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Archive for 8 March 2004

Wasting time with Outlook

I’m getting hacked off to the point of migration with Outlook. First it’s unilaterally decided to put the Sender field back into a custom view I’d set up for all my Newsgator folders; then it decided that it wasn’t going to shut down cleanly, leaving a lingering process every time I closed it; and now it’s only deigning to talk to the Fastmail IMAP server every second or third attempt. And for some reason best known to itself, it won’t reconnect using the ‘Connect to…’ option – instead I have to close it down completely and restart it every time, running the gauntlet of problem #2. Assuming it’s actually possible to shut down – I’ve spent a significant proportion of the afternoon watching the little progress eggtimer spinning idly to itself while it ignores anything short of Ctrl-Alt-Del.

It’s had both Office service packs applied, and still it’s giving me grief. Considering this is about the only piece of software that’s holding me back from dumping this bag of bugs of a laptop in favour of a Mac or Linux, my days of being a Slave Of Redmond are looking numbered.

Compare and contrast with the three Linux boxes in my life, which currently have uptimes of three months-plus. The chances of me even contemplating an upgrade in the direction of Longhorn are diminishing with every passing hassle.

8 March 2004

Technical

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BT wiring colour codes

A sheet with the colour coding for BT voice cabling has been kicking around in the bottom of my toolkit for years, with the net effect that it’s never to hand when I need it. The last time I needed it I had Google to hand, but it took waaay too long to find the information, mainly because I couldn’t figure out the search string that would bring back the right hits. So this time I’m giving a title that means something to me, in the hope that Google will pick it up and I won’t have to ratch around for it again.

1 – No connection
2 – BLUE with WHITE rings
3 – ORANGE with WHITE rings
4 – WHITE with ORANGE rings
5 – WHITE with BLUE rings
6 – No connection

Simple enough when you know it, but impossible to remember if you don’t.

8 March 2004

Technical

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