A continuation of my computer system upgrade…
Through some online research (after a few hours), I finally figured out what was up with ACT! and why my old file wouldn’t load. I was elated when I could at least see my contacts and calendar in more than one place. Now the decision…move to Outlook once and for all or try to get ACT! running on my Palm and all computers? I decided on Outlook. I might as well bite the bullet now.
I tried to sync my Palm with Outlook and all that happened was my calendar and contacts moved into the Palm Desktop software. At least I had it in three places right now! After again some more online research, I figured out I had to upgrade the Palm conduit for Outlook to a new release (PocketMirror by Chapura) – at a cost of $14.95. I installed the trial version and it worked!!! Hallelujah…you should have heard the screaming in my office.
Now that my calendar was in Outlook, and on the server, my assistant could see it AND I could sync to my Palm. I’d been keeping a written list of new appointments so I had to add those. The major bummer is that none of my custom fields in ACT! transferred over and it feels like I have a new software package to learn. I can really see that I have only been using a minimal part of Outlook.
I’m not excited about adding some more tasks on my plate to learn this tool, but it is what it is. I had to make the leap sometime. Now we have to figure out how the whole Global Address Book versus Personal Address Book usage. What should go where? What will sync to the Palm? We also need to figure out how to add my husband’s computer onto the server so we can share the “family and friends” contacts and so I can get access to the Quicken file. That is for another day…
The tech guy quickly fixed the graphics driver on my laptop so that annoying bootup problem went away. Since I had Outlook running on three computers, he combined all of my files together so all mail was in one place. Again, reloading the 4,192 emails in my Outlook file took time.
Meanwhile, I copied all of the data files to the server. I am learning how to find where XP stores files for each user on a computer. Now that I have a server logon id and have used both the Dell and the laptop to connect to server, each computer has a directory for me (and everyone else who has used the computer). Files are in lots of places and I can’t wait to get rid of the duplicates. (Patience Debbie, make sure everything is on the server first and that it is being properly backed up!)
For some strange reason, not all of the programs I loaded on my new Dell (under my Local id), came up when I logged in using my server id. Yep, confusing. I have two id’s. One when I don’t want to connect to the server and one when I do. But I do want to connect to the server – so I can get email that is stored on the server. Once the connection to the server is stable, I shouldn’t have to use the Local login my tech guy says. (I’ll get this all straight someday!) I did have to spend some time creating shortcuts for programs not on the desktop or even the Start, All Progams list. Some I even just had to re-install. Yuck…more time!
What was my tech guy doing while I was doing this? Setting up the backup, verifying remote access and trying to figure out why the Dell would not stay connected. I kept getting an IP Address error. I know this has something to do with a number assigned to a computer and how they talk to each other. Were the computers fighting over who was the Important Participant (IP) in the network? I thought I was. Guess they had other thoughts. See…computers do NOT care what we think!
This session with the tech guy only lasted 7.5 hours. He had more research still to do and my issues were really stumping him…
To be continued…
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