openSUSE 12.1: All Green!

This release represents more than eight months of work by our international community and brings you the best Free Software has to offer. Awesome improvements include the latest GNOME 3.2 desktop as well as the newest from KDE, XFCE and LXDE; your ownCloud made easy with mirall; Snapper-shots of your file system; and much, much more.

Since I’ve given up on Xubuntu 11.10 after the failed upgrade, I’ve decided to give openSUSE another whirl. Back in the early 2000s I used it as my main OS, built many a website, and never had a complaint - until Novell took over. Read more on this below..

In any account, I’ve moved all mission critical services to the Mac Mini and now have a powered-down box to play with. The install DVD torrent is downloading as I type and I’m eager to tinker with ownCloud.

I’ll post more if this whole affair turns into anything magical.

#linux

Be there or bring the boys back home.

#music

SOPA and PIPA: A giant step in the wrong direction for the internet

Today, we’re joining pretty much every major internet and technology company in voicing our opposition to the PIPA (PROTECT IP Act) and SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) legislation before the House and Senate. For those who have never heard of these two acts, they are proposals before Congress that give incredibly aggressive censorship controls to our government (acting on behalf of rights holders).

SOPA, controversial online piracy bill, gains support as lobbying intensifies

Google, Facebook, Yahoo and other Web giants launched a media blitz on Wednesday with full-page newspaper ads urging lawmakers to vote against the proposal.

Send a free letter to your congressperson. Do it.

#politics #internets

All my email is hosted through one of the domains I own. I don’t use Gmail, Hotmail or any of the other free web-based emails for email anymore.¹ I don’t trust 3rd parties with my sensitive data, I ‘spect I’ve grown senile and paranoid these last few years. As more and more people use the “cloud” the less and less I want to do with it.

Since I don’t use webmail, I need a good desktop app and Postbox is this editor’s current pick. It does everything I want, the search is almost perfect and the keyboard shortcuts are to die for. It does have its quirks but that’s for another time.

My Inbox is set to fetch email from the server via IMAP.² I don’t use POP3 because I want my Inbox to be available from any device, at any time. The IMAP folder³ structure is simple. Gmail taught me to search, not sort - see Figure 1.

There isn’t a client folder or a project folder or a vacation folder or a whatever folder. The biggest time sink I’ve found is to file emails based on this or that, rules that aren’t universal. I barely want to think about which folder an email should go into. The whole client/project folder structure breaks down as soon as more than one project/topic is discussed in an email. Then I’d need to think about which folder the email should go into and I don’t like doing that.

I go through my new email first thing in the morning (about 60) and keep up as the day goes by. I don’t ever let email pile up for more than a few hours and maybe for a few days if I’m on vacation or so. Luckily my job permits/requires me to keep my email open all day.

When an email comes in I make a decision after skimming the contents almost immediately:

Q: Is it a forward

A: Yes? I skim or read further depending on the amusement level. Then I delete or archive it to the Current folder with Postbox’s single A keystroke. Simple and fast.

Q: Is it directly to me and needs a reply?

A: Yes? I either respond⁴ right away or flag it with a ToDo topic.⁵

Q: Is it to me but doesn’t need a reply?

A: Yes? I either flag it with a topic or archive it immediately.

Q: Is it spam or something I don’t want in my Inbox again?

A: Yes? I flag it as Junk, unsubscribe, whatever so I don’t ever receive similar emails again. This is a critical step - email overload often comes from getting a bunch of crap I don’t want. Many people never do anything about this. Do something.

After marching through the Q/As above, the only emails I have left in my Inbox are the ones that I either need to take action on or am waiting on an action from somebody else. This is how I want my Inbox, this is bliss. I don’t care about “Inbox Zero” because there’ll be more tomorrow as soon as the sun comes up.

Note: the Current or archive folder is somewhat special. It only contains the current year’s archive of email. All email before this year lives in a local account and kept in yearly folders. If you want your email set up like this, grab your nearest geek, they can help.

This structure helps keep the IMAP sync speedy and the local folders organized. This is more efficient than the client/project method above. See Figure 2.

Each day I try to spend an hour or so acting on and responding to emails that have been flagged ToDo. I set dedicated time in my schedule for this and don’t pay attention to Twitter or Facebook. I think of this like bill paying time, it has to get done. People need answers just like the utility company needs to get paid.

With personal email, I might not respond for a week or two if it’s not urgent. They can wait.

“We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I met you I was but the learner. Now, I am the master.”

I can be quite obsessive with email but the goal is for me to be the master and email the slave, not the other way around. I have no problem finding that one email sent two years ago about such and such. I also delete 3/4 of the FW:s I get before I get two lines deep.

It’s my email, I run it my way.

Of course, the entire Postbox profile is backed up nightly to a separate machine and weekly to a third. Your nearest geek can help with this, too. There will come a time when your computer dies. Be ready.

¹ I still have the Gmail and Yahoo accounts but I use them mainly for throw-away stuff and just in case somebody sends something there.

² The downside is that IMAP can be slow when syncing between my computer and the server for the first time.

³ The “Sent” folder only exists because my phone refuses to put sent emails anywhere else. If you’re writing email software, please let users specify all folder locations.

⁴ Email sent from me automatically goes back to the Inbox. Both the original and my reply email are then archived to the Current folder.

⁵ Single keystroke, color-coded topics I use:

1  ToDo  emails I need to act on.

2  Waiting  emails I’m waiting on a reply on.

3  Watching  emails I’m interested in.

The last topic generally has conversations between other people that I’m CC’ed on. If these aren’t critical emails and nothing happens with them after a bit, they get A.

Update:

• I’m running Postbox 3.0.1 on a Mac but the concepts will apply to any email program. However, your mileage will vary with regards to Postbox shortcuts and settings.

• To create topics as mentioned in ⁵, open Postbox’s Preferences, click “Display” and then the “Topics” button. Add, edit, delete as you like.

• To use the A shortcut, open Postbox’s Preferences, click “Accounts”, expand the email account and choose “Copies & Folders.” Under the “Archive” section, choose your archive folder and any high-lighted email will auto-magically move there.

Postbox also lets you move emails by pressing V.

As a note, you cannot change the keyboard shortcut bindings from within Postbox itself.

Update 2:

I’ve gotten a few emails about this post (imagine that) and this piece is more about how I manage the emails themselves. I’ll write a follow up that is more in-depth on how I use all of the neat things you can do with Postbox.

Also, I manage seven fairly active email accounts with it for those wondering.

Elsewhere:

• Managing Mail Madness with Mutt

#email

An army of tiny, toy soldiers with thundering boots, marching in place. A subliminal annoyance of the gallery of many hanging dial clocks with their imperfect unison of ticking ushers into consciousness the postponement of life, waiting for one call to make another, but not making one in fear of missing the first.

Acknowledging in silent, bitter disgust the need/want that stretched from afternoon to evening to newstime, reminiscent of burning eyes wandering from one end of a lonely, waterless canal to the other, the span of naked, barren cement seems so utterly useless.

Soon there could be that eerie notion of 1 a.m. and a ruffled, unable to sleep in bed, a bed with the forsaken feeling of an afterschool boy locked out of home, waiting for mom.

Delusion diminishing, like the opening of the eyelids after a long, ten hour slumber, but without the refreshing sense of a good night’s rest.

Realization of the complete sick stock bought in the need/want. How many half/full days could be stacked side by side waiting for the call, like stale popcorn strung on the Christmas tree by an ever-so-careful daughter and smiled off by a walking-on-by father with his surreal approval in exchange for pacification and for bluntness sake, left alone.

So many channels without enough talent to keep up.

An inner world war, twelve rounds of thrashing about between head and heart, love me or love me not. Give into the known dependency. With a sigh of relief, eagerly reach for the phone, telling myself, half-jokingly, “just makin’ sure the phone’s working.”

Pick up the handset, listening for a dial tone, each agonizing fiber of being secretly praying, begging, desperately pleading it wasn’t working and not the hair-pulling truth that she hadn’t called.

Has it ever been out-of-order, or have they just never called before?

Slowly begin the rapid descent into despising that fucking call.

Emotions shifting gears to liquid hate as they drip from the pores. A fuzzy caterpillar turned to romantic, playful butterfly, turned to nasty, black hornet, stinging the first available non-smoking section.

Completely oblivious to the behavior, but trudging on, like a walk in thick, resistant mud. Vacuums have the right to be terrifying.

Trying to stay in denial. forcefully reaching, but ignorance is slipping, reality shoving its nose in, a tyrant hog ready to feed. Feeling the abdominal, abandonment pains of a bawling infant literally stripped from maternal arms by a cold, hourly social worker.

Introspection.
No more sun or primetime.
No more toys or christmas trees.
No more lifeless canals or ugly wall clocks.
No more clinging of generic plastic wrap in a colorless box to flawed hope.

Just buy the good stuff and quit wasting your time.

—

The above was written in 1998, before cell phones and internets were a thing for the masses. It’s a descriptive reveal of how I responded when a girl didn’t call me.

It’s slightly exaggerated but only slightly. I may have been processing other heartbreaks at the same time.

Polished a smidge in 2011.

#writtenword

MacBook Air now 28% of Apple’s notebook shipments

The popularity of Apple’s MacBook Air, which incorporates design elements and features of the iPad (such as instant wake and solid state storage) has sparked speculation that MacBook Pro models would similarly slim down, while slowing sales of the Mac Pro have suggested Apple might eventually abandon large desktop form factors to focus on highly mobile products.

The only thing that keeps me from seriously considering the MacBook Air is the low RAM specs. My 3+ year old MacBook Pro has as much RAM as the latest Air does.

I doubt if the large desktops will go away. Pro-video editing and server rooms need that big iron. I’m probably wrong though, I generally don’t know what I’m talking about.

#apple

Finally, a Judge Stands up to Wall Street

Rakoff of course is right — the settlement is nuts. If you take Citi’s $160 million profit on the deal into consideration, what we’re talking about then is a $125 million fine for causing $700 million in damages. That, and no admission of wrongdoing.

Just imagine a mugger who steals $70 from some lady’s wallet being sentenced to walk free after paying back twelve bucks. Magritte himself could not devise a more surreal take on criminal justice.

It gets worse. Over the last decade, Citi has repeatedly been caught committing a variety of offenses, and time after time the bank has been dragged into court and slapped with injunctions demanding that they refrain from ever engaging the same practices ever again. Over and over again, they’ve completely blown off the injunctions, with no consequences from the state — which does nothing except issue new (soon-to-be-ignored-again) injunctions.

Read the news and you’ll at least know who not to bank with.

#corporatedollars

--- Original Message ---
Subject: It is important to you.
Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2011 3:22:8 +0300
From: zaykagolg33@yahoo.com
To: tcr!

Hello my friend! In the first words of your message I wanted to say that I'd like to meet with you. I hope you do not mind? My soul mate is looking for a serious relationship! which I have not had! If you're ready to write me something! I will wait from you the answer!

woman from far away

#email #spam

It’s 10+ printed pages but well worth the read.

A Conspiracy of Hogs: The McRib as Arbitrage

The McRib was, at least in part, born out of the brute force that McDonald’s is capable of exerting on commodities markets. According to this history of the sandwich, Chef Arend created the McRib because McDonald’s simply could not find enough chickens to turn into the McNuggets for which their franchises were clamoring. Chef Arend invented something so popular that his employer could not even find the raw materials to produce it, because it was so popular. […]

When the Time reporter visited the kitchen, Chef Coudreaut was cooking a dish that involved celery root—a fresh-tasting root that chefs love for making purees in the fall and winter. Chef Coudreaut proves to be quite a talented cook, but Time notes that “there is literally not enough celery root grown in the world for it to survive on the menu at McDonald’s-although the company could change that since its menu decisions quickly become global agricultural concerns.”

Yep, McDonald’s can change the world’s agriculture.

Elsewhere:

• Fast Food Autopsy: McDonald’s McRib
• How to Make a McRib

#foodies

Asteroid planning gap leaves Earth ‘a sitting duck’

“Unlike the dinosaurs, we have the means to prevent catastrophic impacts,” says the B612 Foundation, which also advocates finding and tracking asteroids to learn about potential threats to the Earth decades in advance, and testing technology to deflect asteroids

The article is somewhat doomsday but the visual is good. I recommend sharks with lasers.

#cosmos