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Qatar census

A guy came to the door the other day who was working for the census. The first weird thing I noticed was that he called me by name, creepy. When I asked how he knew my name he pointed to the number on the door and told me he looked it up. He was carrying this huge PDA and asked me tons of questions, most of which were normal (for me) but a few stood out. #1 odd question was he asked how many kitchens we had in the house. Mmmm I guess people in Qatar have multiple kitchens? The other, more obvious one that still through me at first was he asked how many wives I had. Of course, Muslims can have four wives so it was a normal question for Qatar but it still threw me for a loop!

Funny I just saw the same guy walking around the neighborhood tonight with hid gigantic PDA. I guess he is not done with our little area of about 20 homes yet!

http://www.qsa.gov.qa/QatarCensus/

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Going Google Part 2

So my last post about “going Google” was about migrating mail via IMAP from your “local” Exchange 2007 server to Google’s behemoth server farm (Google Mail) I may have failed to mention that option is only available for those running Google Apps Premiere (paid version) or Google Apps for Education (free but only for schools) So there, you are warned. OK now on to this post. I wanted to go full circle and see if it is possible to get the full Outlook experience using Google mail (syncing mail, contacts, and calendar AND get the Google GAL to show up in Outlook) Well, as it turns out it is pretty workable, but not as simple as it could be. You need two tools: on called Google Apps Sync and the other is the GAL generator. You may also find help on this page of Google’s help site. The purpose of the Google Apps Sync is twofold: first it will take all your “stuff” from Outlook and migrate it to Google’s mail servers and second it will then make Outlook your mail client, reading Google’s mail, contacts and calendars. Well in my case I had already done a full migration of my mail FROM Exchange and TO Google mail so I simply set up a new mail profile (I am using Windows 7) so that there would not be any confusion about uploading my email for the second time, etc. So I set up my new mail profile and ran Google Apps Sync and it cranked away and downloaded all 1.3 GB of my mail, contacts and calendars. It defaults to allowing up to 1 GB to be synced but you can up that to 2, 4, or unlimited syncing.

OK, so now the tough part. In order to get your Google global address list (GAL) to show up in Outlook you have to follow several steps, including editing the registry! Why this is not simpler is beyond me, but oh well I was determined to try it. I followed those directions from the link above and things seemed to work fine.

Basically you:
1. Download Google’s GAL generator.
2. Move it to the same directory as the Google Apps Sync program.
3. Run it. It generates a local GAL (static snapshot of your Google GAL)
4. Edit the registry (you have to make a new key that tells Google Apps Sync where to find the GAL you just downloaded)

One thing to note is that I did not create the network share or deploy this solution via MSI file, edit GPOs, etc. Obviously if you are going to roll this out in an large Windows environment you’d want to do all this and I cannot see why it would not work. The only trouble is that this Google GAL generator just generates a snapshot of your GAL so when you add a new user on Google Apps you have to run that again and copy the resulting file to the network share, etc. Might be more work than it is worth unless your people are totally tied to Outlook. There you go, my $.02 about Google Apps Sync for Outlook and the GAL generator.

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new music

I was listening to a podcast by Worship Circle the other day while cleaning the kitchen (www.entertheworshipcircle.com) and they had a guest band, The Blackthorn Project playing with them, which I thought was very cool. Love the style of music and they love Jesus like I do. Check it out:


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Small world

I met up with a former student and friend of mine (and of my wife’s) at the souks in Doha, Qatar last night. It was great to tell stories of old times at RVA. We were both there at Rift Valley Academy at the same time, 7 or so years ago now. Micah is an amazing guy and I’m grateful that he took made the effort to get out and connect with me. Thanks for the great evening of memories Micah!

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Going Google: Migration to Google Mail

Over the last 2 days (this weekend) I have migrated all my email from an Exchange 2007 server to Google Mail. We are currently using a dual-delivery setup where I work and I was trying to “test” using exclusively Google for my mail. I quickly realized “testing” was not an option as I live in my inbox and cannot live without my synced contacts and calendar either. (who can?) So I am making the switch to Google Mail. Now let me give you some background information. We have run Exchange 2007 for a few years and last year set up a Google Apps for Education account for all 2000 users. By dual-delivery I am referring to the fact that our mail was/is sent to the Exchange server as well as to Google (it hits Google first). I used to use Exchange exclusively but 2 days back have moved to the Google “version” of our email. Here’s how I did it:

  1. Logged into Google Mail for our school and deleted everything (remember there was a copy on the Exchange server)
  2. Logged into the admin console for Google Apps and went to the IMAP migration tool (https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/your.domain/ServerConnections)
  3. Using the migration “setup wizard” you set up a new server connection. I had to choose “Exchange 2003” as 2007 was not on the list, but it works fine. Remember to open the appropriate ports for IMAP (143 or 993 for SSL IMAP) so that Google can access your Exchange server. Oh yea, and turn on IMAP on your Exchange server if it is off.
  4. You then choose which accounts to migrate. You can add a few manually or you can upload a CSV with the list of accounts to migrate. I have not done the CSV method yet but will update my post if I try it. I just entered my account info here.

That is pretty much it. From there your email will get migrated to Google Mail. Folders come through as labels since there are not folders in Google Mail. I have a TON of folders as I am an organized guy 🙂 and so we’ll see if those labels get too crazy. Also I am using the Google Labs “Signature Tweaks” because I really like my signature to appear just below my text, not at the bottom of all the quoted text. I cannot imagine why anyone would want their signature there, but hey we cannot all be the same or life would be boring. BTW it takes a long time for the migration to complete; your mileage may vary depending on your mailbox size. Oh yea, and it is better to consolidate folders on the Exchange side first and clean up your mailbox as there is no point in transferring junk to Google. Also folders with the “/” in their names will be skipped. Learned that one from personal experience.

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My Girls

Acacia is the cute 4 year old and Hava is the cute 6 year old. This is taken in my in-law’s home in Wilmore, KY. Right now, they are in KY and I am in Qatar because my wife is home caring for her mother, who is fighting cancer. I miss them like crazy!

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My boy

This is Tolan, my son, with a remote control Hummer. Just 2 weeks ago we were playing my parent’s yard in KY with this car. Even though the batteries had died, he insisted on pushing it around the yard. It was pure heaven for me. Just check out that smile!