I finally moved my old Outlook Express stuff to Thunderbird, and am downloading all emails stored on POP3 server.
But I don't want Thunderbird to download them all at once. I want 20 at a time, so I can see them and delete junk ones and move remaining to their proper folders before downloading more.
I can't find a button to stop downloading. Once I make Thunderbird download emails, it just keeps downloading and the only way I found to stop it is closing it.
Is there a better way?
NOTE: while the specific counts are not possible, you can switch back and forth between offline/not offline, but it's a pain, requires confirm click.
Otherwise:
Download all emails. Use spam emails to train your thunderbird spam filters once all the emails have downloaded. Start at the beginning of the list. It's a one time operation, don't overthink it. As you assign 'junk' status to emails, you can rerun the spam filters on the inbox until it's properly trained, and most of the subsequent emails will get moved to the Junk folder automatically after you've created a decent set of spam samples. If you give the junk filter a few hundred samples it will be pretty accurate. Check junk folder for false positives, mark not junk, repeat until it's good. Much less work than doing it 20 emails at a time.
Thunderbird's builtin spam filters are quite good once properly trained.
When viewing (including preview mode) spam emails, make sure that third party image view is disabled, otherwise you will be validating your email address in the spammer email databases (they use often images or links with unique id's in them that when loaded or clicked simply validate your email address as current). Ideally disable all html viewing and view in text mode only, no html.
As with training your spam filters, the same applies to email rules/filters, which are even easier to create and run.
Create filters that move the emails to the desired folders after you make the folders, and after you create each filter, run the filters on the inbox again.
Because the user is fairly stubborn in this case, here's the basics when interacting with a new piece of software:
Check to see if the desired feature that another similar program has is supported. If it isn't, and you're sure you didn't just miss it, the developers don't care about that feature, or the feature is not technically possible due to how the software is constructed. The users in general also don't care about that feature, otherwise someone would have filed an issue, and others would have piled on over time, until the devs got tired of that issue and made it happen. In this case, we can assume none of that happened.
Check to see if the program supports extensions of some kind. Thunderbird does, so look for an extension that extends the features of the software to do what you want. If nobody wrote this extension, this means that no person capable of programming cares about that feature, in most cases, or, that the software itself doesn't support it internally.
check on a site like here to make sure you didn't miss anything, and that actually that feature does exist somewhere somehow. If your results are negative again, that's about the end of the road in the quest for that personal favorite feature.
Check to see if there is another way that sort of emulates what you want. In this case, for example, you can go offline/online though it takes a few steps each time, and certainly isn't a feature intended to do what the OP asked, but it can be used in this way crudely.
If neither 1 nor 2 show support for the desired feature, decide how important that feature was to you. If it is very important, research the core codebase and see if you can extend it via extension to support the feature, or hire someone to write the extension for you, and maintain it over years, or don't use the software.
Now, if after these checks, you find that not one single person in the world cared enough to add support for the feature, it means there's not a whole lot of demand for it, and certainly no demand from the free software developers who in the case of thunderbird, wrote it, and its extensions, and probably not from the users either, which is a lot of people globally in this case.
Once you determine that there was and is no demand for the feature, move on to something more productive, and stop complaining that the feature that apparently nobody ever was willing to take the time to implement isn't implemented, it means nobody cared enough to do it, that's all. Complaining here about that won't change that fact.
If you have decided to use the new software anyway, then adjust your workflow to the fact that the desired feature is not going to be part of your life anymore. This is also known as being an adult in some societies.
Other similar things that don't support everything that another similar software does:
gimp does not support everything photoshop does
windows does not support everything gnu/linux does
gnu/linux does not support everything that windows does
claws mail does not support everything thunderbird does
thunderbird and outlook express are different pieces of software that are similar in function but internally quite unrelated, they don't even use the same mail storage format, for example.
Mac OSX is different from GNU/Linux, FreeBSD (although internally it's got some similarities), and Windows.
Windows 98 is different from Windows 2000 which is different from Windows XP which is different from Vista which is different from Windows 7 which is different from 8 and 8.1 which is different from Windows 10.
Outlook is different from every email client known to man and woman alike. As is its mail storage format. Be very glad you are not trying to find software that is similar, you'd be out of luck, since nobody else is crazy enough to produce such a mess.
And so on. The software I write does similar things to other software, but is different, quite different, from all of them. This is why people use it and like it. If it were the same, there would be no reason to use it. If someone posts an issue asking for a feature a similar but different piece of software has, I'd think: Ok, is it a good idea? Does it meet a valid need? If so, is it hard? Is it possible at all (the other software may not even be right for example)? Is it possible within my software's framework? Did I receive a patch (always a great way to motive a developer)? If the first condition, it being a good idea, was never met, then you can forget about the rest, they are irrelevant.
I agree this isn't a great stackoverflow question.
I'm def not looking for someone to do this project for me, just bouncing off some ideas with a guru or two.
I have emails going into a global box that is shared by a few employees. I need to find a better way to assign the work out. In the past, it was grab and go. Today, an employee assigns the work out.
I'm trying to find a simple way using maybe Excel or Access, that I could copy/drag the email and it would provide who should work it and how much work they have done by week/month/year.
It's not possible to use an inhouse ticketing system, because it is non employees that send mail to this inbox, so they would not have access to using the in house ticketing system.
Would it be easily possible to design something like this or is this a more daunting task? What software would you recommend or method would you use?
Thanks for your time.
I recommend converting emails to Tickets, using a CRM/ticketing system with such feature. It would save you the hassle of developing and mantaining custom code, for a commom feature needed not only by you, but many other firms:
A quick search for "convert emails to tickets" yielded:
https://wiki.vtiger.com/index.php/Mail_Converter
http://community.geminiplatform.com/blogs/15/how-to-convert-emails-to-tickets-with-gemini
Both vTiger and Gemini are free to use.
I'm trying to plan out an application on the iPhone/Android that could be used to track dates/locations of events and update them as necessarily but I really have no idea what kind of method I should take.
Currently, there's two ideas for methods in my head:
1) Make a mobile webpage/website that could be updated with the necessarily information, then display this particular webpage/website on the App for users to view.
2) Make an app in iOS/Android to do the above without displaying the webpage at all.
The first idea is the easiest for me to grasp, since I roughly know the procedures of setting this method up. Displaying the webpages on a iPhone/Android screen should be relatively easy and this also allows me to only update the webpage with the latest information and all without (hopefully) building some kind of update system for the app itself.
The second idea is probably the better of the two, since I can make use of all the nifty features in the iOS/Android to make some pretty cool (what are the cool things, i don't know yet) things. I'm not exactly experienced in the field of creating apps, and I really have no idea how to start some kind of self-update functionality on an app, seeing all the apps I've done thus far are offline-based apps that does not communicate with anything save for local files. Should I get the App upon startup to download a file (XML or whichever?) to "read" the contents then update as necessarily?
Or should I just go for the first method, since it can be more efficient than the second one?
I'm really lost here, can anyone offer some tips and advice?
I believe that the first approach is a good one but I would suggest the following:
1- Create the website that will do all the business in your mind then
2- Port out the application in an easy way to be a mobile application how? Please have a look into this http://www.appcelerator.com/
3- Another idea that would save you the pain of going into all the above is to create a facebook application, this way you can make use of the facebook infrastructure and you will have the viral effect as I guess thats what you are looking for.
I hope I've introduced a good tips for you.
Just looking for some help/suggestions with this. I require my own server for an upcoming project that will be hosting users websites. I want to build a control panel the user can log into and modify their website which will be stored elsewhere on the server. This all seems easy enough, It's just managing domains and emails that confuse me.
What should I look for to manage domain names and point them to the correct website and also what would be the best way to manage email accounts/set up new ones etc. I want to avoid cPanel/WHM if possible, I'm looking to control most things through the control panel I will be building. So any suggestions on this would be useful as well, as I will be wanting to add email accounts through php (Can be done using a shell I assume?).
I will also be wanting to measure bandwidth used on the websites contained in each users directory, any suggestions on making this possible?
I'm really looking for some suggestions on what software to use to set this up, any advice would be really helpful!
Thanks,
Graeme
It sounds like you've got a lot of creative room. May I suggest a web framework? Django. With it you can build out a nice control panel, it's template system is clean and concise. It's also based on Python and thats why I suggest it. If there is a python module for it, you can use it in Django... so things like altering, creating, etc. local data/files is a breeze. you simply us Python (you can even forget it's "django"), crunch your data and then spit it out (into django... out to templates.. to display to the user).
You'll likely want AJAXY biznazz, their is a nice Django App for that, Dajax. Django has a rich and helpful community and tons of resources. Just hop on GitHub.com and search for Django, You'll find tons of stuff.
Im building a DNS Control Panel with it. Which sounds like a minimal version of what you're doing.
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I'm currently trying to build a personal website to create a presence on the web for myself. My plan is to include content such as my resume, any projects that I have done on my own and links to open source projects that I have contributed to, and so on. However, I'm not sure which approach would be better from a perspective of "advertising" myself, since that what this site does, especially since I am a software developer.
Should I use an out-of-the-box system and extend it as needed, with available modules and custom modules where needed or should I custom build a site and all of its features as I need them? Does a custom site look better in the eyes of a potential employer who might visit my site?
I've toyed with this idea in the past but I don't think it's really a good idea for a number of reasons. Firstly, there are a number of places that can take care of most of this without you needing to do the work or maintenance. Just signing up for a linkedIn account for example will allow you to get most of your needs catered for in this regard. You can create your resume there and bio information etc and make it publicly viewable. The other issue with your "own site" is that if you don't update it often, the information gets stale, and worse yet, people have no reason to go back because "nothing has changed" - and that's not much of an advert for you is it?
Now that I've said all that, I'll make another recommendation. Why not start a blog instead?! If you've got decent experience, why not share that. I'd be willing to bet that this will be the best advert for your skills because:
It's always updated (if you post often)
It's not like you're looking for work doing it - but your (future) employer, or their developers will check it out anyway to get a better insight into your character.
Putting something on your resume doesn't mean you can do it. I'm not saying that you'd lie about your skills :-), but there's no argument about your ability when you're writing articles about the stuff, getting comments and feedback, and better yet, learning EVEN MORE about your passions.
Best of all - you can run your blog from your chosen domain and also point to your resume that is stored in linkedIn. Just an idea...
That's my two pennys worth on that - hope it helps you come to a decision!
If you are a web-specific developer I would go with a custom site, but if you focus more on desktop applications or backend technologies, I think an out of the box system would be fine.
A nice looking, default, off the shelf, complete website could be more impressive than a poorly done, broken, tacked together, incomplete website. Perhaps start with something "off the shelf" but nice looking, keep it simple, professional, and then eventually add more custom functionality, style and content. Potential employers may like to see that you are capable of reusing tried and trued solutions instead of trying to create everything from scratch without a good reason. Or you could spend time combining great components into something even better than the sum of the parts, as Jeff Atwood talks about extensively in the Stack Overflow podcasts. Stack Overflow is a good example of writing lots of custom code, but combining that with some of the best Web 2.0 technologies/widgets/etc. into something coherent, instead of trying to prove that they could implement x/y/z from scratch.
(On the other hand, it's really fun to build your own login system, blog, or photo gallery. If you really enjoy it and you want to learn a lot or create something new and different, then go for it!)
Here's what I did (or am currently doing). First, use an out of the box solution to begin with. In my case, I used BlogEngine.NET, which was open source and easy to set up. This allows me to put content on my site as fast as possible. Now, I can continue to use BlogEngine.NET, and skin my site to give it more personality or I can start rolling out my own solution. However, I haven't found a requirement yet that would give me a reason to waste time building my own solution. Odds are you probably won't either.
I don't think it matters if your site is blatantly using a framework or other "generic" solution. The real question is "is it done well, with taste?" If you are using an out of the box solution, you should take the time and pay attention to details when customizing it as if you were creating it from scratch.
Alternatively, if you're looking for a great learning experience and something to spend a lot of your free time on -- write it yourself. But know that you are re-inventing the wheel, and embrace it.
edit
A recent post from 37Signals, Gearheads don't get it, really sums up a good point about not focusing on the technical details, but "content and community".
Reinventing the wheel is not such a great idea when you are building a personal site. Building your own CMS is fun, and to some degree is something to brag about, but not so much features you won't have the time to build and all the security holes that you won't have the time to fix.
It's much better to pick a good, well-established engine, build a custom theme, and contribute a module or two to it: you'll be writing code that you can show off as a code sample and at the same time creating something useful.
Knowing your way around an open source CMS is a good skill in just about any job: when your boss says - hey, we need a three pager site for client/product/person X in 10 hours, you can say - no problem.
For a simpler portfolio site, Wordpress might meet your needs.
You can set up 'static' Wordpress pages for contact information, various portfolios, a resume, etc. This would also give you a blog if you want to do this.
Wordpress does give you the flexibility to "hide" the blogging part of it and use it basically as a simpler CMS. For example, your root URL of example.com could point to a WP static page, while example.com/blog would be the actual blog pages.
If you self-host Wordpress on your own domain (which I really would recommend instead of going through wordpress.com), it should be trivial to set up a few subdomains for extra content. For example, downloads.example.com could host the actual downloads for projects you've developed linked from the Wordpress portfolio pages. Similarly, if you're doing a lot of web work, a subdomain like lab.example.com or samples.example.com could then host various static (or dynamic) pages where you show off sandboxed pages that are not under the control of Wordpress.
Keep in mind though that you'll want to make your page look good. A sloppy looking site can scare away potential clients, even if you are not looking to do any web work for them.
Putting your resume up online somewhere helps, I get a lot of recruitment emails from people who happened on my resume via googling. However I agree with ColinYounger in that you'll probably get more bang for your buck from LinkedIn.
My advice is this - if you want to take the time out to LEARN a CMS or something, to better yourself, then why not make your first project in one be your homepage?
Maybe enlighten us as to the "features" you want to have on a personal homepage? Outside of a link to an HTML resume and perhaps some links to things you like, not sure exactly what the features of a homepage would be...
It really depends on:
a) what services you provide
b) what your skill level is when it comes to web design/development
If you are primarily a web applications developer then running an off the shelf product or using blatantly using DreamWeaver to develop it may not be so smart -- or maybe your clients aren't adept enough to notice?
Likewise if you're primarily a web designer then it is probably a good idea to design your own website.
Just as a side question and following up on my 'ego trip' comment: why would you take anything on the web to be 'true'? IME printed submissions, while not necessarily accurate, tend to be slightly less, erm... exaggerated than web submissions.
Do those responding\viewing ever hire? I wouldn't google for a candidate. I might ego surf for a respondent, but would ignore CVs.
Rounding back to the OP, I would suggest that you need to SHOW what you're good at - participate in Open Source projects and POST on their forums, link to projects you can post details of and generally try to show what a Good Employee you could be. Just telling me that you're good at [insert latest trend here] means diddly.
I have come to see that the best way to advertise yourself is to put quality content out there. If you write about the technology that you have experience in, maybe create a few tutorials, and if you do all that often enough, that shows some authority in your chosen field of work.
This alone is one of the best advertisements. However, you also want to show passion. And online, that can be shown through how meticulously your site is done (it doesn't have to be a super great UI or something), but it should be neat, clean, and professional. It doesn't matter if its out of the box, or custom designed.
Either way, you will have to work hard to make it look good.