Thunderbird 2.0 beta 1 is finally out (why is Thunderbird lagging so far behind Firefox?) so I decided I’d try it for a while in my continuing quest for a decent mail client. The writeup is on Linux.com.
2.0 has a few nifty new features, but it’s really the same old Thunderbird — if you’re picky about version numbers, you might wonder why this release justifies the 2.0 bump instead of, say 1.5 to 1.6. I do like the tagging feature, though it needs some work, and I really with the Thunderbird folks would allow users to set shortcuts and create macros.
Is it just me, or does Thunderbird development seem to be an afterthought compared to Firefox? Firefox continues to introduce new and exciting features, whereas innovation in Thunderbird seems to be lacking.
Don’t get me wrong — Thunderbird is OK compared to other mail clients, and it’s stable for me, which is the most important thing. I tried switching to KMail a while back, and it would crash several times a da which is completely unacceptable. Mutt would freeze up when downloading mail from my work IMAP account, on occasion. Sylpheed has also been less than stable — so Thunderbird is leading the pack right now, but only because it sucks a bit less.
Does anyone know of a good way to add shortcuts to Thunderbird? And why the bleep doesn’t Thunderbird include this functionality natively? (Note: needs to be compatible with Thunderbird 2.0.)
If you’re reading this post, then DNS has propagated, and you’re reading this post on my Ubuntu Dapper VPS rather than my old dedicated server.
If you’ve left any comments in the last, oh, 12 hours or so they may be in transition limbo. Please re-post or drop me a note and I’ll move ‘em over. Also, let me know if you see any wonkyness.
Mutt just happens to be one of the mail clients that sucks less. I’d been getting tired of Sylpheed lately, so I decided to try out several text mail clients and see how they fit my email volume.
Part of the fruits of my labor is this tutorial on configuring Mutt’s behavior. If you’ve ever thought about running Mutt, but were put off by the amount of configuration required and the paucity of howto material online, the tutorial just might help.
I like Mutt quite a bit, though I’m still not satisfied with it either… So far, I’ve used Sylpheed, Mutt, Evolution, Thunderbird, Sylpheed-Claws, Pine, KMail, and haven’t found a perfect mail client yet. Sigh. (I’d like KMail a heck of a lot more if it were stable. “Crashy” is not a word I want to use to describe my mail client, and KMail is the least stable Linux mail client I’ve laid hands on.)
Remember when the RIAA started going on its anti-filesharing rampage, under the guise of “protecting the artists”? It turns out, they’re finally admitting they’re really looking out for the record companies:
As quoted by The Hollywood Reporter,”Mechanical royalties currently are out of whack with historical and international rates,” RIAA executive VP and General Counsel Steven Marks said. “We hope the judges will restore the proper balance by reducing the rate and moving to a more flexible percentage rate structure so that record companies can continue to create the sound recordings that drive revenues for music publishers.”
The language of this statement reveals a great deal about who the RIAA is looking out for, and it’s not artists. Couched in terms of apparent necessity, the RIAA’s is insisting that the real musicians be paid less so that the record companies can continue to “drive revenues.” If piracy really is devastating the recording industry and cell phone ringtones are one of the remaining highly profitable distributed mediums, should the RIAA really be trying to ensure that musicians be paid less for them while they’re already hurting from lost revenue on album sales? At best the RIAA is kicking artists when they’re down via this action, and at worst has fully revealed that despite repeated claims that artists need to be protected from piracy, the organization is very much the tool of the major labels and publishers who have famously never really cared about the artists in the first place.
I wonder, has any of the money from the RIAA lawsuits actually trickled down to the artists yet?
I like today’s Grammar Girl’s post, about whether you should use he, she, or they, when referring to a person of unknown gender. Though it’s grammatically problematic, I’m firmly in the they camp.
Taryn from Evansville, David from New Jersey, and a listener named Gina also asked about this problem, and I think Betty summed it up best by saying, “He or she seems too awkward, he seems sexist, and one seems archaic.” I would add that exclusively using she also seems sexist, the hybrid s/he seems silly and awkward, and switching between he and she is downright confusing to readers.
Thoughts?
I just noticed that my last three posts had ellipses in the subject. I definitely tend to abuse ellipses…