I tried selectively disabling 1 pop account at a time, disabling AV scanning, moving my profile from one disk to another - none of it worked. I also read through a few pages of threads in the official Thunderbird forums too - no issues seem to match mine..

Then I decided to disable all the message filters - wollah! fixed..

So lesson learnt - if Thunderbird is causing you grief for no particular reason - try disable your filters..

I seem to have been able to re-enable them now, and it works ok.. damn random thunderbird issues!

With XP gone in 2009, does this have the potential make 2009 the year of the Linux Desktop - as previously coined for every year since 2001? Let’s hope so

As I do almost every day of the week, today I went on my 10 minute walk to the local Subway store to get a Veggie Delight. The reason I eat Veggie Delights and not some other sandwich, is simply because:

1. it tastes good (with south western dressing of course), and
2. I know whats in it - no processed meat for example (no I’m not vegetarian)

Anyway, at the end of the subway production line - when it came to pay, I was asked to cough up an extra 50c. Before yesterday the price was $3.45 and today it was $3.95 . That’s a 15% increase!

How the hell does this work? Seriously? You can’t say its inflation, transport costs (oil) or wage increases, because they didn’t increase the price of any of the other subway sandwich.

</winge>

• Bill Maher Making New Documentary Movie, “Religulous”
• Best of Bill Maher on Religion
• Obama, McCain, and Religious Idiocy!

Following the outcome of these results, Gravel decided to end his career in Politics (clip from the night). It’s not a surprise at all really, seeing as the guy is 78 years old now, but its a damn shame for America!

The only thing I can say is, who the hec is Bob Barr? I live in a country as far away from America as timbucktwo, and out of all the running Libertarian’s, Mike Gravel is all I can honestly say I have heard of!

The new phone I decided on was the Nokia 6300. It’s by no means an expensive phone - I’m not one to waste money on gadgets I don’t really need.. But this phone had what I wanted (mp3, fm radio, bluetooth, gprs, etc), had a nice design, and was around my budget (~$200). I only spent a few hours browsing around the shops, and on ebay, until I made the decision and ordered a new unlocked version over ebay - which saved me about $50.00 (15%) over buying it in the shop.

Anyway, I’ve never really had much more use for my phone besides calls and sms.. but with this new phone, I’ve discovered a whole heap more.. yes, I’m a noobie ! The point of this post, was simply to share a few links that I found useful, reading a few sites, and talking to some friends:

• The Nokia website has a facility, which can send you a bunch of presettings (via sms) for things like MMS, GPRS, Internet Access and so on. It saves you having to call up Optus to get them to explain how to se these things over the phone. Check the page out here: http://www.nokia.com.au/A4521246
• If you want a really decent web browser for your phone, (the default nokia one sucks), try Opera Mini (its free).
• Check out the gmail and gmaps java applications and the rest of the google mobile applications.
• Symbian is the most common form of mobile OS, and if you want a phone that does most stuff well, try get one that runs the S60 OS, which is what most new Nokia’s run. (Unfortunately, my phone just runs the S40 OS, so it can’t run all those cool apps you get off the torrent networks).

Happy mobile computing!

There were lots of offers by various companies to setup and maintain this sort of thing, but most of them involved a revenue sharing system that had fairly large setup fee’s.

So I investigated the possibility of setting it up ourselves, and last week, things finally went live.

The setup includes:

• 2 * Linksys WRT54GL routers running CoovaAP ($115 each new off Ebay)
• DLink PoE Adaptor ($70 from a local wholesaler)
• 2.4GHz ComTenna ($100 from CityTechnology.com.au)
• 1M of weatherproof Cat5E cable ($20 for 20M from freenet antennas)
• Cat5E extension from reception to 2nd floor (installed by certified Electrian: $550).
• Monthly fee for Worldspot service of about$15.00.

The WRT54GL’s are setup in bridged mode (i.e. the one outside, where most people will get access to, has its cable plugged into a LAN port, and at the other end is plugged into the LAN port of the master WRT54GL (which has access to the Net).

We now have wireless access with a signal strength of between 30-50 dB in each room (60+ rooms over 6 levels). The signal goes out to Malcolmn street too, so you can actually get a signal of about 15db from Parliament House, if you like, yes, I tested this for fun

The property gets 100% of the revenue, and this equipment should last at least a few years.

None of it would have been possible, without the the Linksys WRT54GL Wireless Router and CoovaAP firmware.

This really sucks, because, while this is happening, McCain (Republican Nomination winner) can prepare and focus his efforts on the presidential election in November. And we all know where another republician president will lead the world.. into a war with Iran, into a more unstable US currency and US economy, and eventually the fall of an empire that has and currently keeps the world pretty stable, as its the only super power.

Update 12/03/08: It looks like Obama has actually ended up winning the state of Texas, as he won more Caucus Delegates - full explanation here.

Anyway, last weekend was the Australian 2007 election, which saw Kevin Rudd voted in as the next Prime Minister of Australia.. Already in less then a week Kevin has selected his ministers, visited homeless shelters, investigated wha’ts needed to sign the Kyoto agreement, promised to apologise to indigenous Australians (stolen generation), and more…

A little less serious now.. as some of you would know, I like trance.. specifically, the ASOT radio station by Armin Van Buuren. Anyway, their having their annual poll for the top 5 tracks of the year and so I thought I’d share what I voted for:

• Alex Kinnari - Lifter (Paul Webster Remix)
• Marcel Woods - Lemon Tree
• Perpetuous Dreamer - The Sound Of Goodbye (Nic Chagall’s Drumbeat Re-edit)
• Hybrid - Finished Symphony (Deadmau5 Remix)
• Breakfast - The Horizon

I listen to ASOT just about every week, and pay no attention to the song names.. so selecting this list meant I had to skip through the shows quickly until I recognised one I liked, and then cross reference it with the other songs in the radio playlist… it was a little difficult.. but a bit of fun.. Anyway if you listen and want to vote, visit arminvanbuuren.net. If you don’t listen, and want to, you can download the podcasts (via torrent) from themixingbowl.org - they’re great for all forms of electronic music thats played on radio, etc.

I don’t have much PHP/MySQL/Drupal stuff to talk about, unfortunately.. most of the work I’ve been doing lately is too specific, and hasn’t involved releasing anything.. I did try out the Drupal 6.0 B3 release though, and was pleasantly impressed.. so much AJAX! Can’t wait until its live, and people start porting their modules over.. its going to get interesting I have a few idea’s for a few new modules too.. just got to find the time!

• Wrote a mini sub-module for Epublish sorting options in the Drupal Views Module.
• Finally setup a secure credit card payment system for my business.

On the less work focused front.. after some resistance, I finally created a facebook account (profile here). I’ve actually found it to be a pretty cool web app - heaps of neat AJAX, heaps of social networking features (even an indoors person like myself was able to track down 20+ friends already using it, in a few days) and a development platform - which looks frickin awesome (see these cool apps: IPlayWoW, Movies by Flixster, etc).