking, and this went very quicly also. After running the first updates for Firefox and the base OS, everything now worked as it should. I have been using Peach OSI as my primary OS for the last 3 months, and I like it so much that I will recommend it to everyone I know - also Non-techies:)


If you don't like to have Peach OSI installed on your machine, then you can run it as portable on a USB stick or on an LiveDVD.

I have been a using Linux for over 7 years and always switched back to or dualbooted with windows 7, because there were always something I didn't like or found too much trouble to fix myself - with this one, there is nothing to fix, only things to set up to my liking.

I use VLC as my main Media Player, and Banshee for music, I chose to have Flash Player installed with Peach OSI, and it will get updates whenever everything else gets updated. The main difference between Linux and Windows regarding updates, is that your programs also get updates - even if they are not produced by the author of the Linux version(windows don't have that feature).




As with Ubuntu, Peach OSI comes with Ubuntu Software Center were there are many things you can download and install for free, but there are also a few things that cost money.



There are also Synaptics, this is similair to the software center, but things here are for free.


As something new, compared to other Linux distrubutions, the author of Peach OSI has set up an Facebook account where you can contact him if you run into trouble - Microsoft does not have this!


Below are some pictures of Thunar which is the filemanager for Peach OSI, Firefox and the very handy quicklaunch bar in the bottom of the screen.





 I may have mentioned thís earlier, I really like this OS:) Hope you will too.
Peach OSI homepage: https://www.peachosi.com/

UPDATE: After this article were written, I have moved on to the 16.04 LTS version of Peach OSI and in 64 bit. And I'm now running it on a Lenovo Thinkpad X300, which is my only machine, I do not need anything else.

Don't want Windows 10? - de-activate automatic updates NOW!

Microsoft has taken the choice away from the user, wether or not they want Windows 10 - so if automatic updates is enabled, then Windows 10 will be downloadet and installed - and there is nothing the user can do to stop it.

The user just have to wait until the install is finished and then its possible to go back to previous windows version. windows 7 is supported until 2020.

The free Windows 10 update run until juli 2016, and after this period you have to pay for Windows 10.



Personally, I do not recommend people to update, since Windows 10 has too many errors and bad updates that often break something in Windows, And its not even certain that you PC can run Windows 10 100%. There can be drivers that do not work as they should, - even though Microsoft claim the opposite (do not trust the update program).

If you want to transfer to Windows 10, then its better to invest in a new machine or wait for the hardware manufacturers to make new drivers - for some products you can use the old Windows 7 and 8 drivers, but its not always they work as they should together with Windows 10(Microsoft's fault, not the driver).



Or there are the possibility to go down to your local computer guy and get your machine checked to see if there should be drivers for windows 10, so you can upgrade now.

Personally, I skipped this and installed Peach OSI on my laptop - I'ts fork of Ubuntu Linux, based upon an heavily modified Xubuntu. So far I have had no complaints, of course there are a few things that needs to be modified to fit your machine and you, but most things worked out-of-the-box.

I will later make a review of Peach OSI on my laptop, with pictures.