Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with export

vox clamantis in deserto

Schlimmbesserung — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:04:19 -0800

How the hell do I export a Vox blog to Wordpress? So I used to have a blog on Vox. I've since moved to Wordpress.com, but there was some good stuff on the Vox that I'd like to take with me. However, Six Apart seems to have decided that they don't want to have an easy way to move my content off the site, and their tech support people say that an export tool "isn't in the long-term plan."

This guy seems to have something in the works, but it looks like vapourware from here. Does anyone else have a crafty solution?

Importing to Wordpress Using Custom Fields

backwards guitar — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:15:36 -0800

When importing data into Wordpress, is it possible to put parts of that data into custom fields? I've got a (Drupal) website with about 1000 pages of content that I'd like to port over to Wordpress. The pages are essentially products, so I think they'd function well as posts.

The one snag I'm running into is that the Drupal pages have the product's content split into a few different sections of content, for example "description", "accessories", "specifications".

Questions:

1) I'm thinking the easiest thing to do would be to have these additional sections be custom fields in Wordpress. When I import the data how can I import these extra sections as custom fields?

2) What's the best format to export the data (or perhaps the better question is, what's the best format to import the data into Wordpress). I have access to the data in sql format, and could write a script in PHP to grab the data directly from the database if need be. Should I manually insert the data into the empty Wordpress database? Or use one of the import methods described in the Wordpress codex?

How to export AutoArchive e-mail exported & transferred from MS Outlook

willie11 — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:40:40 -0800

Help me get my AutoArchived e-mail out of MS Outlook and the info from off Exchange server before work shuts it down tonight, please. I'm dumbfounded. Old job is shutting down my e-mail account today and I'd like to take all of my contacts, calender and saved e-mails for my own use. I know how to export the contacts as an excel file but I cannot find the "AutoArchive" folder on my hard disk.

The IT folks delete all messages from the sever after 9 weeks or so, but my desktop version of Outlook tells me that it autoarchives the messages. Where can I find these and how to I get them?

Also, what could I import them to? Gmail? My iPhone?

The iPhone (not synched with the server, which uses something called GOOD) seems to import contacts, calender etc from Outlook. Is there a way to upload the contacts, calender and ESPECIALLY the AutoArchived email to Gmail so I have them permanently? Or at least save the AutoArchived messages?

Many, many thanks for your help!

I need an automated way to convert MKV to MP4 on Mac OS X

joshrholloway — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:00:41 -0800

I am trying to build an automated solution to convert MKV files to MP4 without re-encoding on Mac OS X, using AppleScript, Automator, etc. and I need help! Multiple times a day I get MKV container files that I need to convert to MP4 files. There is a great application for Windows called XenonMKV that can extract the individual components out of an MKV container and re-assemble them as an MP4. It does this process without re-encoding the video, which saves tons of time. A process that would normally take an hour or two can be done in three to five minutes with XenonMKV.

Unfortunately, there is apparently nothing like this application for OS X. There is, however, a little trick you can pull off using QuickTime 7 Pro and Perian. Perian will let you open MKV files with QuickTime, which you can't normally do, and you can use the Pass Through option during export from QuickTime which achieves basically the same effect as XenonMKV.

So now that I know this process is possible, and since I have to do it multiple times a day, I want to try to automate it. It's pretty easy to slap together an AppleScript that can take a video file as input and then export it, but there are two hitches:

1. QuickTime Pro needs to use the specific Pass Through export settings no matter what the last export settings used were.

2. When you open an MKV file in QuickTime, the entire video must be indexed fully before you can run an export. This can take anywhere from a minute to three minutes or so, depending on the length and file size of the video.

The second problem seems to be the biggest because it doesn't appear there's any way to tell QuickTime to wait until a video is indexed before running a command. The best I could come up with was to parse the file size and then tell QuickTime to wait for a certain amount of time that's really just a best guess of how long it will take to index the video file based on its size. This is really not a good solution, because I'd like to share this with other people who might not have a system as fast as mine, and the numbers may be off.

So does anyone have any ideas on how I could make this process work? Ideally I'd like to see the final form as a standalone .app that can be used as a droplet and do everything automatically without any input from the user. Any help at all would be appreciated.

Flash CS4 Quicktime Export leaves artifacts and looks like crud. Help!

buriednexttoyou — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 08:03:30 -0800

Flash animators: When I export my flash cartoon to quicktime, moving objects leave behind horrible artifacts. Apparently I am not the only one with this problem. If Flash's quicktime export is so crummy, how do the professionals publish their cartoons to video? I'm working with CS4 on a mac, but I've heard this is also a problem with CS3. I've also heard that you can import SWF files into After Effects and then export to video. As much as I'd like to be able to afford AE, I can't at the moment.

I know there are tons of animators working in Flash. Does this problem exist for you, and how do you deal with it?

My Wife Hates Movable Type!

smithmac_99 — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 14:58:51 -0800

Can you import a MT Blog into blogger?

How to export csv with variable number of columns?

JeremiahBritt — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:57:46 -0800

Using a relational table in a one-to-many relationship in Access, what is the best way to export a csv file with one row per record (from the one half) with a variable number of columns (from the many half)? Basically, I have a Senator with one or more staffers. I want to export (CSV) so that it looks like:

Senator 1 info | Staffer 1 info
Senator 2 info | Staffer 1 info | Staffer 2 info | Staffer 3 info
Senator 3 info | Staffer 1 info | Staffer 2 info

One row per senator, but an unknown or changing number of columns.

I'm sure there's a way to do this via query. I have to make this as easy as possible (via a button on a form) for a coworker.

Having a hard time finding an answer via Google.

Recovering posts from a dead Wordpress blog

johngoren — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:22:45 -0800

Is there an easy way to export Wordpress posts when the admin panel is crashed and I have only command line access? I accidentally messed up the MySQL database for my Wordpress blog. The posts are all there to read on the blog, but I can't get into the panel (which is now in a "you don't have permissions" state that I don't think I can fix because it's not for one of the usual reasons.)

So I installed a new Wordpress system in a different directory. Now I would like it to grab all the posts from the other Wordpress, either by grabbing it off the database or (preferably) just using some plugin that would extract posts from the Web site.

Is there a good way to do this? Any help much appreciated.

(I'd hook it up to the old MySQL database, but I'm concerned this would put it in the same dead situation.)

What should I import to New Zealand for resale?

redzarf — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 01:26:42 -0800

What should I import to New Zealand for resale? I'm looking for ideas of products that I could buy in bulk, ship to NZ, and resell for a modest profit. http://www.kk.org/cooltools/ is great, but a little frustrating because I'll often see products there or elsewhere that I'd love to buy, but can't because only shipping one is too expensive or they don't ship overseas (Amazon only send things like books and dvds overseas.)

At the same time I'd like to try making a little extra money on the side by finding a few products that aren't available in NZ, and resell them with a 10-20% profit I'll be happy. Manufacturers/sellers are (hopefully) more likely to ship overseas for a bulk order.

NZ is a long way from anywhere, so shipping costs a lot, so I'm particularly looking for products that are small and light. My preferred price-range would be about US$40-100, though outside of that would be interesting to know about too. Theres lots of cool unique products from the US, but from anywhere else is also of interest.

If you don't have any specific products in mind, are there any other lists/blogs/stores/etc like Cool Tools that I should look at for ideas?

Ho to make photoshop save photos?

-harlequin- — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:02:23 -0800

How can I save JPG images in Photoshop CS so that a digital camera can read them? Cheap crappy software can do this easily, but no matter what file settings I use in Photoshop, I've never been able to get any of my digital cameras to be able to read any JPG that was written by Photoshop - I have to load and re-save them with other piece of software to get them to work. Surely there is a way to make Photoshop save JPG files that cameras can read? My impression is that (naming conventions and so forth aside) there is a JPEG standard that most or nearly all cameras read, rather than every camera having it's own random special requirements.

I want a way to start saving files in that standard, because I'll be using a camera as an image storage/display device, and want to load the memory card with images and graphics in addition to photos it has taken, but right now, I have to individually process each file to do this, or the camera won't read it, and it's driving me nuts.
(I also don't want to save as RAW or TIFF)

Thanks!

Exporting gchat logs, take 2.

EnormousTalkingOnion — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:33:42 -0800

There must be SOME way to export my gchat/google talk logs out of gmail, right? I know this has been asked before, but those solutions don't work. I'm hoping there is some new advice to be had, because I need to go through a whole lot of logs and doing it in the Gmail web interface would take months. The chat logs don't show up when you download email with an external client, even if you label them or mark them as unread messages. Is there any kind of script/extension/hack that would let me export them, or am I completely out of luck?

Export starred items, then auto-delete?

polexxia — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 01:42:08 -0800

How can I export (and mass-delete) all of my starred items in Google Reader? I've googled this before, but all of the suggestions that I've seen seem to no longer work (since they're always tinkering with Google Reader.) What I want to do is to export all of my starred items (either as individual items--preferred--or as one large HTML file) and then delete them all, so that when I actually star something from now on, it won't be buried under a pile of "once useful" stuff. Is this even possible?

Help me get my feeds home.

Magnakai — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:22:17 -0800

How do I export a whole bunch of Home URLs from NetNewsWire, or an alternate RSS feeder for the Mac? So I have a lot of subscribed blogs in NNW. I wanted to send a list of the websites that they're from to someone. I thought I could do this easily in NNW. I was wrong.

I've never used Applescript before, but I tried hacking the included Applescript files. There is an appropriate property (home URL), and I can get it to export the Home URL for the current selected feed, but if I select several, it just gives me the last one I clicked on, and if I select a group, it just gives me an error. I have several hundred feeds to export from, and this seems an absurdly inelegant solution.

Can anyone help me here? I tried exporting an OMPL file and attacking it with Applescript, but being a complete newbie, I can't figure out how on earth to get the info out of it. Any help would be much appreciated!

How to batch print hundreds of emails from gmail?

Anonymous — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 19:40:13 -0800

Initiating an HR investigation, need to print hundreds of emails from gmail. Possible? I'm initiating a formal complaint against my immediate supervisor and/or possible civil action. About 99% of my contact with her is via email, all are saved in my Gmail archive. I've got about 300 threads, some with as many as 20 back-and-forths, and I need to print them *all.*

What's the best route? Is there a way to automate that? If I have to export to another client, is it difficult to only export the ones I need and not the 10,000 other emails in my account?

Alternatively, I could just grab all the text, but it would need to go in reverse-chronological order to demonstrate a history of lying and/or reprimanding me for doing things she specifically asked me to do.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

No Silencio

minifigs — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 17:59:34 -0800

Why is there a teeny tiny bit of silence at the start of exported mp3 tracks? How can I get rid of it? I need to export mp3 loops. I know mp3 is unsuited for this but the brief is the brief. When I export the loop as an mp3 roughly half a second of silence is added to the start. From googling I know this is just something that mp3s do but is there a way around it? I've suggested Ogg Vorbis to the client but I haven't heard back from them yet. I have audacity, garageband, and reaper at my disposal. Freeware solutions are preferable, thanks.

Why does India consider the iPhone a "Dangerous Item" that cannot be shipped to the US?

smersh — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 06:12:59 -0800

How do you ship an electronic item (iPhone) with a non-removable battery out of India? It's labelled as a "dangerous item." It seems like a lot of my questions stem from an inherent frustration of an American living in a Thirld World country. This question is no exception.

India has this policy of not allowing you to ship out products with their battery inside. That is, I can send you a Nokia cell phone from Mumbai to New York, as long as the battery is separate from the phone.

It can be in the same box, just not in the device. If it's in the device, it's labelled as a dangerous item and you need import/export licenses and such to be able to send it.

So, my brother wants my old iPhone from here and I cannot get it to him. I've tried calling Fed Ex, DTDC, the Post Office. Nobody will take it.

Has anybody a clue how I can ship out an item with a non-removable battery from a country that labels the iPhone as a dangerous item?

I don't know what the metafilter readership is like. Hopefully, there's enough people dealing with India for me to get some help.

Also, if I succeed, how much will customs set my brother back when he receives it? What if I send him 2 new iPhone 3Gs valued at $600 each?

Help is appreciated.

Export to Word

kaizen — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 06:09:55 -0800

I need to take form data from an web page and export it to a Microsoft Word File. I have a bunch of form data in HTML which I can convert to XML/JSON. The users will click 'Export to Word Template 1, 2, 3, etc.' and the website will create a .doc file for them to download depending on the template / look-and-feel they select. Can I do this with non-Microsoft technologies like javascript and Python? The key requirements here is the ability to export the same data to different layouts. I have a feeling I can do this with XML / WordML, but the formatting piece looks daunting. What is the easiest way to do this without hooking into COM?

Batch exporting / printing hundreds of emails

uncle harold — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 08:58:00 -0800

Batch exporting / printing hundreds of emails? I have to get several hundred emails into a (single) PDF in chronological order. Since this is obviously a tedious task to do manually, I'm looking for alternatives.

The Emails are currently in a GMail account, so any IMAP client or online solution is acceptable. Exact formatting is not important as long as everything stays human readable, so a detour through plain text format is ok, if necessary.

Any ideas? Thanks!

How to find live shea plants in the US?

infinitefloatingbrains — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 09:19:53 -0800

Vitellaria paradoxa, know as the shea plant, is used to make shea butter, a common ingredient in cosmetics. Is it possible to find a live shea plant in the US? Or is this something that has to be carried in clandestinely?

Legality to mail US consumer vegetable seed packets to Kenya?

Quarter Pincher — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 20:36:32 -0800

Are there any export restrictions (or whatnot) regarding me (a US non-business entity) sending a bunch of packages of consumer vegetable-garden seeds to a foreign country (Kenya) as a gift? I'm sure there are some restrictions on receiving foreign seeds, but.. outgoing? A gentleman I met in Kenya last year (having been there myself) has requested a number of seed packets be sent to his rural/slum community. Would I be breaking some US export law (or Kenya import.. hmm) by sending them?

How to export text from Flash?

suedehead — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 13:02:56 -0800

Is there any way to export all of the text in a FLA file? I'm writing on a well-known net artist, who works primarily in text and music in flash. When you find the net art works via Google, Google somehow is able to read a portion the text into its 'summary' field. I'd like to do this for the entire piece, as I'd like to quote from the piece, but I'm having trouble doing so.

So far, I've decompiled the original SWF file into a FLA file, but I can't find a way to export all of the text. Any ideas?

(As for the ethics on doing this -- I'm not stealing or reappropriating the artist's work, and ultimately my end-goal is to examine the artist's work closely, so I don't think I should feel bad about this.)

Can I bring my car with me?

xanthippe — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 11:52:02 -0800

I love my Peugeot, but I might be moving to the USA. Can I bring it with me or am I just stupid to want to? I didn't think I was that attached, and it's not that valuable, but I just like it a whole lot. I understand that Peugots are not sold/present in the USA; French car parts are also expensive and far away, as are, presumably, mechanics who know about French cars. (So far away that Peugeot's "USA" webpage is defunct.) Solution?

And what about actually getting it there? I googled around and it seems like people put their crazy expensive vintage/custom/luxury vehicles in cargo boxes for extremely high rates. Isn't there a ferry across the Atlantic I can just drive it onto? Seriously, what's the economical way to do this? (The car is only worth about $8,000 for the record.)

Oh yeah, and won't there be some customs issues? Duties and inspections and such? This is all very expensive and stupid, non? I will appreciate being informed nonetheless. Thank you.

How can I move my calendar from Palm Desktop over to Google Calendar, and then sync there instead?

Stewriffic — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:55:03 -0800

What I want to happen: Make the existing calendar entries that I have on Palm Desktop move over to Google Calendar and then be able to sync Google Calendar with a used (empty?) Palm Z22 I have. Hold my hand, please? I encourage you to assume only basic computer knowledge. Here are the specs:
1) Palm Desktop v. 4.1.4
2) Windows XP Professional 2002 version
3) Used Palm Z22 that someone gave me. It's replacing a Zire 21 I had that broke. I have not yet tried to link it up to my Palm Desktop, because I had a bad experience where I did that and it deleted my entire calendar. I think that was because the blank PDA overwrote the content I had on the desktop software. Why it would do that, I have no idea. I just don't want it to happen again.
4) Extra super bonus--I have a macbook at home. If you can get the PDA to sync there, in addition to at work, that would rock.

This is confusing the crapola out of me. I'm not even sure where to start, and I made very little progress searching both the Palm Desktop and the Google Calendar Support pages. This previous AskMe didn't help. Googling palm desktop google calendar resulted in my thinking I might need some kind of 3rd party software to do this? This is about where I shut down from being overwhelmed with lack of understanding.

What I've done so far:
Exported my Palm calendar to my desktop. It's a .dba file. When I tried to import it into google calendar it doesn't work. The error message is Sorry, Calendar is temporarily unavailable. Please try again in a few minutes. If the problem persists, visit the Help Center. I assume that is because of this google calendar instruction: Choose the file that contains your events. Google Calendar can import event information in iCal or CSV (MS Outlook) format.I'm thinking this first step of moving my current calendar to the google one might be an inherent issue.

What I want in the long run is the ability to use my PDA to input and retrieve entries onto a calendar I can access via the internet, without having to manually enter the existing information. Can you help me? Is my goal achievable as proposed? If not, can you suggest another way for me to do what I want to do?

Taking my files back to the future?

ooklala — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 19:49:41 -0800

How can I transfer files from my emulated Macintosh Plus? I have taken a liking to writing on a Mac Plus that I have emulated in Mini vMac. Is there a program that allows me to create a file with formatting that I can export into my Windows desktop?
My problem is not getting the files out (that is easy with the export progam included in Mini vMac) but having a modern format that has rich text.
Is there a program for the Mac Plus that will maybe export to a PDF or .RTF file, or .DOC (that has all the data stored in the data fork rather than the resource fork)? Would such a program still be avalable for free?

WordPress noob totally frustrated trying to export from 1.5.1.3

librarina — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 21:20:17 -0800

Way old version of WordPress (1.5.1.3). I need to upgrade, obviously. I am considering switching hosts at the same time and so I am trying to figure out how to export the current blog so I can import it once upgraded at either current or new host. But I can't figure out how to export on 1.5.1.3 and I am so frustrated. Apologies in advance for length. I know just enough to get in trouble, as you will see, so I am trying to cover all my bases in terms of providing information.

My site is currently hosted on cornerhost.com; I access my database using phpMyAdmin (version 4.1.22-standard), and I have an installation of WordPress 1.5.1.3. Obviously this needs to be upgraded, badly. I am willing to stay with the same host but it is not simple for me to manage my WP databases and that is a large reason why I am considering switching. I have an account with dreamhost.com for another site, and am enamored of the ease of installing and updating software such as WordPress. So I am leaning towards moving to Dreamhost to avoid future such problems.

EXCEPT I want to move the blog, obviously, and the same problem exists whether I am just upgrading in place at my current host or moving to a new host: I can't figure out how to export the existing blog. I can export a SQL file (or CSV, Excel, LaTeX, etc) from phpMyAdmin. But new WordPress (where the Import feature is really easy to find!) wants a "WordPress eXtended RSS (WXR) file." I know I have imported from a Movable Type blog, so import/export must exist in my current installation ... somewhere? But I simply cannot find it.

WordPress Codex doesn't have much documentation on 1.5.1.3, and I've tried searching Codex and Google and understanding the results, but I am so frustrated that I may well be overlooking some relevant information in search results etc.

So, does anyone have experience with old versions of WordPress? Can you help me export? Or perhaps guide me on importing a SQL or other type of export?