MS Office 2008 for Mac Service Pack 1 (12.1.0) - Issues & Solutions
I’m reporting this almost 2 weeks after the mega update was announced. You can download it from here if you have already not auto updated it (I like to download my updates rather then updating them on the fly, predictable stupidities can happen)
The Issue:
Yes, once you have updated your mac with the service pack, it becomes a Brick. You enter into alice and the wonderland kind of situation leading you nowhere. The biggest headache is you can’t access entourage and OMG no work can be done till you resolve this monster you have created.
Before you Update!!!!
Before you start the update, Please please please “Backup” your entourage data. I have written about it before, using Tiger / Entourage 2004 and it works like a charm for Leopard 10.5.x / Entourage 2008. Lets say if you encounter such a big problem that we have to revert back to our original 12.0.0 version of MS Office 2008, then we would be able to use this backup. Note! During the update process, the Entourage DB is updated and becomes unusable with 12.0.0 release.
Update done, now what to do?
You are getting into this round-robin issue due to these 2 files. Delete them:
~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Microsoft Messenger User Cache.plist
/Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/OfficePID.plist
Now click on Entourage and the update Wizard will guide you through rest of the process. You will be asked to provide your Key again. For unknown reason my key was recognized as a valid key but the button was Not clickable. What the …? Searching on the web, I realized I wasn’t the only one. Solution:
I hope your update goes as smooth as mine. But it gave me many opportunities, i’ll list them down:
- My mailbox was about 3GB, with a bit of spring cleaning I was able to bring it down to 1.5 GB (cool!)
- Entourage data, just like its windows sibling outlook stores all its data in ONE db file. I had issues with PST files, haven’t yet encountered any issue with Entourage yet - but the net says it can be anyday
- Alternatives to Entourage? Many, I’m going to try out Apple Mail 3.0
Freehand MX not working in Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.2!
I checked all over the web and somehow feel I’m the only one whose facing this problem. This is what’s happening my end:
I click on the icon, the icon bounces for about 20 times and the Freehand menu bar appears and right when it says “Opening Panels” in the loading splash screen, I receive “The Application quit unexpectedly”
I have done the following steps:
- Uninstalled/deleted the application and whatever associated files were in Library/Cache/Preferences
- Restarted the machine
- Re-Installed the software, interestingly I was not asked for the Serial
- Same error happens at the same exact point
Then I went ahead and installed the application in another Macbook, which previosuly never had Freehand installed in it. It is also updated to 10.5.2 and I faced the same error.
Alas! I’m unable to use freehand on Mac, had to resort to use it on a Windows box to get the work done. If anyone has a clue to what could be the error and know how to resolve it, please help me.
Happy anniversary - my Macbook!
Yep! Its one-year since I’m using my Macbook (white). Since then 2 iterations of the laptop came with upgrades in processing and capabilities, but my Macbook still works great for me. It was a major transition from using Wintel desktops and later on only laptops to one fine day switching completely into the world of Mac OS X. Although, it took me some time to adapt but at the end, I would say investments in terms of time and finance have paid off really well.
The main reason to switch from Wintel was Worms and Viruses. I have strong belief that windows virus eco-system works in an Italian Mafia style – where MSFT lets the virus developers play with its un-patched/virus-friendly OS to comprise what ever glitch there can be to cause a users nightmares. I was in the middle of meeting with a foreign delegate with original XP, original-updated antivirus and suddenly the laptop crashed in front of me! It was then that I decided that enough is enough and since I have switched to Macbook.
I’ll highlight the likable things about the Apple & Mac OS X experience and my explorations yet!
- First, its not just another PC from xyz company selling windows pre-installed laptops – it’s an art form with carefully designed combination of Hardware & Software.
- Although, my experience started with Mac OS X Tiger, which was by all means perfect. Today Leopard has swayed it way further.
- I’m into recruitment and have to screen 100s of resumes a day in multiple formats. Usually you have to open the file in its respective application to view the contents and it can take some time. “Quick Look” is a lifesaver in this department. Not only you can view multiple formats like MS Word, Excel, PDF etc. etc., but also so easily. Just press space bar on any valid doc and viola, your quick look opens up.
- One Mac Book, multiple desktops – answer, Spaces! Initial reaction to this app is why one would need this. Once you get used too, then it’s real hard to escape from the experience.
- I’ve tried the other much-touted new features like Time Machine etc. in leopard but at the moment it I in my use. Time Machine is in Must To DO list; just need to gets hands on a decent backup medium.
- Other than recruitment, I use my Macbook as a regular Web Dev machine using Photoshop, Dreamweaver, FTP clients, PHP code editors, MySql clients and of course MAMP stack. It is an awesome experience.
- Finally — one complete year and no Virus afflictions ☺
I advise everyone to switch from MSFT hell (over a dozen converted), if your business/IT practices allow you this virus-free heaven. Otherwise, Boot Camp and multiple virtualization tools are available to let you run Windows side-by-side Mac OS X. Next year, I’ll be doing happy anniversary with Mac Book Pro ☺
Writers Block!
The current disappearance act is called “Writers Block”.
Once, I’m out of it (which I hope so soon), would be back in blogging business.
2007 - The year it was!
Happy New Year! And I wish 2008 brings happiness and peace to us. And most of all, ability to talk instead of bomb each other.
The year 2007 for us in Pakistan ended with a national tragedy (as declared by the government) but for me, an end to one leader giving way to many to enjoy the throne. What really happened, as usual will be a mystery.
For me the year 2007 was the year of “Television”. Not only my obsession with TV shows like 24, Prison Break, Hero’s etc. continued. But we were given ample reasons to sit in front of TV for hours to make some logical conclusion that why we as a nation fail to understand each other create “Breaking News” around the globe. No doubt, we have won the title “Most dangerous place on earth”, rightfully!
There have been god developments in the year as well. The tech industry in general created good buzz on the IT world map by winning prestigious awards. The .com revolution started off widely in the local scene, which is a good sign that consumers are finally accepting it as a method of shopping.
For us (Shophive.com, Radicalhire & Radical Solutions) the year 2007 can be labeled as “Growth” and “Presence”. We are hopeful we will be able to continue our growth and better able to server our clients and partners
Microsoft Entourage 2004 Backup!
Planning to shift to Leopard? What to back-up? These series of posts will focus on Backing up important data in your Mac before going for the latest cat in town; Leopard! Whatever, method you opt for, its always good to be safe and back up important data of your mac! We’ll start off with backing up data of Microsoft Entourage 2004, a mail client on mac, usually preferred by people who are used to of outlook.
Entourage!
The entourage team has done a good job at explaining the back up process. Click Help and enter “Back up” (with a space in both words) and help brings the topic at top. See Image below:
We’ll use the same text provided in the help for explaination.
Entourage can export items such as mail messages, tasks, contacts, notes, and calendar events to an Entourage archive (.rge extension). This enables you to store information in another location and remove it from Entourage. You can also use this process to make a back up of your Entourage information (without removing the information from Entourage).
Some important notes:
When creating Entourage back ups and archives, keep the following in mind:
- Groups, notes with multimedia elements and category information for all items except contacts cannot be exported.
- When exporting messages stored on a mail server (such as IMAP accounts), the entire contents of the message can only be exported if it has been downloaded from the mail server.
- Even if you choose to delete items after exporting, messages stored on the mail server will not be deleted.
Backing Up!
- Empty all Deleted Items folders to avoid getting items you do not want.
- On the File menu, click Export.
- Click Export items to an Entourage archive and select the items you want to include.
- Under Archive the following item types, select the item types you want to include, and then click the right arrow to continue.
- Choose whether or not you want to delete the items you are exporting and then click the right arrow to continue.
- Enter a name for the archive file and a location to store it and then click Save
Restore!
To restore Entourage information
- On the File menu, click Import.
- Click Import information from an Entourage archive and then click the right arrow to continue.
- Locate the .rge folder you want to import and then click Import.
Tips:
- If you need to refer to information stored in an archive temporarily and do not want the items imported into Entourage, create a new Identity and import the archived information into it. Then, when you are finished, you can simply delete the new Identity.This tip can also be used to confirm if the Back up is made completely and contains all data.
- If you want to explore the contents of an archive, hold down CONTROL while clicking the .rge folder and then click Show Package Contents.
Credits: Microsoft Entourage 2004
So true!
By now its quite evident, my love for Mac and all that surrounds it. While surfing on net for some neat Mac Os X pic, I came across this “True” image depicting the late 90’s era of Microsoft copy-cat culture. Enjoy 
State of IT!
I couldn’t help sharing it. Yesterday, I had the chance to visit my alma matter F.C. College to collect my intermediate degree. I hadn’t picked it up when I graduated, but getting it now from the college from was a charm though! Good support staff (y)! While waiting for the support staff to come up with the degree, I found this on the notice board.
A little googling revealed that empower is quite a famous software in its vertical league. I hope its up and running soon
Recently, I joined F.C. College alumni group on LinkedIn, join in by clicking here!
LinkedIn API - At last!
On Dec 10th, LinkedIn yet again announced release of its API. You might remember, LinkedIn is one the premier partners in Open Social Google’s initiative to counter the ever increasing foot hold of competitor FaceBook.
The difference between LinkedIn and lets say Facebook is, there about 17 Million professional users, people who run or work at some organization only looking for true networking and business-oriented purpose. And yet the application that empowers it, largely has been just a fancy visiting card share platform. There are so many things one can do based on the API’s, like I badly need to label my contacts into categories. I want to map my own reason why 2 contacts I have, share something unique between them like Blood relation etc.
It will take some time for widget and plug-in hero’s to write some cool apps for LinkedIn, but I’m very hopeful the experience is going to be real cool.
I’m G&W Author, Finally!
As it would be said in old times, the gods had mercy on me and made me an “Author” on a very active Blog, Green & White on Pakistani IT scene. Thanks Osama
I’ve written a couple of articles on various topics on G&W, following is a list of them (published till date):
- Will this work?
- Open Source but closed supply?
- Attack of India Dot Com
- An Interview with Acrologix PM on their AutoPlus Product
- From Iphone to Ibrick - is the hype worth it?
And this one was mutually agreed not to be published on G&W, so I started this humble blog of mine to publish it:
