Spudtater's Journal

I can't remember how long ago it was that some Thunderbird developer thought "wow, tabs! They're great in Firefox, so we absolutely have to implement them in Thunderbird too". Since then I've put up with them in the vain hope that either I'd get used to them, or the developers would change their minds and implement some sort of sane behaviour.

Yesterday I finally lost patience and managed to revert everything manually. This is how I did it:

1. To make email open in a new window instead of a tab, go Options > Advanced > Reading & Display and choose "Open messages in a new message window".
2. To turn off the overzealous search features, go to Options > Advanced > General, and uncheck "Enable Global Search and Indexer".
3. To get rid of the tab bar entirely, go to Options > Advanced > General > Config Editor, promise to be careful, search for the "mail.tabs.autoHide" option, and set it to "true".
4. After that, I chose to remove the reply/forward/etc. options from the bottom panel and put them back into the toolbar at the top, via the "Configure" right-click-menu option... that's more personal preference, though. Tweak away!

And now I have a usable mail program again.

Further to my last post:

Google has introduced an Android scripting environment that lets you code stuff for the Googlephone on the Googlephone. [...] It sits on the Android handset itself, giving coders the power to write and run scripts in Python, Lua, and BeanShell - without help from a PC.

– Google lets you code for Googlephones on Googlephones, The Register, 9th June 2009

Did I mention my next phone was going to be an Android?

Via brucec.

A 1986 promotional video shown to prospective students of the Computer Science department of Edinburgh University. Worth watching for a bit of giggling about old tech.

• "...with gateways to other networks in the UK, Europe and beyond!"
• Computer science seemed to be all about solder in those days. (Could be worse; could be vacuum tubes.)
• I like plotters. Far cooler than printers.
• No disrespect, but is it really wise to be punching a hole in that wire when it's lying on your knee?
• I call it an "ethernet".
• Look at the refresh rate on that screen of text! Stunning.
• EdUni people will notice that the shop in the King's Buildings Centre appears to have not changed its layout in over twenty years — except for a slight downsizing of the shelves of cigarettes!
• This is my "OMG its teh eighties" cardigan...

So I make a purchase today, and it comes to £225; just over my daily withdrawal limit. I decide to try to get it through anyway on the new Chip-and-PIN system.