HOWTO: Enable Zimbra filtered message folders on Blackberry w/ BES service

Thanks to the folks at my IT helpdesk for this tip on how to enable your BB to get mail from within Zimbra folders:

1. Go to your Messages folder, hit menu key and select Options.
2. Go to Email Settings. Hit menu button, select Folder Redirection.
3. You will see your mailbox which can be expanded. Expand your inbox and select the folders you want to be sync'd (on my device they're blue instead of grey). Hit menu button, select Save.

Any NEW messages routed to those folders will now be located in the folders on the device as well. As new messages, they'll appear in your Messages folder along with SMSs, MMSs, BBIMs, and other email. Once read, they'll disappear into the appropriate folder(s).

E-Fail

It's taken a while, but I've managed to get some metrics for how much mail I actually process.

Here's my inbox 3 weeks ago before I went on vacation for a week, then went without VPN access for a few days. The xkcd strip is particularly appropos.

Here's that same inbox today, sporting a newer version of Thunderbird. Note the pileup of over 1,000 emails in three weeks, in just ONE of the mailing list filter/folders I monitor.

So, other than filtering by sender & subject, automatically marking my own mailing list replies read, colourizing emails to make the more important ones stand out, and using "Show Unread Threads" view filtering ... what else can one do to manage the deluge?

Does anyone have any good, realistic strategies for dealing with 1000s of emails a month?

Zimbra mail filters

Get too much mail? Don't we all. Here's how I filter it so it's more manageable. Log in. Click Preferences > Mail Filters. If you use Thunderbird, you can set tags and automatically move emails into IMAP folders. Then, just make sure the tags you've set exist in Thunderbird, and you'll get colourized, sorted mail.

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

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.

Blackberry Bold + MidpSSH + Mutt = Mail Over VPN

Got a new Blackberry Bold 9000 for Xmas. Typical of Rogers, I was overcharged for it, and all the freebies I had quoted to me on the phone have yet to arrive. I'm told I'll be credited back the surcharge, but I won't see that until February.

Anyway, customer service infractions aside, setting up Gmail, TwitterBerry, Facebook, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, and of course Blackberry Messenger was a snap. Tried to use the internal mail client for Gmail but it doesn't respect my filters so I get the flashing light notification for every bit of spam, rather than just the interesting mail I want to see.

Setting up IRC was a little tricky, but thanks to Opera Mini and mibbit.com, I can more or less check Freenode channels on the go. Not ideal, but tolerable.

But the real challenge was getting access to my corporate mail, since we're not running a BES server, and thanks to all the supported options, there are over 5,000 possible ways to configure Cisco VPN access on a Blackberry. I'm not that patient.

Instead, I decided to try using MidpSSH 1.7.3 to connect into my laptop (which is already connected to the VPN), then use Mutt 1.5.18 to connect over IMAP to the mail server. Because I'm connecting to a local IP within my home LAN, I set the SSH session's Connection Type to WiFi, rather than Default, BES, or TCP/IP. In order to avoid having to key in a password every time I connect to the laptop, I set up an SSH key and shared that with my laptop.

If I want to have this solution work when I'm not at home, I'll have to expose my laptop to the outside world, and connect using Connection Type = Default to that public IP address instead of my more secure internal one. Still, it's a step in the right direction.

Incidentally, this tip might help, if you're having network access problems:

Options > Advanced Options > TCP > APN: "internet.com" (no username or password) [1], [2]

Now I just have to teach myself all the keyboard commands for Mutt. I tried using MidpSSH on my previous phone, a SonyEricsson W810i, but it's nearly impossible to do anything without a full keyboard.

If you're thinking of doing something like this, here are some handy links for setting up Mutt to connect to IMAP and to send mail via SMTP.

Is there a better way to VPN over BIS for IMAP mail? If so, feel free to share your solution here or via email with nickboldt(at)rogers(dot)blackberry(dot)net.