48-Hour Days

I’m a die-hard Thunderbird fan. I have been since something like version 0.5. I love the way it threads messages. It very gracefully handles multiple accounts and subscriptions to mailboxes. It has some pretty flexible configuration options, including the ability to save all sent messages in my Inbox. This means that my e-mail messages are threaded right along with the messages I receive. Total time-saver for me, as I like to archive my responses to important e-mails.

Thunderbird does have its downsides, though. Tagging is an incomplete feature at best. Searching is slow and buggy. Mailboxes sometimes show messages that I have already deleted. And, a big one that has bothered me since the beginning: I can’t use Apple’s Address Book. I miss out on a lot of things because of that. Another biggie: no direct capture to EagleFiler. I have to save the messages and then let EagleFiler import them.

I’ve tried a lot of clients over the years: Mulberry, GyazMail, Entourage, GNUMail.app. They all missed something vital to my workflow and/or were incomplete.

I’ve tried Mail.app many times in the past and the latest version actually seemed like something I could switch to, except for one important thing: I can’t configure it to put my sent mail into my Inbox. Sure, I could bcc myself on everything and then clean out my Sent folder, but that is too much work when I can configure Thunderbird to do what I want. This is a deal-killer for me. I’m so used to Thunderbird it is going to take a lot to make me change.

So, I was pretty psyched when I stumbled across Correo. This is a fledgeling project, but seems to be headed towards exactly what I’ve been looking for: Thunderbird with Address Book support. Awesome! I tried out the latest build (0.3) and it just isn’t usable yet. I can’t find any way to contact the dev, Nick Kreeger, and I’m wondering if AppleScript support will be something else he plans. If so, than this is the holy grail of e-mail clients, for me at least. Go Nick!

A List Apart always has great stuff, but I found this issue’s articles even more relevant to my current projects.

First up, A Preview of HTML gives a great tease about what is coming. I love the idea of actual structural elements for the page itself instead of using divs all the time. I also loved seeing the benefits of both HTML and XHTML and how HTML5 will support both. It echoed some of the thoughts that have been expressed in a recent discussion on the CWSA message board.

The second article, Designing For Flow is about designing complex sites so that they get out of the way and let the user get things done. This is the whole problem with my company’s web site and exactly what I hope to focus on improving. Some really great tips in there and I’m really glad to see someone talking about complexity instead of simplicity. Some sites are necessarily complex and all those articles out there about simplifying your design don’t help me much.

Great stuff. Go read.

I’m finding it nearly impossible to keep track of all of the things I want to read: books, magazines, blog posts, news feeds, articles, etc. I have a readme tag in EagleFiler and del.icio.us. I keep tons of blog posts because they link to an article I want to read or because the post itself is something I want to read, but it is long. I tried a paper file one time, but the kids just ripped it all up and I lost the articles completely. I have a stack of books and another stack of magazines, all to be read.

I’ll tell you what. Nate Klaiber is my hero. He has a family and a busy career, but still finds time to read books. On top of that, he has time to blog about the books he’s read, providing a great review that helps others decide if the book is worth the time or not.

So, how does one keep a good read-me file? I need something that is portable, so I can take my unread articles, etc. with me. I can steal a few minutes while I’m waiting for my son to get released from pre-school or on the drive to Sam’s Club (husband driving, of course). It has to be contained and small enough that I can easily move it out of the kids’ reach. It has to be interesting and efficient enough for me to actually keep it in front of me at all times and use it. I also have to have some way of cross-linking digital files with paper files, since not everything can be digital.

At first, I was thinking something like the Sony Reader or Amazon’s new Kindle would be the answer. They are small, very portable, and can hold vast amounts of reading material. Best of all, they hold digital files, which means I’m not killing trees! However, I’ve read reviews and it seems that getting existing files over to them in a readable format isn’t always easy or possible. I don’t have time to monkey around with exports and settings just to get reading material in one place. Not only that, but these are expensive little gadgets and they would require that I purchase digital versions (where available) of the books that I’ve already bought. Ick.

So, now I’m starting to think about a portfolio or accordion file or something that I can put at least my articles and magazines into, if not books. Something that I can close, so that things don’t fall out and I can carry it around. Maybe I’ll go shopping at Staples. There are a few downsides, though. I can’t put books in there and I’d have to print out the digital media that I want to read. That means wasting paper and coming up with a way to cross-reference the softcopy with the hardcopy. Again, Ick.

I’m sure I’ll be pondering this for a while and trying to come up with something. In the meantime, if there are any suggestions, please leave them in the comments. I’d be ever so grateful.