To The Metal

Microsoft Outlook is one of those programs that is really good at what it does, but has some rather annoying quirks… One of them being the intermittent failure of the auto-complete function. Auto-complete is what allows you to start typing in part of an email address and have Outlook fill in the rest for you. It’s pretty handy, and when it fails, it can be rather annoying.

Now there is a software package out there which will fix the NK2 file for a price, but I’ve found it to be rather clumsy and its licensing model is archaic. I don’t want to have to buy a new copy for every NK2 file I need to fix.

So if your Outlook auto-complete has stopped working, this is how you fix it – FOR FREE.

• One note – I did this for OutlookXP and Outlook 2003.  It also works for Outlook 2007 (check the comments section).

1. Download and install the handy NK2 Viewer.

2. Once installed, you want to run the program, select all the items, then save them into a tab delimited for Outlook import file (name it nk2.txt for easy reference).

3. Open the nk2.txt file in Notepad, select the tab space and copy it. Press CTRL+H to perform a find and replace, paste the tab into the “Find What” field and type a comma into the “Replace With” field. Replace all,  also add double quotes ” around both the Email Address and Email Display Name fields at the top, then save the file. (“Email Address”,”Email Display Name”).

4. Navigate to the NK2 file that is not working (usually located in C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.NK2) and rename it to Outlook.NK2.OLD. We don’t need it anymore, but lets save it just in case.

5. Open up Outlook, and create a new Contacts folder, lets call it NK2.

6. In Outlook, import the nk2.txt file you created in step 2 into the NK2 contact list as a Windows CSV file.

7. Create a new email in Outlook, to anyone, type in the email address and send it. After you do this, close Outlook. This is key, as it will create a brand new Outlook.NK2 file. Make sure the OUTLOOK process is not running!

8. Open up the NK2 Viewer again, this time you want to click on File and “Add Items from Address Book.” Select the NK2 address book we created in step 5, select all the addresses, then click OK. This will re-populate the new NK2 file with the old data. Close the NK2 Viewer when you’re done.

9. Open Outlook, and Auto-Complete should be working AOK. For free. Anyone who pays to have this fixed shouldn’t be paid to fix anything.

So the other day on my lunch break I ran over to the local Chinese restaurant for some boneless spare-ribs.  I placed the order, and instead of waiting in the restaurant I took a jaunt over to CVS for some various items.  The line grows at the checkout as one woman and child debate over which lip balm to buy.  I’m the next in line, and just before the woman starts to leave another register opens and the person says “next in line please.”

That’s me, right?  Nope, the peckerhead behind me in the well pressed suit darts over, in the mean time I manage to drop half the things I’m holding.  So I buy my things, leave the store, and see the suit headed into the Chinese restaurant.

I walk in the door and see the guy, all fidgity as he checks the orders on the counter, paces for a few, and then sits.  He then proceeds to keep looking around – stares at me for a long moment, and then looks around some more.  He continues this habit with an occasional stand up and look around.

Now one thing I’ve noticed about most, if not all impatient people is that they need a 3rd party to acknowledge them.  It isn’t enough that they’re bouncing around like an intolerable git, they need to make eye contact, add a shrug or guffaw, and hope you return a similar reaction.

It is a world of fun to not make eye contact with these people, don’t even acknowledge their presence.  This whole time I just kept looking back towards the kitchen, relaxing, patiently waiting as this guy slowly lost his mind waiting for his General Tsao’s.  The orders eventually come out, like 6 bags of food.  The woman at the counter knows me so she spotted my order right away and handed it to me – I left with the guy still sitting there, ready to burst out of his skin.  What a putz.

Upped to WP 2.5 the other day, one feature annoys me – the ‘Write a New Page’ button.  I have a habit of clicking that instead of the ‘Write a New Post’ button.  I’m going to have to take a look at the code and see if I can move it somewhere else.

Besides that, I’m digging it, definite cleans up nicely.  Still miss doing all my posts with Pico tho. 🙂

I’m reading all these reports online about how there are protesters lining the route of the Olympic torch as it makes its way to China.  Is it really a problem that China hosts the Olympics?  The overt hypocrisy of these protests, and any objection from the International stage is hillarious.

We don’t mind that China provides cheap labor to make any number of products.

We don’t mind that that they get most favored nation status.

We don’t mind that our government sells them the technology to incinerate millions of people.

We don’t mind their human rights record.

We don’t even mind that they’re a totalitarian Communist dictatorship…

Yet have them host a sporting event that is watched by fewer people than reruns of The Golden Girls on Lifetime… and that is the breaking point?

Please, give me a break folks.  I highly doubt that any of those protesters could survive without the benefits that Chinese labor has brought us.  I’m not giving them a rubber stamp of approval by any means, but if we’re going to protest – if we’re going to take a stand – I think we’re a little late to the tea party, and the only thing in left Boston Harbor are a cabal of Ted Kennedy’s old girlfriends.

Past couple of weeks I’ve been putting up some oddly cryptic posts, including some entries from an old college journal. I did this with the intention of discovering more about myself – something that could make me understand the way things have played out in my life recently.

Well… no more cryptic posts, no more disclosure. There’s nothing more I really need to learn so much by looking back. Successes, failures, events, they all have lead me to where I am right now… and for the first time in a long time I truly feel that I am where I belong – in nearly every facet of my life.

Being aware of ones self can either be seen as wisdom or stupidity. I’d say I’ve got a fair mix of both at any point in time. But I know me. I’m happy, really, truly, genuinely happy – and every single choice I’ve made along the way has led me here.

It’s where I belong.

So last night it looked like I had a valve cover leaking, so I pick up a new set of gaskets today, and as I’m taking the 4 bolts out of the valve cover… tink, tink tink, thud.  I lost one, can’t find it.  It’s somewhere in the engine bay but I’ll be damned if I can see it anywhere.  Can’t even find my spiffy magnet want to try and just yank it out.  So it looks like unless one of the local Chevy dealers has the part, I’ll need to special order it through autozone.

Gravity is the suck.

Just caught the season 4 premiere of Battlestar Galactica.  HOLY FRACK.  Some of the greatest space battles I’ve seen yet.

I don’t think Starbuck is a Cylon, and I’m giddy at the thought of watching these people who now KNOW they are Cylons fight the nature.  In the end though, they are Cylons, so I’m expecting a lot of self-sacrifice, as I can’t see a ‘happily ever after’ between the the two races.

Then again, who knows.  The links between the show and current events are glaring at times, and I would not be surprised to see them take a route that puts the two species together in shiny happy peace and harmony… but happy endings aren’t as entertaining.

Cheers

Roses can be red.

Violets aren’t purple.

You were the best of the worst.

But you sure weren’t the first.

Just more of the same,

By any other name.

Now piss off, you make me sound like a ponce.