Thunderbird has always been my favourite email reading program, though lately it seems like every time I upgrade to its new version something bad happens. This time the program would not start anymore. The icon shook for a while, the white light lingered some seconds, and then it faded away. Even if I rebooted my computer it wouldn’t work, neither would if I regenerated the preferences file ~/Library/Preferences/org.mozilla.thunderbird.plist.
This is how I fixed it, in case it is useful to someone else. I’m running MacOS Snow Leopard 10.6.4 on a Macbook Pro:
First I created another profile for Thunderbird. The profile manager is launched by this command [you must type this in your terminal]:
Now starting with the other profile it worked just fine, so I figured it must have been something on my profile that got corrupted in the upgrading process. What I did next was to copy all the files in my old profile folder to the new one. Remember that the profiles are stored in the folder ~/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/ [the ~means the home directory]. In this process I realised what was the problem: the file compreg.dat.
Usually this file regenerates itself with the new configuration, but for some reason this time did not. So all I did to fix the problem was to replace this file for the new one of the new profile. And that was it, it worked again! You can also copy all your folders and files of the old profile to the new one except for this single file. Be aware to make backups of the folders before trying anything, or you will loose all your mail data.
Make stuff accessible! This has become a general dogma in the web. Rightfully so. This is particularly true when working for public institutions, since they are bound by law to be accessible from as long as 2002. And yet, if you do a tour through the websites of councils (Ajuntaments), province administrations (Diputacions), ministries and so on, it will only make you laugh (or cry). It is a law no one knows how to enforce.
Impaired/disabled people, users accessing through different architectures, platforms or reading software, machines trying to classify your webs, spiders, search bots, they are usually denied access to most websites content. I find it to be specially outraging for impaired people, since they are no less citizens nor content consumers than others and yet they’ve got no other alternative of access.
Sadly enough, if you are just a normal content creator and try to understand what the WCAG2 regulations are about, you will probably end up crazy. In my real life, I try to tackle accessibility as a philosophy for doing stuff. Most of the principles are the same my parents told me when I was a kid: Tidy stuff up, be organized, be clear,… If I create some content, I’ll try first to express it clearly and organize it (index, sitemaps, categories, tags, clear titles, beautiful permalinks). When that’s done, I’ll try to give as many ways of access to it as possible (HTML Standards, RSS feed, MP3 reading, etc.). Of course, I’ll take it into account in all details I code, for example if I insert an image I’ll provide it with an alternative description (in case someone can’t see it, or it is not rendered). If I post a link, I’ll provide it with a title (so it displays a tooltip indicator of where I’m taking the user). If I insert a script, I’ll wonder and handle the usage-case in which the user can’t interpret it. All of this should not be considered once I finishing my work, but right away while I’m doing it. As my mother used to tell me, stuff is extremely easy and simple when you address it right away and you make it become a habit, if you leave it for later, it will pile up and be an unbearable burden.
All this thoughts came to me today while I was thinking of the nice and clean design of Marcelino Llano’s website (he is a user experience engineer). Why not all blogs give the possibility to listen to the posts instead of reading them? After all, it takes nothing to read the post after writing it, you do it anyway to check your spelling… I’ll start with my own =)
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I haven’t been particularly active recently, I’m actually preparing myself for the last exams I (might) ever do in my university. Tough stuff! Nonetheless, I’ll be back on (working, learning and posting) next month! In the meantime, I’d like to present the new podcast in which I happen to participate. It is called Semàntic. Unfortunately for the English reader, it’s only in Catalan (my native language) and can be found in http://semantic.cat.
I had the idea of creating this podcast after being repeatedly disappointed by the little choice of podcasting we have in Catalunya. I’m kind of addicted to many American and British podcasts and I always thought I’d like to have some of those in my own language… so what the hell, I talked with some colleagues, Jordi and Masumi, and they (surprisingly) found the idea interesting, so that’s how Semàntic was born, in our uni’s bar. We’ve only recorded 4 episodes but it has already shown some success. People in and out of our university is subscribed and follows our episodes. We got our feet wet quite unprofessionally, but we’re improving over time, and we hope to do a lot more!
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Are you looking for an onlike backup system for your Mac computer? Well, let me give you a piece of advise: do not use Mozy! Yesterday I sent this email to their customer service after fighting for a week with their program and their support FAQ.
Dear Madame/Sir
I subscribed to your service of online backup approximately one week from now and since then I haven’t been able to perform a single backup yet. I have to say that the program you offer for MacOS is one of the worst pieces of software I’ve dealt with recently. It is not usable and it is not smart. It is painfully obtrusive, it slows down my computer, it eats up more than 9Gb of space from my disk leaving my system out of temporal and virtual memory. And it offers almost no options for customization… Instead of dealing with the files to backup in small quantities, and according to the bandwidth and the ability to send them to your servers, it tries to deal with them all from the start, encrypting the full stack and leaving the computer utterly KO.
I’ve used other online backup services before (such as Dropxbox), and they offer software way more efficient and smart for dealing with backups. Coming from EMC I thought Mozy would be trustworthy, it turns out I was wrong. I request the cancellation of my account and the refund of my payment. I hope that at least customer service proves satisfactory.
Yours faithfully,
Bernat Farrero.-
The answer to this was: Go to your panel, complete the questionnaire and cancel your account. No word about the refund. So don’t be misled by their low prices, it will make you waste your time and money.
Update: At the end, two weeks later, I did receive the refund. I lost 1,10€ in the transaction, but I’m satisfied enough =)
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Over the time, the concept of value in our society has evolved in ways none of the pioneers (from Adam Smith / Ricardo to Karl Marx) would have possibly imagined. Conversely to what Marxargued, value keeps no longer proportion with labor [of production]. At the contrary, now value takes the form of all possible shapes but those related to production. Starting with banks who magically create money as loans. We’ve seen how hedge funds and investment groups make money out of lots of NOTHING by just moving virtual debts around (as mortgages). Others make money just by buying and selling huge amounts of currency among different countries. No real economy here, no goods produced, no value added, and yet money seems to appear from the void.
However, money does not appear from the void, there must always be a loosing part. And that’s the point of my article. As the ways of value creation change, society should change with it or at least understand what the change is all about if people do not want to be fooled. The current economic meltdown is nothing but us not understanding the model of value creation. Now as ever, our ignorance is their allowance to do it.
IT is my field, and it is clear to me the role information is taking in value creation. Information is crucial for competition, and I’m not talking about market’s information (that is obvious), but also the information of every step of any firm’s value chain. Take, for instance, logistics. The fact of controlling where your trucks are, how they move, organize the routes, the deliveries through information systems have improved dramatically the business efficiency and reduced final costs (See Virtual Value Chain). To the point that it intrinsically determinates who takes the markets. It’s fun to see how the classic value chain model of a firm is getting covered by so many transversal layers that, at the end, it makes no sense whatsoever. Someone could just think of changing the model, though getting stuff simple and readable has never been the aim of Economics.
Of course, in recent years this revolution of the way firms learned to use information took place, precisely, within the business sector, away from normal people. Business actors learned all ways to gather information of their own processes and activities and obtain value from it. Indeed, it couldn’t take long ’til someone realized this same technique could be applied on people.
Thus were born the “free” services delivered over the Internet. Basically, we’re given a new way to perform our normal activities, all through their services. Google probably deserves the first place in this new ranking of business, fully devoted on gathering huge amounts of personal data, studying and transforming it to valuable information. Facebook is just another simple example (over $10 billion worth of stock value) of a company fully devoted to it. One could think these companies were a bit lost in the beginning, as Twitter has proved over the past years (though listen to Gary Vaynerchuck), they knew all of this data would proof profitable and valuable somehow in the future but didn’t quite know how. Now they surely do.
Marx couldn’t think of this new era of value creation, though his principles remain the same. Some people still take profit of others ignorance and “alienation” to make money out of it. Most people still don’t understand the value of information, and would fill out or answer any survey without knowing how valuable are those minutes to a company. At the same time, people use Internet services happily thinking everything is free and naively give up all their personal data that will be acquired after by all sorts of companies with all possible aims. In other words, privacy is no longer a fundamental personal right, but also a tradeable commodity that people is selling out for FREE.
Information has already become the exchange unit of value nowadays. The specific description of the way we go to the toilet is worth money and if we make it public to one of these companies I promise they’ll find someone interested in buying it. If you are prepared to give out all this information for free, it’s up to you, though just be aware of it, and think businesses are out there to increase their profits, not give stuff for free.
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If you are a nerd, inexhaustible-price-tracker, (too often) fancying some expensive gadget to be bought but being permanently strapped for cash? Well, that’s me. And sometimes I get damned by the false surprises of coming across scams like this (or this, or this). A brand new Nikon d90 for 600€, The worst is my reaction of almost forcing myself to believe that it could be true, who knows, someone could be taking stuff straight from factory and selling it half-priced over the Internet. So I always waste those seconds of my life carefully writing those people with strange names, only to be answered in few minutes by some automaton. This time the name was not strange, it sounded very English:
Hello
Thanks for your interest
We have in stock the brand new Nikon D90
It comes with it complete company accessories along other manuals..
It also comes with 2 years warranty and 1 year return policy
It cost just $700usd including it postage fee
You will transfer the money through MoneyGram
We are company located and registered in England,UK
Send me your shipping address so I can send you the package of the camera to be received in two days.
Regards
Peter Johnson
[This message was sent in Spanish by some automatic translator, here it was re-translated back to English]
Well, I’m conscious enough to not even consider doing a money wire to anyone on the Internet. So I do my best (improvising indeed some scam of my own):
Dear Mr Johnson,
I’d be delighted to trust you and buy your very good offer. In fact, I work in a photographers cluster, and had I any evidence that your deal be fair I’d ask you for 5 (or more) additional units for group mates. However, I hope you will understand that I can’t send my money to some unknown source from London and wait to receive a brand new camera in return. Please, I don’t mean any disrespect, I just would like to be given some reassurance and more information.
One possible way to proceed is to send me first one camera, so I can inspect it and see if everything is allright, and then I send you the money with whatever means of payment you prefer. From then on, I would have earned your trust and I could ask you for more items. Does it sound fair to you?
Thanks,
Bernat.-
After this offer, there’s usually no more automatons. No matter how potentially good customer I could be, this individual vanishes forever. But not this time. This guy whose name we’ll never know (though certainly ain’t Peter Johnson) tried this:
Hello,
Thanks for getting back to me in Englsih
I quite understand your point, it is not an easy thing to transfer 650euro to unknown person in London withou any guarrantee, but it is the same thing here because i am seller who sells online for the past 6 years now.
I am an old man of 61 years and ever since i have retired from my work i decided to invest my money in Electronics business such as camera, phones, laptop, DJ equipment e.t.c and due to this i have heard alot of bad experience with some bad buyer.
As i am talking to you now my paypal account as been deactivated due to an unserious buyer who claim to make the payment through paypal with another person’s stolen paypal account and this has lead to my account deactivated can you imaging?
So, in this case since you decide to buy 5 unit i can allow you to make the payment directly to our bank account and the 5 camera’s will be shipped after the confirmation of your payment but if you decide to buy 1 unit you will make the payment through MoneyGram Money Transfer.
Moreso, i can’t just advice you to transfer the money just like that without any proof of guarrantee of receiveing the package so i will send you my international passport to confirm whom you are dealing with because i can see you a good buyer.
Send me your shipping address so i can package the camera for
shipping.
Await your response
Thanks
I’m flattered this guy took the time to put together this moving little soap opera. Now, seriously, never be duped by one of this scams, even if it’s a charming 61 year old grandpa selling electronics. They are just too obvious! Do a Internet search before. For instance, this site is interesting. Almost always there will be other victims crying around. My experience have taught me that half-priced brand-new stuff just does not exist. Scam, scam, scam! But if you find a real one, please, let me know!
I thought many times how Google could evolve to be a searcher in the real life as well. By approaching the market of personal gadgets, like phones, it was taking giant steps. Now it’s time to get real, have a look at this:
Google Goggles will be available from Android 1.6 on.
Update: As some people who have tried told me, it works pretty good with text and logos, but it is still far to properly recognize objects. However, as most of Google’s, this is a learning technology. If people start using it will fastly improve its recognition capacity. It is curious to note that Google stated this could work as well with people’s faces though their turned it off “for privacy concerns”. It is scaring, specially after the comments of Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt.
This is it. This will be my last try to get serious and maintain a blog… once and for all. As usual, I’m in good spirits and full of hope at the starting point of a blog. I have every honest intention to address a wide variety of subjects here, most frequently technology-related stuff: software, computers, architectures, and so forth. I’ll try to follow step by step Chris Wanstrath valuable advices (or poisoned tips) at his speech on RailsConf 09′.
I must admit I feel ordinary using English as my official blog’s language, specially given the fact that it is by no manner of means my own neither one I grew up using. As most folks in the western world, I’ve been taught to learn it “if I want to be something in life”. Specially if you’re working in a field like mine, Software Engineering, you are told one day after the other to forget about your own cultural community, things are invented in English and everything will be cooler just by naming it in English, it doesn’t matter if you can’t even spell it right. Your own culture and language are useless when it comes to work. Use english! Google stuff up IN ENGLISH (I swear that was the amendment my teacher of PXC gave us last week). As much as I completely disagree with this unfortunately world spread dogma, and keep fighting it in my ordinary life, and keep working and coding everything in CATALAN, my language, I will use my blog to reach other places, if I may. Specially to get to my mates overseas or somewhere around Europe.
All being said, I hope you like the stuff I’ll write from now on
(not that I care much if you don’t… besides, as defunkt rightly said in his conference, no one will read this first post anyway)
"I’m a half-time student in the fifth year of Computer Engineering in the Facultat d’Informàtica de Barcelona (FIB) of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), and part-time developer in Itnig..." (more)
