Google doesn't tell me the experiences that people have had with the tools out there.

I have been asked to extract emails, attachments, contacts and calenders from a number of large PST files and to export the emails as DOCX files. I have written some VBA code in Outlook to do this, but the scope of this project has rapidly expanded and this is now too slow. I reckon there are about a million or more emails and attachments in total. Can anyone recommend tools (free or paid-for) that can quickly and efficiently do this?

Chris - I feel your pain. About 10 years ago, I used bootcamp to run win WinXP/MSSQL/VS and switched to Parallels and later to Fusion on a 2006 MBP. Not much in the difference. More recently, I've been using a Macbook Air and VirtualBox (Win7 Pro with VS2015 and SQL Server) wihtout any real degredation in performance. The VM is on a thunderbolt connected external HD. Are you able to install Parallels on your old MBAir and check how it works? Or try VirtualBox - it's free and you can import a VM. I was thinking about upgrading to a new MBP, but your comments are making me nervous!

Start with a description, in plain English, of the problem you are trying to solve. Next, explain, in plain English, your thinking process in arriving at your chosen solution and outline the pros and cons of that solution. In other words, give the next person an insight into your thinking process.

I don't understand why the customer was dissatisfied...

Some products just seemed designed to separate money from fools. Other products just seem designed to separate money from VC's. This looks like it was designed to tick every box for a VC.

What kind of files do you want to store? If they're mostly documents, spreadsheets, presentations, eBooks etc, then there is a good cloud-based solution about to launch that indexes (using Solr) everything you upload making search quick and easy.

Hi, We are trying to convert Word, Powerpoint and Excel files to PDF (for Word and PPT) and to HTML (for Excel). Excel does a really great job converting and there are free PDF convertors for Word and PPT in windows. We want to run a windows VM to do this where we can pass in requests and documents and receive the result back. I haven't been able to find anyone who has experience with Windows VM's and automated use of Excel and free ToPDF tools. Does anyone have any thoughts / experience in doing this or can point me in the right direction? Thanks in advance, John.

Thanks Richard. I have spent quite a lot of time with Google searching for an answer - including the Apache site, but haven't found anything. Every example seems to be about how to get Lucene to index a document!

Hi, I have recently been asked to do some work with a Lucene installation. In short, I need to access the tokens that Lucene creates for a given document. Does anyone know how I can get the tokens with Java? Thanks in advance, John.

I remember the days when all it took was a supply of twinkies from the vending machine ....

In fairness ... the problem is not that it's VB, it's that he's a crap programmer!

What do you mean by "we"?

Thanks Eswa, However, looking for non-Microsoft solutions only (internal decision)!

Hi, I have been asked to develop a web-based application for work, but I've never done any web-based development or programming before, ever! So, I'm looking for some recommended books or sites to get started. I've spent many years developing software - C++, some C#, Excel VBA, VB6, SQL etc. I'm leaning towards HTML5 and javascript based on some of what I've read. However, I've had a look at some programming - some javascript, php etc and it just doesnt' seem to have the same rigour and structure as regular programming. So, on the basis that I'm as ignorant as they come when it comes to web development, what do you recommend I read as a good starting point? Thanks in advance, John.

The key to your argument should be about cost; each cost can then have a technical answer to the question - for example, annual maintenance cost is $500k as we need to employ a team of DBA's to manage 1000's of databases Give your suggested solution with a cost, give his solution with it's associated costs. You can always ham it up a bit to ensure that your solution looks better. This will get his interest far more than technical discussions on the merits or otherwise of solutions.

Can I assume that the same issues apply to Oracle and mySQL? What about distributed databases such as Cassandra? Does anyone have any experience of that?

Guys, Thanks for taking the time to point me at some good articles. Does anyone have any thoughts on storing documents (pdf, xls, doc) etc in a database and how to do it. The only suggestion I've found is to store them in o/s file structure and use the database to store path and some info. What would be the pros / cons of using a DB rather than the O/S? Thanks, John.

Guys, I'm relatively new to using databases and have been playing around with SQL Server 2005 to do some stuff. However, I'm looking at extending an application that uses images and documents (mainly pdf) and I want to be able to store these somewhere (ideally in a database). I haven't found any useful information on Google, so wanted to ask others for their suggestions on how to do this. It doesn't have to be on SQL Server and I can basically use any db that's up to the task. Thoughts welcome, John.

How long before they get sued for "Windows 7 capable" stickers on PC's?