Workers' Edge

For most people, browsing is an either-or proposition: they use either Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Mozilla's Firefox. But I'm betting there's a bunch of people like me who find themselves spending time in both browsers, often simultaneously.

The problem is, my list of Firefox bookmarks bears no resemblance to my collection of IE favorites. It took all of about five minutes to solve this problem.

Move your IE favorites to Firefox
Open Firefox 3 and click File > Import to start the Import Wizard. Choose Microsoft Internet Explorer and click Next. Uncheck all the options except Favorites (or retain them if you want to add your IE cookies, history, and Internet options) and click Next and Finish.

Firefox 3 makes it easy to import your Internet Explorer favorites via the Import Wizard.

(Credit: Mozilla Foundation)

You can also export your IE favorites manually. To do so, open IE and click File > Import and Export to open the wizard. Click Next, choose Export Favorites, and click Next again. To export all your favorites, click Next again, or drill down the folders listed under Favorites and choose only the shortcuts you want to export before you click Next. Choose a name and location for your favorites file, but be sure to retain the .htm (or .html) format. Click Next > Finish > OK to close the wizard.

Use this file as a favorites backup or to move your list to a copy of IE on another PC.

Add your Firefox bookmarks to IE
In Firefox 3, click Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks. At the top of the Library dialog box, click Import and Backup > Export HTML. Choose a name and location for the file (retain the .htm or .html extension) and click Save. Close the Library dialog.

Now open IE and click File > Import and Export > Next. Choose Import Favorites and click Next again. Click Browse, navigate to and select the bookmarks file you just exported from Firefox, and click Save. After you click Next again, select the folder you want to store the bookmarks in and click Next yet again. Finally, click Finish and OK.

Sync your Firefox bookmarks with Foxmarks
This import-export routine should suffice for people who use only one, two, or even three different PCs. However, if you would prefer to store all your bookmarks in one place or if you frequently browse on public PCs, an online bookmark service may be a better solution. The free Foxmarks add-on for Firefox lets you sync bookmarks on a number of systems and provides access to your shortcuts after you log in at the Foxmarks.com site.

And yes, the site works with both Firefox and IE.

I spend most of my workday Alt-Tabbing between my Gmail inbox and the Outlook account on my employer's Exchange Server. The problem is, when it comes to contacts, there isn't much overlap between the two: Only a handful of Gmail addresses are also in the Outlook contacts list, and vice-versa.

Rectifying the situation takes only a few minutes. Start by moving your Outlook contacts to Gmail. In Outlook 2003 and 2007, click File > Import and Export, select "Export to a file," click Next, choose either comma-separated value option, and click Next again. Browse to and select your Contacts folder, click Next again, choose the Browse button, pick a location for the file, give it a name with the .csv extension, click OK, and click Next once more. Verify the action and click Finish.

Verify the export action to move Outlook contacts to Gmail.

(Credit: Microsoft)

After the file-export finishes (it can take a while), open Gmail, click Contacts on the left, and choose Import at the top right. Click Browse and navigate to and select the file you just exported. You can create a new group for the contacts by choosing "Also add these imported contacts to" before you click Import. You'll be prompted to give the group a name.

Select the .csv file you exported from Outlook to import your contacts to Gmail.

(Credit: Google)

Once the file is imported, you'll see a summary indicating the number of contacts added, merged, or ignored because they were duplicates. Click OK to return to your list of contacts.

Gmail shows a summary of the contacts imported from Outlook.

(Credit: Google)

Now turn the process around by moving your Gmail contacts to Outlook. On the Gmail Contacts page, click Export in the top right, choose to export just your contacts or your contacts and Gmail's suggested contacts, select "Outlook's CSV format (for importing into Outlook or other applications)," and click the Export button.

The file is named "contacts.csv" automatically. Select the Save File button (it's chosen by default) and click OK. The list will be saved in your Downloads folder (or whichever folder you've picked as your default). Open Outlook, click File > Import and Export > Import from another program or file > Next.

Choose the appropriate comma-separated-value option and click Next again. Click the Browse button, navigate to and select the .csv file you just created, pick one of the options regarding duplicate entries (the default is "Allow duplicates to be created"), and click Next again. Choose the destination folder (probably Contacts under Personal Folders for your account), verify the action, and click Finish.

Any addresses with unrecognizable names will be listed first with only the e-mail address, but other contacts will appear alphabetically by last name.

Since I started synchronizing my e-mail inboxes a few months ago, I rarely even open my Outlook mail client. I much prefer seeing the messages sent to my ISP's POP account and those sent to my Gmail account together in my Gmail inbox. But I still have to open Outlook to view my calendar, which I've been using for years, even though I now put many of my nonwork appointments in Google Calendar, which I can access from my iPhone or any Internet-connected PC.

I thought I found a free program that would let me synchronize the two calendars automatically. Synchronization Technologies' SyncMyCal claims to let you sync multiple Outlook calendars with your Google Calendar. I gave the program a try, but I while it let me transfer the entries on my Google Calendar to my Outlook equivalent, I couldn't get all my Outlook appointments to register on Google Calendar.

I'll keep troubleshooting the problem, though I hope I don't have to upgrade to the $25 SyncMyCal Pro version, which automates the calendar syncs, and lets you work with appointments in time chunks longer than the free version's limit of 7 days. Until then I'll stick with the manual approach to Outlook/Google Calendar integration.

Send your Google Calendar entries to Outlook 2003 and 2007
Start by logging into your Google account and opening your calendar. Click the Manage calendars link at the bottom of the left pane, and then click the name of the calendar to open the Calendar Details dialog box. Scroll to Private Address near the bottom of the window, and click ICAL.

Click ICAL next to Private Address in Google Calendar's Calendar Details dialog to generate the URL you'll use to import the calendar to Outlook.

Unfortunately, Outlook 2003 doesn't support the iCalendar format. I was able to add Google Calendar entries to my Outlook 2003 calendar one at a time by clicking the link in the popup window to download the entry, opening the file in Outlook, and clicking Save and Close. But this approach isn't any faster than adding the entries manually.

At least Outlook 2007 lets you import an iCalendar file directly: Copy the long URL in the Google Calendar's Private Address popup window, open your Outlook calendar, and click File>Import and Export. Choose Import an iCalendar (.ics) or vCalendar file (.vcs), and click Next. Paste the URL you copied from the popup into the File name field at the bottom of the Browse dialog box, and click Open. Click Import, and your Google Calendar entries are added to your Outlook calendar.

Import your Google Calendar as an iCalendar file (.ics) to add its entries to your Outlook 2007 calendar.

Transfer your Outlook calendar to Google Calendar
To move your Outlook schedule to your Google Calendar, Open Outlook 2003 or 2007 and click File>Import and Export>Export to a file>Next. Choose Comma Separated Values (Windows) and click Next again. Navigate to and select your Calendar folder (it should be highlighted by default), and click Next yet again. In Outlook 2003, verify the location of the saved .csv file (change it if you want to place it elsewhere), and click Next once more. In Outlook 2007, select a location for the file, give it a name, and click OK and then Next. Click Finish, set the date range for the calendar entries to be exported, and click OK.

Now open your Google Calendar, click the small down arrow next to Add in the left pane, and choose Import Calendar. Select the Browse button, navigate to and select the .csv file you just created, and click Open. Choose the calendar you want to import it to (it will likely be selected by default), and click Import.

Select the .csv file you exported from Outlook to import it to your Google Calendar.

Tomorrow: What to do when Windows craps out.

There's a great little feature in Microsoft Word 2003 and earlier versions of the word-processing program that lets you export to PowerPoint an outline of any Word file formatted with headings. I admit that it's a specialized operation that probably doesn't get used all that often, but it's a handy way to work between the two Office apps.

I was all set to tell you how to use the feature in Word 2007 when I realized it has been removed. So all that noise Microsoft made when the new Office System was released more than a year ago about how much better the various apps would work together didn't extend to exporting Word outlines to a PowerPoint presentation. Oh, well, I'm sure Microsoft had a good reason for removing the feature.

Here's how it works in Word 2003: First, if you haven't applied headings to the document whose outline you want to export to PowerPoint, open it in Word, select the headings one at a time, and click Format>Styles and Formatting>Heading 1. Each Heading 1 entry will become a separate slide. Now select any subheadings in each Heading 1 section and choose Heading 2. These will be the entries under each Heading 1 slide.

To preview your "presentation," click View>Document Map to open a pane on the left side of the screen. If you like what you see, click File>Send to>Microsoft Office PowerPoint. A new presentation will open in that program with slides representing each of the Heading 1 entries in the original Word file.

Preview your new PowerPoint presentation in Word 2003 by clicking View>Document Map.

A plain-jane PowerPoint presentation is created from the outline of your Word 2003 document.

My attempts to find the same function in Word 2007 came up empty. I tried converting the document to PDF and then importing the PDF version to PowerPoint 2007, but this created so many nonsense slides that it would be easier simply to copy and paste the headings into the various slides. If anybody out there knows how to move the outline of a Word 2007 document to PowerPoint, please let me know.

Tomorrow: Safely disable unneeded services in Windows XP and Vista.