Here are some of the more frequently asked questions I’ve fielded in otak’s existence:
General
| Q: |
Uhm… Why the name otak? |
| A: |
Let’s just say otak sounds better than either tou nauw or tau low. Don’t worry if you didn’t get this bit; it won’t pop up as commands in the program. |
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| Q: |
You wouldn’t believe the amount of hair I lost trying to install your software! It keeps complaining about some system files being out of date, and when I tell it to go on and update itself, reboot, and attempt to install it again, the same message comes up again. What do I do? |
| A: |
This is a tragic story of the little installer that could. To make a long story short, there is an issue installing otak in Win9x machines if it has out-of-date system files. Many hours were spent researching this issue over the Internet, and supposed fixes failed. I may switch to another installer, but more than one of my users have told me to spend my time improving otak than to attempt to fix this damn thing. In short, if you have this issue, you may have to install this guy in a non-Win9x/ME based machine. But watch this space! |
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| Q: |
Hey, you said you’ve been using otak to record information since 2002, but there you were going on and on about how proud you were when otak turned one in 2004. I can’t count well but that doesn’t add up… |
| A: |
It took me more than a year to write otak, simply because I was so lazy. When the calendar portion was completed, I was already using it to record my daily schedules and tasks. It took me more time to incorporate Thoughts before I figured otak to be good enough to be released. So there, okay? I’d like my guitar back now, please. |
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| Q: |
otak is cool, but I wish it could do . Being able to make my morning coffee is also good… |
| A: |
I welcome any suggestions, ideas or criticisms that will help make otak more mature. Please send them along. As for morning coffee, however, you’ll have to look just a little harder… |
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| Q: |
Your website colours are terrible! I’m afraid I might have strained an eye nerve or two just trying to read! |
| A: |
Uhm… sorry?  |
Address Book
| Q: |
What’s the difference between Categories and Contact Lists? |
| A: |
Here’s a table to help with understanding the differences:
| Categories |
Contact Lists |
| Groups Contacts and Contact Lists |
Groups Contacts only |
| Used as a logical grouping so that when Filtered, only relevant records belonging to the specified category will be shown. |
Used to allow for bulk mailing |
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| Q: |
I’ve got a nice repository of addresses in Outlook. But geez, how do I import the whole thing? |
| A: |
otak now supports import and export of Contacts information! otak import functionality can read any csv file generated from email programs that conform to Microsoft Outlook’s CSV file format. For export, otak generates a Comma-separated Values (.csv) files that can be imported by other email programs. I’ve personally tested it on Yahoo!, Gmail and Microsoft Outlook, and so should be readable for other programs as well that takes in Outlook csv files. |
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| Q: |
Now that I’ve got everyone’s contact information in otak, how do i export it for use in email clients like Outlook? |
| A: |
See above answer. |
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| Q: |
Uhm… the import functionality does not handle categories that I’ve defined in Outlook. It also doesn’t export my Contact List information from otak into the CSV file. What can I do? |
| A: |
Internally, otak structures Categories and Contact Lists differently from Outlook (or any programs that can output Outlook-compatible CSV files for that matter). Because of this, the import and export feature in otak handles only Contacts, and loses all Contact List information. |
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| Q: |
Waitaminute… the Remove Member and Delete Category buttons in Contact List don’t seem to do anything. |
| A: |
Yeah, it’s brilliant, isn’t it? Who wants a program where all the buttons work anyway?Oh, alright, it was a bug.If you’re using otak version 1.0.0 (or newer), it works as it should now. However, if you’re using the pre 1.0.0 version, you can still remove members or Categories via the Select Members… or Add Category… buttons. Just move the selected records back to the left panel and click OK.
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