FTER some long experience with a large variety of E-mail clients, I settled on Mozilla Thunderbird. I did so without any hesitation once the application was sufficiently mature. Thunderbird is immaculate: stable, predictable, highly-extensible and even interoperable (including importers and exporters).

A calendaring component for Mozilla Thunderbird (version 1.5 or later) has been officially released. It bridges a certain gap where Sunbird, as well as another third-party applications, integrated calendaring into Thunderbird insufficiently well. The last time I checked, one such Thunderbird extension was developed to become Windows-compatible only (shame on the developer/s).

The site introduces the new extension as follows:

The Lightning Project is a redesign of the Calendar component. Its goal is to tightly integrate calendar functionality (scheduling, tasks, etc.) into Mozilla Thunderbird.

I am still reluctant to move my calendar from a portable Palm PDA onto a desktop. It can have an adverse effect on partability. I will have to look into the interaction between the two, as well as multiple desktops. I currently have close to 10 Thunderbird extensions, which make it beyond bloated (albeit very stable and robust, unlike an overloaded Firefox).

Related items:

• Tabs in Thunderbird
• Thunderbird versus Outlook
• Thunderbird Aqua
• Mail Readers Survey

Calendaring in the Open Source Horde project

HOWN above is a screenshot of the Web calender which is closely integrated to my mail. As it turns out, as well as speculated years ago, Google are working on their own implementation. Their Web-based software will actually be called CL2 on the face it. Some screenshots are revolving around the Web nowadays. They depict what could potentially kill many other Web-based calendars.

Related item: Managing To-Do Lists On-Line

Yet another day in La-La Land®

ILLED with frustration over some recent rotten conducts, I once assembled a few streams of consciousness to compose a bitter essay. It was saturated with citations on the way Microsoft continues to exploit its desktop monopoly-like state-of-affairs. I titled the essay On Operating Systems Monoculture and it spanned 4 pages. Today I would like to elaborate on that matter, whilst venting some anger (rant alert) and pointing out facts that Microsoft prefer to hide from their users, owing to Vista’s prematurity.

In a world where a desktop monopoly prevails, there is also mental manipulation of minds. Innocent people are (mis-)led to believe they are IT-proficient when they manage to change font size in Word. Skills are not sufficiently generalised and MSCE qualifications are a glaringly-obvious example of this. Advice must be taken from people who live in a broader reality and are neither delusional nor biased.

To take an overview, as well as a look into the future, Microsoft continue to use dirty tactics to push away any type of rivalry. They also propagate some hackney myths. Microsoft cried “Wolf” whenever someone criticised Windows Vista. Yet, based on some recent screenshots, Vista Starter Edition will allow only 3 processes to run at any one time. It is one among the numerous ‘penalties’ that will force a paid-for upgrade.

Then comes the issue of desktop environment visualisation. Graphics in Vista are unimpressive, assuming Aero cannot be run. Aero is the glass-like component in Vista’s window rendering, which enables translucency (as in Linux and Mac OSX). Aero is estimated to be properly-supported by 50% of today’s hardware. So, is Microsoft taking a step backwards, both in terms of hardware support and functionality? Even when Aero is enabled, it offers nothing out of the ordinary. LiteStep can already enrich the looks of Windows, so Vista offers nothing innovative. Aero only suffocates the CPU. The 3-D effects make the system choke. Vista is the same product which is known as XP Service Pack II (or Windows Server 2003), but it was put in a new dress. It is no surprise given the recent major fallback in terms of the codebase.

Microsoft employ a famous composer to work on sounds in Vista. Judging by what the O/S has to offer and rave about, Microsoft could take the easier route and just go with Mozart’s Requiem. It may soon be “Hasta la Vista“.

N programming, efficiency always entails a cost. Contrariwise, simplified and inefficient code is often easier to understand. Where can balance be found? Can it ever be found? Efficiency is often preferred by so-called ‘power users’, whereas others opt for simplicity. Consequently, when negotiating projects, either at code-level or when deciding on UI design, flame wars may arise among developers or avid users.

Let us consider code optimisation. If the programmer wants to go all the way, (s)he could optimise by shortening variables, removing excessive spaces, and stripping out newlines. In such circumstances, interpreted code will be quicker, albeit less meaningful when an error arises and goes verbose. This is nothing like bytecodes and JIT, but similar rules should apply.

Good code should be well-structured, easily-readable, elegant, and well-documented. If the code is compiled, all comments should definitely stay in tact rather than ever be stripped. Automatic documentation can fit nicely in the source rather than be generated and made peripherally available, e.g. via Web pages. The only exception is debugging ‘bits’, which could definitely slow down program execution. As long as the developer keeps the original and saturated version of the code public, however, nobody need get entangled in closed-source traps.

On to an exciting prediction, with lowered file sizes and optimised code, programs could scale better on Wi-Fi-driven Web servers which run on a PDA in one’s pocket. Such server must be properly taken good care of, as well as the Internet connection, which is as vital as that of a synapse. With the growth of smaller devices, the need for efficiency is better realised.

VER the years I found myself inputting similar commands and/or text time after time, only with slight variations. This yelled out for re-use of some kind. In due time, tt seemed natural for me to keep these quickly-accessible for copying and pasting whenever required.

As of last year, the problem was nearing its end. I began to retain 3 separate text files: one for complex Linux commands (including various Internet address and scripts); one for commands in academia (usually experiments); last and by no means least, I kept together general-purposed text and the like. I refer to the last bit as “common text”, which can be valuable at times. It definitely saves time and prevents typos.

As an example that is based on practice, let us consider one’s personal details. In case a browser’s auto-complete functionality does not work, I open a text file, which resides on my domain. It contains the following arbitrary bits, which fit in commonly-served boxes in most Web forms:

Roy
Samuel
Schestowitz
roy@schestowitz.com
+44 870 xxx xxxx
Manchester University
Imaging Science and Biomedical Engineering
F5-17 Sir Charles Groves Hall, 4 Booth Str. West
Manchester
Lancashire
M15 6PY

How does one use this efficiently? Quick double-click and grafting of the text onto forms is the intuitive approach. It is often a matter of highlighting and mouse-clicking the center button in Linux.

That said, auto-completion sometimes (rather often) works in Mozilla Firefox. It is based on field labels (or captions), but on occasions no suggestions are made. So, working with the template and the form in tandem (e.g. browser tabs or separate monitors) is a method which works admirably well.

Common texts reside on a Webspace to serve my particular needs and there are accompanying keybindings in a personal links portal (example only), which makes access to text even more immediate.

I also store particular signatures for E-mail. These are usually triggered by an event which needs a suitable yet repeatable reply such as:

Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are unreliable, unmaintainable, and unsafe. Send plain text, rtf, pdf, or W3C html instead. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

I grabbed this statement from somebody else whom I spotted in a mailing list. This signature can rapidly be used for unwanted E-mail attachments. Fortunately I only felt compelled enough to use it once in the past. Drawbacks that are associated with proprietary formats are finally beginning to be widely understood here in the United Kingdom. This saves some trouble to all and unburden non-Windows users.

As a side note, I learned this technique from a lecturer whose habit was to keep his frequently-used commands in text files. More complex, multi-line commands are stored locally as scripts, to avoid clutter and to keep everything organised.

Spicing up a Linux desktop

HIS short essay describes a variety of ways which I have found to increase ‘desktop productivity’. It identifies and covers 3 aspects of customisation, albeit without much obvious connection. Think of them as streams of consciousness.

• Workspace: first and foremost, use virtual desktops. The site introduced and described them before and also outlined a way of taking full advantage of them.
• Panels and screen edges: another significant step, which I took over a year ago in all computers, is automatic hiding of all panels as to avoid distraction and visual clutter (many panels over here, 7 of them on one screen). The exceptions to automatic hidding: new mail notification widgets and a system monitor (minimalist display of processor usage, memory and swap, refreshed several times per second), among your other must-have widgets. Even a clock should only be made available on demand (e.g. when touching screen edges) as it otherwise becomes an unnecessary eye-catcher. Screen corners have no special significance, but in newer versions of KDE, movement between virtual desktop can be controlled by ‘pushing through’ the sides of the screens, which proves somewhat useful, yet can conflict with auto-hiding of panels. Be warned.
• Theming: lastly, choose colour schemes and background pictures that suit you best. An appealing environment encourages work. I personally prefer the nocturnal, dark-coloured themes (including widgets and window decorations). Also confer: old Windows 98 example; Linux example.

Is your operating system cannot attain some of the above behaviours (or does not permit it), you may wish to consider more flexible platforms and desktop environments. My favourite is KDE on Linux. It continues to evolve very rapidly.

A pager which contains 8 virtual desktops

SSOCIATION of numbers with tasks can make life somewhat easier. Logical subdivision of processes can be reached in this way. Depending on the task at hand, a certain mnemonic can serve as a bridge to quick access. In this particular case, I am thinking about virtual desktops, which I have introduced and described before.

Let us consider a variety of activities which are undertaken in the daily routine of a computer user and assign each to a particular virtual desktop — a particular number, that is. This way, one can immediately jump from one process to another rather than ever launch and re-launch applications, or even minimise and restore any. Here are the mnemonic that I found to be most useful over time.

1. In my main workstation (University, dual-head as shown above):

• Desktop 1: Web browsing (occasionally feeds)
• Desktop 2: Right-hand-side: E-mail, left-hand-side: music
• Desktop 3: Reading (usually GhostView and file managers)
• Desktop 4: Programming
• Desktop 5: Writing/authoring
• Desktop 6: Remote connections (permanent link to two other workstations)
• Desktop 7: Photography, usually vacant or neglected
• Desktop 8: Communication, e.g. newsgroups

2+3. At work and at home:

Desktops 1 and 2 are consistent with the above. As the machines are not dual-head and only 4 virtual desktops are used (anything beyond 4 is often an excess), desktop 3 centralises many of the remote connection and file browsing aspects. Desktop 4 usually involves both reading and programming.

Either way, regardless of which numbers you assign to your favourite tasks, a quick tap on CTRL+number becomes natural and, given a certain task, the number makes transition to it more natural, almost innate. Diversion of attention can be made trivial and speed is then comparable with that of will. All programs are either in the visible (active) or virtual frame buffer.