This is a potentially modifiable post, and I will time-date my entries accordingly as I gain experience with the device. The original post is dated 12/14/15; any latest update will be tagged at the end of this opening paragraph.
[12/14/15]. Ironically my last post hinted at the current topic. I know I'm hardly the first one to buy a smartwatch. In some cases, I've been an early adopter of technology (e.g., I owned one of the first VCR's at a time they started at over $1000, and I remember demoing to classes at ISU pen computing with a DOS spreadsheet), but in other cases I've been later (e.g., I started my CD collection only after I found it difficult to buy new albums on vinyl, and I got my first smartphone last year). I had zero interest in spending hundreds of dollars for the latest incarnation of an iPhone like many of my colleagues; I had alternatives for multimedia content, a Garmin device for GPS, etc. I could buy a decent laptop for less money. What changed my mind? Limited personal access to the Internet at work (e.g., filtered external email portals); I might want to check the weather, news or my brokerage accounts, status on a shipment, operating hours for a restaurant, etc. during work breaks or on the road. Lower prices for functional smartphones (the one I own now cost under $100); lower bundled services (e.g., I now have unlimited voice, text and data for just a modest increase over a plain vanilla 300-minutes/month cellphone plan I've had in recent years: granted, only a certain level of data usage is available at higher speeds). None of this is unusual but it reflects my personal pragmatism; I still recall my first graduate MIS course when my professor mocked people buying a PC for thousands of dollars to do something like store recipes when a 99-cent plastic recipe box would do.
One of the reasons I was interested in buying a smartwatch was its integration with my smartphone platform. True, I can always tell the time by checking my cellphone, but a smartwatch can be a stylish, more functional alternative to your standard watch, with convenient access (a few button clicks) to key information from your smartphone like local weather conditions. Now I haven't worn a watch for years; as a kid, I had mechanical watches I had to manually wind--which I vastly preferred over your typical battery-operated modern watch. My Mom once asked me about gift ideas for Christmas or my birthday (I've mostly lived in other states since 1993, and I usually buy what I want or need without telling her). I suggested a mechanical watch, specifically noting I hated the hassle of replacing modern watch batteries. She got me a battery-operated watch, dismissing my pet peeve. (It ended up in an unpacked moving box.) Now like a smartphone, a smartwatch runs on a rechargeable battery; in this case I need to recharge the watch once or twice a week and it's fairly easy to check the watch's battery status.
There were 2 things that led me to choose a Martian Notifier in particular. First, I wanted a smartwatch that looked like a watch, and the Martian Notifier looks like a stylish traditional watch (mine is black). The scroll line is discreetly along the bottom of the watch face; the design is well-done. While I've been writing this post, I tested integrating the Martian Notifier with the gmail account I use with my smartphone, and a test message scrolled beautifully on the watch. Second, just as I didn't want to pay a high price for my smartphone, the same held true for a smartwatch. A Martian Notifier sells for a decent price, under $50. I didn't place my order with the problem vendor described in an earlier post but through another prominent Internet vendor.
As someone who has written articles and book chapters on usability, I often judge a natural interface by what I sometimes refer to as a "toaster test". By that I mean I know how to power and use a new toaster without reading some enclosed instruction booklet or consulting others. There were a couple of minor issues I experienced. The first was the USB cable connection to the watch for the initial 3-hour charge. There's a small door in front of the female connection in the upper right quadrant of the watch rim which can be difficult to open without good fingernails. (This video, published by the vendor, is helpful.) The second was the pair (watch/phone) connection (cf. a relevant video here). I had gotten to a point of waiting for connection. I expected something to happen, like a pop-up launched on the smartphone, something like at the 2:10 mark of the clip. (I did see a 6-digit code appear on the watch scroll line, but it wasn't clear what I was supposed to do with it.) The connection eventually timed out. However, the Bluetooth pop-up in the video led me to drill down into the Bluetooth system setting on my phone where I found a prompt asking me to confirm the code appearing on the watch.
Monday, December 14, 2015
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
One of My Pet Peeves: Credit Card Validation and Other Procrustean "Solutions"
I hate with a passion various security protections "for my benefit" that basically are very inconvenient and unusable. Let me give an example: in one case, I visited a website for the first time in several months (it may have a former small DRIP plan that I needed to access for filing my income tax form with the IRS); my old password (stored in a password repository) no longer worked. I had to complete a challenge question to have the website send a link to reset my password. The problem; I knew the correct challenge response, but it didn't work. There was no information in context on who to contact about persistent logon problems. Eventually I found a customer service number. It turned out that I hadn't set up my challenge questions yet (introduced interim between website visits). Then there were the annoying insistences that they insisted they had mailed me a tax statement and would be happy to mail a replacement copy (arriving after Tax Day, of course): if I had the tax statement in question available, would I be contacting them? [For example, I once had to move in late January, and some mail may have been misfiled.]
For those of us who are registered at dozens, even hundreds, of websites, with idiosyncratic password rules (in many cases, complex rules, sometimes only revealed after a failed attempt), it's ludicrous for website owners to believe we are going to access each constantly.
Another pet peeve, especially in dealing with cable or utility accounts, is being asked by customer support for arcane alpahanumeric account numbers over 10 characters long. (I try to maintain these in contact or password databases.) But the whole concept is unnatural; the account number is only relevant/meaningful from the vendor's perspective. And if you've ever found your customer service issue getting bounced to different departments, you often have to repeat various items of information. (Another annoyance: quite often in setting up a web chat, you have to supply problem statements, etc., and quite frequently the agent claims that he or she doesn't have it available.) All of this is Procrustean; we are the customers, but we are expected to accommodate the arbitrary rules for vendors' internal systems.
But one of the most exasperating things has to do with address validation on credit card transactions. On at least a half dozen or so occasions, I've found transactions failing with correct information. Let me say I used to work for a market research company about 20 years back. One of the things we often had to deal with was the concept of householding; for example, we could procure several mailing lists, but we would want to consolidate or dedup mailings across minor deviations in name and/or address. For example, I might be 'Dr. Guillemette', 'Ronald A. Guillemette', 'R Guillemette', 'Ronald Guillemette', etc., but the client, in order to minimize expenses, would want me to get just one copy of the mailing.
However, I don't know the specifics of how addresses are confirmed. In one case, I wanted to register a change of address via the USPS online. The process at the time required temporarily charging a nominal fee like $1--but in my case, the transaction kept getting rejected for some unspecified address issue. I ended contacting my credit card issuer, which claimed that its system showed that the transaction had, in fact, been approved. I had conversations with USPS personnel, but it went nowhere: they were in a state of denial. I think I ended up mailing the postmaster with my address change written out manually.
Yesterday, an Internet site was offering a smartwatch at a very good price. I normally don't wear watches, but I was intrigued with notification functionality. I ran into address validation issues; I tried tweaking my address multiple ways, all to no avail. I tried contacting customer support--which was not readily available on the website and I had to Google for an email address. The response was to the effect as added security (for my security benefit, of course) they required exact specification of my home address first line; I should check with my issuer to verify how they stored my address.
At this point, I was done. I was not about to spend another half hour trying to figure out the address issue for "my" benefit; I don't need a smarwatch that much.
For those of us who are registered at dozens, even hundreds, of websites, with idiosyncratic password rules (in many cases, complex rules, sometimes only revealed after a failed attempt), it's ludicrous for website owners to believe we are going to access each constantly.
Another pet peeve, especially in dealing with cable or utility accounts, is being asked by customer support for arcane alpahanumeric account numbers over 10 characters long. (I try to maintain these in contact or password databases.) But the whole concept is unnatural; the account number is only relevant/meaningful from the vendor's perspective. And if you've ever found your customer service issue getting bounced to different departments, you often have to repeat various items of information. (Another annoyance: quite often in setting up a web chat, you have to supply problem statements, etc., and quite frequently the agent claims that he or she doesn't have it available.) All of this is Procrustean; we are the customers, but we are expected to accommodate the arbitrary rules for vendors' internal systems.
But one of the most exasperating things has to do with address validation on credit card transactions. On at least a half dozen or so occasions, I've found transactions failing with correct information. Let me say I used to work for a market research company about 20 years back. One of the things we often had to deal with was the concept of householding; for example, we could procure several mailing lists, but we would want to consolidate or dedup mailings across minor deviations in name and/or address. For example, I might be 'Dr. Guillemette', 'Ronald A. Guillemette', 'R Guillemette', 'Ronald Guillemette', etc., but the client, in order to minimize expenses, would want me to get just one copy of the mailing.
However, I don't know the specifics of how addresses are confirmed. In one case, I wanted to register a change of address via the USPS online. The process at the time required temporarily charging a nominal fee like $1--but in my case, the transaction kept getting rejected for some unspecified address issue. I ended contacting my credit card issuer, which claimed that its system showed that the transaction had, in fact, been approved. I had conversations with USPS personnel, but it went nowhere: they were in a state of denial. I think I ended up mailing the postmaster with my address change written out manually.
Yesterday, an Internet site was offering a smartwatch at a very good price. I normally don't wear watches, but I was intrigued with notification functionality. I ran into address validation issues; I tried tweaking my address multiple ways, all to no avail. I tried contacting customer support--which was not readily available on the website and I had to Google for an email address. The response was to the effect as added security (for my security benefit, of course) they required exact specification of my home address first line; I should check with my issuer to verify how they stored my address.
At this point, I was done. I was not about to spend another half hour trying to figure out the address issue for "my" benefit; I don't need a smarwatch that much.
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Q-Dir: My Favorite Multi-Pane File Explorer
[11/14/16. My security software recently reported suspicious behavior with a recent installation/update of Q-Dir and removed it. I went to virustotal and checked the download URL: I found 1 hit in over 30 checks reporting malware. I'm not sure if the Q-Dir problem is a false positive or version-specific, but I tend to be more conservative in dealing with reported malware issues. For the time being, I had previously installed Free Commander XE, a dual pane alternative on other PC's and am using it.]
I was first introduced to the concept of dual-pane file managers with PowerDesk when it was freeware and I probably upgraded to one or two versions of the commercial product. Dual-panel managers extended the single-pane Windows Explorer, so you could do things like drag-and-drop files or directories within or between disks in a visually intuitive, compact presentation. I find this tool useful for cut|copy/paste tasks like data recovery, reorganization, and archival. A number of related tools integrated utilities to view, split, zip, and/or transer (ftp) files, like a Swiss knife of file utilities. (I often prefer to use separate right-click context utilities, like Lopesoft's File Menu Tools, FilerFrog and/or 7-Zip.)
Around the time PowerDesk became commercial, I had started looking at other file managers and eventually settled on Q-Dir, with an unconventional 4-pane default presentation. Note: the interface is highly customizable, if you are uncomfortable with the 4 panes. See figure 1 below; in the middle of the menu bar you will see a number of suggestive alternative pane configurations. Each of the quadrants can load a different folder, and you can set up and/or load quick links/favorites (via CTRL-Q). (Note: you can save the settings/state of Q-Dir through the file menu; Q-Dir frequently remembers your last session settings, but, for example, I updated Q-Dir software this morning and didn't find the quick links I set yesterday.)
[ 10/6/15. For some reason the original Figure 1 and Figure 2 were not usable when I checked the blog post today. I did a follow-up image capture for replacement figures below.]
Let's briefly discuss the icon/ribbon bars at the top and bottom of a quadrant (reverse video in Figure 1 and the summation through Q-Dir favicon in Figure 2). The top bar includes a couple of backward/forward arrows reflect the sequence of folder loadings in the quadrant (if applicable). For example, the current first quadrant includes my desktop. I might then load my flash drive (F:) into the quadrant. I could toggle back to desktop and forward to my flash drive again through these keys. The up arrow reflects more of a hierarchical navigation through the folder tree. For example, if I had previously drilled into a desktop folder in the quadrant, the up arrow would return me to the desktop. The next icon allows you to create a new folder in the current folder view. The pull-down menu folder reflects how menu items appear in a quadrant, e.g., in a list, large icons (e.g., to preview image files), etc. The pull-down address bar menu allows you to load a quadrant from a number of standard folders, e.g., the Window user folder, the desktop, system drives, etc. The last two pulldowns are differing arrangements of the same standard folder grouping, the last one without favorites or Window user folders.
The bottom leftmost icon (Figure 2) provides a menu toggle list of certain aggregate statistic preferences about items in the current quadrant view, e.g., number of objects or size of selected objects. The search bar is used in conjunction with the filter icon (the 45-degree icon to the left of the Q-Dir icon)--for example, you might type txt to search for the text files listed in the currently loaded directory. The up/down icons are based a sequence of selected items in a quandrant from the base item. For example, if I have filtered pdf files, I point/select one pdf file in my selection and then click CTRL-A to select all files in the quadrant, the up and down arrows move within the highlighted list relative to my initial selected file position. The lightning bolt is like a quick access launch list of standard utilities (e.g., regedit, notepad, calc) that you can customize in a manner similar to favorites. The X is a quick-delete key for selected items in the quadrant. The next 3 keys are standard cut, copy and paste items within or across quadrants. We discussed the filtering icon earlier, and the final item is a quick-launch for favorites, which includes some standard Windows directories and items you can easily add via the menu bar, the favorites folder from the application dropdown menu, or by using CTRL-Q from within a quadrant. For instance, I can navigate to my resume folder in my sync drive, CTRL-Q and select Add Quick Link. Assuming I routinely save my state via the file menu, if and when I next need to access my resume file, I can launch from the Q-Dir favicon or select the item via CTRL-Q from within one of the quadrants.
There are a few minor complaints with the software, as of the time of this post. One is that the software doesn't really have an automated check for updates, so I generally have to navigate to the author's website periodically to do a manual check. (There is a weblink via the Info/About Q-Dir menu.) Another is that launching Control Panel, at least from Windows 10, doesn't seem to function as expected. You can easily drag say the Windows Explorer favicon from Control Panel and/or its components onto your desktop as shortcuts and manually launch them from the desktop, but I've run into issues launching them from Q-Dir. However, what I have done is create a desktop shortcut to control.exe from the SYSTEM32 directory, which works as expected.
I was first introduced to the concept of dual-pane file managers with PowerDesk when it was freeware and I probably upgraded to one or two versions of the commercial product. Dual-panel managers extended the single-pane Windows Explorer, so you could do things like drag-and-drop files or directories within or between disks in a visually intuitive, compact presentation. I find this tool useful for cut|copy/paste tasks like data recovery, reorganization, and archival. A number of related tools integrated utilities to view, split, zip, and/or transer (ftp) files, like a Swiss knife of file utilities. (I often prefer to use separate right-click context utilities, like Lopesoft's File Menu Tools, FilerFrog and/or 7-Zip.)
Around the time PowerDesk became commercial, I had started looking at other file managers and eventually settled on Q-Dir, with an unconventional 4-pane default presentation. Note: the interface is highly customizable, if you are uncomfortable with the 4 panes. See figure 1 below; in the middle of the menu bar you will see a number of suggestive alternative pane configurations. Each of the quadrants can load a different folder, and you can set up and/or load quick links/favorites (via CTRL-Q). (Note: you can save the settings/state of Q-Dir through the file menu; Q-Dir frequently remembers your last session settings, but, for example, I updated Q-Dir software this morning and didn't find the quick links I set yesterday.)
[ 10/6/15. For some reason the original Figure 1 and Figure 2 were not usable when I checked the blog post today. I did a follow-up image capture for replacement figures below.]
Let's briefly discuss the icon/ribbon bars at the top and bottom of a quadrant (reverse video in Figure 1 and the summation through Q-Dir favicon in Figure 2). The top bar includes a couple of backward/forward arrows reflect the sequence of folder loadings in the quadrant (if applicable). For example, the current first quadrant includes my desktop. I might then load my flash drive (F:) into the quadrant. I could toggle back to desktop and forward to my flash drive again through these keys. The up arrow reflects more of a hierarchical navigation through the folder tree. For example, if I had previously drilled into a desktop folder in the quadrant, the up arrow would return me to the desktop. The next icon allows you to create a new folder in the current folder view. The pull-down menu folder reflects how menu items appear in a quadrant, e.g., in a list, large icons (e.g., to preview image files), etc. The pull-down address bar menu allows you to load a quadrant from a number of standard folders, e.g., the Window user folder, the desktop, system drives, etc. The last two pulldowns are differing arrangements of the same standard folder grouping, the last one without favorites or Window user folders.
The bottom leftmost icon (Figure 2) provides a menu toggle list of certain aggregate statistic preferences about items in the current quadrant view, e.g., number of objects or size of selected objects. The search bar is used in conjunction with the filter icon (the 45-degree icon to the left of the Q-Dir icon)--for example, you might type txt to search for the text files listed in the currently loaded directory. The up/down icons are based a sequence of selected items in a quandrant from the base item. For example, if I have filtered pdf files, I point/select one pdf file in my selection and then click CTRL-A to select all files in the quadrant, the up and down arrows move within the highlighted list relative to my initial selected file position. The lightning bolt is like a quick access launch list of standard utilities (e.g., regedit, notepad, calc) that you can customize in a manner similar to favorites. The X is a quick-delete key for selected items in the quadrant. The next 3 keys are standard cut, copy and paste items within or across quadrants. We discussed the filtering icon earlier, and the final item is a quick-launch for favorites, which includes some standard Windows directories and items you can easily add via the menu bar, the favorites folder from the application dropdown menu, or by using CTRL-Q from within a quadrant. For instance, I can navigate to my resume folder in my sync drive, CTRL-Q and select Add Quick Link. Assuming I routinely save my state via the file menu, if and when I next need to access my resume file, I can launch from the Q-Dir favicon or select the item via CTRL-Q from within one of the quadrants.
 |
| Figure1: Top of Q-Dir Application |
 |
| Figure 2: Bottom of Q-Dir Quadrant |
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Inserting Browser Images into Blogger
Sometimes you have to go back to the basics of combination keys, i.e., CTRL-C to copy, CTRL-V to paste.
Let me explain the context. Often in my political blog I'll copy and paste things, properly attributed, of course. With text, I usually select the chosen text by mouse, right-click, copy. In my blog post in compose (vs. html) mode, using browser Chrome, I'll point to the target location, right-click, paste as plain text. (The paste option often includes undesired original text formatting characteristics; if I do run into undesired text formatting, say copying/pasting in a different browser, I'll click on the html tab, and insert the copied text in the desired location there.)
Images are somewhat different. In Blogger, there's an insert wizard which is file-oriented. So say if a Facebook feed is primarily an image. I can often double-click on the image, which spawns a separate browser tab of just the image, right-click and select the image URL option. I return to my Blogger post, point at the desired target, click on the image wizard icon and select the image URL option (one of the rightmost options) to paste the URL text.
There are a few exceptions to this process. I've found that double-clicking on some images will launch an article page, often without the linked image. Now there are workarounds, e.g., the Facebook group may have a photos section where you can find the image in question. And, of course, you can always do a print screen, crop/save the target image (via, e.g., MS Paint) and upload it to the blog through the insert wizard or similar functionality.
Now others have noticed nuances between clipboard and browser functionality (e.g., here). I had tried clipping an image to the clipboard via an image capture utility like Greenshot, but the problem is that Blogger doesn't seem to allow me to paste from the clipboard. I had also tried selecting an image and right-clicking to save, but I don't have a right-click copy option (I get link options, not copy/image options; now if I include some superset of the image, e.g., some trailing text, I'll get a copy option that will work; I can simply delete the copied trailing text.)
Based on some related copy/paste posts on copying images to Gmail compose windows (drag-select the mouse over the source image, CTRL-C, navigate to the message window and CTRL-V at the desired target location). I didn't understand why it would work in Gmail but not my Blogger compose window; but I can verify as of the date of this post that the functionality works in Chrome on draft.blogger. As long as the conventional copy/paste keystrokes work as intended within the same browser, I'm not as concerned with the specifics of the enabled functionality. There are some unintuitive aspects to the interface here, e.g., even though I have an image in my "web/browser clipboard", I don't have a right-click paste option in my Blogger compose window target location.
[Note added 10/01/15]. I recalled earlier using Gmail functionality as a go-between between other webpages or applications and Blogger. (I do not know if there have been any interim developments to Gmail and/or Blogger.) But this functionality worked for me today: I used Greenshot to capture an image to the clipboard. I could then do a conventional paste of the image into a Gmail compose window. Note: Blogger did NOT let me paste from the clipboard into the Blogger compose window. But once the image painted in my Gmail compose window, I found that I could drag and drop the pasted image in Gmail compose to Blogger. Of course, this workaround requires that you have a Gmail account. I would hope at some point we don't have to resort to a workaround, and I don't know if future product changes will affect the workaround. But I tested the workaround multiple times today, including processing images for my Q-Dir post.
Let me explain the context. Often in my political blog I'll copy and paste things, properly attributed, of course. With text, I usually select the chosen text by mouse, right-click, copy. In my blog post in compose (vs. html) mode, using browser Chrome, I'll point to the target location, right-click, paste as plain text. (The paste option often includes undesired original text formatting characteristics; if I do run into undesired text formatting, say copying/pasting in a different browser, I'll click on the html tab, and insert the copied text in the desired location there.)
Images are somewhat different. In Blogger, there's an insert wizard which is file-oriented. So say if a Facebook feed is primarily an image. I can often double-click on the image, which spawns a separate browser tab of just the image, right-click and select the image URL option. I return to my Blogger post, point at the desired target, click on the image wizard icon and select the image URL option (one of the rightmost options) to paste the URL text.
There are a few exceptions to this process. I've found that double-clicking on some images will launch an article page, often without the linked image. Now there are workarounds, e.g., the Facebook group may have a photos section where you can find the image in question. And, of course, you can always do a print screen, crop/save the target image (via, e.g., MS Paint) and upload it to the blog through the insert wizard or similar functionality.
Now others have noticed nuances between clipboard and browser functionality (e.g., here). I had tried clipping an image to the clipboard via an image capture utility like Greenshot, but the problem is that Blogger doesn't seem to allow me to paste from the clipboard. I had also tried selecting an image and right-clicking to save, but I don't have a right-click copy option (I get link options, not copy/image options; now if I include some superset of the image, e.g., some trailing text, I'll get a copy option that will work; I can simply delete the copied trailing text.)
Based on some related copy/paste posts on copying images to Gmail compose windows (drag-select the mouse over the source image, CTRL-C, navigate to the message window and CTRL-V at the desired target location). I didn't understand why it would work in Gmail but not my Blogger compose window; but I can verify as of the date of this post that the functionality works in Chrome on draft.blogger. As long as the conventional copy/paste keystrokes work as intended within the same browser, I'm not as concerned with the specifics of the enabled functionality. There are some unintuitive aspects to the interface here, e.g., even though I have an image in my "web/browser clipboard", I don't have a right-click paste option in my Blogger compose window target location.
[Note added 10/01/15]. I recalled earlier using Gmail functionality as a go-between between other webpages or applications and Blogger. (I do not know if there have been any interim developments to Gmail and/or Blogger.) But this functionality worked for me today: I used Greenshot to capture an image to the clipboard. I could then do a conventional paste of the image into a Gmail compose window. Note: Blogger did NOT let me paste from the clipboard into the Blogger compose window. But once the image painted in my Gmail compose window, I found that I could drag and drop the pasted image in Gmail compose to Blogger. Of course, this workaround requires that you have a Gmail account. I would hope at some point we don't have to resort to a workaround, and I don't know if future product changes will affect the workaround. But I tested the workaround multiple times today, including processing images for my Q-Dir post.
Sunday, September 27, 2015
A Workaround to a Mozilla Thunderbird Blank Folder Pane Problem
[last updated * 5/21/26; prior 5/18/16; 1/09/16]
At least a handful of times over the past week, I have launched Thunderbird with a blank or hidden messages pane, i.e., I'll see my familiar calendar/today pane on the right, but nothing to the left--no list of mailbox accounts and their folders, no local folders, etc. Oddly enough, I can download my external email pop accounts--but I don't see them. Now I occasionally experienced this problem in the past, and I simply would shutdown Thunderbird and relaunch later--with the folder pane viewable again (a memory issue?); I've removed any recent add-ons and/or rebooted the PC, which occasionally works. But what if all the usual steps, e.g., clearing cache, resetting options (e.g., toggling the folder pane off and on), don't work? It may be, for instance, some key file in the AppData Thunderbird folder has been corrupted.
I have a workaround solution, but first let discuss backups; as a professional DBA, I'm obsessed with backups. I have several layers of backups; with multi-terabyte USB external drives available for roughly $100-150, there's no reason not to do backups frequently. (For a list of freeware backup tools, see here; I've successfully used Paragon, EaseUS, and Aomei; also check the folder synchronization tools.) Flash drives are also increasingly inexpensive; for example, I was recently able to purchase a 120GB flash drive for around $30. I use licensed encryption software to maintain archivals (not to mention portable applications). Finally, depending on your email storage size, you can use any number of free (up to x GBs) online storage options (including Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, and Google Drive); at the time of this post, Google offers 100 GB storage for about $2/month. In some cases, you can configure your data, e.g., Thunderbird mail folders, under your online service sync folder (see discussion below*). If for some reason you cannot reconfigure your storage locations, you might be able to set up a file synchronization from your source folder(s) to your target sync folder.
I suspect that some files under the Thunderbird profile folder have been corrupted; it doesn't seem to involve email folders themselves. Here is my workaround, designed to minimize the loss of downloaded emails:
At least a handful of times over the past week, I have launched Thunderbird with a blank or hidden messages pane, i.e., I'll see my familiar calendar/today pane on the right, but nothing to the left--no list of mailbox accounts and their folders, no local folders, etc. Oddly enough, I can download my external email pop accounts--but I don't see them. Now I occasionally experienced this problem in the past, and I simply would shutdown Thunderbird and relaunch later--with the folder pane viewable again (a memory issue?); I've removed any recent add-ons and/or rebooted the PC, which occasionally works. But what if all the usual steps, e.g., clearing cache, resetting options (e.g., toggling the folder pane off and on), don't work? It may be, for instance, some key file in the AppData Thunderbird folder has been corrupted.
I have a workaround solution, but first let discuss backups; as a professional DBA, I'm obsessed with backups. I have several layers of backups; with multi-terabyte USB external drives available for roughly $100-150, there's no reason not to do backups frequently. (For a list of freeware backup tools, see here; I've successfully used Paragon, EaseUS, and Aomei; also check the folder synchronization tools.) Flash drives are also increasingly inexpensive; for example, I was recently able to purchase a 120GB flash drive for around $30. I use licensed encryption software to maintain archivals (not to mention portable applications). Finally, depending on your email storage size, you can use any number of free (up to x GBs) online storage options (including Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, and Google Drive); at the time of this post, Google offers 100 GB storage for about $2/month. In some cases, you can configure your data, e.g., Thunderbird mail folders, under your online service sync folder (see discussion below*). If for some reason you cannot reconfigure your storage locations, you might be able to set up a file synchronization from your source folder(s) to your target sync folder.
I suspect that some files under the Thunderbird profile folder have been corrupted; it doesn't seem to involve email folders themselves. Here is my workaround, designed to minimize the loss of downloaded emails:
- First, always maintain at least one recent copy of your email folders. Also you should have at least one recent copy of your profile folder/tree, via system backup or file folder synchronization. (If you are using default email locations, your profile backup includes your mail folders.)
- If you run into the blank folder pane, shutdown Thunderbird. (You may want to see if launching it again, say 20 minutes later, or rebooting resolves the problem before moving onto the next step.)
- If any interim emails have been downloaded since your last relevant profile backup and you are using default profile mailbox locations for external or local email storage, backup/sync your Mail folder under the profiles folder (AppData, Roaming, Thunderbird) to a sync or temporary directory. [Note below discussion on migrating emails to non-default locations.*]
- Delete the existing profile directory (some-alphanumeric-string.default), and restore the last profile backup to the same location.
- If you had to backup up Mail directory files before restoring your profile directory, replace your restored profile Mail directory with your Mail directory backup.
- Launch Thunderbird. You should now see your folder pane as expected. I would recommend doing another backup of your profile ASAP.
[* Note: 9/28/15. My earlier writeup implied a non-default setting for my local email folders but default settings for the external email folders. I wasn't aware that you can also reconfigure target directories for your external email folders: the setting is on the server settings pane, not the account settings pane. (Also note if you reset your local folders to say your sync drive directory, you need to manually cut-and-paste the folders from the AppData subdirectory to the target directory after setting the Thunderbird account parameter and bringing down Thunderbird.) [Changing the mail storage directory, local or external, results in a Thunderbird popup saying that it needs to come down.] Assuming you've already moved messages from your external email folders to local folders, you don't have to worry about manually moving folders during reconfiguration: it will simply recreate folders, inbox, trash, send folders as needed at the target setting, e.g., [sync drive path]/Gmail.]
[Note: 10/26/15. The delete/restore profile workaround almost always works. I think I've encountered one time it didn't seem to work after a copy in the same PC session, but it did after a reboot. As I've said, sometimes I close Thunderbird and restart it minutes later, no problem. Sometimes a reboot seems to do the trick. If you have gigabytes of email folders like I do, you may want to try these first, before going through a few minutes of delete/restore. As always, continue to backup your PC regularly, at least to the point you are willing to accept lost emails. I've occasionally, under prior Outlook Express (I haven't liked Windows Mail because it seemed to take forever to load my emails, hence my move to Thunderbird) and/or Thunderbird, found that one or more email folders got corrupted.
Take, for instance, I have a problem with my local inbox. I might do something like create a folder inbox2, bounce the email client, click into inbox2. bring down the client, get relevant inbox files from backup, rename/copy to the target, and delete the corrupted inbox. The email client should regenerate a missing inbox or other core folder. After startup I should see my new empty inbox and a populated inbox2. At this point, if I wish, I can move my messages from inbox2 to inbox. I sometimes call this my shell game workaround.
Again, I have no idea how prevalent this problem for other Thunderbird users; I religiously update Thunderbird and I don't recall it happening over the last few years until recent months, so it may be a bug, but I've seen it happen a few times a week--not always, but frequently enough to be a nuisance. I sometimes have tried another workaround short of delete/replace. In my case I have multiple configured email accounts; I've found, on at least two occasions, that switching the default email account for Thunderbird and restarting Thunderbird seems to resolve the issue.]
[Update 1/09/16].
I ran into folder pane problem on a recurring basis lately, which may have coincided after a recent Thunderbird update. Many of the tactics I've listed above did not seem to work (i.e., restarting Thunderbird and/or the PC, refreshing the profile folder under user AppData). Based on a tip I read in a Thunderbird forum, I tried running Thunderbird in safe mode (I usually add the client to my taskbar and then click on the icon while holding down the shift key: you should see a popup and I simply proceed without toggling on available options). This seemed to work consistently in restoring the folder pane, but with the addons temporarily disabled; in my case, for example, I have Lightning which is configured with my Google calendar, Nostalgy which I use to file emails not configured with my existing filter rules, and others which prune duplicate emails, strip attachments, and convert eml's to other formats.
Are addons incompatibile with the upgraded client? I tried disabling addons one at a time and restarting in normal mode, but I couldn't identify the rogue addon if any. (I also saw the folder pane appearing with addons available on an inconsistent basis since the patch.)
Finally, I uninstalled Thunderbird (without removing data) and reinstalled the software from the Mozilla website, finding the folder pane as usual appearing with addons intact. I have subsequently bounced the software on multiple occasions without the issue reappearing. I don't have enough information to judge whether somehow the software had been corrupted. If the problem resurfaces again, I'll update the post.
[Update 5/18/16]
After a few months of no issues, it reoccurred in full force again. There had been one or 2 times I launched into a folderless screen in the interim, but an application restart seemed to resolve the issue. Today I made numerous restarts plus a reboot, and the problem persisted. Deleting and refreshing the profile folder from my Google drive backup resolved the issue. So clearly one or more files in the profile folder are getting corrupted.
I ran into a separate performance issue lately which involved painfully slow email composes. I tweaked a few things, like togging off the message preview panel. One thing I noticed is that the application seems to spontaneously toggle preview back on. What I find is to undo that I have to toggle preview back on and then immediately toggle it back off.
There are a few other bugs that test my patience like pop-up error messages (especially on startups) which get in the way of password validation. I also notice that in moving messages from my download to local folders if the mouse floats over one of the other options (like copy to folder...), it seems to get stuck and I have to wait for the option to time out (my description) before I can float over the Move to Inbox option again.
Another tip for Thunderbird users: I use another layer of redundancy, the free-for-personal-use MailStore Home, which can be configured to back up Thunderbird folders. I will usually archive/update my MailStore emails every week or two. It basically appends new emails to folders; it doesn't sync the source/target email folders. So, for example, I might still have copies of emails that were in my local inbox years ago during archiving. Searching is blazing fast; for example, I have a Venezuelan immigrant friend and I was able to pull up emails from him over the last few years in a split second.
* [5/21/16]
I did another Google search; for some reason, I pulled down more usable results than prior Google searches. I ran into the same problem again for the second time in a week, this time a little more problematic. There were multiple tweeks plus a reboot necessary to regain the panes (there must have been some process that the reboot released--beyond the thunderbird executable).
I do have a more nuanced solution based on a couple of troubleshooting posts that suggest looking at a couple of JSON files in the profile folder: foldertree and/or session. One or both sources suggested that deleting or renaming existing files should result in Thunderbird regenerating said files. I think that the foldertree regenerated but same problem. I tried copying over the same two files from my Gdrive copy; it didn't work. I rebooted and this time the folder tree appeared on startup. So I suspect some process must have been hosing things. I'll have to wait and see if the problem recurs to see if the issue can be resolved with a reboot/JSON regeneration fix or whether the archival files do the trick. I would like to see if I can figure out what process is hosing a session fix.
[Note: 10/26/15. The delete/restore profile workaround almost always works. I think I've encountered one time it didn't seem to work after a copy in the same PC session, but it did after a reboot. As I've said, sometimes I close Thunderbird and restart it minutes later, no problem. Sometimes a reboot seems to do the trick. If you have gigabytes of email folders like I do, you may want to try these first, before going through a few minutes of delete/restore. As always, continue to backup your PC regularly, at least to the point you are willing to accept lost emails. I've occasionally, under prior Outlook Express (I haven't liked Windows Mail because it seemed to take forever to load my emails, hence my move to Thunderbird) and/or Thunderbird, found that one or more email folders got corrupted.
Take, for instance, I have a problem with my local inbox. I might do something like create a folder inbox2, bounce the email client, click into inbox2. bring down the client, get relevant inbox files from backup, rename/copy to the target, and delete the corrupted inbox. The email client should regenerate a missing inbox or other core folder. After startup I should see my new empty inbox and a populated inbox2. At this point, if I wish, I can move my messages from inbox2 to inbox. I sometimes call this my shell game workaround.
Again, I have no idea how prevalent this problem for other Thunderbird users; I religiously update Thunderbird and I don't recall it happening over the last few years until recent months, so it may be a bug, but I've seen it happen a few times a week--not always, but frequently enough to be a nuisance. I sometimes have tried another workaround short of delete/replace. In my case I have multiple configured email accounts; I've found, on at least two occasions, that switching the default email account for Thunderbird and restarting Thunderbird seems to resolve the issue.]
[Update 1/09/16].
I ran into folder pane problem on a recurring basis lately, which may have coincided after a recent Thunderbird update. Many of the tactics I've listed above did not seem to work (i.e., restarting Thunderbird and/or the PC, refreshing the profile folder under user AppData). Based on a tip I read in a Thunderbird forum, I tried running Thunderbird in safe mode (I usually add the client to my taskbar and then click on the icon while holding down the shift key: you should see a popup and I simply proceed without toggling on available options). This seemed to work consistently in restoring the folder pane, but with the addons temporarily disabled; in my case, for example, I have Lightning which is configured with my Google calendar, Nostalgy which I use to file emails not configured with my existing filter rules, and others which prune duplicate emails, strip attachments, and convert eml's to other formats.
Are addons incompatibile with the upgraded client? I tried disabling addons one at a time and restarting in normal mode, but I couldn't identify the rogue addon if any. (I also saw the folder pane appearing with addons available on an inconsistent basis since the patch.)
Finally, I uninstalled Thunderbird (without removing data) and reinstalled the software from the Mozilla website, finding the folder pane as usual appearing with addons intact. I have subsequently bounced the software on multiple occasions without the issue reappearing. I don't have enough information to judge whether somehow the software had been corrupted. If the problem resurfaces again, I'll update the post.
[Update 5/18/16]
After a few months of no issues, it reoccurred in full force again. There had been one or 2 times I launched into a folderless screen in the interim, but an application restart seemed to resolve the issue. Today I made numerous restarts plus a reboot, and the problem persisted. Deleting and refreshing the profile folder from my Google drive backup resolved the issue. So clearly one or more files in the profile folder are getting corrupted.
I ran into a separate performance issue lately which involved painfully slow email composes. I tweaked a few things, like togging off the message preview panel. One thing I noticed is that the application seems to spontaneously toggle preview back on. What I find is to undo that I have to toggle preview back on and then immediately toggle it back off.
There are a few other bugs that test my patience like pop-up error messages (especially on startups) which get in the way of password validation. I also notice that in moving messages from my download to local folders if the mouse floats over one of the other options (like copy to folder...), it seems to get stuck and I have to wait for the option to time out (my description) before I can float over the Move to Inbox option again.
Another tip for Thunderbird users: I use another layer of redundancy, the free-for-personal-use MailStore Home, which can be configured to back up Thunderbird folders. I will usually archive/update my MailStore emails every week or two. It basically appends new emails to folders; it doesn't sync the source/target email folders. So, for example, I might still have copies of emails that were in my local inbox years ago during archiving. Searching is blazing fast; for example, I have a Venezuelan immigrant friend and I was able to pull up emails from him over the last few years in a split second.
* [5/21/16]
I did another Google search; for some reason, I pulled down more usable results than prior Google searches. I ran into the same problem again for the second time in a week, this time a little more problematic. There were multiple tweeks plus a reboot necessary to regain the panes (there must have been some process that the reboot released--beyond the thunderbird executable).
I do have a more nuanced solution based on a couple of troubleshooting posts that suggest looking at a couple of JSON files in the profile folder: foldertree and/or session. One or both sources suggested that deleting or renaming existing files should result in Thunderbird regenerating said files. I think that the foldertree regenerated but same problem. I tried copying over the same two files from my Gdrive copy; it didn't work. I rebooted and this time the folder tree appeared on startup. So I suspect some process must have been hosing things. I'll have to wait and see if the problem recurs to see if the issue can be resolved with a reboot/JSON regeneration fix or whether the archival files do the trick. I would like to see if I can figure out what process is hosing a session fix.
Saturday, September 26, 2015
Dealing With iTunes Playlists
I had a spat I described in one of my blogs with an Apple Support analyst some time back; I remember I had stumbled across some puzzling interface anomaly and pointed out that I've written articles and book chapters on software usability; I wanted her to forward my comments to relevant Apple developers/managers. She responded with a skeptical tone and all the enthusiasm of not-invented-here syndrome that there were Internet pages or forums to post complaints or suggestions.
When I moved to West Virginia from Maryland at the beginning of 2014, I had run into an issue with my second iPod shuffle. WalMart online had indicated that they had new Shuffles for sale at my local Wal-Mart, but I couldn't find them on display; during my hunt I found a different mp3 player with more capacity but a third of the cost. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that unlike the Shuffle, the iTunes software didn't interface with the new player; the practical issue was that while it was fairly easy to refill my Shuffle with updated playlists, sifting through hundreds of music tracks to copy and paste them to the new player was a nontrivial task. But I discovered when I installed the Media Monkey player and read in my Music folder, it had somehow imported my iTunes playlists. I could then select all the songs in the chosen playlist and write them to the mp3 player. (I think I wrote this in one of my my flagship political blog daily (miscellany) posts; I didn't think the workaround was substantive enough to write up in this blog.)
However, I had merely deferred the playlist functionality issue. I did realize that iTunes library file (iTunes Library.itl) was critical because in the past I had to deal with corrupted files in starting up iTunes. But for the most part I had blackboxed the library files--until yesterday, when I had finally caught up on my podcasts and decided to launch one of my playlists--only to discover that the handful of playlists were gone. In essence, I was back to the problem with the mp3 player--I didn't want to sift through hundreds of mp3 tracks to rebuild my playlists. I stumbled across this Apple Support note, which basically tells you to exit iTunes (if necessary), rename/archive the existing itl file and copy/rename the latest time-stamped archive file from the "Previous iTunes Library" folder. To my relief, I was able to find my playlists in that last archive file and didn't have to iterate up the list of archives.
But this wasn't the optimal solution either: I had made a number of changes to my music files, podcasts, etc., since that snapshot library file. The right click menu seemed to be an incoherent blend of structural (edit/delete/clone/burn playlist) and functional (play/shuffle/skip playlist tracks) items. Now from my reference, I wanted to apply my preexisting template/advance organizers, e.g., the file menu, i.e., open/import or save/export playlists. It turns out that there are options to import/export playlists--but you have to navigate through File/Library menu (which I think is unintuitive). The export functionality requires you to first select the target playlist.
So I exported my handful of playlists (with a playlist.txt names), exited iTunes, reverted the library filenames, and brought up iTunes. I then imported the playlists through File/Library; I got warnings about missing music files, which in my case had to do with my Amazon music folders somehow not being registered with iTunes, the simple solution being to add the Amazon folder to the library through the file menu. (Kudos to the wonderful Voidtools' everything freeware utility.)
I've now made a note to synchronize my iTunes itl and playlist export files with my cloud-based storage accounts and my daily backups to external drives.
When I moved to West Virginia from Maryland at the beginning of 2014, I had run into an issue with my second iPod shuffle. WalMart online had indicated that they had new Shuffles for sale at my local Wal-Mart, but I couldn't find them on display; during my hunt I found a different mp3 player with more capacity but a third of the cost. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that unlike the Shuffle, the iTunes software didn't interface with the new player; the practical issue was that while it was fairly easy to refill my Shuffle with updated playlists, sifting through hundreds of music tracks to copy and paste them to the new player was a nontrivial task. But I discovered when I installed the Media Monkey player and read in my Music folder, it had somehow imported my iTunes playlists. I could then select all the songs in the chosen playlist and write them to the mp3 player. (I think I wrote this in one of my my flagship political blog daily (miscellany) posts; I didn't think the workaround was substantive enough to write up in this blog.)
However, I had merely deferred the playlist functionality issue. I did realize that iTunes library file (iTunes Library.itl) was critical because in the past I had to deal with corrupted files in starting up iTunes. But for the most part I had blackboxed the library files--until yesterday, when I had finally caught up on my podcasts and decided to launch one of my playlists--only to discover that the handful of playlists were gone. In essence, I was back to the problem with the mp3 player--I didn't want to sift through hundreds of mp3 tracks to rebuild my playlists. I stumbled across this Apple Support note, which basically tells you to exit iTunes (if necessary), rename/archive the existing itl file and copy/rename the latest time-stamped archive file from the "Previous iTunes Library" folder. To my relief, I was able to find my playlists in that last archive file and didn't have to iterate up the list of archives.
But this wasn't the optimal solution either: I had made a number of changes to my music files, podcasts, etc., since that snapshot library file. The right click menu seemed to be an incoherent blend of structural (edit/delete/clone/burn playlist) and functional (play/shuffle/skip playlist tracks) items. Now from my reference, I wanted to apply my preexisting template/advance organizers, e.g., the file menu, i.e., open/import or save/export playlists. It turns out that there are options to import/export playlists--but you have to navigate through File/Library menu (which I think is unintuitive). The export functionality requires you to first select the target playlist.
So I exported my handful of playlists (with a playlist.txt names), exited iTunes, reverted the library filenames, and brought up iTunes. I then imported the playlists through File/Library; I got warnings about missing music files, which in my case had to do with my Amazon music folders somehow not being registered with iTunes, the simple solution being to add the Amazon folder to the library through the file menu. (Kudos to the wonderful Voidtools' everything freeware utility.)
I've now made a note to synchronize my iTunes itl and playlist export files with my cloud-based storage accounts and my daily backups to external drives.
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Miscellanous Notes on PC Annoyances
[Editor's Note: This is not intended to be a final post; I expect to add to the initial post over time. Last update 10/18/15.]
- Setting the PC time after a system reset [9/23/15]. After I've done a reset, I've found that the time zone and/or time itself is off. This may manifest itself in unusual ways. For example, after a reset on my workhorse notebook PC I checked my online gmail account, the most recent messages showed a timestamp off by hours. I scanned the gmail forums and stumbled across a note to check the properties of the system time display at the right end of the tray. This was not obvious because the time looked fine, but when I checked the properties, I saw it listed PDT vs. the relevant EDT zone setting. And changing the time zone advanced the correct wall time by 3 hours. The solution is to use the Internet Time option to sync the PC (after you've set the correct time zone). The navigation to the desired target Internet Time pane may differ by version of Windows; on my Windows 10 PC I click on date and time settings link under the month view after clicking the time display in the tray. I then click on the "different clock" link on the bottom of the settings page which brings up the target 3-pane display; Internet time is the third/rightmost pane. (There may be alternate easier pathways, but this sequence works for me.) I then click on the Change Settings button. Here's the key point: I think the default setting is time.microsoft.com. For some reason, that setting has never worked for me; there is a menu dropdown, and I typically select time.nist.gov. This has generally resolved my system clock issues.
- Windows Update History in Windows 10. [10/18/15]. Granted, I knew there would be nuances to Windows Update in Windows 10. Probably the biggest from a user's perspective is that it's no longer accessed via Control Panel but as the trailing option (Updates & Security) under Settings, which you can select from the lower left region of the start menu (Window icon at the bottom low corner of your screen). Microsoft has largely automated the update process, but there are ways to manually configure things. Frequently updates require PC reboots to make certain file changes or execute processes, and one way you'll know that Microsoft has updated automatically is that by default, you will get up a reboot scheduling popup. (I have backup PC's, also on Windows 10, so after I update my primary PC, I'll usually manually check for updates on the others after updates have been completed on my primary system.) What bothered me was an inconsistency of how to review applied patches. Under Control Panel Windows Update there was a left menu panel option to review patch history; there is no comparable interface in the Windows 10 version. I eventually discovered that if you click the Advanced Options link at the bottom of the Updates screen (which allows you to reconfigure Update functionality), there is an update history link on the Advanced Options page (in the "Choose How Updates Are Installed" region). (I personally find the placement/grouping somewhat nonintuitive.)
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Microsoft OneNote: A Nice Freeware Tool
There are a couple of free (for personal use) PC tools/apps that I've relied on over the last few years: Local Website Archive, which allowed me to store copies of webpages, and Readability, a utility which declutters a webpage. (I should note that it looks like Aignes recently revised LWA, and I have not test-installed it yet. LWA, like Thunderbird, stores data in the user account AppData folder; a typical restore would be to install the application on the target PC and then (with the application down) restore the relevant backup directory to the target directory. I ran into minor usability issues (e.g., browser/URL integration) beyond the scope of this post and more recently started saving pdf copies of webpages which were more universally viewable and convertible.) Readability gets rid of the distracting ads on a webpage (and you can do a pdf-print of the result, which is convenient, because it embeds the original webpage link). Readability also has a free online account where you can store articles for later viewing and also allows you to email article links to your account.
Microsoft has a free OneNote desktop utility (see onenote.com) with integrated online notebook access that synchronizes nicely with OneDrive and a browser plugin, OneNote Clipper. Now it's beyond the scope of this post to describe all of its functionality, but I simply want to point out one sample application, an integration of what I've been using it for, which combines the functionality. Basically think of a notebook as a collection of categories called sections (Your default notebook could have a single section called QuickNotes; you can easily rename your notebook name and sections and add sections.) I would add a number of webpage categories: e.g., tech tips, health, recipes, politics, news, email (which I'll discuss shortly), and some catchall section, say misc.
Now when I come across something of interest, e.g., I wanted to import my Google calendar data for my thumbdrive portable PIM, a simple Google search yielded a short clippable procedure. I invoke my OneNote Clipper icon to the right of my browser address bar, if necessary, log onto One Note Online, then click on the region select icon, click and drag the mouse over the relevant summary on the Google search page, and then choose to store the clip in the tech tips section of my notebook (via the menu arrow). If for some reason I'm in a hurry and don't have time to create a new section for the clip, I could save it to my misc section and later create the section and drag-and-drop the clip from my misc section to the new section.
There are other options for the Clipper. Suppose that I really liked George Will's current Washington Post column posted online. I can choose the Article option of the Clipper and the result is similar to a Readability declutter of the webpage. I then store it in the politics section of my notebook. (There are subtle differences between OneNote online and the desktop application: the sections are vertically stacked online but horizontally tabbed on the desktop).
Finally, there's a convenient way to send emails to OneNote from your registered email accounts. Say, for example, your travel itinerary was mailed to your primary home email account. You can simply forward your email to your OneNote account, i.e., me@onenote.com. (You first need to confirm your email account and select/activate it online and identify your target section on your OneNote configuration page, a one-time procedure. Repeat the procedure for any additional personal email accounts you wish to integrate with OneNote.) OneNote also allows you to identify a non-default section via your email header, say, for example, if you had a preexisting travel section in your notebook.
Microsoft has a free OneNote desktop utility (see onenote.com) with integrated online notebook access that synchronizes nicely with OneDrive and a browser plugin, OneNote Clipper. Now it's beyond the scope of this post to describe all of its functionality, but I simply want to point out one sample application, an integration of what I've been using it for, which combines the functionality. Basically think of a notebook as a collection of categories called sections (Your default notebook could have a single section called QuickNotes; you can easily rename your notebook name and sections and add sections.) I would add a number of webpage categories: e.g., tech tips, health, recipes, politics, news, email (which I'll discuss shortly), and some catchall section, say misc.
Now when I come across something of interest, e.g., I wanted to import my Google calendar data for my thumbdrive portable PIM, a simple Google search yielded a short clippable procedure. I invoke my OneNote Clipper icon to the right of my browser address bar, if necessary, log onto One Note Online, then click on the region select icon, click and drag the mouse over the relevant summary on the Google search page, and then choose to store the clip in the tech tips section of my notebook (via the menu arrow). If for some reason I'm in a hurry and don't have time to create a new section for the clip, I could save it to my misc section and later create the section and drag-and-drop the clip from my misc section to the new section.
There are other options for the Clipper. Suppose that I really liked George Will's current Washington Post column posted online. I can choose the Article option of the Clipper and the result is similar to a Readability declutter of the webpage. I then store it in the politics section of my notebook. (There are subtle differences between OneNote online and the desktop application: the sections are vertically stacked online but horizontally tabbed on the desktop).
Finally, there's a convenient way to send emails to OneNote from your registered email accounts. Say, for example, your travel itinerary was mailed to your primary home email account. You can simply forward your email to your OneNote account, i.e., me@onenote.com. (You first need to confirm your email account and select/activate it online and identify your target section on your OneNote configuration page, a one-time procedure. Repeat the procedure for any additional personal email accounts you wish to integrate with OneNote.) OneNote also allows you to identify a non-default section via your email header, say, for example, if you had a preexisting travel section in your notebook.
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Goodbye to an Old Favorite: AskSam
I have multiple PC's, but my primary workhorse recently had to be reset, which means going back to the factory settings (more usable in the sense I don't have to find the PC's operating system's CD's or DVD's). This reset required two upgrades and over 200 Microsoft updates--and then there are all the applications one has to reinstall from scratch, retrieve workfiles (e.g., my email folders) from backups, etc.
There are only a few commercial applications I license, including various security, and there are sometimes quirks in how licenses are implemented, because the vendors may sometimes see the owners as showing the license in use (i.e., before the system reset). For example, I had to deal with one tech support analyst who heatedly said I was at fault for not deactivating the license.Of course, I might have done that--if and when I knew the system wasn't going to reboot.
But there is one product I have licensed ever since I was on the UWM faculty several years ago, before Windows 3--a fairly unique program called a freeform database named AskSam. It allows you to create databases in a very flexible manner, with defined fields or blank/freeform text; AskSam also provides a number of templates and enables you to import all sorts of files, e.g., emails, documents, pdf's, html files, etc.
To describe the full functionality is beyond the scope of this post; suffice it to say one has powerful searching and reporting functionality (including mail-merge). My principal use has been for email. The search capability is analogous to Google-like search capabilities. I normally create separate files corresponding to archived email folders. Let me provide a simple example. I have one file for outgoing correspondence. I occasionally ran into issues with Thunderbird import functionality, but my workaround was to use Thunderbird add-on functionality to convert emails into html or txt format. The Thunderbird functionality allowed the use of fields (such as date). The html file imports had to searched like freeform text. So, for instance, if I wanted to look at the emails I sent in April of this year I might enter something like 4/?/2015 or 4/??/2015 in the search field. I need the phone number for my point of contact with an IT staffing firm or the license key for my security software from the vendor file to do a reinstall. With a few keywords, I don't have to scan and reread a number of emails to find the information I want. I periodically update my files as a redundancy check on my email folders.
So I once again had to search for my AskSam software, when it occurred to me that AskSam Systems hadn't sent me a promotional email in a while; I think the last time I contacted them was over a Thunderbird import bug. I had steadily upgraded the software through version 7. I wondered if they had come out with version 8 and tried accessing their website. No splash screen within a reasonable period of time. I then did a Google search, looked at their Facebook page--and it seems as if they just disappeared about 2-3 years back. I found a couple of online forums discussing the issue--unacknowledged emails to tech support, abandoned forms, no responses to phone calls. I haven't found any notice of the company ceasing operations (maybe an artifact of my Google search), but a competing product describes itself as "suitable alternative for the discontinued free-form database tool AskSam.".
I wouldn't say I'm completely surprised because I also used the Google Desktop product before it was discontinued a few years back; they claimed, given the increasing focus on cloud-based services, the project was an effort of diminishing returns and importance.
Of course, I have backups of the software and license code. Here are some products I've installed which provide related functionality:
There are only a few commercial applications I license, including various security, and there are sometimes quirks in how licenses are implemented, because the vendors may sometimes see the owners as showing the license in use (i.e., before the system reset). For example, I had to deal with one tech support analyst who heatedly said I was at fault for not deactivating the license.Of course, I might have done that--if and when I knew the system wasn't going to reboot.
But there is one product I have licensed ever since I was on the UWM faculty several years ago, before Windows 3--a fairly unique program called a freeform database named AskSam. It allows you to create databases in a very flexible manner, with defined fields or blank/freeform text; AskSam also provides a number of templates and enables you to import all sorts of files, e.g., emails, documents, pdf's, html files, etc.
To describe the full functionality is beyond the scope of this post; suffice it to say one has powerful searching and reporting functionality (including mail-merge). My principal use has been for email. The search capability is analogous to Google-like search capabilities. I normally create separate files corresponding to archived email folders. Let me provide a simple example. I have one file for outgoing correspondence. I occasionally ran into issues with Thunderbird import functionality, but my workaround was to use Thunderbird add-on functionality to convert emails into html or txt format. The Thunderbird functionality allowed the use of fields (such as date). The html file imports had to searched like freeform text. So, for instance, if I wanted to look at the emails I sent in April of this year I might enter something like 4/?/2015 or 4/??/2015 in the search field. I need the phone number for my point of contact with an IT staffing firm or the license key for my security software from the vendor file to do a reinstall. With a few keywords, I don't have to scan and reread a number of emails to find the information I want. I periodically update my files as a redundancy check on my email folders.
So I once again had to search for my AskSam software, when it occurred to me that AskSam Systems hadn't sent me a promotional email in a while; I think the last time I contacted them was over a Thunderbird import bug. I had steadily upgraded the software through version 7. I wondered if they had come out with version 8 and tried accessing their website. No splash screen within a reasonable period of time. I then did a Google search, looked at their Facebook page--and it seems as if they just disappeared about 2-3 years back. I found a couple of online forums discussing the issue--unacknowledged emails to tech support, abandoned forms, no responses to phone calls. I haven't found any notice of the company ceasing operations (maybe an artifact of my Google search), but a competing product describes itself as "suitable alternative for the discontinued free-form database tool AskSam.".
I wouldn't say I'm completely surprised because I also used the Google Desktop product before it was discontinued a few years back; they claimed, given the increasing focus on cloud-based services, the project was an effort of diminishing returns and importance.
Of course, I have backups of the software and license code. Here are some products I've installed which provide related functionality:
- everything (voidtools): freeware that searches on filenames
- docfetcher (sourceforge): freeware that works on certain desktop file types similar to AskSam functionality; you don't have to import the files in application files but you may need to manually build/update indexes.
One product, MyInfo, claims to be similar in nature and in fact offers an AskSam import plugin (see above link). Note that I have not licensed and validated the vendor's claims.
Saturday, February 28, 2015
A Mozilla Thunderbird Issue With Saved Passwords
Now I hesitate to publish fixes to technical issues that could well go away with the next patched update or release. But part of the reason I'm doing these posts is to chronicle issues, in part because it's useful in looking at usability issues in the context of user design or even stimulate ideas for new products or utilities. Another useful concept in problem solving is to adapt an old mathematics approach to proving theorems--reduce the problem to an already proven theorem rather than reinvent the wheel from scratch.
Let me illustrate with a simple example . I usually maintain a personal music library with iTunes, and for years I've owned Shuffles; I would typically painstakingly create playlists selected from thousands of licensed songs downloaded to the Shuffles for when I exercise, go shopping, etc. The Shuffle integrates with the iTunes interface (although I've had occasional problems when it didn't seem to recognize that the Shuffle was attached to my PC), and it was relatively simple to fill (and randomize song sequence) from playlists. Playlist functionality has always been lacking in my experience; it's fairly easy to create a playlist (e.g., favorites, Christmas, genre, etc.) and to add individual songs to playlists, but it's a fairly tedious procedure; it would help, for instance, if you could import, export, clone or merge playlists and/or work with user-defined song tags. I think I mentioned in a signature miscellany political blog post there was a problem with my last Shuffle, and for some reason I didn't find where they were being sold at my local Wal-Mart, but I did find an MP3 player with more capacity at about a third of the cost. Of course, my new player didn't interface with iTunes. I could, of course, locate and copy individual song files to the device, but this can be cumbersome without having some playlist script to locate and download to the player. There may be a freeware tool that does what I wanted, but I didn't stumble across one. It also wasn't clear how I could import playlists across alternative music players which could access my new device. And then I discovered one I've used in the past, MediaMonkey, would read in my iTunes playlists when it scanned my music library, and it was fairly easy to select all the songs in a playlist and download them to my device. It would be nice if either the player or the device allowed randomization of selected songs, but the bigger issue was song selection.
There are other usability issue annoyances. For example, on a recent iTunes upgrade, I found that the tutorial kept starting up, even after I completed it. Now granted, all it took was a mouse click to turn it off, but it gets old over time; you should only see it run once and then let you start it up from the menu, which is what I've seen with other software. I've also found that toggling to and from the mini-player (reduced iTunes) doesn't work well as least on my Windows 8.1 machine.
But enough of Apple; I think in part I'm picking on them because they have a public reputation for usability. I recall a while back I was in contact with some Apple employee, and she really wasn't that receptive to my product feedback and suggestions, "not invented here" syndrome. The current issue is somewhat similar to the spawned tutorial issue. I used to use Outlook Express until it was desupported in favor of Windows Mail. I had chronic latency issues with Windows Mail loading my legacy emails (in the thousands). I refuse to pay extra for a Microsoft Outlook upgrade and discovered Mozilla Thunderbird was a suitable replacement; I've been a user of Thunderbird ever since.
The current issue deals with the handling of SMTP (outgoing mail) servers for 2 of 3 external email accounts configured in Thunderbird. When you run the wizards (Tools/Account Settings/Add a New Email), you input your email login and password and may then be presented with a pop/imap choice for incoming emails. Now these accounts/passwords are stored/available through Tools/Options/Security table. You can optionally (recommended) create a master password so unauthorized people can't find the passwords to your email accounts.
Here's the usability context: if your account/password is not stored, you will be prompted for the password depending on whether you are downloading or sending mail. Usually it's a one-time event per session (meaning, say, if you are writing/sending a second email and the SMTP server is in question, it will "remember" the password). If you download/send mail from multiple accounts, you can find yourself being prompted for passwords (beyond the master) every time you bring up Thunderbird. It's not a big deal but annoying especially since that's the reason you have a password repository to begin with. Now in theory you're supposed to get a checkbox allowing you to store the password in the repository, but I've gotten no checkbox, and a relevant tweak of the configuration described on the Mozilla website does not seem to resolve the issue, at least for the current release.
In short, I discovered recently when I dropped and recreated my accounts (e.g., in one case I had configured IMAP vs. POP and IMAP was downloading redundant and/or spam category emails), only one of the email accounts had a saved SMTP account. The wizards did save the IMAP/POP accounts.
A word about the repository: it has more limited functionality, aimed more at removing accounts. One obvious issue is what happens when you change your external email password? In theory, you should be able to edit the password within the repository and/or replace the password if and when you get prompted for the password if your stored password is rejected. (It may well be your best alternative is simply to drop and recreate the account when you change the passord.) But in the current scenario, there is no way to insert, say, a missing SMTP account into the repository, so if any replace/add account functionality fails when you are prompted the first time you send an email through an affected configuration, you're stuck. Never mind the fact the repository already has your account password from your IMAP/POP account anyway (which is a different usability problem: you have separate incoming and outgoing records for the same account/password).
The reality is, even though I don't think you should have separate account password records for incoming/outgoing email services, that determines whether or not you get prompted for retrieving or sending emails, other than invalid passwords in the repository. What I found last night is there is a good developer's add on called "saved password editor" from Daniel Dawson which has the fix I was looking for. It provided a pickbox at the bottom of the saved password repository allowing you to add entries (with other functionality as well). You get a form with a radio selection tab at the top, and I've had success through the annotated option. The format is smtp://[smtp_servername] , e.g., smtp://smtp.googlemail.com; if you don't know your target server name, scan down the bottom of Tools/Account Settings, select Outgoing Server (SMTP); to the right you should see a picklist of SMTP server names and more detailed configuration settings below the highlighted server name. I've entered the same string in the first and third lines (the second line, for a prefix used in the other option,is probably greyed out) and enter the account and password on the following couple of labeled lines. I normally then bring Thunderbird down and then back up--and now I don't get prompted for any of my 3 accounts when I send out emails.
For the benefit of other Thunderbird users, I've found these other add ons useful as well:
Let me illustrate with a simple example . I usually maintain a personal music library with iTunes, and for years I've owned Shuffles; I would typically painstakingly create playlists selected from thousands of licensed songs downloaded to the Shuffles for when I exercise, go shopping, etc. The Shuffle integrates with the iTunes interface (although I've had occasional problems when it didn't seem to recognize that the Shuffle was attached to my PC), and it was relatively simple to fill (and randomize song sequence) from playlists. Playlist functionality has always been lacking in my experience; it's fairly easy to create a playlist (e.g., favorites, Christmas, genre, etc.) and to add individual songs to playlists, but it's a fairly tedious procedure; it would help, for instance, if you could import, export, clone or merge playlists and/or work with user-defined song tags. I think I mentioned in a signature miscellany political blog post there was a problem with my last Shuffle, and for some reason I didn't find where they were being sold at my local Wal-Mart, but I did find an MP3 player with more capacity at about a third of the cost. Of course, my new player didn't interface with iTunes. I could, of course, locate and copy individual song files to the device, but this can be cumbersome without having some playlist script to locate and download to the player. There may be a freeware tool that does what I wanted, but I didn't stumble across one. It also wasn't clear how I could import playlists across alternative music players which could access my new device. And then I discovered one I've used in the past, MediaMonkey, would read in my iTunes playlists when it scanned my music library, and it was fairly easy to select all the songs in a playlist and download them to my device. It would be nice if either the player or the device allowed randomization of selected songs, but the bigger issue was song selection.
There are other usability issue annoyances. For example, on a recent iTunes upgrade, I found that the tutorial kept starting up, even after I completed it. Now granted, all it took was a mouse click to turn it off, but it gets old over time; you should only see it run once and then let you start it up from the menu, which is what I've seen with other software. I've also found that toggling to and from the mini-player (reduced iTunes) doesn't work well as least on my Windows 8.1 machine.
But enough of Apple; I think in part I'm picking on them because they have a public reputation for usability. I recall a while back I was in contact with some Apple employee, and she really wasn't that receptive to my product feedback and suggestions, "not invented here" syndrome. The current issue is somewhat similar to the spawned tutorial issue. I used to use Outlook Express until it was desupported in favor of Windows Mail. I had chronic latency issues with Windows Mail loading my legacy emails (in the thousands). I refuse to pay extra for a Microsoft Outlook upgrade and discovered Mozilla Thunderbird was a suitable replacement; I've been a user of Thunderbird ever since.
The current issue deals with the handling of SMTP (outgoing mail) servers for 2 of 3 external email accounts configured in Thunderbird. When you run the wizards (Tools/Account Settings/Add a New Email), you input your email login and password and may then be presented with a pop/imap choice for incoming emails. Now these accounts/passwords are stored/available through Tools/Options/Security table. You can optionally (recommended) create a master password so unauthorized people can't find the passwords to your email accounts.
Here's the usability context: if your account/password is not stored, you will be prompted for the password depending on whether you are downloading or sending mail. Usually it's a one-time event per session (meaning, say, if you are writing/sending a second email and the SMTP server is in question, it will "remember" the password). If you download/send mail from multiple accounts, you can find yourself being prompted for passwords (beyond the master) every time you bring up Thunderbird. It's not a big deal but annoying especially since that's the reason you have a password repository to begin with. Now in theory you're supposed to get a checkbox allowing you to store the password in the repository, but I've gotten no checkbox, and a relevant tweak of the configuration described on the Mozilla website does not seem to resolve the issue, at least for the current release.
In short, I discovered recently when I dropped and recreated my accounts (e.g., in one case I had configured IMAP vs. POP and IMAP was downloading redundant and/or spam category emails), only one of the email accounts had a saved SMTP account. The wizards did save the IMAP/POP accounts.
A word about the repository: it has more limited functionality, aimed more at removing accounts. One obvious issue is what happens when you change your external email password? In theory, you should be able to edit the password within the repository and/or replace the password if and when you get prompted for the password if your stored password is rejected. (It may well be your best alternative is simply to drop and recreate the account when you change the passord.) But in the current scenario, there is no way to insert, say, a missing SMTP account into the repository, so if any replace/add account functionality fails when you are prompted the first time you send an email through an affected configuration, you're stuck. Never mind the fact the repository already has your account password from your IMAP/POP account anyway (which is a different usability problem: you have separate incoming and outgoing records for the same account/password).
The reality is, even though I don't think you should have separate account password records for incoming/outgoing email services, that determines whether or not you get prompted for retrieving or sending emails, other than invalid passwords in the repository. What I found last night is there is a good developer's add on called "saved password editor" from Daniel Dawson which has the fix I was looking for. It provided a pickbox at the bottom of the saved password repository allowing you to add entries (with other functionality as well). You get a form with a radio selection tab at the top, and I've had success through the annotated option. The format is smtp://[smtp_servername] , e.g., smtp://smtp.googlemail.com; if you don't know your target server name, scan down the bottom of Tools/Account Settings, select Outgoing Server (SMTP); to the right you should see a picklist of SMTP server names and more detailed configuration settings below the highlighted server name. I've entered the same string in the first and third lines (the second line, for a prefix used in the other option,is probably greyed out) and enter the account and password on the following couple of labeled lines. I normally then bring Thunderbird down and then back up--and now I don't get prompted for any of my 3 accounts when I send out emails.
For the benefit of other Thunderbird users, I've found these other add ons useful as well:
- ImportExport Tools
- Lightning
- Nostalgy
- Remove Duplicate Messages
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)