Adding Nicaraguan Holidays to Microsoft Outlook

[El Doc]

I've been annoyed by the fact that Nicaragua is not an option on the list of countries for adding Holidays in Microsoft Outlook. Not it's not unusual for our little piece of paradise to be forgotten by the outside world. I more often than not cannot find Nicaragua on a drop down menu on online forms either, especially when it comes to monetary transactions. C'est la vie.

So today I was upgrading my software for the year ahead and I decided enough was enough. Just because the slackers and Microsux can't find the time to put Nicaraguan holidays on their agenda doesn't mean I can't. There are scores of sites out there that offer add-on calendars for Microsoft Outlook as well, but I don't care. Anyone wants this list they'll have to stop by TRN. Are blog posts visible to non-registered visitors? If not, feel free to move this to a more appropriate location. If nothing else, it will drag in a few stragglers from Google who were looking for the same thing I was.

To add the 2010 Nicaraguan holidays to your MS Outlook 2003 or 2007 calendar, simply do the following.

1. Close Outlook (check your task manager to make sure it's really closed for good measure).

2. Locate a file named "outlook.hol." This is the file that lists the holidays that are pre-installed in Outlook. For Office 2007, it's in "Program Files/Microsoft Office/Office12/1033" or similar location. I believe Office 2003 was called "Office11", so look for a similar folder. For some strange reason (because Vista blows), I couldn't find the file when searching for the specific name, so process of elimination helps.

3. Rename that file "outlook.hol.old" (because you should always have a backup.

4. Now open the file in notepad (or your text editor of choice).

5. Go to the very end of the file, leave a line break (empty line) after the very last line, and paste in the following text:

[Nicaragua] 37
Año Nuevo,2010/1/1
Epifanía,2010/1/6
Dia de la Fuerza Aerea,2010/2/1
Jueves Santo,2010/4/1
Viernes Santo,2010/4/2
Páscua,2010/4/4
Día del Trabajo,2010/5/1
Día del Ejército,2010/5/27
Día de la Madre,2010/5/30
Día del Maestro,2010/6/29
Día de la Liberacíon Nacional,2010/7/19
Fiesta de Santiago (Boaco, Somoto, Managua),2010/7/25
Fiesta de Santa Ana (Nandaime, Niquinohomo, Moyogalpa, Ometepe),2010/7/26
Día de la Batalla de San Jacinto,2010/9/14
Día de la Independencia,2010/9/15
Mes del Rosario (Granada),2010/10/3
Mes del Rosario (Granada),2010/10/10
Mes del Rosario (Granada),2010/10/17
Mes del Rosario (Granada),2010/10/24
Mes del Rosario (Granada),2010/10/31
Festividades de San Jeronimo (Masaya),2010/10/3
Festividades de San Jeronimo (Masaya),2010/10/10
Festividades de San Jeronimo (Masaya),2010/10/17
Festividades de San Jeronimo (Masaya),2010/10/24
Festividades de San Jeronimo (Masaya),2010/10/31
Fiesta de San Rafael (Pueblo Nuevo),2010/10/29
Fiesta de San Diego (Altagracia, Ometepe) [all month]***
Día de los Fieles Difuntos,2010/11/2
Día de la Imaculada Concepción (León),2010/12/7
Día de la Imaculada Concepción,2010/12/8
Pase de la Virgen (Granada),2010/12/8
Proecesión de la Virgen de Guadalupe (Masaya),2010/12/12
Fiesta de Santa Lucia (León),2010/12/13
Día de la Navidad,2010/12/25
Día de Niño Díos (Masaya, Estelí),2010/12/25
Fiesta de San Silvestre (Catarina),2010/12/31
Víspera de Año Nuevo,2010/12/31

6. Save the file in its original location as "outlook.hol".

***Note*** If Vista doesn't let you save it, just save it to your desktop, then close everything and manually move the file to the proper location. I have administrator privileges, but it still wouldn't let me save it from within notepad (because Vista blows).

7. Open Outlook.

8. Go to your calendar option ("Tools > Options > Calendar Options" in Outlook 2007) and click "add holidays".

9. Nicaragua will now appear on your list of available countries. Simply check the box and Outlook will add all the holidays I put on the list above.

*** Another Note*** An error message will appear because the format I used for the Fiesta de San Diego is incorrect. I still haven't been able to find out how to format an all-month event. Just click okay and ignore that. It will insert everything else into your calendar without any problems.

This list contains everything I could think of (or find on Google), so I'm not sure how comprehensive it is. If you have any more holidays that should be on the list (even local ones), send it along and I'll post an update.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

[robertharvey]

Gheeze Doc,

You have been a busy little beaver. Must have had one of those....er...white christmases and no FDC to have achieved all of that?

Well, anyone knows that all we need for a party is a special occasion to break out into a real party mode and you have supplied some more reason!

Feliz ano nueve

[El Doc]

Gheeze Doc,

You have been a busy little beaver. Must have had one of those....er...white christmases and no FDC to have achieved all of that?

Well, anyone knows that all we need for a party is a special occasion to break out into a real party mode and you have supplied some more reason!

Feliz ano nueve

New Year's Resolution. I'm just gonna fix everything I see broken instead of bitching for someone else to do it. We'll tally the score at the end of the year. Hell, I might even impress myself! There's no shortage of projects around here, so my upgrade to Office 2007 seemed like a good place to start.

I have to have all the calendars loaded into Outlook because my clients are scattered all over the globe and holidays vary widely. I was a little offended that Nicaragua didn't appear on the list. Granted, I don't have any clients in Nicaragua, but I still don't see why a sovereign nation of this magnitude should escape Microsoft's attention but a pissant like Trinidad and Tobago is there for all to behold.

Need to Add Miskito Alan Day to the list, but I can't remember the exact date of his birth. I know we're fudging TRN day a bit to coincide (what's up with the memorial anyway? I'll fix that too if y'all don't get on the ball). Enough people start finding this list on Google, and the legend will only grow.

And by the way, the FDC was flowing freely on Christmas. Still polishing off the Champagne from the New Year celebrations.

[JackMcG]

Feliz ano nueve

"Happy nine ass"!!!!

Is the Doc's native american indian name?

Just having fun Mr. Bob.... I don't have what I need on my keyboard either to spell the word "year" correctly in spanish... so when someone asks me my age online and I tell them "tengo 55 anos".. I am saying that I have 55 assholes!!!!

[El Doc]

"Happy nine ass"!!!!

Is the Doc's native american indian name?

Proves you've never met me. I have no ass! It's been my greatest obstacle to achieving Don Juan status since adolescence.

[robertharvey]

"Happy nine ass"!!!!

Is the Doc's native american indian name?

Just having fun Mr. Bob.... I don't have what I need on my keyboard either to spell the word "year" correctly in spanish... so when someone asks me my age online and I tell them "tengo 55 anos".. I am saying that I have 55 assholes!!!!

LOL, well, since Doc is of Choctaw blood, I guess that we may say this is close to official? No offense Doc! It is however funny! I`ve always warned people that I speak perfect Spanish, but most people do not understand me! This may well prove the point!

[Jonh]

Good job, Doc. Where did you find out all those holiday dates? I may use them on a paper calendar.

And, does your fix work in Thunderbird?

And yes, the blogs here are visible to the whole of the interwebs.

[Just Plain John Wayne]

Good job, Doc. Where did you find out all those holiday dates? I may use them on a paper calendar.

And, does your fix work in Thunderbird?

And yes, the blogs here are visible to the whole of the interwebs.

Jonh, look close at it....., it only leaves four days a year to work....

[Jonh]

Jonh, look close at it....., it only leaves four days a year to work....

That's my kinda calendar!

[Rivense67]

"Happy nine ass"!!!!

Is the Doc's native american indian name?

Just having fun Mr. Bob.... I don't have what I need on my keyboard either to spell the word "year" correctly in spanish... so when someone asks me my age online and I tell them "tengo 55 anos".. I am saying that I have 55 assholes!!!!

ALT 164 will give you the ñ

[JackMcG]

ALT 164 will give you the ñ

I keep forgetting that!

Thanks

[Just Plain John Wayne]

I don't even care....... I can't spel anyway and nobody really cares except when I get on someone else about it.....

In all honesty I don't mess with it because everone knows what I am saying.....

But somewhere in TRN I (Stole) copied and pasted a whole list of that stuff......

But I don't have enough since to find it....

[El Doc]

I keep forgetting that!

Thanks

If you're using Windows, you can have more than one keyboard layout installed. Go to your control panel and select "keyboard". You can add a Spanish keyboard layout. It will put a little indicator on your taskbar that says "EN" when your keyboard is in English and "ES" when it's in Spanish. You can switch from one to the other by clicking on the taskbar or with ALT+SHIFT.

Most of the keys are the same, but on the Spanish layout the ñ is where the semicolon is and the accent is where the apostrophe is. There are a few more little things like ¿? and ¡!, but you can find those pretty easy or look at the character map in the keyboard help file. In MS Word and Outlook, it also automatically changes the spell check settings to Spanish when you're typing in Spanish.

Definitely a lot easier than alt+123 blah blah blah. I never could memorize those, but I can remember where the ñ is located.

[JackMcG]

If you're using Windows, you can have more than one keyboard layout installed. Go to your control panel and select "keyboard". You can add a Spanish keyboard layout. It will put a little indicator on your taskbar that says "EN" when your keyboard is in English and "ES" when it's in Spanish. You can switch from one to the other by clicking on the taskbar or with ALT+SHIFT.

Most of the keys are the same, but on the Spanish layout the ñ is where the semicolon is and the accent is where the apostrophe is. There are a few more little things like ¿? and ¡!, but you can find those pretty easy or look at the character map in the keyboard help file. In MS Word and Outlook, it also automatically changes the spell check settings to Spanish when you're typing in Spanish.

Definitely a lot easier than alt+123 blah blah blah. I never could memorize those, but I can remember where the ñ is located.

Thanks but, no can do! No option on mine for anything in spanish.

[El Doc]

Thanks but, no can do! No option on mine for anything in spanish.

I'm doing too many things at once today (15 hours fighting Office 2007 and counting). I'm probably not explaining it properly.

Here's the XP instructions.

http://www.ehow.com/how_4821109_keyb...indows-xp.html

And here's Vista.

http://www.ehow.com/how_5058530_turn...ows-vista.html

I've been doing it since Windows 95. It's the first thing I set up when I get a new computer. One of the best functions available in Windows.

[JackMcG]

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Got it! Thanks....

[El Doc]

After loosing an entire day of my life that I will never get back, and after an entire morning using this POS bloated software, I want to state for all the world that I really miss Thunderbird. It does everything better than Outlook, it does it faster, and it doesn't require over 300 MB of patches (so far) to get it done.

Oh, and it's free.

Maybe one of you software programmers out there can 'splain me something. I bought this software directly from Microsoft yesterday morning, downloaded it directly from Microsoft's server, installed it less than 2 hours later (because Estesa sucks). Yet, when I run Windows Update less than 4 hours after the installation, I had to download an additional 257 MB of updates for that very same software AND THE UPDATES WERE FROM LAST NOVEMBER! The original software was only 400 MB; how the hell can it need 257 MB of "updates"? And then, after downloading (an all day affair with Estesa) and installing those updates, Windows Update tells me I had another 74 MB to go!

Anyway, rant over. It still isn't working correctly, but my IT guy is going to deal with it on Monday. There's something seriously wrong with software when I have to keep a paid human being on retainer just to install it.