Wordpress 2.1 is out. I was able to upgrade using the recommended procedure and had only one issue relating to link categories, which are now in the same database table as post categories. It would be better if I did not have to code the SQL by hand, and there is probably an API function for the query I want. WorksForNow™.

I use the excellent IM client Adium to connect to Google Talk, AIM and MSN. Today Adium ran into issues while connecting to Google Talk and MSN from the JHU network, probably because it was trying to use the default port 5222, which is blocked by the Hopkins firewall. After changing the options to those below, I was able to connect just fine.

Google Talk (from this Adium bug tracker entry):

• Change port to 443
• Enable "Allow plaintext authentication" and "Force old-style SSL"

MSN:

• Enable "Connect via HTTP"

I thought I received e-mail today from a Nobel Prize winner today — Bishop Desmond Tutu himself.

My Dear Beloved,

I'm Mr. Desmond Tutu, it's my delight to email you this business deal. I'm the west african regional freight officer with a belgium shipping company having a new branch office in Accra Ghana.

On the 30th of November 2006,our office here in Accra Ghana despatched 14consignments into USA but only 11 was successfully delivered while others were kept in the U.S storage vault impending the rightful claims through my good office as the sole signatory to this very consignments.

My dear friend, one of the unclaimed consignments belonging to Mr.George Koshy contains cash of $14.7million USD, the cash is unknown to the U.S authority because the silver metallic trunk boxes where neatly package here in Ghana under my supervision before there despatch. This consignments has been lying there for five weeks now, please can you assist to receive the consignment if am able to change the ownership manifest record keeping from George Koshy to your detailed information?

I'm also willing to pathway with 50% of the total sum as my percentage once you're ready to corperate with me in order to inherit the african valuable treasures and liquid cash of $14.7m.if my situation interest you, please reply by email for processing the claims in your favour.

Yours truly,M
Mr. Desmond Tutu.

We have really reached a low point when Nigerian scammers are using a Nobel Peace Prize awardee's name as their alias. What does Bishop Tutu have to do, register a trademark?

Libraries have always been a little intimidating to me. The endless rows of bookshelves packed with scholarly tomes serve only to remind me of the vastness of that which is unknown to me. Even if I spent every minute of every hour reading, I could only hope to scratch the surface, and since the human brain is by no means a bottomless vessel, retention would soon become an issue.

Still, I gathered up my courage to visit the Eisenhower Library at JHU today, so I could have a quiet place to study. After figuring out how to connect to the wifi network, I found there were plenty of vacant study tables, probably due to most people being away for intersession. As I did not want to be on the main floor with all its distractions, I figured I would find a place on one of the higher floors, preferably by a window. Alas, Eisenhower has no higher floors! So I am now two floors underground, surrounded by unoccupied carrels and imposing bookshelves. Nothing like loneliness to complete the feeling of inadequacy. Guess I have no choice but to actually do some work. Weird — my mission in coming to the library was successful!

Milton S. Eisenhower Library, JHU

Since getting my Macbook, I have switched to using POP3 instead of the GMail web interface for my e-mail. I like the fact that I have all my e-mail on my laptop with me wherever I go. I still use GMail hosting for its excellent spam filters and save a copy of all e-mail there as a backup. Of course, not using a web interface for my e-mail meant that that I needed an e-mail application on my laptop, and thus began the search.

Why not Apple Mail?

When I first got my Macbook, I started using Apple Mail. There were a few things that I did not like:

• Mail does not perform well once there are a few hundred emails in a folder.
• I had some problems getting signatures to associate correctly with accounts.
• It stores email in a proprietary emlx format, which then requires a special converter to export your email.

Why not Thunderbird?

On my previous systems (either Windows or Linux), I always used Mozilla Thunderbird. It is open-source and very well supported, and one cannot really argue about its price. Furthermore, it is really easy to get data in and out of Thunderbird. Unfortunately, Thunderbird on the Mac behaves much like ... Thunderbird on Windows. In order to be truly cross-platform, it does not use basic OS X facilities like Spotlight and Address Book. This failure to use OS-native facilities also applies to Mozilla Firefox, but I still use Firefox for its excellent collection of extensions.

Why Entourage?

For a little over a month, I have been using Microsoft Entourage as my primary e-mail application. For those of you who have never used a Mac, Entourage is the Microsoft Office for Mac equivalent of Outlook. As far as I know, Entourage uses a completely separate codebase, and there are certainly feature disparities between it and Outlook.

The best part of Entourage is that it is a true Macintosh application. It inserts entries into the Spotlight database, making finding emails very easy. You can also use Applescript to automate frequently used tasks, and very easily bind them to a keyboard shortcut (more on that in a second). You can set it up to sync with iCal and/or Address Book, which is useful if you use iSync.

Entourage is not perfect by any means. It is a behemoth of an application and it stores data in a proprietary database format, much like Outlook. What is different is the ease with which you can import and export data. Want to export a folder of e-mails as an mbox file? Just drag and drop the folder to a Finder window. Want to do the reverse? Drag and drop works for that too!

Entourage is still not a Universal Binary, but that should be fixed later this year in the new version of Microsoft Office. For now, it runs fine through Rosetta, and is generally more responsive than its Office brethren Word and Excel. Perhaps that is what not being encumbered by a legacy codebase does for you.

A new filing system

Thanks to Spotlight's excellent search capabilities and Entourage's Applescript integration, I have done away with the complex hierarchy of folders I was using to save my e-mail. Inspired by Sharon Sarmiento's 7 Ways to Tame Your Inbox, I now have just three: Inbox, Sent and Archive. All new e-mail arrives in the Inbox and either gets deleted, move immediately to the Archive folder, or gets moved after I have performed some action on it. So, my Inbox generally has all new e-mail plus old messages that I need to act on. All other e-mail that I want to retain is in the Archive folder. I also have an Applescript set up to use Ctrl-A to move messages to the Archive folder (for you Windows folks, Apple-A is what does Select All on a Mac). This minimalist approach saves me time both while filing away e-mails and while searching for them, since I no longer have to decide where something goes and then remember what decisions I made in the past.