permalink.gif 2003-11-10

permalink.gif Talking of Thunderbird issues

Mon Nov 10 13:50:17 GMT 2003  Permalink 

A couple of Thunderbird gripes (I should probably start a page for all this sort of stuff):
  • One of my mailboxes doesn't seem to be collecting automatically even though it is configured that way
  • I have had a case where the UI appeared to stall collecting mail. Turned out it was fine once I clicked on a mailbox but it looked frozen (hourglass cursor and all)
  • Collapsed threads aren't marked unread if the top-level item is read
  • I can't seem to delete a thread in one go
Now all of these are pretty minor, especially when you consider that this is still an early beta. I'm very impressed with the Thunderbird experience so far.
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permalink.gif It's not just about email

Mon Nov 10 11:39:58 GMT 2003  Permalink 

One thing about ditching Outlook will be that I will be giving up my main calendaring application.  It's not necessarily that I think Outlook is good at this (it might be, i'm not sophisticated enough to judge) but I do use it.  I could switch to iCal on the Mac but for me the PIM argument is won,  I want events in there with my messages where I can see them (it also means it's likely I'll have the client open a lot).

Thunderbird isn't doing events and I doubt TheBat or Bloomba are either.  Chandler isn't a product yet although CleverCactus sounds like it's getting close.  I'd really like something with a little beyond a standard PIM though, something that helps me keep track of what I should be doing by making suggestions to me about my actions & behaviour.  I guess Act! may do this but I think i'd need a training course.

permalink.gif Learning templates for organising content

Mon Nov 10 11:14:26 GMT 2003  Permalink 

I've just come across Denham Grey's Information Gathering Template post.  I'm not sure how I missed it before, I'm subscribed to Denham's feed.  Anyhow it's really interesting.

What he's done is to publish his informal framework for categorizing information when doing research.  It goes like this:
  • People
  • Places
  • Problems
  • Promises
  • Principles
  • Patterns
  • Products
Please read Denham's post for his excellent notes on each category.  Obviously this is very similar to the approach we have taken with K-Collector.
  • Who
  • Where
  • What
  • When
to which I think it might make sense to add 'Why'.  In this case our framework is simpler, conflating: problems, promises, principles, patterns, and, products into what.

Although W4 is less expressive than Denham's template we think making it simpler keeps it suitable for general use (Denham is a consultant and far more experienced than most people.)

 However if we can find a way to layer additional levels of meaning without giving up that simplicity I think we will do it.  It makes sense to enable users who can benefit from that extra expressability and for all users to benefit from the new relations we can build among topics.  Since K-Collector's architecture allows us to do this it's just a matter of working out the best way and Paolo and I have been talking about this recently.  We'll also be sounding out beta testers and customers to see what they think.

I'm keen to hear from anyone about their frameworks for collecting & organising content.  I do think we have many lessons to learn and want K-Collector to reflect that learning as much as possible.
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permalink.gif More on email clients

Mon Nov 10 10:42:48 GMT 2003  Permalink 

Some observations about Mozilla Thunderbird as a mail client.

First of all, it's very good.  By which I mean it seems quite polished, the interface is neat and responsive (take note Outlook) and best of all it's multi-threaded.  Why Microsoft cannot cope with the idea that I might want to do other things whilst it churns through mailboxes downloading spam is a mystery best known to themselves.

The filters are very good and seem to work reliably (again not something I associate with Outlook).  One thing I particularly like is that you can actually specify which header you're filtering on.  I've come across one glitch (in bugzilla) where it treats Sender as From: hopefully that will be fixed in a later build but it's nothing that can't be worked around so far.

Another thing I like is that you can define filters to apply instantaenously in your inbox.  So I can create a filter for Paolo's messages and just apply that.  It's much more convenient than searching given that I look through his messages a lot.

One thing which is not an improvement from my perspective is the separation of mailboxes.  I mean, I can see why some people might want to work that way & keep everything separate.  I'd rather just chuck everything into one mailbox and start from there.  But, whilst I could filter all messages into a local folder I can't run further filters from there.  I guess it's not a problem, but it's not comfortable for me.  We'll see how that goes.

Unanswered questions are still:
  • How good is the junk filtering, i'm not convinced it's as good as SpamNet but I have no idea how long you need to train it and it gives me no feedback
  • Will I be hurt by the lack of integration with my anti-virus software & is there a way to fix that?
My box summary so far is that I see a lot to like and I would be happy to advise anyone not totally happy with Outlook to give Thunderbird a try.  My thanks to Jon for the initial suggestion to me.

I'm going to stick with Thunderbird for a few more days, then try TheBat and Bloomba.
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