Leopard, Entourage, and Exchange out of sync

I work at a rather large place with hundreds of PCs and only a handful of OSX machines. Luckily, I happen to be one of the few OSX people.

We use Entourage, which is Microsoft’s wanna-be Outlook app for OSX, along with Exchange for all our e-mail needs. Normally things work without a hitch, however recently a few people using Entourage started experiencing some oddities.

What started happening:

• Inbox will not sync. At all. A quick check to the webmail interface shows all the mail is there.
• Other folders such as Deleted Items, Spam, Drafts synce without issues.
• E-mail can be sent without errors.
• No errors, warnings, dialogs, etc shown.
• Other users with the exact same config experienced no problems.

After doing some quick research there is a quick fix:

• Right click  the Inbox Folder (in your Exchange account) and choose “Folder Properties”.
• Locate the “Empty Cache” section in the middle of the window.
• Click the “Empty” button.

That’s it. It will take a few minutes to resycn but once it is done things should be back to normal. Since this has only happened – randomly – to a few users I’m still not sure what caused/causes it.

Now if only Entourage wasn’t so terrible.

New keyboard saves my sanity

Next month (November) marks the 2 year anniversary of “the switch”. It will be 2 years since I retired my PC, bought a Macbook Pro, and starting using OSX full time.

When I bought my original Macbook Pro two years ago I purchased the new sleek low profile Apple keyboard. I liked it so much I got one to use with my iMac at work.

slim and sexy

After two years of using Apple’s famous slim form keyboard, today I am retiring it. How can I part with such a slender and graceful piece of equipment you might be wondering? It all came down to ergonomics. I love that keyboard, I really do. However having one at home and at work, I was typing on it an easy 10 hour/day. This keyboard design is not accommodating to heavy usage – far from it. By mid day it was just not comfortable – my wrists ached and fingers were sore. I need keys with more resistance. I need a place to put my wrist.

About a week ago I had enough. Clearly Steve didn’t give a shit if his keyboard was made for people who actually use the computer for real work. Appearance over functionality! That is the Apple way isn’t it? Thus I started my quest to find a replacement. I quickly figured out why many people use that slim finger torturer Apple sells: the number of “mac” keyboards (command key, not windows key!) is few and far between.

Regardless of the small selection I was finally able to find a replacement that is working just fine. It’s not even comparable to Apple’s when it comes to comfort. To top it off, it’s a Microsoft keyboard. Did I mention it was dirt cheap? Oh, and it came with a mouse. Yes, really.

new hotness

So if you are looking for a solid ergonomic keyboard for your Mac look no further than the Microsoft Wireless Laser Keyboard (and Mouse). The whole combo is $25 bucks off of Amazon.