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Today I did something that I think I’ve never done — I went through all of my bookmarks. I had a staggering number of them, many of which sat unclicked for years, even after I moved them from Internet Explorer to Firefox. “This is superbly interesting,” you are probably saying. “So how many bookmarks did you have?” Well, I didn’t think to keep track of that, but by my count I now have a slim 274. It really doesn’t seem like that many. Actually, that figure includes RSS feeds that I read, some bookmarks that came by default with old versions of Firefox, and a few duplicates.

I’ve been using Mozilla Thunderbird as my e-mail client for a while, and it seems that in the latest version(s), it automatically flags messages as spam but does not mark them as read, which gets pretty annoying. I don’t get a pop-up notification on my desktop when they arrive, but it’s still annoying to have to mark the Junk folder as read whenever I discover that I’ve gotten some spam. I’ve been looking for a way to make Thunderbird 1.5.0.x mark as read the messages that it flags as spam, and I found it in this blog entry. What you have to do is go to Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> General, click on “Config Editor,” find the preference called “mail.server.default.markAsReadOnSpam,” toggle its value to “true,” and restart Thunderbird. It’s been working for me; now I don’t even have to be aware that I get spam. Plus, I learned that Thunderbird has an equivalent of Firefox’s about:config.

In an attempt to bore you even more, I shall describe another neat Thunderbird trick I’ve learned. There are some people whose e-mails I just don’t want to read, so I’ve set up a filter (Tools -> Message Filters) to flag their messages as “Annoying” and send them to the Trash folder. I also use the Trash folder as a repository for Junk messages that have been in the Junk folder for more than one day (Tools -> Junk Mail Controls). Even when I’m going through the Trash I don’t want to see e-mails that I didn’t want in the first place, which is why I’ve set up a custom view to be used on that folder. On the Search toolbar, next to “View,” I selected “Customize” and created a view that would only show messages not marked as junk and not labeled “Annoying.” Thunderbird will remember what view you use for each folder, and you can switch the view back to “All” at any time. It’s pretty handy.

I didn’t know that July 15 was World Firefox Day. Apparently if you refer Firefox to a friend before September 15, your name and your friend’s name will be in Firefox 2.0 (in the Credits or something, I’d assume). That would be pretty neat, if only because I’d have a chance to tell a friend about Firefox. The only trouble is that I can’t really think of anyone who would make the switch if I told them about it.

You know the whole thing about playing Pink Floyd’s album Dark Side of the Moon along with the film The Wizard of Oz, right? Dark Side of the Rainbow is a handy way to refer to it. Now you can watch the whole thing online (Flash, sound, etc.). Note that the most accepted method of synchronization is to watch the film until the album ends, which explains why the video is only 43 minutes long. Although a lot of it is just people talking inaudibly during trippy guitar solos, there are some cool bits here and there. One thing’s for sure, though: it’s definitely not anything that Pink Floyd planned, and whoever thinks otherwise is a nutter.

One year ago: “On July 13, 2010, I’m drinking my brains out.”
Three years ago: “I mean, come on, who’s going to want to read about a 14-year-old kid?”