julesjones: (Default)
A brief report that I have successfully opened Lotus Word Pro, Approach and 123 files. I have not done anything in/with them, but I can report that they do open. I hope to report further at the weekend. Jacey, I didn't have to do any fiddling for this upgrade, it opened without any trouble; but I did originally have to do some fiddling to get it onto this machine as a clean install under Windows 8.1 - I've forgotten what Windows you're currently running. More about the original install under Win 8.1 here: http://julesjones.livejournal.com/601493.html
julesjones: (Default)
Hello from Windows 10. It has been an *interesting* experience, but that is mostly the fault of my new WD backup drive and its flaky software. I see a purchase of real backup software in my future.

I isntalled over the old Win 8.1 install, which may or may not have been a mistake - it took a couple of boot cycles before the machine condescended to work at a sane speed (although still a little slow even now). Thunderbird and Firefox seem to be okay, but the expedition to Planet Lotus will have to wait until tomorrow. I hold high hopes, as it has at least loaded the Smartsuite toolbar.
julesjones: (Default)
I'd originally intended to install Dragon 10 and wait for one of the frequent cheap upgrade offers for registered customers. I'd never upgraded because the XP box could barely cope with 10, and besides, we're still on 10 at work, but I was quite willing to pay to upgrade to 12 once I had kit that could run it.

Gues what dropped into my inbox two days after I bought the shiny? The pre-release announcement and early bird offer for Dragon 13. :-) I dithered for a few days, because initially it was only the upgrade from an existing 11 or higher, but then found a link to the full version at the offer price. £80 probably sounds extravagent if you don't need it, but for me, it's worth paying to get a current version. That got installed last night. Late last night, so I haven't done anything but run through the basic demo yet. $FANNISH_COLLEAGUE (who is also in "install all the shinies!" mood) has been somewhat cynical about release day bugs and intends to wait before buying hers, but I have a legal copy of 10 to fall back to if necessary.

I've just installed Skype, but I've also set it up with a brand new account rather than desperately try to remember the login details for the old one.

I had to reboot at some point last night, and was provided with evidence that the SmartSuite install had worked, in the form of the SmartCentre toolbar popping up. It has been told to go away again, as there isn't the screen estate on the laptop's own screen.
julesjones: (Default)
I've been using Lotus Smartsuite since version 3.1. I recognise that sooner or later I will have to abandon it, but I want access to it for a while in case there are any files I've forgotten to convert to rtf etc. A quick Google found the following thread:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-performance/windows-8-load-lotus-smartsuite-981/9d658644-6708-4217-a300-a7100372fd96?auth=1

I stuck the CD in the drive, and after a bit of faffing about found that while trying to run the msi file didn't get anywhere, right click on "setup.exe" and "run as administrator", with a side-order of "troubleshoot incompatibility", did the trick. Haven't actually tried doing anything other than opening Word Pro to check that it would indeed open, but I appear to have access to the software on the Win8.1 box.
julesjones: (Default)
I finished up Sunday evening by using Wm's instructions on folders in Thunderbird, i.e.

By default TB will only look at TP's Inbox, it is actually expecting a
folder with that specific name. You need to specifically subscribe to
other folders. Here my TB has an account "Wm@localhost" that talks to
TP, if I click on that account (in TB) I can click on "Manage folder
subscriptions" and gain access to any of my TP folders.

which resulted in a view of Turnpike's folders within Thunderbird. Telling TB to go fetch via imap resulted in activity. Lots of activity. I left it going overnight, and on Monday morning checked the Turnpike log to find that imap activity finally finished at about 3 in the morning. I came home last night with a migraine, so nothing has happened since then, not even checking to see if the emails are really in Thunderbird.

Next job re the email will be to port the TB mailspool on the XP box over to the TB running on the Win8 box, but that can wait until I have an attention span longer than the average goldfish's.
julesjones: (Default)
My primary email client is Turnpike, and has been since I bought my first internet connection 17 years ago. Unfortunately Demon stopped developing it a long time ago, and amongst other things it now effectively requires stunnel as an add-on to allow it to send mail in this cold, hard world of secure login. It is still a superb email client for collecting and reading mail off-line, but with the advent of the Win 8.1 box it's time to give in and use a current email client. Threads in demon.internet.support.turnpike suggest that it *is* possible to install Turnpike on at least the 32-bit version, but as it would involve a lot of fiddling, plus use of stunnel, I'm moving to Thunderbird. That means moving my mailspool, oh joy. I want to go with imap, although exporting in Berkeley mailbox format and importing into Thunderbird is also an option.

I've spent the last two days reading threads in d.i.s.t, discovering that I was still on v3.something of Thunderbird on the XP box and upgrading, and fighting with settings. I've finally got Thunderbird to talk to Turnpike's imap server, even if it is only looking in the inbox and not the other folders at the moment.


Turnpike:
make sure the user has a non-blank password, or the account won't be able to login to the imap server from elsewhere (security feature in Turnpike).
Configure
Options
Login tab
tick "login using password", and under "permissions", scroll to the bottom and tick "access mail using pop3/imap server" to enable imap access for this user account -- which is the bit I overlooked first time round, resulting in much head-desking.
You can check the exact user name on the "user" tab - you'll need it for setting up the Thunderbird account



Turnpike Connect:
Configure
Email transfer...
Tickbox down the bottom of the screen under Mail Servers "enable imap"

Need to have Connect running in deliver mode (i.e. make a connection to the internet) or the imap server will refuse connections.


Thunderbird:
Set up an account on the XP box using the settings Wm helpfully posted here:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/demon.ip.support.turnpike/So7sW_G5rC0/EXc46oJLDXUJ
i.e.


In TB the Server Settings for the account to access TP via IMAP (a
*separate* a/c to any real e-mail address, I used Wm@localhost) should
be something like

===
server name: localhost
port: 143
username: [whatever username you use to log in to TP]
connection security: none
authentication method: passwd, trans insec




And set appropriate synchronisation options -- in my case I want a copy at each end.

Once I've got all the email copied into Thunderbird, the TB copy of the mailspool gets copied over to the Win8 box as part of the general "copy all files".


Useful links:

Wm's collection of useful Thunderbird add-ons
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/collections/Wm/turnpike/
Wm's post in dist with settings:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/demon.ip.support.turnpike/So7sW_G5rC0/EXc46oJLDXUJ
dist on folders:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/demon.ip.support.turnpike/SrmtShEE0E8/F4OqVAjSivcJ
dist on permissions when installing on Win8
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/demon.ip.support.turnpike/WgMSrD59iQM
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/demon.ip.support.turnpike/SrmtShEE0E8/F4OqVAjSivcJ
julesjones: (Default)
The rest of last night involved pointing the box at the Win 8.1 upgrade site, and letting it get on with downloading the update and restarting itself several times while I watched the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony. Having unlocked that achievement, I started installing software this evening. I would have installed a trial of Norton, except it turns out there's already a trial of Macafee as a pre-install. I discovered this when they started complaining about each other... After that came Chrome and Firefox, before I took credit card in hand and headed off to Microsoft's HUP website, where I quite legally bought Office Professional for £8.95. Of course, this licence goes bye-bye if $EMPLOYER stops participating in the HUP, but I still have an Office 2010 licence.

I had some issues with installing Office, mostly to do with it not being obvious whether or not it was installing. But it seems to be on there now. It's just that I have to search for it with the search function to start it. I want my Start menu back. :-(
julesjones: (Default)
It had finished installing and restarting itself by the time I left for work this morning, which gave me high hopes. And indeed, this evening it could find no further updates. It then popped up something asking me what browsers I wanted to install, and I selected "tell me more". It was being a bit slow pulling up the page, so I made the mistake of wandering away to start dinner. By the time I came back, it had loaded my Gmail account instead. Bafflement ensued. I couldn't get back to the "what browser" screen, but in the course of trying, it announced that it wanted to restart to finish installing some updates. So I told it to go ahead.

When it came back, the next thing it wanted me to do was register it on Asus's website. That was fun, not. At least in the course of this I got to see the desktop, which looks vaguely sensible.

It's now creating the recovery drive. Once it's done that, I will point it at the Win 8.1 upgrade site. Assuming it doesn't run off to do something else first while my back's turned... I'm a trifle distracted at the moment by the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony.

Ah. Recovery drive completed. :-) And I found the "eject hardware" icon first time!
julesjones: (Default)
Well, yes, I know what they were thinking. They were thinking One OS To Rule Them All, across phone, tablets and desktops. Unfortunately I don't like the Tinkertoy style of interface even on phones and tablets, where it belongs and is being useful. On a serious work machine -- eeeuw.

A lot of my reaction so far is that It's Very Different, and it took me some time to even find the button to Run All The Updates. Which has to happen before the Big Update to Win 8.1, which is apparently somewhat more suited to people who would like to continue doing serious work with their work machine. I left it downloading and installing its 101 updates last night. (The 101 is absolutely literal, not hyperbole.) But I'm not going to like it even when I get used to it.

I haven't yet created the restore drive. This is because I'm a dinosaur, and the last time I had to create restore discs, they were discs. On CD, because DVD writers were an expensive optional extra on laptops, and even in desktops. It hadn't occurred to me that in the last eight years assumptions on what gets used for small writeable media have... changed. I need to go and buy a 16 GB memory stick tonight.

Part of the eeuw is that I do not want flickering, moving, dancing things on my home screen. I don't even want static things cluttering up my home screen trying to get my attention. I do not want a ticker tape of the news, I do not want an instant update of the weather. I do not want live update of the world at large. I have not wanted these things for a long, long time -- I took one look at Google's attempt at this lo these many years ago, and went "What? Why?" My colleagues do not understand how I can possibly have a smartphone without a dataplan, because it means that I can't have live updates of the weather and the news and god knows what else on my phone at every second of the day. They do not understand that as far as I'm concerned this lack is a feature and not a bug.

More of the eeuw is that it assumes a touchscreen. I'm disabled. I use Dragon much of the time, with reason. There's a decent trackpad on the Asus, but with my particular set of musculoskeletal problems I am generally much more comfortable with a mouse and appropriate mouse rest.

Now starting to wish that I'd spent the time and money to get a decent Win7 machine, even if it's on its way out. Unfortunately staying on the XP box wasn't really a practical option, because it really is creaking at the seams now.
julesjones: (Default)
1) The 12 inch remix version of my #AlanTuring100 post is up at the Erato blog.

2) Musa Publishing is offering a free romance novel at Amazon until the end of today, as a promo exercise. Right now I know no more about West with the Wind by Cindi Myers than you can find at either Amazon US or Amazon UK, but hey, free book. Kindle format, m/f Western set in the Californian gold rush.

3) Other Half had a spare docking station for the T series, which seems to have solved the problem with Thinkpad for now, although I'm still working my way through the peripherals to check that they're working. That will include the external backup drive.

4) The vinyl-based metaphor at point 1 is not entirely unconnected with me having listened to the 12 inch 1988 remix of Blue Monday by New Order on Friday night, and having it on a loop on Radio Central Nervous System ever since. Waiter, a new earworm please, this one's been warmed over too long.

Profile

julesjones: (Default)
julesjones

May 2025

S M T W T F S
    123
4567 8910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags