Blackberry Linux Mail, Calendar, Tasks & Contact Sync, Part 2

Things have improved since my last post, despite the fact that I managed to kill Thunderbird along the way and lost a good chunk of today figuring out to restore it. Luckily I can read French, or I may never have found the solution to the elusive -203 problem.

Aside:

To recover from a corrupt Thunderbird profile, create a new profile using thunderbird -ProfileManager, then transfer your data to the new profile. Easy-peasy.

Next, reinstall all your extensions. I use these 15 extensions.

I've also managed to get barry to work for backing up my Blackberry on Fedora. Turns out the problem is that it simply needs root privileges.

Here's how the data flows, drawn with JBoss Tools' jBPM Graphical Process Designer:

click to enlarge

I don't yet have a solution for Zimbra contacts & calendar being accessible on the Blackberry, short of manually duplicating entries from one repo to the other. Still, 5 out of 7 data sources synched is pretty decent.

15 Thunderbird Must-Have Plugins

Here are my top 15 Thunderbird 2.0.0 productivity plugins. Except for the Funambol plugin, these are all available from addons.mozilla.org.

Data Synch & Connectivity

1. funambol-pim-plugin-linux-v0.8.xpi - synch contacts, notes, tasks, and calendar with my.funambol.com server. Then synch those with Blackberry or other smartphone device.
2. lightning-0.9-tb-linux.xpi - enables integrated calendar(s) & tasks (local or IMAP)
3. provider_for_google_calendar-0.5.1-tb+sb.xpi - provides Google Calendar support
4. zindus-0.8.4-tb.xpi - sync address book with Zimbra and/or Google contacts

   Overall UI Tweaks

5. additional_folders_view-0.2.3-tb.xpi - adds a second Mail Folders view to the mail perspective
6. mark_all_read_button-0.2-tb.xpi - adds button to mark all messages in a folder read
7. threadbubble-0.8-tb.xpi - resorts views by date when new messages arrive
8. tag_toolbar-0.7.80-tb.xpi - toolbar for mouse- or key-based message tagging

   Key Bindings

8. tag_toolbar-0.7.80-tb.xpi - toolbar for mouse- or key-based message tagging
9. gmailui-0.6-tb.xpi - keyboard bindings for gmail (eg., y for archive, j/k for previous/next)
10. nostalgy-0.2.16-tb.xpi - handy shortcuts for (G)o, (S)ave and (C)opy, to open a folder or move/copy message(s) to a folder
11. threadkey-0.4-tb.xpi - adds toggle keys for show (un)sorted by thread
12. headers_toggle-0.5.2.2-tb.xpi - using h key, toggle long headers, short headers, no headers on messages - great for newsgroup posts!

    Message View Tweaks

12. headers_toggle-0.5.2.2-tb.xpi - using h key, toggle long headers, short headers, no headers on messages - great for newsgroup posts!
13. quotecollapse-0.7-mz+tb.xpi - collapse quoted text to make messages show less
14. header_scroll_extension-0.3.2-tb.xpi - scroll long message headers area
15. show_fixed-width_temporarily-0.6-tb.xpi - temporarily show messages in fixed-width font

If you'd like a copy of all of the above, you can download all 3M of them here.