August 2004 Archives
I've prepared detailed instructions on migrating your mail messages from Microsoft Outlook to Mozilla Thunderbird.
I am not an expert on Mozilla software or mail clients, but I do have a lot of experience with software, and went through this process several times before getting it to work the way I wanted. The steps below are not mandatory for success and may not be the most efficient method, but if followed, they should bring you success.
Note that there is a very easy way of migrating your messages: Just open Outlook, and from the File menu, choose "Export..." Choose to export to a file, and then choose the file type ".pst". After you install Thunderbird, just import the messages from this .pst file. This post is so long because it discusses customizing the migration process, and putting the mailboxes in a location where they can be easily backed up.
For me, the greatest benefit of performing the migration this way -- besides the actual switch itself -- is that it makes backing up and restoring your email much easier than it would be with Outlook. All you have to do is burn one directory to a CD, and you know you have everything. I never had confidence that would work with Outlook.
I performed the migration using Thunderbird 0.7.3 with Windows 2000 Professional and Outlook 2002, so YMMV.
Here are the directions:
I created a spreadsheet that shows the current winning percentages of 26 Major League Baseball teams, alongside their rank in terms of total 2004 payroll. This allows you to easily determine any correlation between payroll amount and winning percentage.
Your choice of formats:
- If you have Internet Explorer, try the interactive version that lets you sort, filter, etc. (It might work.)
- If that doesn't work, try the Excel-generated "plain" HTML file that isn't very fancy but conveys the same information.
I am not enough of a statistician to draw many conclusions about what the data proves -- I'll leave that up to you -- but I can say that the Minnesota Twins appear to be the best bargain (4th in winning percentage, 19th in payroll), whereas Seattle and the Mets seem to be the worst bargains. I'm sure there is a simple mathematical formula to better quantify that, but I have no idea what it is.* Post a comment if you do.
*Soon after writing this, I realized the rather obvious point that such a formula is payroll/wins. Now that the season is over, I will update this post shortly to include this formula.
I infrequently update this blog, because (a) I can only think of about two semi-interesting things to say per month, and (b) I don't have a cat to write about in the meantime.
This is the first post.
