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Mac Forum / Applications / Mac Applications / July 2007Microsoft vs Mac
I have occasion to write tutorials for several web sites. I've been doing these on a PC using Microsoft Word as my default word processor. When I changed over to the IMac recently, I purchased the Microsoft Office Suite for Mac mainly to get the Word Program thinking that if I used a Mac Word Processor like I Work, my PC contacts wouldn't be able to open the files and attachments I sent in to them. I'm still not completely sure about this and could use some feedback if someone has the time. Basically, what I'd like to know is whether or not I can get rid of Microsoft altogether on my IMac and switch to all Mac software and not be penalized or restricted in any way when I send or receive data from the PC people I have to deal with. If I CAN get rid of the Microsoft Entourage Suite I have installed, I'd also get rid of the Virus Barrier AV at the same time. I only have the AV on here to cover any updates from Microsoft on their software. Perhaps I've been misinformed when I bought the IMac about needing all this junk on the Mac :-)) DH > I have occasion to write tutorials for several web sites. I've been > doing these on a PC using Microsoft Word as my default word processor. [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > this junk on the Mac :-)) > DH Try NeOffice, it is free and open source. It may well do all you want.  Signaturedorayme >> I have occasion to write tutorials for several web sites. I've been >> doing these on a PC using Microsoft Word as my default word processor. [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > Try NeOffice, it is free and open source. It may well do all you > want. Thank you for the tip. DH Dudley Henriques wrote: > Basically, what I'd like to know is whether or not I can get rid of > Microsoft altogether on my IMac and switch to all Mac software and not > be penalized or restricted in any way when I send or receive data from > the PC people I have to deal with. If you have to seriously co-author documents with people who use MS-Word, you will run into real problems without it. You can live with those problems (I do), but you will be penalized. If, on the other hand, you only need to exchange documents with people using MS-Word then NeoOffice (free) or Pages (99 USD as part of iWork) will certainly be enough. Keep in mind that there will still always be some problems because MS deliberately designs to harm compatibility. One annoying area of this problem is that Outhouse and Express Outhouse have some very strange ideas about interpreting MIME headers which makes some document exchange far more difficult than it should be. Cheers, -j > Dudley Henriques wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > -j Thank you. Very useful information. DH > If you have to seriously co-author documents with people who use > MS-Word, you will run into real problems without it. You can live with > those problems (I do), but you will be penalized. True. We tried it for a while, me using NeoOffice, the wife using her Office X. It was fine for ordinary textual (formatted stuff) files, but as soon as she started doing anything sophisticated with images and graphic layout, NeoOffice just choked. NeoOfffice probably never be able to handle some of the stuff she can do with Word. Anyway, I bought the bullet and the Student/Teacher edition of Office (legit, I have a staff id at a local college). SignatureW. Oates > I have occasion to write tutorials for several web sites. I've been > doing these on a PC using Microsoft Word as my default word processor. [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > this junk on the Mac :-)) > DH iWork Pages can open and save Word documents, and Keynote can open and save PowerPOint documents. So it is possible to get by without Word or PowerPoint. However, if you have to do s lot of co-authoring of Word documents with Windows colleagues, you will probably find it easier to use MS Word. I dont see any need to use any email program other than OS X Mail, and web browser other than Safari, or any calendar other than iCal. Others may see it differently, but that is my view. SignatureFor email, change <fake> to <earthlink> Bill Collins >> I have occasion to write tutorials for several web sites. I've been >> doing these on a PC using Microsoft Word as my default word processor. [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > web browser other than Safari, or any calendar other than iCal. Others > may see it differently, but that is my view. What do you use for a newsreader? Thunderbird 2 is what I converted to from Outlook Express 6. >>> I have occasion to write tutorials for several web sites. I've been >>> doing these on a PC using Microsoft Word as my default word processor. [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > What do you use for a newsreader? Thunderbird 2 is what I converted to > from Outlook Express 6. I have TB2 on my IMac but the user interface font is WAY too small. I tried repeatedly unsuccessfully on the TB forums to find someone willing to either point me to a self help source that clarified in terms a newbie could understand, exactly how to create the needed chrome file to change the size of the user font. Apparently the folks who deal with open code are not inclined to suffer newbies gently :-))) as I received not 1 reply on those forums. Anyway, not to bore you with that; I finally gave up and tried Unison. It seems to be a good program and the help I am getting from the Mac folks has been very useful. If I practice a bit, and study a bit here and there, I might even get to where I can offer some help to people instead of constantly asking for it. Going to a Mac workshop tomorrow at an Apple store near our home. :-) DH On Sat, 23 Jun 2007 23:37:46 -0400, Dudley Henriques wrote: > I have TB2 on my IMac but the user interface font is WAY too small. > I tried repeatedly unsuccessfully on the TB forums to find someone > willing to either point me to a self help source that clarified in > terms a newbie could understand, exactly how to create the needed > chrome file to change the size of the user font. Dudley, Did you try setting the font parameters under Preferences - Display? There's about everything there you'd ever want to set, including the font size. Frank > On Sat, 23 Jun 2007 23:37:46 -0400, Dudley Henriques wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > Frank That's the same thing as the Safari situation Frank. You can change the message window fonts but not the user interface which is hard coded. There is a way to change the UI fonts and make them bigger in TB, but it requires creating something called a chrome file and making some text entries in it, then installing it somewhere in thr Thunderbird program. It's a bit complicated for a newbie like me, so I'm bugging folks hoping for a helping hand with it :-)) Dudley On Sun, 24 Jun 2007 00:59:14 -0400, Dudley Henriques wrote: >> On Sat, 23 Jun 2007 23:37:46 -0400, Dudley Henriques wrote: >> [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > folks hoping for a helping hand with it :-)) > Dudley Ohhh, got it Dudley! The solution is super simple: First you already know how to change the message/page font size, and that selection will remain. Now, to increase the UI fonts - you're right, all you need is an extremely elemental userChrome.css file located in the /chrome directory of the user's /firefox/xxxxxxxx.default directory, where the eight Xes are generated as random when you install the application. The same is true for Thunderbird. Here is the step-by-step process for Firefox: 1. Boot your iMac (I really meant step-by-step) 2. press Command+Shift+H (Command is the Apple key) 3. double click the Library folder 4. double click the Application Support folder 5. double click the Firefox folder 6. double click the Profiles folder 7. double click the xxxxxxxx.default folder 8. double click the Chrome folder 9. open Textedit from your Applications menu 10. copy and paste the code I'll list below 11. click Format and Make Plain Text 12. click File - Save As and type userChrome.css into the Save As box 13. select Desktop in the Where box 14. drag and drop this new file into the open Chrome folder Lot of steps, lot of clicks, takes about 45 seconds! Here is the step-by-step process for Thunderbird: 1. same 2. same 3. same 4. double click the Thunderbird folder 5. double click the Profiles folder 6. double click the xxxxxxxx.default folder 7. click File - New Folder and name it Chrome 8. drag and drop the userChrome.css file as above Here's the code: * {font-size: 12pt !important;} * {font-family: Arial !important;} Just copy and paste from this posting, don't retype unless you include every character and space. Simply open this file in the future in either or both the Chrome folders and increase the font size. As is, 12pt Arial is much more legible and larger than the default. Need more, just ask! Frank > On Sun, 24 Jun 2007 00:59:14 -0400, Dudley Henriques wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 77 lines] > > Frank Many thanks Frank. I'll print this out, study it a bit and give it a try. The only thing I see right off the bat that remains a puzzle is exactly where I should paste in the text, or doesn't it matter? Dudley On Sun, 24 Jun 2007 20:26:44 -0400, Dudley Henriques wrote: >> Here is the step-by-step process for Firefox: >> [quoted text clipped - 43 lines] > exactly where I should paste in the text, or doesn't it matter? > Dudley Okay Dudley, you're almost there. I tested this and it works just fine. Copy those two lines of code above that begin *{ and paste them into Textedit - the file you'll save as userChrome.css. See the Firefox step-by-step above. Then you'll drag and drop this file into both Firefox and Thunderbird, as described above, and you'll be in control of the program's interface display. Frank > On Sun, 24 Jun 2007 20:26:44 -0400, Dudley Henriques wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 53 lines] > > Frank Frank; I tried the fix and it worked perfectly exactly as you posted it. I want to take the time to thank you personally and again for taking the time to do this for me. I've had a cataract operation last week and another coming in the next few weeks and seeing my monitor is a huge issue this month. I'm an MVP with Microsoft working in their flight simulator community. Due to real life aviation commitments I had to switch my computers from the PC I've been used to over to a Mac. Once having made the switch, I liked the Mac so much I decided to take the high end gaming PC I use for the simulator work I do off line and stay with the Mac for online work. One of the things I absolutely must have on my system is a working Newsreader. Thunderbird seemed the answer, as it resembles the OE I'm used to on the PC. As you know, the default font was way too small. Well, thanks to you and the good Mac community, I think I have a workable Newsreader. Many thanks. Dudley Henriques President Emeritus International Fighter Pilots Fellowship MVP 2007 Microsoft Flight Simulator >> I have occasion to write tutorials for several web sites. I've been >> doing these on a PC using Microsoft Word as my default word processor. [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > web browser other than Safari, or any calendar other than iCal. Others > may see it differently, but that is my view. Many thanks DH > I have occasion to write tutorials for several web sites. I've been > doing these on a PC using Microsoft Word as my default word processor. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > I'm still not completely sure about this and could use some feedback if > someone has the time. > Basically, what I'd like to know is whether or not I can get rid of > Microsoft altogether on my IMac and switch to all Mac software and not > be penalized or restricted in any way when I send or receive data from > the PC people I have to deal with. Probably, but you said you have already bought MS Office for Mac. It's a very good suite of apps, and since you paid for it you might as well use it. Entourage is arguably the best e-mail client for OS X, and Excel is the undisputed world's best spreadsheet. People will tell you about this or that open-source MS Office wannabee, but for stability and compatibility, you'd do well to stick with MS Office. Beware of replies from Macheads with a blind hatred of all things Microsoft. You won't get unbiased and reasoned responses from them -- the operative word is /blind/ . Better to listen to people who, even if they're not big fans of Microsoft, are willing to give fair credit where it's due. > If I CAN get rid of the Microsoft Entourage Suite I have installed, I'd > also get rid of the Virus Barrier AV at the same time. I only have the > AV on here to cover any updates from Microsoft on their software. > Perhaps I've been misinformed when I bought the IMac about needing all > this junk on the Mac :-)) I don't know anything about Virus Barrier AV; I've never seen a Mac virus or a Mac anti-virus program in my 21 years on the Mac. Davoud Signatureusenet *at* davidillig dawt com >> I have occasion to write tutorials for several web sites. I've been >> doing these on a PC using Microsoft Word as my default word processor. [quoted text clipped - 35 lines] > > Davoud Thanks for the feedback. I'm experimenting with the software as we speak. Learning something new every minute I guess. DH >> I have occasion to write tutorials for several web sites. I've been >> doing these on a PC using Microsoft Word as my default word processor. [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > a very good suite of apps, and since you paid for it you might as well > use it. Entourage is arguably the best e-mail client for OS X, Enrage is most definitely not the best anything for OS X, except possibly the best at inducing yank-hair-out-in-clumps, think-seriously-about-loading-shotgun-and-visiting-MacBU rages. > and > Excel is the undisputed world's best spreadsheet. There's another spreadsheet app?! > People will tell you about this or that open-source MS Office wannabee, > but for stability and compatibility, you'd do well to stick with MS > Office. If you want to actually get work done, and others are using Word and Excel, you pretty much have no choice. Word is an excellent word processor, once you get used to its finicky ways. Excel has achieved There Is Only One status: there simply is no real competition to it. It'd be nice to have Access, but the Beast of Redmond will never allow Access on a Mac. Wrap Enrage in lead and concrete and stick it into a salt mine in Nevada. NeoOffice and OpenOffice are, simply, too clunky. There are exactly two reasons to even consider using them: 1 they're free (though the NeoOffice web site does try to guilt you into making a 'donation', or at least did the last time I went by, which is why there ain't no NeoOffice on my system...) 2 they're not from Microsoft. For some people, this is sufficient. Me, I want to actually get work done. I've got Office 2004 installed (yes, even Enrage, though I avoid using it except when I absolutely have to, and even then I never ever email anything with it) and I will probably continue to have Office 2004 installed for the foreseeable future. I don't at this time see any reason to move to Office 2008. > Beware of replies from Macheads with a blind hatred of all things > Microsoft. You won't get unbiased and reasoned responses from them -- [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > Davoud Signatureemail to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com. >> Probably, but you said you have already bought MS Office for Mac. It's >> a very good suite of apps, and since you paid for it you might as well [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > best at inducing yank-hair-out-in-clumps, > think-seriously-about-loading-shotgun-and-visiting-MacBU rages. Yeah, right - whatever. Entourage is the most full-featured, robust mail client for Mac - period. And Apple's Mail has *plenty* of shortcomings. Opinions are like a.s holes - everybody's got one. SignatureJR >>> Probably, but you said you have already bought MS Office for Mac. It's >>> a very good suite of apps, and since you paid for it you might as well [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Yeah, right - whatever. Entourage is the most full-featured, robust It can't be robust until it gets rid of the Giant Monolithic Database of Doom(tm). Once that db gets too large, where 'too large' is a moving target, Enrage will crash. Randomly. And will corrupt the db in the process, if the db wasn't corrupt in the first place. And then good luck getting your mail, or your address book, or anything else that's in there, out of that db. See, for example, <http://www.macfixitforums.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=OfficeX&Number=818243&F orum=&Words=&Match=Entire%20Phrase&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Old=1day&Main=816030& Search=true> Or read the list of problem items at <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/troubleshoot/crashes.html>. My fave trouble items are 1, 6, 9, and 11... except that, with 11, Enrage is the _only_ app which can detect this 'disk damage'. Disk Utility, Disk Warrior, Drive Genius, and Tech Tool Pro can't find it. Hmmm... > mail client for Mac - period. And Apple's Mail has *plenty* of > shortcomings. Yep. But it doesn't have the Giant Monolithic Database of Doom(tm) so that if it goes belly-up I can get my mail out of it using a plain ordinary text editor... > Opinions are like a.s holes - everybody's got one. Sure thing. Facts are simple. Enrage is built using a Giant Monolithic Database of Doom(tm) which goes belly-up if you breathe too hard. Mail is built using text files. (Far too many text files, none of which have useful names... Arrg. Gimme Eudora. Please.) Signatureemail to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com. > Mail is > built using text files. (Far too many text files, none of which have useful > names... Arrg. Gimme Eudora. Please.) I used it for many years and loved it, but Mail came with the new computer and I didn't like a newer Eudora I tried on the OS 9+ G4, so I wasn't sure I wanted to buy an OS X version. Mail is OK, but not as good as the old Eudora. SignatureMary, biblioholic bib-li-o-hol-ism : the habitual longing to purchase, read, store, admire, and consume books in excess. http://www.airstreamcomm.net/~erilarlo > Arrg. Gimme Eudora. Please.) Speaking of which, a while back I heard it was "soon to be released" as open source. What's with that? I like Eudora; used it from version 1.5 on through 4.whatever, until I migrated to OS X. Isaac >> Arrg. Gimme Eudora. Please.) > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > Isaac I like Eudora, it's Qualcomm's business model I can't stand. I haven't updated Eudora in quite some time because I simply refuse to pay rent. It appears that I was not alone in my position, as a visit to the site <http://www.eudora.com/> shows the following: "The Paid mode commercial versions of Eudora are no longer available as of May 1st, 2007. The Sponsored mode versions of Eudora continue to be available for download. An open source version of Eudora® is being developed by Mozilla and will be free of charge." It's up to 7.1. It was a good product, but it's gone now. You can still get the freeware and adware versions, but there are reasons I avoided those versions in the first place. Signatureemail to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com. >> Entourage is the most full-featured, robust > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > db wasn't corrupt in the first place. And then good luck getting your mail, > or your address book, or anything else that's in there, out of that db. Heh.... I've used Entourage for years. One of my identities has a database file that is 2.19 GB in size, another is 3.45 GB in size. Entourage handles them just fine. I've *never* had a database become corrupt, and this is through multiple major releases of Mac OS X, and multiple minor releases of Office 2004. This isn't the wide-spread problem you'd like to make it out to be. Try again. >> mail client for Mac - period. And Apple's Mail has *plenty* of >> shortcomings. > > Yep. But it doesn't have the Giant Monolithic Database of Doom(tm) so that if > it goes belly-up I can get my mail out of it using a plain ordinary text > editor... That's simply not as big a problem as you make it out to be. And it actually makes Entourage faster at handling large numbers of messages than Mail. If that's your sole reason for not wanting to use Entourage... >> Opinions are like a.s holes - everybody's got one. > > Sure thing. Facts are simple. Enrage is built using a Giant Monolithic > Database of Doom(tm) which goes belly-up if you breathe too hard. Mail is > built using text files. (Far too many text files, none of which have useful > names... Arrg. Gimme Eudora. Please.) You're quite silly. SignatureJR > Probably, but you said you have already bought MS Office for Mac. It's > a very good suite of apps, and since you paid for it you might as well > use it. Entourage is arguably the best e-mail client for OS X... This appears to be an unconventional use of the word "best" I'm heretofore not acquainted with. It's arguably the most clumsy email client for OS X, or perhaps the most bloated and clumsy, but I don't think that's what you mean by "best." I got Ofice (because i need Word and Excel), installed Entourage, and tried really, relly hard to like it. In the end, though, I'd rather hit myself in the head with a hammer than continue to use it. SignaturePhotography, kink, polyamory, shareware, and more: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html >> Probably, but you said you have already bought MS Office for Mac. It's >> a very good suite of apps, and since you paid for it you might as well [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > tried really, relly hard to like it. In the end, though, I'd rather hit > myself in the head with a hammer than continue to use it. Entourage *is* the most robust email client for Mac, like it or not. People who prefer Entourage, like myself, are people whose needs Apple Mail and other email clients simply don't meet. Things like Exchange compatibility, calendar / contact integration, top-notch text editing facilities (is Mail still unable to remove quoting from text, re-wrap text, etc?), ability to handle large quantities of messages quickly, script-ability, and features that only exist in Entourage matter to people who choose Entourage. What you consider "bloat" others consider "robustness". I don't think anyone is asking all Mac users to use Entourage. SignatureJR > Entourage *is* the most robust email client for Mac, like it or not. > People who prefer Entourage, like myself, are people whose needs Apple [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > script-ability, and features that only exist in Entourage matter to > people who choose Entourage. I constantly find myself frustrated will Mail.app for all of the reasons that you suggest along with others. But every time I try something else, Mulberry, (al)pine, etc, I find myself coming back to Mail.app even though I know that I'll end up looking at alternatives again in six months. I've never tried Entourage and I don't need to work with Exchange, but I have, on the whole, heard good things about it. It's appears to be much better than its half-sibling, Outlook which I really do consider a disaster. -j > >> Probably, but you said you have already bought MS Office for Mac. It's > >> a very good suite of apps, and since you paid for it you might as well [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > script-ability, and features that only exist in Entourage matter to > people who choose Entourage. My wife uses Entourage and I have two major complaints: When one address in list of send-to addresses is incorrectly formed, the message is rejected with no hint of which address is bad. She has three identities and each contains a large number of filed messages. Receiving a single message as any identity pushes the daily backup to well over a gigabyte. SignatureTom Stiller PGP fingerprint = 5108 DDB2 9761 EDE5 E7E3 7BDA 71ED 6496 99C0 C7CF > Receiving a single message as any identity pushes the daily > backup to well over a gigabyte. Yet another symptom of the problems created by using a Giant Monolithic Database of Doom(tm). My only question: how'd you manage to get the Giant Monolithic Database of Doom(tm) on your wife's system to get as big as a gig without it going belly-up? The last time (the very last time) I used Enrage for anything serious it blew up well before the Giant Monolithic Database of Doom(tm) got anywhere near that size. IIRC it was less than _half_ that size. Signatureemail to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com. >> Receiving a single message as any identity pushes the daily >> backup to well over a gigabyte. [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > serious it blew up well before the Giant Monolithic Database of Doom(tm) got > anywhere near that size. IIRC it was less than _half_ that size. My Entourage database is around a gig in size (and has been approaching 2 gigs in the past) and has shown no signs of exploding. Perhaps you're thinking of previous versions of Entourage which had smaller limits. <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/database/size.html> Cheers, Chris >>> Receiving a single message as any identity pushes the daily >>> backup to well over a gigabyte. [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/database/size.html> I had problems with Enrage X and Enrage 2004 using databases considerably smaller than 1 GB. The last time I used Enrage seriously was Enrage 2004, maybe two months after Office 2004 came out. I imported mail from Eudora totaling maybe 400 MB. Everything seemed peachy for maybe a week, during which I got perhaps a couple hundred posts. Then Enrage crashed. I replaced the database from the nightly backup, checked the system with Disk Utility and Disk Warrior, found nothing wrong. Two days later, Enrage crashed again. I replaced the database from the backup. Again, a check of the system found no problems. Not even permissions errors. Three days later, same thing. When it crashed twice more in the next week, I tried clearing the database completely, reimporting the mail from Eudora, and starting over. Shortly thereafter it was again crashing. I gave up on Enrage and have not done any serious work with it since. I had told Enrage to _not_ delete mail from the server when it got mail, and in parallel with testing Enrage I had imported the same mail into Mail. Mail did _not_ crash. I was also running Eudora; it didn't crash, either. (Note: I'd launch Enrage, check mail, quit Enrage, launch Mail, check mail, quit Mail, then launch Eudora and leave it open until it was time to test Enrage and Mail again, whereupon I'd quit Eudora. Only one mail app was running at any one time.) Enrage's calendaring and addressbook features work fine so far as I can see with the limited use I've made of it, it just crashes if I try to use it for email. And after it crashes its database is unreadable, including the calendar and the addressbook. The only way forward is to replace the old database with a copy from backup, or to start over from scratch. I was running the test on a 1.25 GHz eMac with 768 MB RAM running Panther. It had a 80 GB drive with about 30 GB free. I bailed on Eudora when I couldn't upgrade it for a reasonable fee, due to Qualcomm changing their business model, and now use Mail and Thunderbird, depending on what I want to do. In theory, Enrage could replace both Mail and Thunderbird. In fact, it crashes far too often and I simply refuse to put up with it. Signatureemail to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com. > Enrage could replace both Mail and > Thunderbird. In fact, it crashes far too often and I simply refuse to put up > with it. You're being silly. You're little two month trial a few years ago isn't reflective of real-world use. Entourage hardly *ever* crashes in real-world use. SignatureJR >> Enrage could replace both Mail and >> Thunderbird. In fact, it crashes far too often and I simply refuse to put up [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > isn't reflective of real-world use. Entourage hardly *ever* crashes in > real-world use. Cool. You say it doesn't crash. I say that it crashed multiple times in less than four weeks, each time crashing hard enough that it ate the database. I had crashes on startup. I had crashes sending mail. I had crashes receiving mail. Meanwhile Eudora worked, and Mail worked, with exactly the same dataset. Perhaps I was Doing Something Wrong(tm), but if so it was unobvious, and whatever I was doing wrong didn't have any effect on Mail or Eudora. And continues to not have any effect on Mail and Thunderbird. I bailed. And am unlikely to go back. Signatureemail to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com. >>> Enrage could replace both Mail and >>> Thunderbird. In fact, it crashes far too often and I simply refuse to put up [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Cool. You say it doesn't crash. It doesn't. > I say that it crashed multiple times in less > than four weeks, each time crashing hard enough that it ate the database. I > had crashes on startup. I had crashes sending mail. I had crashes receiving > mail. Your experience was with an older version of Entourage. > Meanwhile Eudora worked, and Mail worked, with exactly the same > dataset. Perhaps I was Doing Something Wrong(tm), but if so it was unobvious, > and whatever I was doing wrong didn't have any effect on Mail or Eudora. And > continues to not have any effect on Mail and Thunderbird. > > I bailed. And am unlikely to go back. I haven't seen one person here suggest that you should use Entourage. ; ) SignatureJR >>>> Enrage could replace both Mail and >>>> Thunderbird. In fact, it crashes far too often and I simply refuse to put [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > It doesn't. It does. I can crash it any time I want to. >> I say that it crashed multiple times in less >> than four weeks, each time crashing hard enough that it ate the database. I >> had crashes on startup. I had crashes sending mail. I had crashes receiving >> mail. > > Your experience was with an older version of Entourage. Enrage 11.3.3 (061214) is the very latest version. It crashes _worse_ than the older versions. At least the older versions let me import mail and didn't crash until they'd been running a few days! Later today I'm going to run a little experiment. If I can find my old Office X CD I'll install Office X and see if I can import mail into _that_ version of Enrage without it crashing. If that works, I'll then try to import mail from Enrage X to Enrage 2004 and see if it crashes on import. If (and it's a big, big, _BIG_ if) that works, I'll let Enrage run for a few days and see if it crashes, and perhaps track down exactly which inbound (or outbound) item causes it to crash. >> Meanwhile Eudora worked, and Mail worked, with exactly the same >> dataset. Perhaps I was Doing Something Wrong(tm), but if so it was [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > I haven't seen one person here suggest that you should use Entourage. ; ) Good thing, too. Signatureemail to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com. > Later today I'm going to run a little experiment. If I can find my old Office > X CD I'll install Office X and see if I can import mail into _that_ version [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > it crashes, and perhaps track down exactly which inbound (or outbound) item > causes it to crash. It's pretty clear to me that your problems with Entourage stem from a bug that causes it to crash when it encounters one or more messages in the email you are trying to import. I'm sure if you used Entourage without doing that faulty import, you'd find it's plenty stable. SignatureJR > My only question: how'd you manage to get the Giant Monolithic Database of > Doom(tm) on your wife's system to get as big as a gig without it going > belly-up? The last time (the very last time) I used Enrage for anything > serious it blew up well before the Giant Monolithic Database of Doom(tm) got > anywhere near that size. IIRC it was less than _half_ that size. You are quite silly. This problem was fixed long, long ago. SignatureJR >> My only question: how'd you manage to get the Giant Monolithic Database of >> Doom(tm) on your wife's system to get as big as a gig without it going [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > You are quite silly. This problem was fixed long, long ago. I doubt this. I fired up my copy of Enrage (v 11.33, last modified 21 Dec 2006) and attempted to import my current Mail email, 567.6 MB in total, earlier today, when I came in for lunch and read replies. Enrage just crashed in the middle of the import. Got maybe three quarters of the way through, or to a bit over 400 MB... which was where I had the crashing when I did this before. It's not something unique to the machine, as I did it on an iMac G5, not the eMac. Some of the mail will be the same, though. It appears that whatever the problem is is _still_ not fixed, 'cause I can make it crash at will. And, yes, before you ask, I _did_ send in a bug report to Mickeysoft, way back when I first tested this. No reply. Big surprise. Signatureemail to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com. >>> My only question: how'd you manage to get the Giant Monolithic Database of >>> Doom(tm) on your wife's system to get as big as a gig without it going [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > to a bit over 400 MB... which was where I had the crashing when I did this > before. Ah the truth comes out. So you never actually *used* Entourage before. You simply tried to import stuff from Mail and crashed it. So then Entourage wasn't crashing randomly during normal use - it was crashing during an import of your mail data. That's quite a large detail for you to leave out, no? So how did you "import" this data exactly? > It's not something unique to the machine, as I did it on an iMac G5, > not the eMac. Some of the mail will be the same, though. It appears that > whatever the problem is is _still_ not fixed, 'cause I can make it crash at > will. It's possibly a malformed message that is causing the problem. Depending on how you "imported" the data, there may be another way to do it that won't result in a crash. > And, yes, before you ask, I _did_ send in a bug report to Mickeysoft, way > back when I first tested this. No reply. Big surprise. Where'd you send that bug report? If you sent it to the wrong place it's no surprise you got no response. I guess you didn't bother to ask for help on the microsoft.public.mac.office.entourage news group then? SignatureJR >>>> My only question: how'd you manage to get the Giant Monolithic Database of >>>> Doom(tm) on your wife's system to get as big as a gig without it going [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > Ah the truth comes out. So you never actually *used* Entourage before. I used it. > You simply tried to import stuff from Mail and crashed it. It crashed _this time_ while importing. Previously it crashed starting up, sending mail and receiving mail. This time it didn't even get that far. This morning, before I replied, I set up a new OS X user account, logged into that account, and installed Office 2004 from my CD there and ran all updates. I then copied my old Eudora mail database over to the new account by hand, and attempted to import it. It crashed again. I copied my current Mail database over by hand, and tried to import that. It crashed again. I can crash Enrage by merely attempting to import mail. I can do it every time. I can do it by importing mail from different email clients. It crashes somewhere after about 410 MB is imported. The exact place where it crashes varies. I attempted to import the Eudora database into Thunderbird. That worked, no problem. I attempted to import the Eudora database into Mail, using Mail's own (not very good) tools. That worked. I deleted the new Mail database, and reimported the Eudora database into Mail using Eudora Mailbox Cleaner. That worked. I installed Eudora into the new account. Eudora, of course, worked just fine. I was using Mail 2.1, Thunderbird 2.0.0.4, Eudora 6.2.3 (paid version), and Enrage 11.3.3. > So then > Entourage wasn't crashing randomly during normal use - it was crashing > during an import of your mail data. That's quite a large detail for > you to leave out, no? Possibly because your interpretation of events is not what happened. > So how did you "import" this data exactly? Launch Enrage. Select 'Import' from the File menu. Select 'Import from a program'. Select 'Qualcomm Eudora'. >> It's not something unique to the machine, as I did it on an iMac G5, >> not the eMac. Some of the mail will be the same, though. It appears that [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Depending on how you "imported" the data, there may be another way to > do it that won't result in a crash. It's quite amazing that this 'malformed message' doesn't bother Mail... or Thunderbird, both of which have the same data. >> And, yes, before you ask, I _did_ send in a bug report to Mickeysoft, way >> back when I first tested this. No reply. Big surprise. > > Where'd you send that bug report? If you sent it to the wrong place > it's no surprise you got no response. support.microsoft.com, same as any other bug report. I have a .NET account and used that to log in. I _have_ received replies to other bug reports, including replies to bug reports about problems with Word for Mac. I have _never_ received a reply about Enrage. > I guess you didn't bother to ask for help on the > microsoft.public.mac.office.entourage news group then? I don't think so. Frankly, it didn't seem the kind of thing that they could help with. Signatureemail to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com. > This morning, before I replied, I set up a new OS X user account, logged into > that account, and installed Office 2004 from my CD there and ran all updates. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > It crashes somewhere after about 410 MB is imported. The exact place where it > crashes varies. It sounds to me like there's a bug in Entourage that crashes it when it encounters a particular email in your database. SignatureJR >>> It's not something unique to the machine, as I did it on an iMac G5, >>> not the eMac. Some of the mail will be the same, though. It appears that [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > It's quite amazing that this 'malformed message' doesn't bother Mail... or > Thunderbird, both of which have the same data. Maybe it's not malformed, but is simply unexpected somehow. Or maybe it's malformed, but the other email clients aren't looking at that part of the message. Hard to say really. SignatureJR >>> And, yes, before you ask, I _did_ send in a bug report to Mickeysoft, way >>> back when I first tested this. No reply. Big surprise. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > including replies to bug reports about problems with Word for Mac. I have > _never_ received a reply about Enrage. That sucks. I wonder what David Weiss <http://davidweiss.blogspot.com/> or Erik Shwiebert <http://www.schwieb.com/blog/> would have to say about that... SignatureJR > My wife uses Entourage and I have two major complaints: > > When one address in list of send-to addresses is incorrectly formed, the > message is rejected with no hint of which address is bad. Can you explain what you mean? I just sent a test message with multiple recipients, one of them being "se.d.fre", and Entourage presented me with an error message stating: <se.d.fre>: recipient address must contain a domain > She has three identities and each contains a large number of filed > messages. Receiving a single message as any identity pushes the daily > backup to well over a gigabyte. That's the single biggest complaint I have about Entourage as well. No email client is perfect, of course. But you should also keep in mind that because Entourage uses a database like this, it's also faster than most other mail clients when it comes to working with large numbers of messages. It's a trade-off Microsoft apparently was willing to make. SignatureJR > > My wife uses Entourage and I have two major complaints: > > [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > <se.d.fre>: recipient address must contain a domain I don't have an example at hand but the message is something vague like "Message could not be delivered". It's possible that it is an Entourage/ISP mail server interaction. > > She has three identities and each contains a large number of filed > > messages. Receiving a single message as any identity pushes the daily [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > most other mail clients when it comes to working with large numbers of > messages. It's a trade-off Microsoft apparently was willing to make. It's not clear to me that Entourage is, or should be, faster than Mail because of the single database. Both of them index the messages and I much prefer mail's integration with other Apple apps. There are other things that I choose to do with the individual message structure, but this isn't a pissing contest. I prefer Mail to Entourage and you don't. SignatureTom Stiller PGP fingerprint = 5108 DDB2 9761 EDE5 E7E3 7BDA 71ED 6496 99C0 C7CF >>> When one address in list of send-to addresses is incorrectly formed, the >>> message is rejected with no hint of which address is bad. [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > "Message could not be delivered". It's possible that it is an > Entourage/ISP mail server interaction. Is it in an Entourage error dialog box, or is it a email message you receive from the server? SignatureJR > >>> When one address in list of send-to addresses is incorrectly formed, the > >>> message is rejected with no hint of which address is bad. [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > Is it in an Entourage error dialog box, or is it a email message you > receive from the server? Please. Credit me with a little intelligence. It is an entourage error dialog box. SignatureTom Stiller PGP fingerprint = 5108 DDB2 9761 EDE5 E7E3 7BDA 71ED 6496 99C0 C7CF >> Is it in an Entourage error dialog box, or is it a email message you >> receive from the server? > > Please. Credit me with a little intelligence. It is an entourage error > dialog box. Hey you never know... SignatureJR [snip] > I don't have an example at hand but the message is something vague like > "Message could not be delivered". It's possible that it is an > Entourage/ISP mail server interaction. Tom, This MAY be a Comcast issue: I've seen the same thing with my wife's Entourage email. It pains me not to be able to blame it on Microsoft, but in this case it might be all Entourage is told by Comcast. Steve > [snip] > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > It pains me not to be able to blame it on Microsoft, but in this case it > might be all Entourage is told by Comcast. I think you may be right. I have set her up with parallel Gmail accounts and I'll test it the next time it happens. SignatureTom Stiller PGP fingerprint = 5108 DDB2 9761 EDE5 E7E3 7BDA 71ED 6496 99C0 C7CF >I don't know anything about Virus Barrier AV; I've never seen a Mac >virus or a Mac anti-virus program in my 21 years on the Mac. Hopefully it will recognize a virus that you received in an Office document before you pass it back to someone with a Windows machine. >> I don't know anything about Virus Barrier AV; I've never seen a Mac >> virus or a Mac anti-virus program in my 21 years on the Mac. > > Hopefully it will recognize a virus that you received in an Office > document before you pass it back to someone with a Windows machine. It's not as if Mac users stopped sending Word files with marco viruses to Windows users, Windows security record would magically improve overnight. Besides, I doubt Mac users send Word files with macros to Windows users all that often to begin with. SignatureJR Dudley, > I have occasion to write tutorials for several web sites. I've been > doing these on a PC using Microsoft Word as my default word processor. [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > be penalized or restricted in any way when I send or receive data from > the PC people I have to deal with. Yes, pretty much. One free alternative is NeoOffice (<http://www.neooffice.org>), which is a port of Open Office to MacOS X. It even reads .docx files, if they're an issue. Earlier versions were somewhat to annoyingly slow, but lately they've been getting their speed up quite a bit. It's certainly quite usable on this intel iMac. > If I CAN get rid of the Microsoft Entourage Suite I have installed, I'd > also get rid of the Virus Barrier AV at the same time. I only have the > AV on here to cover any updates from Microsoft on their software. > Perhaps I've been misinformed when I bought the IMac about needing all > this junk on the Mac :-)) > DH > Dudley, > [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] >> this junk on the Mac :-)) >> DH Thank you Steve. I'm looking into it. DH I used to fret about Microsoft Word and iWork's Pages and the compatibility between them. Then I started using Google Docs. The first two applications are far superior in the context of creating a document by oneself or for imbueing a document with all the style and design that will make it look impressive when printed out on paper. But in my world, that applies to the minority of documents. The vast majority are far more content heavy than style heavy, most do not need to be printed and the most important documents require (or should at least permit) collaboration with more than 1 colleague. For this last aspect Google Docs leaves Word and Pages in the dust. And to boot: Google Docs is free The probability that Google will lose the document is less than the probability that I will (by failing to backup) I can work on it from anywhere without having to be proactive Lastly: Some people are concerned by privacy issues and control issues. That relates to psychological issues of fear and how they relate to risks. Discuss them with your significant other or psychoanalyst. |
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