Workers' Edge

A couple of weeks ago, I described how to sync contacts between Outlook, Gmail, and your iPhone. The program missing from this contacts mega-merge was Thunderbird (download for Windows | Mac), and for good reason. Mozilla's free e-mail program is not particularly contact-friendly.

The first time I attempted to use Mozilla Thunderbird's import function to bring my Gmail contacts into the client e-mail application, I was seriously disappointed with the results. Most of the contact information was squished into a single nondescript field for each record. The few fields that did make the conversion were incomplete. The entire process was pretty worthless, overall.

Then I found the free Zindus add-on for Thunderbird. The program brings a subset of contact fields from Google and Zimbra into Mozilla's free e-mail program. For Google, the fields imported include the contact's name, primary and secondary e-mail addresses, phone numbers, IM names, company, title, and notes. (I didn't test the program with Zimbra.)

After you download and install Zindus, a "Zindus" option is added to Thunderbird's Tools menu. Clicking it opens the Zindus Configuration Settings dialog box where you're presented with a handful of contact-sync options, including a Sync Now button.

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Last February, I described losing half my iPhone contacts after an iTunes sync. Even though I tried the Filadex Web-based contact manager, I don't like the fact that the information is stored unencrypted on Web servers.

More importantly, my iPhone always has my most up-to-date telephone and address contact list, while Gmail knows more about my e-mail correspondents than the iPhone does, and Google Calendar is my primary scheduler. Just to complicate matters, I spend most of my workdays (and some weekends, unfortunately) in Outlook.

I need to export my Google Calendar and Gmail addresses to Outlook and my iPhone, and move my iPhone telephone numbers and physical addresses to Gmail and Outlook. Simple, right? Well, it turned out to be not too difficult or time-consuming, although the result was a bit messy.

Sync Google Calendar with calendars in Outlook and the iPhone
Who knew Google Calendar and Outlook could play so nice? The aptly named Google Calendar Sync does the trick with just a few clicks and a minimum of thumb-twiddling. The program works with Outlook 2003 and 2007 on XP and Vista PCs, though it doesn't support 64-bit XP, according to Google.

After you download and install the program, you enter your Google ID and password and choose one of three options: sync from and to Google Calendar and Outlook; sync from Google Calendar to Outlook; or sync from Outlook to Google Calendar. The default sync time is 120 minutes, and the minimum setting is 10 minutes; there's no mention of a maximum setting. The sync begins after you click Save.

Up-and-down arrows on the Google Calendar icon in the notification area indicate a sync in progress; hover over it to see the percent complete or the time of the last sync.

The program converted my relatively simple Google Calendar to Outlook 2007 with surprising accuracy. In fact, the two calendars appeared and acted very much alike. Keep in mind, I didn't transfer any tricky repeating appointments, invitations, or time-zone changes. But for my meager calendar needs, the sync was fast and comprehensive.

To sync your Google Calendar and Gmail contacts with an iPhone, simply use the phone to create a Google Sync account. Instructions for OS version 2.2 and 3.0 are on the Google Mobile Help site.

Unfortunately, Google Sync is limited in the fields it supports and doesn't let you exclude entries or deal with duplicates. These and other of the program's limitations are described on the Google Sync Help page.

Move your iPhone contacts to Gmail and Outlook, or vice-versa
Use iTunes to export your iPhone contacts to Outlook--and Gmail, if you choose not to go the Google Sync route described above. Plug your iPhone into your PC, choose the device in iTunes' left pane, and select the Info tab. Pick either Outlook or Google Contacts in the "Sync contacts from" drop-down menu. (Yahoo Address Book and Windows Address Book are the other options.) For Outlook, you can choose which groups to sync. For Gmail, you enter your user ID and password.

Your only sync options are to merge or replace the entries iTunes identifies as duplicates, and to choose between two entries pegged as conflicts. The resulting sync was full of double entries, but I would much rather deal with manually merging the dupes than losing the information either entry contains.

I'll probably spend another hour or so cleaning up the extra entries created by the contact sync, but that's much less time than I'd spend trying to replace the info.

A reader named Eric found himself locked out of his Vista administrator accounts:

"Somehow, my account and my son's accounts were downgraded to standard user on his new computer using Vista Home 32-bit. I cannot seem to log in to make any changes to the accounts now. It prompts me to enter a password but no password box is available to type it in. How can I log in to change my account back to administrator?"

In a post last year, I described how to enable Vista's hidden administrator account and password-protect XP's default administrator account. Of course, this tip works only if you use it before you actually need it because it requires administrator privileges.

I found another approach described by Microsoft MVP Ronnie Vernon on the Soft32 forum. Here it is in a nutshell:

• Restart your PC and press F8 repeatedly before Windows loads to open Vista's Advanced Boot Options screen.
• Use the arrow keys to select Safe Mode and press Enter.
• On the low-res Windows Welcome screen, choose the Administrator account, which by default has no password.
• click Start > Control Panel > User Accounts and either change your standard account to an administrator one or create a new administrator account.

When you restart the machine normally, you'll have access to the administrator account you just restored or created. (Note that I wasn't able to verify this tip because I'm not willing to risk losing the administrator accounts on my Vista PC just to test it.)

Gmail encrypts transmissions, not messages
Another reader named Ian contacted me about some misinformation in a post from last month entitled "Five simple PC security tips":

"In this article, you refer to 'encrypting Gmail' where you urge people to turn on the https: feature when using Gmail. Technically, while any e-mail read/written is encrypted in transit between your browser and Gmail's server, the e-mail is nevertheless still stored in the clear.

"Perhaps you could clarify the wording somewhat so people might potentially avoid interpreting your remarks so as to conclude that their stored e-mail is somehow encrypted on Gmail's servers."

Right you are, Ian, which is why you want to think twice about storing confidential information on Google's servers or any other Web servers that don't support encryption. Google is reportedly considering changing Gmail to default to encrypted sign-ins, as explained by Brian Krebs on his security blog earlier this week.

This doesn't affect your stored messages, however, nor the files you share via Google Docs & Spreadsheets, nor any of your other personal data accessible through Google free services. That's the best reason I know not to keep any sensitive information in Gmail or any other Google app.

In a future post, I'll describe secure online services. You can bet none of them will have "Google" in their name.

If you followed the steps in my post from August on merging your Outlook and Gmail contacts, you may have ended up with duplicates in your contact lists. Microsoft's advice for deleting duplicate contacts is to sort them by the date modified, Ctrl-select the ones you want to remove, and press delete.

The problem is, the duplicate entries probably aren't identical, so you're almost certain to delete some data along with the dupe. What you need is a way to merge the information in the duplicate contacts. There's no such feature in Outlook, but if you're willing to spend $30, you can make short work of your extraneous Outlook entries by running 4Team's Duplicate Killer for Outlook.

The program deletes or merges duplicate e-mail messages, calendar entries, tasks, and notes in addition to contacts. I tested the program with Outlook 2007 but, according to the vendor, it works with Outlook 2000, XP, and 2003 as well. The new version, 3, is said to work with "Microsoft Exchange type folders including public folders," according to the vendor's Web site, but I ran it on a standalone Outlook installation.

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Last August, I described how to delay the messages you send from Microsoft Outlook. In that post, I bemoaned the lack of a similar feature in Gmail. Well, Google engineer Yuzo Fujishima comes to the rescue with a new tool called Undo Send, though unlike Outlook's send-delay feature, in Gmail, you have to act--or unact--fast.

To activate the feature, open Gmail, click Settings in the top-right corner, and choose the Labs tab. If you don't see a Labs tab, click more in the top-left menu, select even more, click the Labs link at the top right, choose Gmail Labs. Scroll to Undo Send, click Enable, and select Save Changes.

This feature isn't a miracle worker; it can pull back a message only in the first 5 seconds after you click Send. Still, many an e-mail "Oops!" comes to mind in that split second after you send it.

The Undo option appears for about 5 seconds in the "Your message has been sent" message at the top of your in-box.

If you click Undo in time, your message is yanked from the outbound queue and you see a message informing you that the send was undone.

Clearly, the Gmail Undo Send feature doesn't give you anywhere near the level of control you get when delaying sent messages in Outlook, but Gmail's version is much simpler to implement.

The Send Later extension for the Mozilla Foundation's Thunderbird e-mail client provides a similar function. Unfortunately, several people report problems using Send Later with the latest version 2.0.0.21 of Thunderbird. The extension appeared to work as advertised on my Vista PC, however.

To activate Send Later, press Ctrl-Shift-Enter when you've finishing composing the message. In the "Send this email later" dialog box that opens, select the time you want the message sent using the drop-down menus at the top of the window, or click one of the three preset delays: 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or 2 hours.

If only everything we do on a computer had a "do-over" button!

The list of PC security products never ends. For every name that drops off, two more jump on. In fact, determining the best security hardware and software is a full-time job. Sometimes, you just want to throw up your hands and take your chances.

Maybe I'm just a cockeyed optimist, but I think you can stay safe without spending all your spare time doing research, installing updates, and generally becoming a PC-security expert. Here are five relatively easy ways to improve your security.

Use the firewall that's closest at hand
In the computer industry, the reputation of a product, service, or Web site is just about worthless. Yesterday's best firewall, ad blocker, spam buster, virus spotter, or spyware cleaner is today's bust.

Maybe the product got bought and the new owners aren't as conscientious about updates as the previous ones. Or the service's management team decides to go for profits and skimp on support, updates, and enhancements. There are lots of reasons why a good product goes sour, and the computer industry has seen nearly all of them.

So if you can't go by reputation, how do you choose a security product? One way is to go with the tools you've already got. Windows' security is roundly criticized, but the fact is, it's better than it used to be, and third-party security products have their own shortcomings.

Last February, I recommended that you use a third-party firewall rather than the one built into Windows. Six months earlier, I suggested that you pass on the third-party tools and stick with the Windows Firewall despite its shortcomings.

So which side of the fence am I on now? The simple side. The fact is, any third-party security tool complicates your setup. It's not difficult to find weaknesses in the Windows Firewall, but it's safe enough for most PC users, and it's much better than using no software firewall at all.

My previous post included links to information on Microsoft's TechNet site providing technical details of the Windows Firewall, tips for customizing the Windows Firewall, and help troubleshooting the firewall in XP and Vista.

Don't hesitate to try another free antivirus program
Just last week, I switched antivirus programs on my XP test system--for the umpteenth time. Something was slowing the system down, and after defragging the hard drive and doing other standard maintenance tasks, the machine's performance didn't improve as I expected it to.

Rather than go through a bunch of diagnostic tests, I simply uninstalled the system's antivirus tool and downloaded a competing package. The old and new programs were both free, and the switch didn't take much time to complete. The topper? The XP machine's performance perked up immediately.

Two antivirus programs that are free for home use and that are currently highly rated are Avast Home Edition and Avira AntiVir. You'll find a list of dozens of antivirus programs for Windows on this Download.com page.

Change your password...again
I hate those "your password will expire in x days" warnings as much as you do, but one of the simplest ways to protect yourself is by keeping your passwords fresh. Last year, I described the Ten Password Commandments, one of which was to devise a password-creation strategy that's all your own.

Just two months ago, I complained about the shortcomings of passwords as our primary security option, though I concluded that there's nothing better, for now. Lots of people swear by password managers such as RoboForm, but then you have yet another third-party app complicating matters.

For me, it's simpler just to devise a new password based on my unique, inimitable password-creation system, which I share with no one. No need to write it down, enter it in an online form, or encrypt it in a master-password file. Temporary amnesia, well, that's another matter.

For secure e-mail, use encryption
You would think that encrypting e-mail would be a breeze, but doing so is anything but. You and the recipient have to deal with digital certificates, public and private keys, and any number of other time-eating preparations and precautions.

The simplest way I know of to encrypt your e-mail is by using the Mozilla Foundation's Thunderbird with the Enigmail extension. Jason Thomas provides step-by-step instructions in this tutorial on the Lifehacker site.

Gmail users can secure their e-mail communications by enabling the service's built-in encryption. To do so, click the Settings button at the top-right of the main Gmail screen, scroll to the bottom of the General tab, select "Always use https," and click Save Changes.

Keep your browser up-to-date
Most people will tell you that the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser is the safest way to surf, but a recent report from Google Switzerland and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology found that "(u)sing the most recent version of a browser will lower the risk associated with drive-by-downloads and other Web-based attacks, which start by targeting the browser."

The report cites Google Chrome's silent updates as the best way to ensure that your browser is protected. The researchers also laud Chrome's lack of a way for users to disable its silent-update feature. Some people will object to software being downloaded to and installed on their system without their knowledge, but the fact is, these behind-the-scenes updates are the best way to keep you safe from the Internet bad guys.

Personally, I'm starting to rethink my choice of default browser. But as I mentioned earlier, you can't put any faith in a computer security product's reputation. And you can't be afraid to switch.

Last week, somebody contacted me about a problem they were having with Outlook:

"I work for a general contractor and have multiple projects going on. When I get e-mails pertaining to particular jobs, I place them in Personal Folders that I name with the job name. When the project is completed, I would like to move the folder onto my hard drive without losing the date.

"I have over 242 e-mails for one job alone. When I move them, they all come up with the date that I transferred them and the subject matter is gone. There has got to be a better way of saving old e-mails without losing important data. It would be impossible to go back to find a particular e-mail after transferring them. The sender info is gone as well."

The steps for moving specific messages into a folder on your hard drive or other storage device are the same for Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2003. Click File > New > Outlook Data File. Choose either Office Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst) or Outlook 97-2002 Personal Folders File (.pst) and click OK.

Next, choose the location for your new folder, give it a name (the default is "Personal Folders(1)," but you can probably come up with a more descriptive name), and click OK. Enter the name in the Create Microsoft Personal Folders dialog box, add a password if you wish, and click OK again.

Now drag the messages you want to store locally out of their current Outlook Personal Folder subfolder and into the folder you just created. The messages will remain intact, with all dates, attachments, and other content unchanged.

Last year, I decided to give Linux a try. Everything was going well, until I started working for a company that uses Microsoft Outlook for e-mail. There's simply no straightforward, reliable way to run Outlook on Linux. I tried Outlook Web Access, but the service strips code from HTML attachments, among other limitations.

(The company I worked for prior to my current employer used Lotus Notes, which is probably the only e-mail program in the world more proprietary than Outlook. Organizations must get some huge benefit from using these closed e-mail systems, because they sure make life difficult for users.)

I didn't get far with my Linux experiment, but I'm not giving up on my dream of a simpler PC. I'm ready for the true network computer. Unfortunately, Web apps aren't quite ready for me. More specifically, they're not ready for my boss, though they appear to be getting closer every day.

Do you really need all those programs on your hard drive?
It's downright wasteful to have huge software applications collecting dust on PC hard drives. Take a look at the programs with shortcuts on your Start menu. I bet you haven't opened half of them more than a handful of times in the last year, and a bunch you probably have used but once or not at all.

Adoption of Web-based versions of PC applications has been slowed by the services' limited features and performance compared to that of their desktop counterparts. Also, a dropped Internet link leaves you out in the cold.

Today, online services such as Zoho provide much of the functionality of various desktop apps, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Zoho also includes an offline component that lets you continue to work without a Web connection. Likewise, Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Picasa, Wordpress, and more recently Gmail use Google Gears to allow offline access to your data in those services.

Security of Web-based apps comes up short
Of course, from an IT perspective, the most serious shortcoming of Web-based applications is their perceived lack of security. In particular, Google doesn't let you encrypt the data you store on the company's servers. Zoho's FAQ page states that the company will soon add a data-encryption option. Still, storing the organization's data on somebody else's servers can give system administrators nightmares.

There are still some applications I use regularly that don't have a Web equivalent: Outlook, the TopStyle HTML editor, and the Corel Paint Shop Pro imaging program, among a handful of others. The one thing all three of these programs have in common is that they were selected for me--by my boss.

Personally, I'm ready to go the Web-app-and-Netbook route. And as soon as I can say adios to the monster applications my work seems to require, I'll give the always-online life a try. Wish me luck convincing my employer to join me.

Ever since Gmail became my primary e-mail service in 2006, I've been waiting for the ability to search my voluminous message archive without a network link. My hopes jumped with the arrival in 2007 of the Google Gears plug-in for Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Gears lets you store Web services data on your local PC, among other functions. Gears and Gmail are such a perfect fit, I was sure that it would be just a few short months until I was rummaging through my Gmail archives while disconnected from the Internet.

Wrong again. That's what I get for trying to outthink Google. Unfortunately, there are still only a handful of Gears-enabled Web apps (Google Calendar isn't one of them).

The wait for networkless Gmail access ended last week, when Google Labs released Offline Gmail.

After you install Gears, you'll see an Offline option under the Labs tab in Gmail's Settings. Choose the Enable button, and when you restart your browser, you'll see an "Offline 0.1" link in the top-right corner of the main Gmail window. Click this link to begin the installation. (You'll also be prompted to download and install Gears, if you don't already have it on your PC.)

After the initial sync completes, click the Offline icon to the left of the Settings button to check your online status and view your options (choose Show Actions to see all available options).

Your initial synchronization may take quite a while, especially if you retain as many old messages as I do. The fact is, I was ready for the first sync to take all day, but just an hour and 15 minutes later, my store of Gmail messages--including attachments--was ensconced on my laptop's hard drive.

The first thing that struck me post-sync was how fast my mail searches had become. Having your mail on your hard drive makes fast work of archive searches that can take several seconds when interacting with Gmail's servers.

The Google Labs folks warn that Gmail's offline capability is still experimental, so you may encounter some features that don't work as expected. Still, after using Offline Gmail for a few days, I feel like a kid on Christmas morning. Thanks, Labs guys!