Oops, I'll read it again!

Apparently at some point in the last month or so I set a filter to mark all inbound mail from Eclipse Bugzilla as already read. If I've been completely ignoring your comments in Bugzilla, I do apologize. Please ping me via those bugs - I've fixed the filter, so I'll now see your comment as unread and will respond.

I also discovered yesterday that since January about 80 emails to my Red Hat address had been incorrectly marked as Junk. I am now tracking that box too, just in case more gets incorrectly categorized.

On the plus side, this gives me an opportunity to use a Children of Bodom cover tune, in keeping with Britney Month. :)

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah



I think I did it again
I made you believe
I just didn't care
Oh baby
It might seem like a slight
But it doesn't mean that I'm serious
'Cause to misfile my email
That is just atypically me
Oh baby, baby

Oops! ...I did it again
I filtered your mail,
Ignored and prescreened
Oh baby, baby
Oops! ...Hundreds of notes a day
Gotta prioritize
With filters and labels

You see my problem is this
I'm reading away
'Bout UK lottos, that do not exist
I cry, four one nine, yeah
"Don't you see I'm a prince, from Nigeria!"
But to miss so much email
That is just atypically me
Baby, oh

Oops! ...I did it again
I filtered your mail,
Got lost in the trash
Oh baby, baby
Oops! ...Bayes thought that you were spam
Not sent here as pure ham
No, not so innocent

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

Oops! ...I filed it away from my view
Lost in a gig of email
Oops! ...I've fixed the filter that was screwed
Mistake was innocent

Britney Spears - Oops! ...I Did It Again

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.

Blackberry Linux Calendar & Contact Sync

Ugh, what a nightmare. Skip to solution. See also Part 2.

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PocketMac for Blackberry, Linux Edition

Unfortunately, I missed the deadline to be a beta tester for this new app. Comes highly recommended by a Macolyte friend of mine; unfortunately until it's released I won't be able to come anywhere near it. :(

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Blackberry Desktop Manager in VirtualBox

First, I tried to install Blackberry Desktop Manager into a VirtualBox 2.1 Win XP Home guest OS, running on xubuntu 8.04. Problem there was that OOTB the VB guest couldn't see my USB devices (ie., the mounted Blackberry). Solved [1], [2].

Unfortunately, while the Windows guest could see the Blackberry, it couldn't sync with it. I keep getting prompted for my password to enter "mass storage mode", then ultimately the backup failed, as the connection was dropped midway through.

Hoping that the story would be better on my newer x200 Thinkpad, I tried again -- same result. Additionally, though the VirtualBox Windows guest found my bluetooth adapter, I couldn't make it work under Windows to connect to the BB.

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barry

I tried installing barry, the Blackberry Desktop For Linux project. I installed 0.14-4.fc10 and 0.14-6.fc11, but it didn't work - perhaps the Bold is too new?

(-1, error sending control message: Operation
not permitted): Probe: GetConfiguration failed

So, for now, the only way to backup/restore is via my wife's WinXP laptop.

UPDATE, 2009/01/05: Turns out you have to run barry w/ root privileges. I can now backup on linux. W00t!

But surely there's another way to sync?

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OpenSync

Next, I tried OpenSync. This didn't work either. I tried 0.22 on xubuntu 8.04, with KitchenSync 0.1, but it couldn't connect to the device. Then I tried 0.36 on the x200 Fedora 10 box with msynctool, but it too couldn't connect to the device (even though I'd already paired the BB with the Thinkpad over bluetooth), perhaps because my settings were incorrect? Either way, both front ends left a lot to be desired for a total noob user. XML config files are fine, but better in-file documentation would be nice.

msynctool 
msynctool --listplugins
msynctool --addgroup BB
msynctool --enable-objtype BB syncml-obex-client
msynctool --addmember BB syncml-obex-client
msynctool --enable-objtype BB google-calendar
msynctool --addmember BB google-calendar
msynctool --enable-objtype BB file-sync
msynctool --addmember BB file-sync
msynctool --showgroup BB
msynctool --configure BB 1
msynctool --configure BB 2
msynctool --configure BB 3
msynctool --sync BB

... still failed to connect to device :(

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Funambol

Then I discovered the Funambol web-based sync option, and signed up. This worked, and I now have my contacts and BB calendar synched with their server. OK, that's great, but what I really wanted was to sync w/ my desktop apps and/or with Google Calendar. So, I tried the Funambol Mozilla Plugin 0.8 for synching contacts and calendar with Sunbird 0.9 (or Thunderbird 2.0 with Lightning 0.9). It worked on my home xubuntu 8.04 machine (one email address, no calendars) but failed to install on my work Fedora 10 machine (two email addresses, two calendars, RSS feeds & newgroup subscriptions). Bummer.

UPDATE, 2009/01/05: My Thunderbird profile had been corrupted. Creating a new one, importing from the old one, and reinstalling all extensions fixed this problem. But because I can use Google Sync for Contacts and Calendar, I'm only using Funambol for Tasks now. Details here.

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Google Sync

Finally, checking my Google Calendar online I noticed a new "Sync" link in the top right. I found that Google has released an early Xmas present: Google Sync for your BlackBerry. Finally, a solution!

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BBToday

If you would like to have a snapshot of your mail, calendar, tasks, calls and optionally, battery status & weather in one convenient portal page, try BBToday 1.6.

Captured with CaptureIt

UPDATE, 2009/01/29: I've found a better Today screen, but it's not free. BOLD CrossBar Plus Xtreme - BOLD OS 4.6 by JC Designs / Gadgetbean. Combine this with WeatherEye from The Weather Network, and you've got weather, mail, messages, calendar... all on one attractive screen! Best. Seven Bucks. Ever.

Continued in Part 2...

Gmail Themes

GMail adds themes! Wow. That's... uh, great. My favourite has to be the green-screen vax-like one. I'm sure the PINE/Mutt camp will be happy.

Entertainingly retro, but is it useful?

Thunderbird for Gmail Addicts

In order to encourage myself to check the Eclipse newsgroups more often, and to possibly reduce my bandwidth usage (thanks to Rogers' new pricing plan), I decided to try to use Thunderbird for my mail instead of Gmail (in a browser such as Flock, Firefox, or Iceweasel).

Once you've got Gmail configured to do IMAP and Thunderbird configured to connect to Gmail, there are a few things you can do to get back the Gmail experience.

• To sync your Google Contacts w/ Thunderbird, use Zindus. This is required because Gmail's contact exporter only works w/ Gmail and Outlook. Note that this works best if you have no contacts already in Thunderbird -- or at least no duplicate entries.
  
  
• To get back some Gmail shortcuts (j/k to navigate, y to archive) & Gmail search expressions, install GMailUI.
  
  
• To set default sort order in views to 'newest on top':

  Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Advanced Configuration > Config Editor... > type "sort" > set mailnew.default_sort_order = -1

• To set message reply to be above the quoted message instead of below:

  Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Advanced Configuration > Config Editor... > type "reply" > set mail.identity.default.reply_on_top = 1

• To hide labels (mailboxes) which have no new messages, you can either select View > Folders > Unread, or you can click these tiny buttons to cycle the Folders view:
  
  
• To default-filter your mailboxes to show only unread, use View > Messages > Unread. Or, use View > Threads > Unread or Threads with Unread, if your prefer.

I never meta data I didn't like

In my collection of web-based errata (ever wondered why this site is called Division By Zero?), I've snagged a lot of Google snafus. Here's my first Google-IBM composite snafu -- an Adsense ad from IBM sitting next to my Gmail:

NEED META TAG DESCRIPTION HERE
-- Yes, quite.

Then, clicking on the link for 'More related pages >>' yielded this:

Temporary Error (502)
-- Does that mean "502 (Bad Gateway). When a server acts
as a go-between it may receive an invalid request. This code is
returned when that happens" [1]? Or is it more like this 502? ;-)

We're sorry, the Gmail you have reached is not in service.

Not GMail too?!?

Yes, I collect error messages. Why? Too many years of testing, I guess.