Software

unfiltered and featured

I just changed my Thunderbird setup to move all messages from the IMAP server to local folders and then apply the various filters locally as opposed to applying filters on the server. This means that all messages are visible even when disconnected so I will be able to do email housekeeping in airport lounges.

I tested each new message filter in turn and everything worked fine. Unfortunately I discovered that, contrary to the documentation, Thunderbird 1.5.0.5 does not appear to automatically apply all filters to new messages in ‘Local Folders-Inbox’. Sigh.

a short history of digital photography

Back in the old days, things were very simple. We had a camera. We took photographs. We sent the prints away to BonusPrint. We discarded mistakes. We filed the photos in albums. We ordered duplicates for grandparents. Best of all, my involvement in the whole process was negligible.

Then some idiot invented the digital camera. We still took photos but the whole issue of printing became more complicated. You could be adventurous and attempt to print on your inkjet printer at home. This would result in ludicrously sized and distorted A4 images, drenched in ink, that gave small children nightmares.

my head hurts

Tough week. Lots of driving to and from the bleak, industrial North. Lots of head scratching, pouring over computers and log files, talking to different people, all working together to try to fix a difficult, long standing, non-reproducible, high-profile problem.

Arrive home. After the emotional reunions, hugs and tears, I am immediately asked to fix a difficult problem that is (thankfully) reproducible. Son took advantage of my absence to buy another PC game. Game launches splash screen and immediately crashes.

so farewell then, NIS

Norton Internet Security

Our love affair began back in the days of running a cable across my bedroom for my meagre dialup connection and the protection (Firewall, Virus Checker) you offered. After that. I felt obliged to renew my subscription every July.

Each new version looked very similar and you hardly ever notified me of viruses or security breaches. Maybe you eliminated them all ruthlessly and silently but for 35 GBP per year, you need to ‘add value’.

good vibes from Netvibes

I currently use MyYahoo! as my home page. I have looked at MyYahoo’s next incarnation, played with Google’s personalised home page and Windows Live! but none are as flexible as I would like.

So, prompted by the only other Oracle gentleman with enough taste to choose WordPress, Rahul, I decided to experiment a little with Netvibes.

Out of the box, the default Netvibes screen doesn’t look too remarkable. A widget for Gmail, a search box, example RSS feeds and the obligatory Flickr feed to display other peoples lovely cats on your home page.

in praise of Emacs

Been using Emacs for years but still learning

M-x sort-lines
M-x delete-trailing-whitespace

I knew about the first command but not the second. Very handy to tidy up an ugly SQL*Plus spool file.

SonicStage 3.4 released

Don’t know where, don’t know when but SonicStage 3.4 is available.

I haven’t had a chance to download 3.4 yet and I would love to be proved wrong but I suspect SonicStage remains the only software application in the modern world without a ‘Check for updates’ option.

Irritatingly, this post about version 3.3 remains one of my most popular blog articles. Sigh.

Office 2.0 - ThinkFree

I was worried that Google’s integrated suite of Web 2.0 office applications would pose a threat to Zoho but another, more immediate competitor has just launched this week.

ThinkFree provides a similar service to Zoho offering free, Web-based Word, Excel and PowerPoint software. I found ThinkFree’s charts matches the features in Excel (and is better than ZohoSheet and NumSum).

In fact, ThinkFree’s compatibility with Microsoft Office is so awesome, at times, it is easy to forget you are not actually using Word/Excel/Powerpoint. I am surprised the use of the small toolbar icons does not constitute not a breach of copyright.

ZohoWriter

Just wrote a quick letter using ZohoWriter. An interesting product. Think of Microsoft Word on the Web. ZohoWriter supports the standard WYSIWG editor, document versioning, collaboration, blog publishing and export to Word/PDF formats. My document is saved safely on a server in the event of any media based disaster striking my PC.

The only comments I have was that it wasn’t obvious how to suppress the header and footer when printing the final hard copy, I couldn’t see a speel checker and WordPress.com wasn’t listed in the list of supported blogging platforms. But don’t quote me as I never took the time to RTFM so all of this may be possible.

more wireless fun

Buoyed by my recent, successful firmware upgrade of my Linksys wireless router, and for the sake of completeness, I decided to upgrade the driver software of the Linksys Wireless USB adapters to the latest version (2.0.2).

In addition, prompted by my wife’s perceptive question of ‘Is it not working because someone has hacked into it ?’, I also decided to increase the security on my embryonic wireless network by disabling SSID broadcasts and enabling MAC address filtering so only specified PC’s can connect.