Mozilla has released a new version of the Thunderbird email client.
It’s got some nice new features; tabbed emails is the main one that stands out at first.
I’ve just installed it, which was painless, and so far it looks very good.
Unfortunately my calendar plug-in isn’t compatible (yet), but it was synced with Google Calendar and my Droid, so nothing was lost.
I got a Motorola Droid smartphone last week. I’m pretty happy with it, and am pretty sure I will keep it.
I agree that the iPhone has a few minor advantages over the Droid: I like the way it feels in my hand better, with its rounded corners. Pinch-zoom would be nice. There are more apps available (about 10 times as many).
But the Droid has some advantages too. Built-in turn-by-turn voice GPS navigation (which is an expensive app on the iPhone). Larger, higher resolution screen. Hardware keyboard. Multi-tasking. Folders on the screens to help organize your apps. Verizon’s superior network (in terms of coverage).
The lack of apps isn’t as much of an inferiority as it may sound — most of the good ones are available for both phones.
All in all, I think they are pretty comparable. Extreme fans of one or the other (Ken?) will scoff that there is no comparison based on xxx or yyy, but really they are in the same class. It comes down to carrier and personal preference, I think.
I’d been running Windows 2000 on a Pentium 4 computer for several years, and I was starting to feel the limitations. On the Pentium 4, newer programs ran slowly and some of the big C++ compiles I did took forever. With Windows 2000, though I still think it’s perhaps the best OS Microsoft made (from the point of view of convenience, simplicity and stability), there are more and more programs that will not run on it. Lately the computer has been unstable, probably from a corrupted OS, and at the thought of reinstalling Windows and reinstalling all my applications I decided I might as well install all my applications on a new computer. So…
First, I bought the components for a new computer: Motherboard, CPU, case, hard drives, memory, etc. At the center is an Intel Core i5 chip. Intel came out with the Core i7 chip a year or so ago, and though very fast it was also very expensive. Just a couple of months ago they released the Core i5 version. A little slower but much cheaper. Kind of a mainstream, little-brother version of the i7. I think that within a year or so, Core 2 Duo/Quad will become extinct and the Core i5 will replace it as the primary Intel CPU.
I wasn’t sure which motherboard to get until my brother Don recommended a particular Gigabyte board. Looking into it, it was indeed well rated and filled all my needs.
Next, I needed to decide on an OS. I was tempted to reinstall Windows 2000, but since Windows 7 was being released on the very same day I assembled my computer, I decided to go for it. Fortunately, as a university student (proved by my university email address), I could take advantage of the $30 student special. That was really the clincher. I couldn’t stand the thought of giving Microsoft $100 or $200 dollars, but $30 seems reasonable.
Installed, up and running, and I have to say I’m pretty happy with it. It seems to be snappier than Vista (though that could be partly due to my fast computer), and they’ve fixed some of the irritations with Vista. And buying it on the first day it is released, it should have a long life before I have to think about upgrading for compatibility reasons.
Have you ever thought about the long instructions you get when you reach the voice mail for a mobile phone?
“The number you have dialed, 480 555-1234 is not available. You can leave a message after the tone. After leaving your message, you can hang up, or press pound for other options. To leave a numeric page, press 1. To leave a callback number, press 7.”
That’s actually a composite of the instructions from T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T.
Think about it: These days, who needs to be told that they can leave a message after the tone? Who needs to be told that they can hang up after leaving the message? They have my phone number on CallerID; why would I leave a callback number? Does anybody ever leave a numeric page on a cell phone?
On T-Mobile it’s 17 seconds from the start of the message to the beep. On Verizon it’s 18 seconds.
Why doesn’t the message simply say, “Please leave a message after the tone”?, short and clear. Or when I set up my own message, why is it still followed by the carrier’s message?
The answer is money. The longer they keep the line open, the more you have to pay. Cell phone executives have admitted that it’s all about revenue per customer, and that long voice mail instructions are part of that strategy.
David Pogue, technical blogger for the NY Times, has a column on this and other complaints about cell phones (Why do text messages cost 10 to 20 cents a minute to send, when they cost the phone company almost nothing? If part of the cost of the monthly bill is to subsidize your cheap phone, why doesn’t the bill decrease when your contract expires? )
Oh, by the way, each carrier has a key you can press that will immediately take you to the beep, but they don’t advertise them and they are different for each carrier. If you press one carriers key during another’s message, who knows what might happen. However, someone has discovered that if you press 1 * #, with a pause to listen for the tone between each keypress, you can safely bypass all carrier’s message:
Press 1. If it’s Sprint, it will work immediately.
If not, press *. If it’s Verizon you’ll get the beep.
If not, press # and that will take care of T-Mobile and Cingular.
AT&T is in there somewhere too.
Mozilla has come out with a new version of Firefox: Version 3.5.
There are several improvements in this version. I especially like two of them:
1) They finally seem to have memory management under control. Previous versions of Firefox would seem to slowly take up more and more memory, and never release it even when you closed tabs. This version seems to use much less, and you regain memory when you close a tab. It’s about time they fixed that!
2) Private Browsing. You can enter a “private browsing” mode, where nothing is kept on the computer to show where you went or what you did. Useful if you are using someone elses computer and want to do banking or private email, or just when it’s nobody’s dang business what web sites you were visiting.
The page rendering engine is supposed to be faster, but I can’t really tell a difference.
Anyway, I’ve been using it for about a week so far, and find it an improvement.
I run Linux on my Netbook, and find that it works perfectly well in that application. On my netbook I primarily need a web browser and email, along with the ability to view media and PDFs, and run Skype and ICQ. I don’t think there’s any reason to pay anything for Windows on a Netbook.
But I don’t run it on my main computer. My main complaint about Linux is the difficulty I find installing new programs. There are lots of free programs for Linux; almost anything you can do in Windows, there is a roughly equivalent program for Linux. But installing those programs is such a chore that I usually just don’t want to bother.
Linux enthusiasts are going to tell me it’s easy. If your particular brand of Linux supports RPM, just find an RPM packaged version of the program (if it exists), open a shell window and type,
rpm –ivh packagename
If you’re lucky, your version of Linux may even have a GUI-based RPM interface, but you still have to figure out how to use it.
Or, if it’s not RPM and you get it in a “tar”, just open a shell window and type:
tar –xvzf Apackage.tar.gz
cd Apackage
./configure
make
make install
Oh, yeah — before you start this you should log in as root, otherwise you will probably get errors about insufficient rights.
See this long page for more insight into the complications involved with installing programs on a Linux computer.
Compare this with Windows, where you simply double click the setup program’s icon and in a minuter or two it’s done. There’s rarely a question about which version of Windows the program is designed for, or if you have the proper installation package.
Why can’t Linux be this simple? I’m running old versions of Firefox and Thunderbird on my netbook, because I don’t want to jump through the necessary hoops to upgrade them.
Linux has come a long way, and in many ways is as good as or better than Windows. But for me this is a real show-stopper. Linux can’t be a mainstream OS until it is simple to install and upgrade programs.
I use Firefox to browse the internet, instead of Internet Explorer, of course. Here are a few other things I’ve found that improve my browsing experience.
1) Install Adblock Plus, and activate one of the subscriptions. This will get rid of most ads.
2) Install FlashBlock. This prevents Flash from playing until you click on it. Since most of the ads that get past Adblock Plus are Flash based, this pretty much removes all of them.
3) Even after you’ve blocked the ads and the Flash, sometimes animated GIFs will wiggle and move in a distracting way while you are trying to read a page. They’re not really ads, but they are still irritating; e.g. lots of people use animated GIFs for their avatars in forums. If you just hit the “ESC” key all animated GIFs on that page will cease to play.
4) If the text or image is too small, hold the control key down and roll the mouse wheel. If you don’t have a mouse wheel then “CTRL +” or “CTRL -” will also increase or decrease the font size in Firefox and most applications.
5) The middle mouse button will open a link in a new tab. I often go to a news headline page (like Google News) and middle click on several headlines, then go and read them at leisure. It’s easier than clicking a link, then going back to the headline page and clicking the next link. This is also a great technique for checking out several links from a Google search. The middle-click trick also opens bookmarks in a new tab.
6) An oldie, but some may not have heard: If you hold the control key while hitting enter after typing a URL in the address bar, Firefox will automatically add the “http://www.” on the beginning, and “.com” on the end. So just type “google”, then CTRL-Enter. SHIFT-Enter will add “.net” at the end instead, and CTRL-SHIFT-Enter will add “.org”, but those are less useful in everyday browsing.
What else?
In case you missed my last comments on the previous blog, I bought a Kindle. It is my birthday present. It arrived on Friday.
I have mixed feelings about it. Mostly it is very nice. Books are easy to download and there is lots of content available (and quite a bit of free content too). The built-in, instant dictionary is very handy, as is the search feature. It’s light and very thin — almost too thin: If I rest my hands on top as I read in bed it is uncomfortable. But I think that’s probably a matter of adjusting.
I have some reservations. My major concern is with the screen contrast. It’s definitely not as good as black text on a white page. It’s more like very dark gray text on a very light gray background. Under good light it is quite easy to read. But in darker environments, where I would be able to read a printed book, it’s too hard to see.
The page-turn buttons are not quite where I would have put them either — my hands don’t naturally fall there while I’m reading. I might have preferred them on the top corners, but it’s not a big deal.
The built-in web browser is a joke, both because the connection is slow and the gray-scale display looses too much web content, but I guess it’s OK to have Google or Wikipedia available in a pinch.
I read in the bathtub last night, but that was scary. Dropping a normal book means at worst you might be out the cost of the book, and at best you might be able to read it after you dry it out. I doubt Amazon will refund me if I send it back filled with bubbles… :\
Anyway, I’ve got a month to decide if I want to keep it. I probably will.
Does anybody who reads my blog have a Kindle eBook reader?
It looks like it might be a great way to read books. The new version 2 that just came out is supposed to improve on most of the problems with the first one.
On the other hand, it’s very expensive. Though you can download books for about half the cost of a printed book, you would have to download a lot to make up for the cost of the reader.
It seems like it would be ideal for someone who traveled a lot; easer to bring one slim reader filled with 10 books than actually lugging 10 books along.
Or should I just download books to my Blackberry? The screen is much smaller and I don’t have access to Amazon’s huge library; that’s one problem with that idea.
My birthday is coming up next month; should I treat myself with this? Can anybody speak from personal experience?
Today is the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin.
It’s often mistakenly said that Darwin developed the theory of evolution. This is not accurate. In the mid-19th century it was widely discussed among many biologists that species seem to have developed from other species. The problem was that there was no known mechanism that could explain how this happens.
Darwin then came along and developed the theory of Natural Selection, a beautiful, comprehensive, and in retrospect obvious explanation. Of course! There is variation among any population. Those individuals who are better able to survive and reproduce will pass on their characteristics to their children, thereby increasing those successful characteristics. From such a simple, self-evident thesis comes the almost infinite variety of life.
Darwin didn’t know how variations came about, but he knew it must happen. It wasn’t until the 20th century that genes and mutations were discovered (though Mendel’s work pointed to genes much earlier), but his theory and the evidence predicted that they must exist. Most mutations are neutral, causing no significant changes in the individual. Many of the rest are harmful, but a few are beneficial. Those beneficial mutations are more likely to be preserved.
Evolution driven by natural selection is not “random”, as is often claimed: “You might just as well expect a jetliner to be produced by a tornado passing through a junkyard, as for a human being to arise from random chance!” It is not chance; it’s a slow, gradual process molded and directed at each step by the selection of the environment.
There are no serious biologists working in the world today who doubt evolution, or that natural selection is the main driving force behind it. To say that it’s “just a theory” means that all the evidence supports it and that it is the best known explanation. You might just as well say that the theory of Gravitation is “just a theory”, or the sun-centered solar system is “just a theory”. All known evidence supports the theory, and those who oppose it do so from religious or philosophical grounds, not factual.
So Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin, and thanks. Eventually someone else would have put it together as you did, but it might have taken a lot longer, and delayed the progress of the biological sciences.
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