Thunderbird Annoyances

Thunderbird 2.0 has been released! Huzzah. It’s like 1.5, but with slight changes! Right, enough of all that. Now I will complain. There are some things that have been bugging me about the new version. Some of them have been bugging me since v1.0. I first started thinking about them when I tried an early beta of 2.0, and I had hoped that would be fixed for the final release. Guess not.

• Horizontal view
  • Re-sizes message list instead of current message
  • Message list items don’t get twice as high to fit more info in
• The “from:” and “attachments” panes take up space at the top and bottom of messages. It would be better to move their contents in-line. It’s not like I’m going to forget who sent me the message halfway through. I’m also not fond of having my viewing space halved when someone sends a bunch of images. Can re-size both the from and attachment panes, (with a small button to target) but they still take up at space and it’s annoying.
• If you sort a folder by date so that the newest messages appear at the top, that view *only* holds true for that folder. There is no way to set the view application-wide; one must do the sort manually for every folder. A subtle annoyance.

There’s probably more, but those are the major things that have been getting to me. Within a year, there will probably be some extension called “Thunderbird Mix Plus Plus” or some such nonsense which fixes all this and more. Else, it all gets corrected in a future release. I await either of those with impatience.

I, For One, Welcome Our New Pidgin Overlords

Gaim development is really taking off. It’s flying these days. Seriously, what is up with AOL?

The Joys of Dorm Life

Where else but a dorm would someone call at 2am, do a very bad impersonation of a floor mate (Jordan L; aka, “English Major”) who left after last semester, and ask for CS homework help to round it off?

The great thing about it was, I was awake and coding at the time, and I enjoy a good prank, so I grabbed the bait. Sadly, it was nothing more then an ordinary prank call. No notes left down at MSC, and no spotlights or water balloons rained down upon me as I left the dorm. Seriously folks, if you’re going to prank, make it good. At least make the call come right before the sprinkler system actives.

Ok, I’m done now.

Note: On the off-chance anyone does actually want to get ahold of me at 2AM for HW help, try my AIM listed on Facebook. If I’m awake and/or feeling like free tech support, I’ll probably be on there.

Condescending Attitude Toward Mac Users

Alright, I’m getting really tired of the general condescending attitude toward Mac users. This post was brought on by Ben’s thing here, (”We won’t dwell on the Mac users; they’re pretty much hopeless and demented anyway.”), but I’ve seen the attitude elsewhere also.

(a) OS X is UNIX
(b) Better UNIX then Windows.
(c) OS X *is* easier to get started with *and* maintain then Linux, even Ubuntu. More expensive, certainly, but much easier by an order of magnitude.

I would recommend OS X over Linux (even Ubuntu) for the average Joe who can afford it. More mainstream software is compatible, things “just work”, and it’s less hassle in general.

Don’t believe me? ‘Ight. Let’s play a word game.

• MP3/DVD compatibility
• 3D acceleration
• Games
• Microsoft Office
• Photo manipulation
• Power management

You can, of course, do all of these things on Linux. However, it is much easier to do them on a Mac. It’s stupid to expect your average Joe to search through a bunch of documentation to get 3D games working. Heck, even Ben hasn’t gotten 3D acceleration working on his laptop. MP3 and DVDs can’t be played by default on Ubuntu and require installation of an illegal (in the US) codec pack. That sort of thing is unheard of on a mainstream desktop PC. I understand this stuff is getting ironed out as we speak, but as of right now, they aren’t.

Photo manipulation with The GIMP still lags behind Photoshop. *cough* CMYK *cough*

Power management is another area Linux lags behind on. My Ubuntu laptop can hibernate, but it stopped waking up after a kernel update several months ago. I’m not alone in this either. Yeah.

As for OpenOffice.org, have you compared it to Microsoft Office 2007? The interface is vastly inferior. Even Office 2003 for Mac scores better in my book. Office 2008 for Mac should pretty sweet, if they do even a fraction of what was accomplished in the Windows version. No, really. I haven’t drunk any Kool-ade, I’m speaking as someone who has studied HIG. Office is bloated and the DOCX format is pretty lame, but it still pwns all competition. OpenOffice.org can’t even display two pages of the same document side by side. Sad, but true.

Also, there isn’t anything that comes even close to OneNote available for Linux. BasKet 1.0 is a step in the right direction, but as a OneNote user, I cringed and put it down after a few attempts to get work done. Tomboy, while a good substitute for the OneNote mini-pad thing, can’t compare to the full program. Ok, yeah, I know, no OneNote for Mac either, but y’know. At least they have notebook view in Word, we don’t even have that.

Really, I love Linux and it’s my primary operating system, but there are many good reasons to use OS X instead.

Adobe Ps

Adobe. You know the company. They have Designers there. People who create fine softwares such as Photoshop, Acrobat Reader, and Macromedia Flash. I can’t really go into specifics. One only needs a vague general idea of what goes on at this gathering of smart people. They design stuff. These people are professionals. Yet, no less then two days ago they unleahed this bombshell upon an unsuspecting public.

Behold: the new Photoshop icon. This would look great on a glass door, maybe adorining a mug or as a letterhead of some sort. But no. This is the icon upon which you click to launch the program. It gets better.

Mail.app: new scourge of the internet

Apple recently released a “sneak peek” at the next version of OS X. It looked pretty spiffy… until I read about the new changes to Mail.app Behold the doom that awaits us all: “With Mac OS X Leopard, Mail transforms mere email into personalized stationery.” Why, Apple? Why? Why?

Sincerely yours

Mail for Leopard features more than 30 professionally designed stationery templates that make a virtual keepsake out of every email you send. From invitations to birthday greetings to travelogues, each stationery template features coordinated layouts, fonts, and colors — everything’s designed to keep your mind on the message. You can even effortlessly add pictures to your email via a new Media Browser. Just find the perfect photo and drag it onto your template. Hit “Send” and get ready for some astonished replies from everyone — even folks on PCs.

The New York Times hypes Vista

The New York Times is jumping on the Vista bandwagon. I ask you; how is this not something that could easily be programmed using existing Windows XP technology? Or even in a web browser using well crafted CSS?

Oh, right. I forgot. Internet Explorer 6 dosen't support well crafted CSS.

Trial by DRM

I received Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, among other things, as a gift a few days ago. It looks like a pretty neat game, it appears to be pretty much Neverwinter Nights with a new graphics engine, better storyline and a Star Wars theme. My good friend Alex recommended it highly.

Of course, Alex has only played it on Xbox. But the PC version can’t be too different, right? Well, one would hope. Little did I know what path lay ahead. Would I stick to the happy, legal, light side? Or would I succumb to the dark powers of software piracy?