Quickpost: Thunderbird Notes

New annoyance fixed: Fix Thunderbird 45 Enter-key creating two lines (gHacks Tech News). Note: I probably should just go to “plain text” email formatting. Life would be so much simpler…

I didn’t save any notes but some time ago – perhaps after a Thunderbird version upgrade, I started noticing an error that my add-on Extra Folder Columns was disabled and no longer working.

I finally decided to do something about the error message.

I quickly found this note by “SpartacusOrangatang”:

For all those w/ TB38+ that don't want the unread total to include subfolders... 

by SpartacusOrangatang on February 22, 2016 · permalink · translate

When Mozilla integrated this add-on in Thunderbird, they removed the ability to set things so that a folder's unread count is limited to that folder only, and not all of its subfolders. Fortunately, you can change this behavior in the preference editor. Simply change "mail.folderpane.sumSubfolders" to false, restart TB, and all will be well again.

Oh.  So this add-on is now a bundled feature of Thunderbird. That explains why it stopped working I guess.

I followed that tip and added the preference setting and removed the Extra Folder Columns add-on. No more error message.

I did some minor tweaking to the column appearance as explained in this feature note.

Expanded Folder Pane columns - New in Thunderbird 38.0 - Thunderbird Help

For some reason I didn’t know this either and had only recently noticed it as well: What does asterisk mean in Inbox (*12) • mozillaZine Forums

Answer: “The asterisk in the main folder means that there are new messages in a subfolder of that main folder.”

Here are the add-ons I run in Thunderbird as of this posting.

• Zoom Button for Thunderbird - Add-ons for Thunderbird
• Montezooma - Add-ons for Thunderbird
• Color Folders - Add-ons for Thunderbird
• Attachment Tree - Add-ons for Thunderbird

That is all.

Claus Valca

W6161X (or how to recover from Thunderbird slowness)

I was almost ready to ditch Mozilla Thunderbird recently and go reconsider some options for an alternative email client.

The primary reasons I like T-bird at home are 1) it works well for my more basic home email needs and 2) I recommend it to family and friends -- well except Dad who insists on using Outlook -- as their email client so it is “muy fácil” to walk them through support when they have issues.

Only for the past several months I have noticed that my T-Bird was getting slower, and slower, and slower. 

After I would open it up, and started managing the emails that were dropping into my Inbox, it would

1. hang up while opening messages in the preview pane,
2. hang up while dragging messages out of the inbox and into message folders in my sidebar,
3. hang up whenever the heck I needed to do something really important when trying to compose a new message.

It kept getting slower and slower.  I use very few add-ons for Thunderbird and even disabling them and running in “safe” mode didn’t help.

Before chucking it all I decided to try one last time on the Interwebs to see if community knowledge could help. 

Yep!

Contextual note:  As I post this, I am running Mozilla Thunderbird release version 24.4.0 on a Win 7 x64 system with ample system RAM and i7 core processor.  Also had previously “compacted” all my folders as part of regular maintenance and ran SpeedyFox to optimize the databases.  I recommend both as part of a regular T-Bird user routine.

After some web-searching I found the following article with tips that seemed promising based on user feedback in the comments:

• How to speedup slow Mozilla Thunderbird email client on Windows 7 - FAQforge

It listed a number of tips but the second of these made an almost immediate difference.

layers.acceleration.disabled = true

and

gfx.direct2d.disabled = false

and restart Thunderbird.

To get to these settings in T-Bird 24.x.x, you need to get into a different editor than described in that post.

Go to “Tools” --> “Options” --> “Advanced” (the gear icon) --> “General” tab

…then select the “Config Editor…” button.

Click “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button.

…then (one at a time) type the preference setting shown above into the search bar line and change the preference value to as shown above after the “=” symbol.

In my case, the layers.acceleration.disabled was already set to “true” but I did change the “gfx.direct2d.disabled” value to false.

Next I downloaded and installed the “NoGlass” add-on for Thunderbird. It installs under the “appearance” section rather than the “extensions” but it went on with no issues and the visual difference with no Aero glass for T-Bird was negligible for me compared to the possible performance gain.

Finally, installed and ran the freeware utility ThunderFix as was recommended.

• Fix Slow Or Hanging Thunderbird Email Client - gHacks Technology News

Yes, the utility is pretty old but it does still work just fine with the latest versions of T-bird. Be sure your T-Bird program is not running when you run the tool.

Tip: It is an “installable” program, but if you know how, you can use other tools to “unpack” the installer files and just be left with a single portable exe file to use if you would like.

After all that housecleaning Thunderbird is fast and responsive again.

One more note: after running Thunderfix, you may find your email folders are just a slow to open initially (first time accessing only) due to T-bird having to rebuild the msf files it cleans up. Once you get past that, they are back to normal.

Good luck,

Claus V.

PS: That “W6161X” is a reference I learned about this week to the federal insurance billing code for “bitten by duck” as spotted in this great legal info post. --cheers!

Mozilla Thunderbird Message Composing Tip

I have been a longtime fan of Mozilla Thunderbird as my primary home desktop email client.

I’ve tried a number of alternative ones but just haven’t been convinced they offer me anything that T-Bird isn’t providing.

One side-enjoyment that I have is collecting fun and fascinating links I think my family members might enjoy based on their interests and hobbies.  My RSS feed list is pretty large and expansive and I usually find material for them without trying.

Once every few weeks I’ll sort the saved bookmarks and categorize them in Firefox, then I will copy the lot in the Bookmark Manager and paste them into a new message composition window in Thunderbird.

That works great but there is a single “space” between each of the links.

I like to split each URL link out on it’s own line and sometimes it’s hard to see just where that space is.

I could (temporarily) ramp up the font size formatting of the message content to make it more visible for the editing work, but that seemed silly. Could I just “zoom” the view up instead?

I looked and looked (and even tried some T-bird Add-ons) but they just didn’t work like I wanted, nor could I find a zoom control.

After just a minute of the Googles I found the solution was coded into T-bird for some time, but accessed via key/mouse hot-key combinations rather than a menu/GUI solution:

New in Thunderbird 10 | How to | Keyboard shortcuts - Thunderbird

Keyboard shortcuts

• The scroll wheel can now be used to zoom and unzoom a message in the message reader and compose window:
  Ctrl + |scroll wheel| Command + Control + |scroll wheel|. In the message reader only, with Ctrl + “0” |Command| + “0”, you can reset the zoom to 100%.

Say what?

Windows users…if you are viewing a message in the reading pane OR composing a message in the new message composition window, press and hold the “CTRL” key while scrolling your mouse wheel up or down, the viewable text size increases or decreases.  This does NOT change the actual font size coding of your message…just how large it is displayed for you you.

To reset the view size back to “100%” normal size -- in the reading pane view only -- press “CTRL” key and “0”.

Unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be a reset method in the composition window so you will have to “CTRL” + scroll-wheel it back to what looks like your normal size.

On my system with Thunderbird version 17.0.7, it appears the zoom level you set is persistent. Meaning that if you close the zoomed/shrunk composition window, any new composition windows you open will retain that last zoom setting. YMMV.

Good enough for me!

Cheers!

Claus V.

P.S. -- Yes I hear you giggling at me Alvis with my “old-man” eyes…I’m blaming it on my HD 1920 x 1080 15.6-inch spanking-tastic super-fine laptop display. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

T-Bird Development Slows…and some options

Just in case you missed it, the Mozilla Thunderbird development team recently announced that they will be scaling back development on new features to this fan-favorite email client and primarily focus on stability and security work.

It some circles it might be called “hitting a plateau.”

• Thunderbird: Stability and Community Innovation - Mitchell's Blog
• Thunderbird to Slow Down Development, Focus on "Security and Stability" Only - Lifehacker
• Thunderbird/Proposal: New Release and Governance Model - MozillaWiki
• Thunderbird Extended Release Support for Your Organization, Business, Enterprise - Overview - Mozilla.org
• Mozilla puts Thunderbird in maintenance mode - Mozilla Links

So what does that mean if you use Thunderbird as your email client?  Well. Probably not very much.

Thunderbird is a very mature email client and already packs almost all the primary features that one could need into it already.  Toss on the Lightning calendaring plugin and you have a full-featured email and activity duo. There are more than many Add-ons for Thunderbird.  Myself--aside from Lightning--I only use the following additional extensions; Color Folders, Attachment Tree, Extra Folder Columns, and AttachmentExtractor. That’s it.

So I don’t really have any concerns or cares at the present moment regarding T-Birds slow-simmering.

However, just in case that ever does become an issue with me--or maybe you are looking for some new email client platform--I did some looking around and found the following free email clients that are in active development and could be considered worthy replacements for Thunderbird. I tossed them all on my Windows 8 system and took them for a whirl. Here’s my alternative preferences.

Windows Live Mail - Microsoft. Who knows what Redmond will call it next year as they kill off the “Windows Live” branding and repackage it as something Win8’ish. Doesn’t matter. This email application is the very first one I recommend to most all family and friends. It has a dead-simple interface. It has decent email message handling security and rules/filter capabilities. And setup of a new email account (or multiple ones) is a breeze.  There isn’t much not to like with this one.

eM Client Email Client - eM Client. I would be lying to say that I had heard of this email client before yesterday’s search. I had not. However the reviews and comment'-feedback were ridiculously good so I had to check it out. I am amazed. A review of the Features left me highly impressed.  It supports both web-based email servers as well as the more traditional email server connections. It contains a full-featured calendar along with event management, task lists, and contacts.  Yes, you can import those items from most all other email clients. They have a free edition (registration required) along with a more featured ($) version. Installation was a breeze and setup was a piece of cake. The interface is really, really well designed and (hard-to-admit) outshines Thunderbird. I had no problems getting it going and feeling instantly at home. If T-Bird ever gets its goose burnt, eM Client will probably be my replacement choice, hands-down. Check it out!

DreamMail Europe Community - This free email client was also very easy to get going and set up. Like eM Client the user GUI is very approachable. All the major features you would want in an email client are present.

Pegasus Mail - David Harris. - This is a free email client that is much more advanced. It doesn’t have the same degree of “wizard support” like Windows Live Mail, eM Client, or DreamMail to get your web-based email accounts going. You will need to know in advance some of the more technical bits of your email system such as the POP3 and STMP server names as well as any special ports and security settings connections to them require. The user interface is more detailed than the previous clients mentioned. All this to day it is a more technically advanced email client than average users would probably want or need. However if you want a lot of control regarding your email client and accounts, and the advanced configurations don’t concern you, it is worth checking out.

Sylpheed - Like Pegasus Mail, this email client requires a bit of detailed work getting things going.  The interface is more simple to navigate than Pegasus, but you will need to feed it some more technical details to get it configured. Once running, it is very direct to use and is something most average users shouldn’t have any issues with.

i.Scribe - Has a very nice and basic interface. Configuration will require the POP3 and STMP sever details of your host. However I did find it very easy to navigate around in and find all the critical things needed to get it up and going.  There are message filters and advanced security setting options. All in all a nice little application.

Microsoft Outlook 2010 - Microsoft - Yeah, I know, it is neither free nor a very “light” email client. That said, if you have it as part of an already installed MS Office suite load, it might be worthwhile to give it another look. I know many folks who are so used to using MS Office at work that they feel right at home running and using it for their personal email client needs at home.

This isn’t a list of the “only” email clients for Windows out there. There are more, many smaller and many “portable”.  However these were the ones I considered myself most likely to use after downloading, configuring to a POP3 “web-mail” account, and running on Windows 8.

Cheers.

Claus V.

T-Bird Note to Self

Just a note about Mozilla Thunderbird in case I forget.

I use Microsoft Outlook at work as my email client. I have Microsoft Office 2010 at home available to be used as my email client but that seems like overkill for managing my personal email accounts.

For most all my extended family (except Dad who prefers using Outlook both for work and home) I recommend Windows Live Mail 2011 since it has a very clean interface and the Ribbon and tabs and pretty (intuitive) icons seem to make this email-client a breeze for family members to use (and me to guide them through tasks).

All that said I continue to find Mozilla Thunderbird the perfect fit for my personal email needs.

In fact, it works so well, I have only four Add-On items that I run on it now:

Office Black :: Add-ons for Thunderbird - I really have grown to like this theme after having rotated through quite number of great themes over the years. The icons work nicely and are of a pleasant size. And the muted color palate seems relaxing.

Color Folders :: Add-ons for Thunderbird - Unlike the extensive and deep folder structure I have in Outlook at work, my folder structure here at home is much more simple and shallow. That said, I find myself manually moving items out of my Inbox mostly into a few regular folders.  While the text in the Office Black theme and settings isn’t bad, sometimes I have a hard time just dragging/dropping the message into the correct one.  Color Folders allowed me to colorize selected key folders to set them off from the rest.  Now if only Outlook had this ability…

Extra Folder Columns :: Add-ons for Thunderbird - This Add-On allows you to add additional columns to the Folders sidebar for size, unread # items, and total # items.   If you select the unread items column, then it removes the (#) item that Thunderbird puts on the folder name line to avoid redundancy. Suggestions for improvement? I wish that the “size” field displayed would be a little more sophisticated with the count.  Example: you have one main folder with three sub-folders. The columns for counts seem only to apply to the individual folder, meaning that the main-folder # only displays the number of items in the folder itself and doesn’t include sub-folder item counts. Collapse that folder tree and it still shows the number of items in the main folder and doesn’t aggregate the total to reflect all messages in that and the subfolders combined. Another minor quibble; the size-on-disk of each folder displayed uses both MB and KB values. 1MB or more and the size is displayed in MB while < 1MB and you get a KB value. I get the logic but you have to look carefully to understand what it is reporting to you.

Lightning :: Add-ons for Thunderbird - calendaring, scheduling, and to-doing made simple and right. Enough said.

For backing up/migrating my T-bird profile I rely on MozBackup. It’s never failed me. 

As a multi email client backup/restoration tool there is also KLS Mail Backup (free for personal use) which in addition to T-bird can also back up WIndows Mail and Windows Contacts, Windows Live Mail and Contacts, Outlook Express profiles and contacts, IE Favorites, Firefox profiles, Postbox profiles, Opera profiles, The Bat! profiles and IncrediMail profiles.

Moving on…

Claus V.

T-Bird 3.0 versus Outlook 2010 (beta)

At work, Microsoft Outlook 2003 is the de-facto standard for email management.

At home, I’ve been using Thunderbird for years.

Due to a recent hard-drive (volume) failure at home, on the primary system our “master” email got managed on, I had to rebuild our email stores.

It wasn’t really any problem just took some time to migrate from Thunderbird 2.0 to 3.0.

Then I had to redo some of my email account settings in TBird 3.0 as I wanted to be able to choose which email account I wanted to respond out of, not just the default one.  That took some work with Gmail's documentation and TBird 3.0.

So here is my problem.  I’ve installed and configured Outlook 2010 beta to access my personal web-mail account and really, really like the familiarity and layout in 2010.  Really.  But I also like the dependability and ease of export/import options that Thunderbird offers me.

So now I’m in a real pickle!  Do I commit to one or the other?

Both do an admirable job but there will be consequences for committal.

Links below for my reference (and anyone else stumbling over these)

Outlook 2010 beta reference links.

• Outlook 2010: First Impressions - Matthew McDermott blog.
• Office 2010 Beta First Impressions: Outlook 2010 – Techn’@ weblog.
• Outlook 2010: Gmail IMAP Support – Addictive Tips blog.
• Importing Outlook 2007 PST Files to Thunderbird 2.0 - TheRage3K’s Weblog.
• projects:pst_import [OBM wiki] - “PST Import XPI is a Thunderbird plugin, based on readpst, that allows importing Outlook PST in Thunderbird, and select which email folder to import.”.

Thunderbird 3.0 reference links

• Thunderbird 3 Officially Released with New Features, Improved Look - Lifehacker
• Thunderbird - It’s All Yours – Official Mozilla download site for Thunderbird.
• Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition 3.0 - PortableApps.com. USB Portable version
• MozBackup - Backup tool for Firefox and Thunderbird. – Always works like a charm for me!
• Backup Thunderbird emails & profile (or restore from backup). – freemailtutorials.com – An in-depth guide to manual and automated backups and restorations of Thunderbird profiles. Contains profile path locations for reference.
• Thunderbird 2.0 - Gmail Help. I couldn’t find one for Thunderbird 3.0 and these settings should have worked but didn’t let me send outbound mail from TBird 3.0 through my Gmail account.
• Thunderbird 3 and Gmail • mozillaZine Forums. so then I eventually found the correct settings (or at least ones that worked) in this post from Pigdog89 and so.salty:

server name: smtp.gmail.com
port: 465
username: myname@gmail.com
use secure: No
Connection security: -

Lightning Project (Calendar for Thunderbird)

To help add calendaring functionality to T-Bird, I’ve relied on the Lightning project XPI add-on.  Only it isn’t quite yet ready for TBird 3.0 compatibility.

Here’s how I got Lightning working in Thunderbird 3.0

• Lightning - Project Home – Mozilla’s main page for the Lightning project addon.
• Release Status - Lightning for Thunderbird 3 – Long story short….it’s coming.
• Lightning 1.0beta1 release candidate is available – So to get Lightning going in Thunderbird 3.0 you have to be willing to try/use the RC/beta versions.  So far it’s been nice and stable on my Windows 7 system.

To install these builds in Thunderbird 3, please follow these steps:

1. Download the build for your operating system to a folder on your hard disk
   UPDATE: Please make sure, that you right-click on the links above and choose "Save Link as...". Otherwise Firefox will try to install Lightning and you will get an error message like "Lightning 1.0b1 could not be installed because it is not compatible with Firefox."
2. Open Thunderbird, then open its add-on manager via Tools --> Add-ons (or the corresponding entry in your language)
3. Click on the "Install..." button on the lower left and navigate for the lightning.xpi file that you just downloaded.
4. Restart Thunderbird after the add-on installation has been performed. Voila!

Note: You will see there are two XPI files in the download.  Get them both; lightning-all.xpi is the main file while gdata-provider.xpi ties Lightning into your Google gCalendar.

• Calendar Weblog – ongoing information and news about the Lightning project (blog style).
• Index of /pub/mozilla.org/calendar/lightning/nightly/latest-comm-1.9.1/win32-xpi. – Nightly Lightning release source link.

IMAP vs POP

As best I can tell, I’m using POP settings/access for Thunderbird for my mail clients including Gmail.  However Outlook 2010 may be actually using IAMP settings for Gmail connectivity.  I’ve not had the time to dive into the settings to verify.  The Outlook 2010 setup wizard took what I fed it regarding my Gmail account and seemed very pleased.  Not 100% sure what it did just yet.

I’m not sold yet if I want to convert my Thunderbird settings to use IMAP as well or not.  I think so.

I think there is some benefit but my brain is tired from all the holiday food and distractions and I’m having trouble focusing.

• Use Gmail IMAP in Microsoft Outlook 2007 :: the How-To Geek.
• Getting started with IMAP for Gmail - Gmail Help.
• Enable IMAP in Gmail - Gmail Help.

For reference….

Claus V.

Browser Linkfest Blowout

Like there hasn’t been enough web-browser news lately….

• Google Chrome Blog: A New Beta: Why slow down when you can speed up? – Google Chrome Blog – Nice roundup with lots-o-pics of all the newest features to be found in Google Chrome.
• Google Chrome Themes Gallery – I’m liking the “Earthy” theme myself.  How do you install them? It’s a bit confusing (and not clearly documented) but you click the “Apply Theme” button for the one you want and let the “csx” file download to your system.  Then Chrome will find and apply the theme and delete the file.  Worked OK on XP/Vista, though it took just a bit longer to “automagically” apply on the Win7 systems. 
• Google Chrome 3 continues to accelerate even as it adopts themes - Betanews. Accelerate as in rendering speed.
• Rethinking Chrome – TechBlog – Dwight likes it! He really, really likes it!
• Chromium Memory Usage – Chromium Blog – Some technical-level details on how memory is being used and how to better monitor it.

Claus’s thoughts on Chrome/Chromium.  I’ve got Chromium loaded on all my systems and use Dirhael’s (portable) Chromium Nightly Updater to keep my builds of Carsten Knobloch’s portable Chrome packages updated.

I really do like Chrome/Chromium.  It is fast, clean and each tab runs in its own process.  However it doesn’t have the extensibility/Add-ons that I just demand and rely upon daily at work and home with Firefox.  So it continues to be my go-to browser when doing presentations or viewing most on-line media for relaxation due to the simple (non-distracting) interface.  For production work, Firefox still wins hands-down; speed or no-speed.

• Newsfox the Firefox RSS reader I use has received a minor version update to V1.0.5.2.  mozdev.org - newsfox: installation
• Firefox 3.6a1 Released - The Firefox Extension Guru’s Blog – I’ve not yet had time to build a “portable/standalone” package of this alpha build.  Maybe I’ll have the chance soon.  The only issues I generally find are breaking of my fav add-ons.  Speed and responsiveness,including startup seem to be the primary focus of this build.
• Sure it’s Fast, But How Does it Handle? – Alex Faaborg’s blog.  Is speed everything in a browser..maybe but possibly not much longer. See also his What’s Next for the Perception of Performance? post.
• Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition 3 Beta 3 Released - PortableApps.com.  Lavie and I are still using the public version of Thunderbird 2.x to manage our home/Gmail accounts. 

I’ve not yet bitten the bullet but will likely be migrating our primary email store from the desktop system to my laptop as I rarely go in there to turn it on and pull down all the email locally. (The Valca girls have taken over the study where it is installed and it is becoming the laundry/storage room now…anyway they like my company in the family-room space when I am typing away at the blog.)  I’m considering bumping over to the version 3 build for kicks and grins.  Any GSD readers using it and have any insights or gotcha’s I should consider?

• Opera Desktop Team - Time to try Unite again! – Opera Desktop Team – Tweaks announced to Opera’s Unite product.  I’m still not sure how convinced I am on this “feature” that turns a computer running Opera into both a client and a server to provide content to other systems across the web.  Seems handy for some but a security administration challenge for system admins….  The Valca jury-foreman will be out in deliberations on this one for a while.
• Unite - Opera Unite – The Opera Unite team blog.
• Another day, another snapshot  – Opera Desktop Team – Another Opera 10 beta snapshot. Now adds stability to Unite as well as a Unite-based service called, wait-for-it, “Messenger” so you can chat on Opera with your pals. Other visual features also getting adjusted.

Now I’m not attacking Opera here.  It is a very nice alternative web-browser, behind Firefox, Chrome, IE, and Safari for Windows.  Really.  Very polished and fast in performance.  It’s got it’s own unique interface and lots of positives.  I do install it on most of my systems at home.  That said, I just see it continuing the “more-is-more” value march rather than going back to simplicity.  I wish “Unite” could be unbundled from the main Opera browser (can it?) for those of us who don’t want it. And I wish add-ons were truly integrated like Firefox extensions rather than this “widget” framework that is used.  I' guess I just don’t fully “get” Opera and the browsing experience they are designing for.  Once past those personal feelings, the interface and speed are very, very nice.

Cheers!

--Claus V.

Fresh Firefox musings – And Shiretoko

Warning: Firefox Linkfest to follow.

I’ve long been a user of the Firefox “nightly” builds (see Resolving a “Nightly” Firefox Issue…) and generally haven’t had any bad experiences in using them.  I enjoy seeing and playing with the latest advancements and features and the “bugs” seem pretty few and far-between.

I almost always stick to the Minefield builds rather than Gran Paradiso.

However, as occasionally happens, it all comes crashing down around my head.

Meet my new friend - Shiretoko

Two or three late-nights ago I noticed I could no longer drag-n-drop HTML links from out of my Thunderbird email client onto the Firefox/Minefield window and get the page to load.  In the end I had to copy the link location in Thunderbird and paste it into the address bar.

This was a real issue as I will often collect a number of promising links at work during the day and as my RSS feeds are a bit different at work and home, I will have to send them to myself to make sure I include them for posting.  The first few days this wasn’t too big an issue. More of a nuisance.  (It was happening on my XP system, so it wasn’t a Vista UAC thing.)

However things went from bad-to-worse.  I then found that later nightly updates would crash Firefox when I attempted to drag a tab onto my bookmarks sidebar or into  bookmark toolbar location.  The only way I could add bookmarks without crashing my system was to right-click the tab and add them that way.

I thought my profile might have become corrupted so I blew it out after copying a few key files (userchrome.css, textview.css (NewsFox thing), and did a Bookmarks backup to a JSON file).  That didn’t help.  Then I uninstalled Firefox, Minefield, and Gran Paradiso as well as their user profiles. And rebuilt them all, including a number of about:config entries. For instance, forcing a link to open in a background tab. (Sigh).  Didn’t help.

Sure the latest public release of Firefox (3.0.3) worked just fine and was very stable, but I still missed the performance and features that Firefox 3.1.x builds contained.

In the end I decided to go with the Shiretoko Alpha 2 build.  It is now at Alpha 2 release.  It is basically another development fork towards Firefox 3.1.  It has all the stability I am looking for with (most) the feature-sets of the Nightly Minefield builds of Firefox.

So far it has been running great and is very stable.  Whew.

• Firefox 3.1 Alpha 2 reviewed - Mozilla Links
• Two betas in the road to Firefox 3.1 - Mozilla Links

Firefox and Mozilla Linkage

Here are the collection of neat and interesting Firefox (and one Thunderbird) links I have collected during my down time.  Might be old-news to some of you.

Bug fixes, more languages and… Gmail in Firefox 3.0.2 - Mozilla Links.  Woot!  Now I can use my Gmail client for email’s back. This is an issue as I often want to email folks using the weblink, but that normally ties into my “private” Thunderbird client email.  Don’t want to be sending too many folks email with that one.  This now allows me to use my Claus V. account instead on the fly.  Nice.

Quick Firefox update on its way to fix saved credentials access issues - Mozilla Links – Thus causing the quick release of Firefox 3.0.3 that followed.

Overhauled tabbed browsing for Firefox 3.1 - Mozilla Links.  This actually is a feature that showed up one day in the Minefield Nightly versions of Firefox I had been using.  At first I didn’t like not having my trusted “new-tab” icon in the toolbar and this strange “+” tab thing felt weird. Also when I closed the only open tab, Firefox Minefield would close out entirely.  Once I got used to it however, I really enjoyed using it.  Much more intuitive, and as the post points out, a few about: config tweaks can change this behavior back to the old-style.  Unfortunately, Shiretoko Alpha 2 doesn’t include this feature-set in it just yet. So I’m back to the “normal” tab experience in Firefox for now.

Private mode back in Firefox 3.1 plans – Mozilla Links – IE8’s gonna have it, Safari has it, Even Chrome’s got it; Porn mode private web-browsing mode.  Now it looks like it’s going to be a done-deal for Firefox as well.  My vote for the UI signal is like IE8’s.

NewsFox is now out with NewsFox 1.0.4rc1 release version.  This isn’t the stable public release but I like it all the same.

Mozilla-based Sunbird and Lightning calendar apps hit 0.9 - Download Squad.  I don’t talk much about our email client Thunderbird. It just works spectacularly.  That’s about it.  I don’t have any add-ons for it at all except Lightning which I use as a handy calendar tool (like Outlook).  Why this is as I also have Rainlendar loaded on my desktop and use it for task and event reminders is beyond me, but anyway, Thunderbird just seems lacking without its presence.  The updates in this new version are substantial and I really like them.  More Lightning and Sunbird 0.9 released notes at Mozilla Links.

Breaking Mozilla News Sources

The following locations are my prime-sources for news on Mozilla happenings.

• Firefox Extension Guru
• Mozilla Links
• Universe Firefox
• Firefox Facts
• The Burning Edge – Firefox
• The Rumbling Edge – Thunderbird
• mozillaZine

If you are a Mozilla/Firefox fan, you might want to bookmark or RSS feed a few.

Cheers!

--Claus

Software Sliders

Sliders (a.k.a White Castle mini-burgers) in that these are short but tasty links.

Yummm.

Spybot S&D now shipping with Anti-Rootkit Technology

This one almost slipped by. Spybot Search&Destroy now incorporates plugins to search for rootkits.

How nice is that?

• We've got great, new plugins for Spybot and a complete new tool - the RootAlyzer!

To get this added feature, just download the Spybot S&D updates in version 1.5.2 of their flagship product. They should present themselves automagically. Still under "development" so expect frequent updates as it matures.

It is also available as a "standalone" module, if you want: RootAlyzer 0.1.2.21 (freeware).

I can't say how effective the technology it uses are. There are so many nice anti-rootkit applications out there now, it probably doesn't hurt to have one more bundled in Spybot. Grab a few and keep them handy on a USB stick, just in case.

Comodo Launches "Test My PC Security" Website: Helpfulness up to debate

Not content to claim superiority against all known firewall leak-tests, Comodo has now opened up shop with a new security-testing website: Test My PC Security. (PR press release here.)

So what does the average Joe find while visiting the website?

Well, a couple of brief "articles" outlining what firewall leak-tests are, and some test results that clearly show that Comodo's Firewall Pro is the best (and free). No surprise there.

What does the security minded geek find while visiting the website? Currently links to download 32 leaktests to experiment with on their own systems and firewalls. They can be downloaded individually or as a singe "zip" package.

This is strangely reminiscent to me of two earlier websites that pioneered these tests and comparisons: The Firewall Leak Tester website and Matousec, both of which carry 26 firewall leak-tests.

I actually like and use Comodo Firewall Version 3.0 on my Vista system. It is free and has a lot of robust features. It isn't too chatty and does ship with a "whitelist" of preapproved safe programs to help cut the prompts down. I did disable the Defense+ feature after running into some issues. Instead for HIPS protection, I am running ThreatFire (free) instead to supplement my AV protection.

Windows SteadyState

Just discovered this curious Microsoft product. Which means it must have been around for quite a while.

Windows SteadyState - What this free program for XP does is to return a "shared pc" back to an original state after use. Kind of like a software-state "reset" button.

Basically you configure your system to your liking, run and apply the SteadyState configuration, and let the users use the pc. If the user(s) modify (accidentally, purposefully, or maliciously) the system, you can quickly restore it to the original state...without having to reload the system from an image.

From the "What is it?" page:

How Windows Disk Protection works

When disk protection is turned on, it creates a cache file to retain all the modifications to the operating system or program directories. Histories, saved files, and logs are all stored in the cache file which is created on the system partition. At intervals you designate, Windows SteadyState deletes the contents of the cache and restores the system to the state in which disk protection was first turned on.

Set it and forget it

Choose the disk protection level that fits how your computer is used and whether or not your users need to save data for a specific length of time.

For example, if your shared computers are used by different people every day, you can set SteadyState to remove all changes at every restart. This is a good choice in a library or an Internet café.

You can also choose to retain changes for a specified period of time. This is a good option if you have the same users every day for a limited duration, such as a school term or an ongoing computer lab project.

However you choose to use Windows Disk Protection, you can rest easy knowing that a clean return to its original state is available.

I can see a couple of applications that this might come in handy with in our computing environment. Definitely worth looking into.

Nirsoft Nuggets

Ever wonderful, Nir Sofer has delivered two products worth looking into; one new and one updated.

SiteShoter - (freeware) - This tiny utility can be used to take a screenshot of any Web page and save it as a file. When executed, it launches a hidden window of Internet Explorer, loads the target page, and captures the page contents as an image file (.png, .jpg, .tiff, .bmp or .gif) depending on your preference. Will not capture Java applets or some other third-party web-content. What is cool is that Nir has coded it to run from a command-line. So you could make a batch-file to run it to capture one or a series of pages with a single click. Or set it to run automatically with a bit of scheduling to monitor and document regular and periodic changes to a Web page for archival reasons (say your kid's MySpace page).

MyUninstaller - (freeware) - Sure, you could use the standard Windows "Add/Remove" programs in XP/2000 or whatever it is called in Vista. But these tend to be a bit, "slow" for us IT geeks who often need to quickly scan for and remove unauthorized programs from client pc's. I even get impatient at home. MyUninstaller is a standalone utility that very quickly displays all installed applications on a Windows system, and provides a method to uninstall the ones you want. Version 1.39 fixes some uninstall string problems with Windows Installer.

For more freeware programs to uninstall applications quickly from Windows systems, check out this GSD post: Freeware Software Uninstallers.

E-mail Goodness #1: eM Client

I'm a fan of Mozilla's Thunderbird email client. When we ditched MSN dial-up as our Internet provider, I was finally able to escape from Outlook Express.

I don't run any Add-on extensions to Thunderbird except the Lightning project, which is a calendar application which integrates with Thunderbird.

I use Outlook 2003 at work and actually do enjoy it. We got Outlook 2003 along with our Office 2003 Student/Teacher package I bought, but I didn't install it. Too much hassle to convert now and Thunderbird does have some anti-spam and embedded image handling features I like for security reasons.

However, I did take notice of a recent DownloadSquad post introducing the eM Client program for e-mail.

Like many such programs (and there are many), it provides Windows based e-mail for sending/receiving messages, managing calendar items, contacts, and tasks.

I spent some time on the site and eM Client does look very polished and professional. The interface is a nice blend falling (to me) somewhere between Thunderbird and Outlook.

Final release appears to be scheduled for late 2008, although beta downloads are available.

When complete it promises to integrate ActiveSync for mobile-phone synchronization, groupWare support, GoogleSync support (for calendars and contacts) and Web 2.0 widget support for apps like Meebo, Facebook, and MySpace. For more details see the eM Client Feature List.

.NET Framework 2.0 or higher required.

Oh yeah, did I mention that you can download it in both "desktop" and "USB (U3) portable" versions? Not bad, although you can already get a Portable Apps Thunderbird version already if that's your thing.

It took me less than three minutes to download the U3 version, change the extension to .zip. Unzip the main program folder to my desktop, run it, configure an old gMail account of mine, and download a number of old messages from the gMail account.

The GUI is very polished and professional looking. I think it actually is a bit more polished looking than Thunderbird 2.0 is by default. I'm not changing anytime soon, but I am impressed with the offerings of eM Client. I will definitely be keeping an eye out on this one!

It is still under development and I've spotted a bug or two, but it seems like a great future candidate.

E-mail Goodness #2: Outlook on the Desktop

If you do use Outlook, maybe you would like to keep the calendar view up where it could be useful, but don't want to have to toggle between it and your email Inbox.

Michael Scrivo has a neat free product; Outlook on the Desktop.

Basically what it does it place a fully customizable Outlook calendar on your desktop. It is pinned so that stuff can't underlay it. You can adjust the position, size, and transparency level. It supports multi-monitor displays (hurrah!) and you can even toggle it between the calendar, inbox, tasks, and notes view.

Brilliant! Requires Windows 2000 or higher, Outlook 2000 SR-1 or higher, and .NET Framework 2.0 or higher.

Know thy Application Rights Needed

Last week I mentioned a few tools that can be used to analyze the software applications installed on a Windows system to determine if a program can be run with "least-privilege" user accounts for security purposes: LUA Buglight and the Microsoft Standard User Analyzer (MSUA) tool now incorporated in the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit v5.0.

Now Julie over in the Back Room Tech blog shares one more: BeyondTrust | Application Rights Auditor.

This freeware tool automagically scans your target system and reports back the Windows applications it finds that require users to have administrative-level rights permissions to run.

Systems supported are Windows 2000 through Vista.

The utility uses a Microsoft management Console (MMC) snap-in as well as desktop component. Install the desktop component on the target systems. After audit run, the information is logged and send as an encrypted log-file to a secure BeyondTrust server farm. You then use the MMC snap-in with your unique key to view the report information.

Certainly not a tool needed by everyone, buy could be useful in IT departments assessing the rights requirements of applications when considering a user-rights policy for desktop and laptop system deployments.

--Claus

Comcast Mysteries: Am I a spambot ? & SMTP Port 25 or 587?

I've been a bit "miffed" lately.

A few nights ago Lavie couldn't find a few of her favorite cable channels. And a few others had gone "static" as well. We program our favorites into the TV's so we can skip the ones we don't watch, so by going though them manually, we figured out where they went and suspected a channel lineup change. This was later confirmed in the local paper.

So it was time to do some reprogramming of the televisions and recording units.

Then we got this mysterious email...

Assessing Abuse-garee

I'll spare you the details but it began a bit suspiciously on several levels.

Dear Comcast High-Speed Internet Customer,

Please read this entire message, review the required action(s) below,
and send a prompt reply message to acknowledge receipt of this email.

Explanation:

We have confirmed that your computer has been involved in attempted
virus propagation, an activity that is in violation of the Comcast Terms
of Service Agreement. The reporting parties have provided logged
information, which identifies the IP address of the computer that was
attempting to transmit the virus. The IP address listed was one that was
assigned to your computer at the date and time in question.

Also were a number of moderately-helpful generic suggestions on how my system may have become infected, mediation steps, and some "helpful" html-weblinks.

Since I have been on the record before about being suspicious about similar emails (Phish bait) I did some checking first before getting into a panic and responding.First I checked the HTML link code. They all seemed legit and did point back to legitimate Comcast website addresses.

Then I checked the IP address of the sender. It was in the range of Comcast owned addresses based on AIRN WHOIS. OK. So far so good. I then did a Google search on abuse-garee and found a handful of hits, including this one that was very helpful: Linux Home Automation - Comcast mail rant!So by now I was pretty comfortable believing that the email was legitimate from Comcast.

Am I compromised?

So, while I didn't think any of my systems were compromised I had to re-verify their status, just for my own personal peace-of-mind.

Alvis's Linux box hasn't been on for weeks, so I quickly discounted that one. How do I know? The pile of teen-detritus on top of her keyboard and blocking her pc cabinet door hasn't moved in that time. Besides, it's Linux. That's kinda like baiting an Apple user and telling them their pc is a virus-factory. Pick a fight elsewhere. You'll generally loose.So that left me a Vista system and two XP Home SP2 systems.

While I doubted I'd find anything, It is important to objectively verify or discount all potential reports of security breaches. My systems are all fully patched and up to date. I run a variety of security applications as well as a firewall (inbound/outbound monitoring), and a hardware-based firewall/router. We don't have a wireless network that someone could have hacked.I went through each system running full system hard-drive scans using AVG Free. Then I went through them and did full-drive scans using a series (four) of my favorite anti-malware scanners. I did rootkit scans. All came back clean. I ran a tool that monitored all my network connections looking for any unexpected findings. All were normal. I finally checked all my autorun entries as well as the running system processes. Nothing out of the ordinary.

So after a lot of work, I was left with two possible conclusions...one of my systems was so compromised that I couldn't even find evidence...and maybe should do complete reformats of every one...or Comcast made a mistake.

Re-View

The automated email that I got from Comcast's abuse-garee wasn't very helpful on the surface. It did appear to be focused on virus propagation activity. As far as I could technically tell I had ruled out that being the case...unless it was an as-yet-unknown variety. Certainly possible.To the best of my knowledge Comcast's cable modems use dynamic IP addresses, so it might be possible that my IP address had been updated recently and now I was assigned one from a previous user that had been infected, and thusly, tag-I'm-it.

Comcast's email was clearly a canned response likely geared to average (non-technical) users.It did not contain any time/date event log information.

It did not contain any information about the file or attachment that was being propagated.I have never received one previously from Comcast, so it didn't seem like the problem (if accurate) had been occurring until just very recently.

It didn't contain information as to the destination(s) of the propagation techniques.Any one of those elements might have been helpful to me.

Just about the only clue I had to go on, was that this "event" appeared to have been reported to Comcast by an outside party...but again, no name or clues for follow-up.

Lavie's Lead

So today, while I was recovering at home from a stomach-bug and Lavie was nursing me to health, she mentioned she was having a problem with her laptop.Turns out she had forwarded several email the other day to me (at work) as well as to her Gmail account from our desktop pc.

Her laptop has Thunderbird configured to pull mail from her Gmail account but although I got them at work, she never got them through her Gmail account and back to her Thunderbird client.I asked her if she had logged in to Gmail, not via Thunderbird client, but directly into the web page. She said she hadn't as she forgot her password and it never made it into our KeePass Password Safe keeper application.

I went to her laptop and pulled Thunderbird up and went into something like Tools --> Options --> Security --> View Saved Passwords. Then in the Password Manager, clicked "Show Passwords."With that information in hand, I logged into Lavie's Gmail account on the web.

None of her emails were in the main window, so I checked under "Spam" and.....There they all were.

We tagged them as "Not Spam" and then sent an email back to our comcast.net account to ensure that email address was in the Gmail contacts and wouldn't be tagged again.

What do you think?

Do you think that Gmail's spam-filtering machine send an automated spam-abuse alert back to Comcast? That would have contained our IP address in the sender's field, and since Lavie forwarded multiple emails at about the same time, it surely could have triggered a "spam-bot" tripwire in Gmail.

The emails were all sent shortly before we got the Comcast warning email. So that fits as well.I also sent one from our desktop account to my own Gmail address and somehow it also ended up in my own Gmail spam folder. Interesting. I had sent emails this way before, but I went ahead and sent one back to ensure it was also in my own Gmail contact list.

Per Comcast's abuse-garee request, I did reply to the original email I got confirming its receipt, as well as outlining my issues with the lack of detail they provided, assurances that my systems appeared clean, requesting more information on the reported event, and my findings above that I suspected triggered the alert in the first place.I'll let you know if I hear anything back.

Which then led me to this...

Bonus: Which SMTP port do you want me to use, Comcast?

Of interest, we are using port 25 for our Outgoing email server setting to send desktop account email to Comcast. Is and has been working just fine.I got that value when we transitioned over from TimeWarner Roadrunner's settings using the following guides from Comcast.

How do I setup Thunderbird for E-mail? - Comcast FAQ's

How to verify Thunderbird settings - Comcast FAQ's. Note in this one, the last screen-shot clearly shows the outgoing mail server stmp server port set as "25"

However, based on this post I mentioned, it seems that Comcast really wants Thunderbird users to use port 587 instead.How to configure Thunderbird to use port 587 for sending e-mail - Comcast FAQ's

This MozillaZine article has a bit more info: Creating accounts in Thunderbird for popular email providers ...

Comcast documents two SMTP configurations, a unsecure connection using port 25 and a secure connection using "TLS if available" and port 587. If you get a error message that the SMTP server may be unavailable or refusing SMTP connections there is a undocumented configuration that several users have gotten to work. Use port 465 , set "use secure connection" to SSL, check the authentication required box and provide your full Comcast address as the username.

I haven't changed it yet, but might just do so if I hear back from Comcast. Funny they didn't specifically ask me to do so...

Looks like a few other Comcast folk have tripped over this:

Comcast Blocking Port 25? ~ usrbingeek’s musings

port 587 - CNET Mac software ForumsPort Of Call And Other Outlook Adventures ~ IT Professionals

"Does my ISP block port 25?" - DreamHost Knowledge Base

With resepct to Mr. Ollivander, "Curious...very curious..."

--Claus

Update..Lavie forwarded another few to her Gmail account and we got a fresh warning message from Comcast. These didn't end up in her Gmail spam pile. I'm thinking Comcast itself is scanning the messages (content/header/subject...who knows) and giving the alert message. I'm going to swap over to the other port this weekend and see what happens.

Spotted

Retiring a Defender

Ohhh. I did gone and went and did'id.

Yesh siree.

I disabled Windows Defender from running on my Vista notebook.

Buh bye!

Why? Well...I've gotten quite tired of the constant prompts to download and install the latest updates. Sure I could have auto-set them to download and install, but I likes to see what I am putting on my pc. Then there is the fact that I am running both AVG anti-spyware and anti-virus "real-time" on my machine. And the latest version of Spybot S&D also now integrates with the Security Center.

It took up system resources...not many...but some. It does have quite a few tools with it, but none that I usually can't seem to find duplicated in any of my other utilities I prefer more. It has never, ever found any malware on any of my own personal machines. I will keep using it at work on machines where the user has a "history" of malware cleaning tickets opened just to provide a layer of protection.

But for now I have retired it from my Vista machine, and I didn't bother to keep in installed on either of my home XP systems either.

Hope this doesn't cause too much controversy. Wouldn't recommend it for most users, but as I am a bit more "advanced" than most users...I'd thought I would live a bit dangerously.

How to disable Windows Defender | Windows Vista for Beginners

Ed Bott's Script

Ed Bott has a script he is asking for help with from Vista users.

Vista users, please help me test a script | Ed Bott’s Windows Expertise

It is a script that allows you to toggle Hidden and System files viewable in Windows Explorer.

Since I've posted about these buggers before, thought it would be worth mentioning.

Mozilla Auditing - Part Duex

I had also posted about some free (and $) utilities that could be used to "audit" Firefox/Mozilla browser sessions: More Firefox "Forensics" Tools.

One of the tools I mentioned was NirSoft's free utility MozillaCookiesView: Cookies Manager For Mozilla/Firefox/Netscape Browsers.

So imagine my surprise that NirSoft now released a complimentary app: MozillaHistoryView: View the list of visited web sites in Firefox/Mozilla/Netscape browsers.

From the product description it "...reads the history data file (history.dat) of Firefox/Mozilla/Netscape Web browsers, and displays the list of all visited Web pages in the last days. For each visited Web page, the following information is displayed: URL, First visit date, Last visit date, Visit counter, Referrer, Title, and Host name. You can also easily export the history data to text/HTML/Xml file."

Sweet!

I couldn't help but drop NirSoft a line asking if a Mozilla tri-fecta would be appearing soon in the form of a new utility MozillaCacheView.

I can only hope.

I just hope the new "Places" structure in Firefox 3 doesn't whack these apps out too much.

Free AOL / Kaspersky Anti-Virus "hack"

To recap, AOL had offered a free "branded' version of Kasperky's antivirus application to the public.

Since Kaspersky is usually one of the top-rated anti-virus products, having a free version that made use of it's powerful engine and DAT files was a great thing.

Then AOL did presto-chango and flipped to McAfee for its free a/v solution.

Folks who didn't want to swap were out in left field without a mitt as they were no longer able to get crucial DAT file signatures to keep their a/v solution current.

Bummer.

Luckily, some clever folks figured out how to go in and remove the AOL servers listed in the product to keep the Kaspersky updates flowing again.

Active Virus Shield "Update Failed: Incorrect Signature" Fix - CyberNet News.

I'm an AVG Anti-virus fan myself, but as Ryan points out in his post, you can still find the free Kaspersky version at a few download sites like Softpedia, MajorGeeks, and CNet., and this hack should keep it going for a while longer.

Free U3 Uninstaller Utility

U3 seems like a great idea. A specialized application launcher/manager utility kept on USB drives that auto-runs when inserted into a supported system and provides enhanced access and security to applications housed on the USB drive itself. U3 - Wikipedia

Great right?

I've bought two or three USB drives now and find it is a general annoyance. Not only does it keep auto-running when I just want to use the drive for storage or utility carrying, but it takes up space for the applications I do want to use and keep.

If I really wanted a tool like that, I'd probably go with the freeware PortableApps.com Menu launcher for USB sticks.

Want more? Go with the PortableApps.com Suite for a host of productivity and games.

Heck, check out all the great utilities, productivity tools, and games over at PortableApps.com.

Anyway, I digress....

Trying to remove U3 from a USB drive can be a pain.

Fortunately, the U3 group provides a free utility strip out the U3 component from the device: U3 Uninstaller.

I skipped the solicitation for info, accepted the dire-warning notification and downloaded the file. I then ran it to remove the U3 portion from my 2GB Ativa USB drive I use for ReadyBoost on the Vista laptop. Less than a minute later it was gone and I reset the ReadyBoost settings to use the full space now available on it.

Done. Now where did I put those other U3 USB drives.....

Spotted via OgasaWalrus.

...By Any Other Name...

I don't usually have any real needs to do bulk file renaming. However, when the need arises, you want to have the tools at hand to cover it.

Here are some you might want to look into:

Renamer (freeware) - by Denis Kozlov. Great highlight post over on CyberNet News.

Flexible Renamer (freeware) by Stefan Schuck. Also highlighted on CyberNet News.

CaseTool for Windows - (freeware) by VisionTech Limited - drag and drop files on this to switch file name case.

FastStone Photo Resizer - (freeware) - Why an image tool? Because it also contains a powerful batch image file renamer feature...that's why.

Public Service Announcements for Microsoft

Microsoft's Sysinternals Process Explorer v11.02 has been released to fix some more issues.

Still one of my most used utilities. I reach for it daily.

Microsoft's free tool XML Notepad 2007 received a quiet version update release last week.

From the "Now That's Clever" Dept.

I frequently need to dive into the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) Galveston and it's warren of buildings, parking garages, construction zones, etc.

I found this great map, although the PDF versions on that page are much, much better.

Wouldn't it be nice if I could overlay this (or any other third-party map) over an on-line street-map?

Well, thanks to a Yahoo! beta product MapMixer this just now got much easier!

There are quite a few already uploaded in a gallery.

I really see this being great when coupled with using historical maps with current maps.

Spotted via Lifehacker: Launch: Merge Your Map on Yahoo Maps with MapMixer

Dual-Monitor Display Utilities

I've been using a dual-monitor setup since my dear brother gifted me with a pair of Samsung beauties some time ago. I'm now running two at work as well and trying to figure out to get the boss to spring for a third.

While XP and Vista both provide some great multi-monitor management support, there are some features that just don't get covered.

At home, I sprung for the well invested $ it cost to register Ultramon software. It has done everything advertised, and then some. I highly recommend it.

Unfortunately, trying to get the boss to spring for this software for my workplace dual-monitor needs is getting me nowhere.

And a free alternative (besides that built into the OS) was a hopeless search.

Then I found out about a freeware (yes, dual-display utility and freeware) tool from Binary Fortress Software » DisplayFusion.

Here are just a few of the things you can do with DisplayFusion:

• Set a different desktop background on each monitor (either a picture or solid colour)
• Set a desktop background that spans all monitors (either a picture or colour)
• Integrated Flickr image search & download
• Drag maximized windows by their title bars to other screens
• Easily manage application windows with HotKeys:
  • Move windows to the next monitor
  • Move windows to the next monitor and maximize them
  • Move windows to centre of the screen
  • Move windows to centre of the screen and size it to 75% of the work area
  • Tile windows along the top, bottom, left or right side
  • Maximize windows so that they span all monitors

Requires Microsoft .NET Framework v2.0 and supports Windows 2000, 2003, XP, and Vista systems.

Spotted over at CyberNet News

While we are on it, here are my favorite sources of "true" multi-monitor spanning single image desktop wallpapers:

Mandolux Desktops - Simply the best. Nobody does multi-monitor wallpapers like Mando.

dmb - Dual Monitor Backgrounds - New to me. Great collection of dual monitor wallpapers in a variety of subjects. Page had been off-line earlier due to excessive bandwidth usage. Hopefully the webmaster and hosting service worked out a new agreement. I hope this one stays around.

Multi Display on deviantART - I'm never sure what I will find when I go looking here for duals. Always fresh and highly artsy.

Books on the Web

Here are some interesting links for on-line literary reading I've spotted this week:

Darkhorse's e-comic publication of an amazingly illustrated War of the Worlds adaptation. 125 pages long. Simply amazing. Go read it now.

Lifehacker has a great how-to post on Books: Build Your Virtual Library Online with Google Book Search. I never really appreciated just how wonderful this feature could be. I'm sure it's not entirely altruistic on Google's part, but I can also see some clever benefits to doing this as well.

Futurismic's weekly catalog of free sf - Boing Boing. The science and fiction blog Futurismic has begun a regular Friday post devoted to linking to free SF books and stories on the web. If you are a SF fan, you might want to RSS feed this blog to keep an eye out each week for your fix.

theassayer.org - "...the web's largest catalog of books whose authors have made them available for free." Interesting collection...especially the technical section.

Project Gutenberg - Now with over 20,000 free books on-line.

Bartleby.com - Historic literature, reference works, and verse all free and on-line.

Spit-Spots

I finally got my notice from Comcast that it was time to convert my email address from Time Warner. We unsurprisingly were able to keep our email address name. The conversion process itself took just a minute or two to complete and then was done. Email addressed to the old address will be forwarded to the new, helpful, but bound to cause duplicate entries in my Inbox now.

While there were some handy links to auto-convert IE Express settings to the new email servers, I didn't quickly find help in setting the email sever values until I found this link:

HELP - FAQ - How do I setup Mail? (Macintosh) Comcast.net

Yes, I'm running Windows XP/Vista with the Thunderbird email client, and I had to turn to a Mac page to get the server setting values. Armed with these it took no time to add the new account to Thunderbird.

Then I spent the next hour logging into all my on-line transaction sites updating our email address. I also fired a obligatory email to our family members advising them of the email address change.

Luckily I had been organized and had this covered. I keep a text file with all the critical web-sites and friends/family who we provide our "primary" email address to/with. I update it every time I enter it on a new site. Makes updating pretty painless.

I'm not quite ready to trust gMail with becoming our primary email address, but it is getting more and more tempting...

Did you see the notice that Apple has updated their iPods so they don't play well with third-party software applications? Well, it got broke/hacked in short order .(Linux) Amarok | - Rediscover your music. I'm sure this will trickle down to more apps to come.

IBISEYE.com -- Really cool GoogleMap mashup for tracking hurricanes and storms. Will be updating my hurricane tracking links page to include this gem provided by post commentor, Mo.

Time for bed...hope you have a great week.

--Claus

Five-in-one Linkpost

Busy Sunday.

It is raining a downpour here on the Gulf coast.  Lots of great and really cool-looking thunderstorm cells on the area radars.

Last week seems to have been a pretty quiet tech-wise.  Not much going on. Some over-hype and mid-level hysteria about a certain product release...but I personally think it was just because people were bored and didn't have anything better to do with their time.  And to answer any questions related to said released item....no I didn't, and no I won't.

I was going to post each of the links separately, but today is pretty busy.  I'm doing a ton of house-chores this Sunday and then we have to get Alvis ready to ship off to her Summer church-camp visit this week.

So that makes it extra challenging for me, chore-wise.  While I am busy cleaning up paperwork,  tossing empty gadget boxes (why do I seem to want to hold on to them?), cycling laundry and dishes though their respective appliances, Alvis is busy dumping and spreading her take-to-camp items across the living-room floor so Lavie will be able to inspect them.  (Sighs)

Regarding Mozilla

• DownloadHelper - Mozilla Add-on.  Found this one thanks to Nicholas's suggestion as I was working out how to download and save ITsShowtime streaming video files.  Has quite a lot of features to it to aid in direct download of various web-media files.
• SafeHistory - Mozilla Add-on. This extension help protect your browsing history.  As you jump from site to site websites can track which site you came from.  If that concerns you, this might be for you.
• Stanford SafeCache - Mozilla Add-on. This related extension "...protects your privacy by silently defending against cache-based tracking techniques. It allows embedded content to be cached, but segments the cache according to the domain of the originating page."
• Mozilla's Sunbird and Lightning Updated.  These calendaring applications (standalone or Thunderbird Add-on) have been updated to version .5.  Both have been cleaned up and sport a slightly enhanced visual layout as well as (some) support for Google Calendar.  More via CyberNet News.

Fun Finds

• Hide My Ass! Free Proxy - Free Web Proxy - Free Anonymous Browsing - One of the Japanese links I was attempting to go to via a blog post wouldn't display...so a commenter suggested using a free web proxy service (this one).  I tried it and it worked nicely.  I'm also using it now to visit Matousec.com as I still can't reach it from home unless using a proxy.  My request is going out to the target server but not coming back.  So I can only guess that their server is somehow blocking requests within a particular IP range my cable modem is sitting in.
• Privax - Protecting Your Online Privacy - In fact, here is quite a list of free anonymous web-proxy clients.
• ZoomIt v1.51 (freeware) - Nice Microsoft Sysinternals screen display utility that allows you to zoom in and annotate your screen during a presentation or training class.  I used it a little during my recent training class and found it fast and useful.  Also worked on my dual-monitor setup on home, zooming only the screen I was active on. Nice.
• traceroute.org - Great all-in-one website with a large number of network trace-route servers, Looking Glass servers, and BGP tools.  More Looking Glass Sites via NANOG.
• 14 Personalized Homepages Compared, Feature by Feature - My browser home-pages are now set on my own blog, since I use it as a link-resource.  For the longest time I used another one not included in the above list, My Excite, but abandoned it when the TV-grid began failing to keep up with cable lineup changes.  I moved over to Yahoo and have one there for quick TV-grid checks, but that is just about all I use it for.

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral...or both?

• Japanese Food - Danny Choo posts a great link that gives a quick rundown on common Japanese food dishes as well as their comparative prices. I really wish there were corner-markets where I could pick up fresh-sushi for a quick lunch or working-late dinner.  Unfortunately, none where I live and work.  For more Japanese food-fare see the Blue Lotus blog.
• BLDGBLOG: Ground Conditions - Interesting survey of some San Francisco history.  Seems that many wooden sailing vessels were abandoned and eventually buried over as the coastline crept outward.  Neat brief history.  More here.  Cool map by Ron Filion.
• rogueclassicism: Questioning Masada - I remember watching the mini-series Masada as a young adult.  It left quite an impact on me.  The highly organized and determined Romans against the stubborn and faith-bound Jewish defenders.  Anyway, seems archeologists have recently discovered two male skeletons and a head of women's hair at the site.  Now some scholars and thinking they could be the remains of Romans captured by the defenders of Masada.
• Bernard Quatermass and Quatermass and the Pit - I actually came across these via the BLDGBLOG link above.  The original British TV productions were performed "live" on the air. I haven't seen them, but the stories seem great classic Sci-Fi material. I'd love to find them on the web or DVD to watch.  I love old black and white productions and enjoy the character focus and plots over many of today's "boom and flash" special-effects driven productions.

Map Mania

• Google Maps Gets Drag & Drop Routes - via CyberNet News. For the longest time, I relied upon a software install of Microsoft Streets and Trips for my street mapping needs.  I eventually uninstalled it and just keep track of my mileage in a paper log-sheet, but sometimes I forget.  I didn't like the fact that I couldn't easily map out a particular route in Google Maps.  Now I can!  Hurrah!
• Google Maps Mania - Unofficial blog exploring the world of Google Maps.  Fun and interesting posts.
• The Patrick O'Brian Mapping Project - previously mentioned.  Dad is over in Spain right now on business and hopes to get by some of the locations mentioned in his favorite "Master and Commander" novel series. This site utilized Google Maps to mark out key locations from the novels.
• The Map Room: A Weblog About Maps - Neat blog about the wider-world of Web maps.
• Inside Google Book Search: Books: Mapped - Oh yes.  Did you know that many entries in the Google Book Search actually have maps of places mentioned within the stories?  Interesting. 

Security (or lack thereof)

• Blue Pill challenge. Awesomely brilliant programmer Joanna Rutkowska presented a paper about a year about about an undetectable root-kit technology called Blue Pill. It generated quite a bit of buzz in the security circles.  Now the security team at MatasanoChargen issued a challenge to Joanna: Joanna: We Can Detect BluePill. Let Us Prove It!  Joanna appears to be willing to take the challenge...provided they meet five requirements.  Matasano's responded: Joanna’s Shocking Confession: There Exists Some Amount Of Money For Which I Would Agree To See BluePill Detected By Lawson, Ferrie, Dai Zovi and Ptacek.  Don't think Matasano is going to pony up the $$$ than Joanna is asking for to ensure the technology is properly developed prior to taking the challenge.  Too bad.  Would have been a fun show.
• SunbeltBLOG: iPhone madness: This hot phone now sold through malware - Want an new iPhone?  Don't order one through pop-up windows in your browser.  SunbeltBlog points out how the bait for a new iPhone purchase can lead to a phishing/scam trojan hook.
• Riding out yet Another Storm Wave - ISC-SANS Handler's Diary post.  Great analysis of a e-mail based scam to load up a system compromise using a variety of crafted exploits.  For reasons like these I always delete e-card notices that show up in my e-mail boxes...much to Lavie's displeasure. (Sorry dear).  More subject line mutations to watch for.
• KernelFaultCheck - Forum post.  After my past hard-drive failure episode, I recently ran a Hijack This scan of my system, as I periodically do.  I found an interesting entry in the registry auto-run group: KernalFaultCheck: %systemroot%\\system32\\dumprep 0 -k    Not sure what this was about, but hesitant to clear it, I decided to do some research.  Turns out that I forgot I had enabled the Windows Error Reporting Dump Reporting Tool during my troubleshooting.  I went in to the advanced system properties and disabled all this as my system has returned to running normally.

See you in the skies...

--Claus

Yeah, but they still probably won't make it past mine...

Via Yahoo! News

Four ISPs Join Anti-Spam, E-Mail Delivery Program - Yahoo! News

Four major Internet service providers on Thursday joined a program that charges major business and e-commerce sites for guaranteed delivery of their e-mails.

Comcast, Cox Communications, Time Warner Cable's Road Runner and Verizon will support Goodmail Systems' CertifiedEmail program, which charges companies a quarter of a penny per message to ensure that their e-mails bypass spam filters and reach their destination.

I understand the idea...provide a way for companies to ensure their emails aren't trapped by the ISP's spam filters...so they can get delivered on to the customers.

However, one of the factors I judge an ISP (or web email service) by, is how effective their email filters are for keeping that stuff out in the first place! ALL unsolicited emails are pretty much considered spam to me. The thought of them charging a company to send out email that I may consider spam, so it doesn't get caught by their filters so then it can get caught by mine amuses me.

Between Thunderbird's spam filtering ability, custom filters, and passing email through Gmail's spam filters...it still is pretty easy to keep the bulk, of bulk-spam out of my inbox.

God bless 'em for trying.

--Claus