Three best thunderbird add-ons I use everyday

There are the three add-ons makes my life easy at work.

1) Thunderbird Conversations: Thunderbird Conversations is a Thunderbird extension which, as the name implies, enables a conversation view in your Thunderbird. Notable features include:
- a regular conversation view that fetches messages from all folders, and behaves just like Gmail’s
- integration with Thunderbird Contacts: participants have tooltips in the conversation, and you can view their avatars and profiles from Facebook, Twitter…
- a quick reply feature, with autocomplete, that allows you to reply to a thread in a snap,
- and a few other bonus features.

https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/downloads/latest/54035/addon-54035-latest.xpi?src=search

2) Lightning: Organize your schedule and life's important events in a calendar that's fully integrated with your Thunderbird email. Manage multiple calendars, create your daily to do list, invite friends to events, and subscribe to public calendars.

https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/downloads/latest/2313/platform:5/addon-2313-latest.xpi?src=search

3)QuickFolders:Folder Tabs - cuts through the clutter of the folders sidebar by having your most important folders as tabs. Open folders and sub folders, move/copy mails without scrolling around or searching. Use categories for filtering the faves!

https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/downloads/latest/3254/addon-3254-latest.xpi?src=search

 

Let me know add-ons you like.

Blogger dashboard does not work in Chrome

Not sure if its just me facing the issue. But I have observed that blogger dashboard does not work at all when using chrome. It works very smooth in firefox and other browsers. Strange that google blogger does nont working in google chrome. Hope they fix it soon. Let me know if you see the same issue and found any solution to this strange problem.

JSP formatting in eclipse

I have a few hundred lines of JSP code with java snippets. When I used eclipse to format this code. Its just unreadable and not even able to figure out what is in there in the java snippets. I tried different options like changing the code style formatter, but nothing worked. Then I tried netbeans to auto-format my JSP code and it did much better job compared to eclipse. Hope eclipse will come up with better formatting in the next version. Till then I will keep my netbeans running on my machine when I am doing coding on my eclipse.

Path Manager Makes the Run Dialog and Command Prompt More Useful

Windows: Editing your PATH variable is one of those things that you rarely need to do. However, one of the ways it can be useful is to add more app shortcuts to your run dialog. The PATH variable, in short, is a bucket of locations that the run dialog looks at to find app commands. When you type the name of an app (say "calc") in the run dialog (Win+R), it searches all of the folders included in the PATH variable. Path Manager allows you to add locations to this variable, so you can run more applications with this shortcut. Path Manager can also edit many other system variables. As always, you should be careful playing with system settings unless you know what you're doing. You probably won't need this tool very often, but it's handy to have in your back pocket. Easily Add, Delete & Edit PATH Variable Entries With Path Manager | AddictiveTips

Type History to Review Your Recent Terminal Commands

Sometimes you need to enter a long command again, or find something you typed long in the past. Sure, you can press the up and down arrows to navigate a fair amount of your history but that isn't practical when you have to search for something awhile back. Instead, just type history. When you do, your terminal window will display a list of recent commands. From there you can find the one you're looking for. If you know it was within a certain range, you can specify how far back in your history you want to go (e.g. "history 25").

Original Article: http://lifehacker.com/type-history-to-review-your-recent-terminal-commands-512385895

Must have Firefox tab related add-ons

Make New Firefox Tabs More Useful With These Add-Ons
We all like to customize our things – it’s nice when they feel really ours. This is true for many aspects in life, and naturally, doesn’t skip computers, phones and software. If it’s possible to customize things even a little bit, someone’s going to do it. It doesn’t matter if the default is great – the default is what everyone has. So out go the defaults and in come hundreds of different customizations. Now it’s only a matter of choosing the best, coolest, most useful one. This is not one bit different when it comes to browsers. Back in the days of Netscape 1.0, all browsers looked pretty much the same, but the advent of add-ons brought hundreds of customization options, and these days they look different on every computer. One of the best and most useful ways to customize your browser is through the new tab page. We’ve told you about some great ways to do it with Chrome, but apparently, we’ve turned a blind eye to Firefox. About 4 versions ago, Firefox finally added a default speed dial feature to its new tab page. The speed dial shows 9 of your most visited pages, and while it’s useful, it’s far from perfect. For starters, the thumbnails don’t always load; in addition, you sometimes see duplicate tiles for the same website, which is inconvenient and a waste of space. If you too feel that it’s time for an upgrade,or just want your browser to look different than the rest, read on to find some really great options.
 
New Tab King
 

 
New Tab King is a versatile, multi-featured new tab page that comes with a to-do list, a recently closed tab list and even shortcuts to launch desktop apps. It goes without saying that each element in your new tab page is customizable, collapsible and removable, and the entire left sidebar is collapsible as well, so you only see it when you need to use it. As for the main section of the new tab page, this is a list of your most-used websites, and can be viewed in a list format, as seen above, or a traditional tile format.
 

 
The background image and colors are customizable as well, and you can connect it to an RSS feed, a Picasa community search, your own local images, and more. Bottom line: Has many useful features and works well, but is far from being minimalistic.
FVD Speed Dial

 

 
With a strong focus on the speed dial options, FVD Speed Dial is another solid start page with multiple tile groups you can customize and switch between. Each tile group can also be viewed as a list, and everything from tile size to background and font colors is configurable. By default, FVD Speed Dial comes with 7 speed dial bookmarks (two of them promotional) which you can change and add to. Additionally, you can view your most popular pages and your recently closed tabs in lists or tiles, each with its own custom settings.
 

 
FVS Speed Dial also includes a synchronization feature, so you can access your favorite websites and settings on multiple computers. In order to use this feature, you’ll have to create an account. Bottom line: Slick, fast and useful. With a white background, also quite minimalistic.
Super Start
Super Start
 

 

 
Super Start is a simple, do-it-yourself type of start page, in which nothing comes ready made. Unlike the previous two options I mentioned, opening a new Super Start page for the first time results in a blank page. It’s your job to populate this page with tiles of your favorite websites, including a link, a name, and even an icon – none of these is automatic. The add-on makes it easy to find popular icons online, but if you want to add a more obscure website, you’ll have to find one by yourself. That being said, adding tiles is super easy, and it does feel nice to start from a clean slate. Super Start comes with a built-in notes feature for little to-do lists, a list of recently closed tab page, and four different themes. Bottom line: Perfect for the minimalistic, DIY types. 

Ubantu and Smart phones

slightlyDrunk Blog - Ubuntu finally comes to mobile in 2013 - MouthShut.com
Is there a scope for a new operating system in the mobile platform?

I wonder how many are going to ask that question. I did myself when I heard that canonical was going to launch its so called mobile OS” version of Ubuntu in the upcoming CES to be held from January 8th to 11th. Considering that it is already a huge market and after WP 8 has started showing positive signs of survival, it will get much tougher for a newer player. But anything is possible in this market. The downward spiraling of the once favoured Symbian’ is a proof of that fact. Whether or not this OS succeeds or goes the Web OS way is a matter only time will tell us. But for now we do have a big thing to look forward to for the upcoming CES. But what does it mean to the mobile world. Here’s my take. The countdown for this operating system had begun way back in 2008 when it was first announced. A novelty it was at that time, which I guess was sure to succeed had they released it during that time. Then in 2010 they announced Ubuntu for android, which was supposed to be an image to be run on the Android Operating System. It did not work, or let us just say that it fell flat on its face. Except for some linux geeks no one else took even a notice of it, but canonical promises that it will be totally different this time around and that they have done everything right to make it one of the show stealers of CES 2013. Canonical calls it the first true step in the adoption of Ubuntu on mobile.

• It is highly compatible with the current line of operating systems so the current manufacturers for android devices will not have much to worry about with regards to compatibility.


• It requires the same drivers as those of android only with lesser memory requirements. It wont be using the Java Virtual Machine unlike android do that the OS has complete control over the device.


• The galaxy nexus 4 is the phone on which it is currently being tested and initial results have been well received.


• The use of thumb gestures to ply a huge role in navigation through the system.


• Multitasking would be much more efficient and battery usage is also a notch higher than that if other operating systems currently in the market.


• It is highly secure but will also allow porting of android apps to its platform.


• Canonical says that they have improved the design is also better than most of the operating systems of the current generation.


• The file system structure is much more organized. It will always be connected to the Ubuntu cloud and the storage will be higher than that of current cloud service providers.


• Canonical has roped in multiple partners for equipment manufacturing and the first phone may be an asus device. More on this next big thing by canonical after its release.

Scala Learning–Day 1

- REPL - Read-Evaluate-print loop
- Scala uses interpreter, but internally it uses a compiler to convert you code to byte code and run it on JVM.
-IN scala there are two ways of defining variables using "val" and "var". Val is like defining constant for which you cannot change value once assigned.
- IN scala we are encouraged to use Val unless you are really need to change the contents. Note that you need not specify the type of a value or variable.
- in case you need to specify a type then you use the below given way to do the same
val greeting: String=null
val greeting: Any="hello"
- IN scala, the type of a variable or function is always written after the name of the variable or function.
- Scala line does not to end with semi-colon, its only needed when we have multiple statements in a single line.
 
val xmax,ymax=100
var greeting, message:String=null
- Like Java, Scala got 7 numeric types and one Boolean type(Byte, Char,Short, Int,Long, Float, Double and Boolean). The difference is unlike java these types are Classes, which means there are no primitive data types.
With this you can execute methods on numbers
1.toString() which will written "1"

- Scala uses java.lang.String for defining String but it has StringOps which is more power full with hundreds of options. Similarly Scala got RichInt, RichDouble etc. to provide better options on the types.
- IN scala we use methods, not casts, to convert between numeric types
- The operators like +-*/%&|^>><< are actually methods though they just work the way they work in java or c++.
- IN scala static methods need not be called from a class. Lot of mathematical functions are defined in scala.math and we can import this using
import scala.math._ (_ is the wild char in scala like * in java).
- Scala does not have static methods instead it got "Singleton Objects".
- Scala classes got "companion objects" whose methods, whose methods just act like static methods.
- Scala methods with out arguments does not use parentheses. For example StringOps distinct does not have any arguments which you can use like "Ashok".distinct which will written all the distinct char in the string. One important note here is parameter less method that does not modify the object has no parentheses.
- In scala if we use "Ashok"(2) will written 'h'. It just works like "Ashok".charAt(2) in java. You can think this as an overloaded form of () operator.It is implemented with a method name "apply". In this StringOps its defined as given below
def  apply(n:Int):Char

- Downloaded scala from http://www.scala-lang.org/downloads. As I use windows 7 I downloaded the msi file and installed with out any issues.
- After installation check the path in the system variables for some reason I found that the path is like "C:\Program Files (x86)\scala\\bin", remove the extra '\' then start the command prompt and type "scala" which will you REPL. It running slow compared to python console. May be its because of the JVM.

Configuring eclipse  to program in scala

- Got Eclipse Indigo and extracted the files from ZIP file.
- The went to http://scala-ide.org/download/current.html and found the link to download site for scala IDE for eclipse. http://download.scala-ide.org/releases-29/stable/site
- Started eclipse from Help->New Software and downloaded the plug-in and installed it.

Best note taking software CintaNotes

Not sure if ever had any requirement to take notes when you learn something new or want few words as you think and keep those words in secure place for future reference. I been trying to find a tool for doing the same for a very long time and I tried lot of tools like wikidpad, spring pad, microsoft onenote etc. But I found this simple portable tool called CintaNotes and this exactly what I am searching all these days. Few things I like about this tool

- Very simple to use no nonsense in UI.

- Can save your .db( files you save you notes to) files on dropbox, so that you can access from anywhere.

- Fast as-you-type searching

- Clip text from anywhere. Just select it and press the hotkey!

- Portable.

 

Just try this amazing but simple tool and let me know your comments.

Mac OS X Lion top 10 features

1. Multi-touch gestures — Apps will be controlled by different multi-touch gestures; including three fingered swipe, scroll, pinching and zooming.
2. Full Screen Apps — Much like iOS5, apps will be full screen in OS Lion.
3. Mission Control — Like an expanded expose. All of your open app instances are grouped by app
4. Mac App Store — Mac store is now built in, as well as in-app purchases. The new built in version will also include push notifications for app updates.
5. Launchpad — Make a simple gesture: pinch motion — all your apps fly on screen.
6. Resume — Before you had to quit apps. Now when you launch an app in Lion – it brings you right back to where you were when you quit.
7. Autosave — Lion automatically saves your work in the background without you having to do much.
8. Versions — Automatically save different versions of your document as you’re working.
9. AirDrop — A Dropbox-type feature that allows you to get documents between computers.
10. Mac Mail Version 5 — Including a threading feature called conversations.

Must have add-ons for Thunderbird 5

Well below is the list of add-ons I like to use with thunderbird

1) Thunderbird Conversations: This is a must have add-on. This addon provides a conversation view for Thunderbird, including contacts tooltips, attachment thumbnails, quick (inline) reply, integration with other addons, and much more.

2) QuickFolders: Cut through the clutter of the folders sidebar with your favorite folders as tabs. Open folders and sub folders, move mails without scrolling around or searching.

I am using the above two add-ons and enabled vertical layout and hidden the folder pane. Look at the screenshot below

Future and Android

Just amazing and fearsome to know one platform having controlling everything around you from mobile to your car and house.

This article I am pasting here is by Marko Gargenta on the website http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/07/3-android-predictions-home-clothes-car.html

Prediction 1: Android controls the home

Marko Gargenta: Google painted their vision of Android @ Home at the last Google I/O. I think this has huge potential to make Android the de-facto controller for many other devices, from lights to music players to robots and factory machinery. We are seeing the first stage with numerous home security systems being developed using Android, as well as set-top boxes powered by Android. At the moment, many of these devices simply use Android as a replacement for embedded Linux and they're still just self-contained devices.

In the second stage, manufacturers will start exposing libraries so developers can build custom applications for their devices, effectively turning them into platforms. I predict this will happen later this year as manufacturers realize the power of letting users hack their systems. The latest case study with Microsoft Kinect should help pave the way.

In the third stage, various devices will be able to interact with one another — my phone can detect my TV and my TV can communicate with my stereo. This will take a bit longer to get to as we still don't have common protocols for this type of communication. We also run the risk of companies developing their own proprietary protocols, such as a Samsung TV only talking to a Samsung phone, etc. Compatibility may require Google stepping in and using the Compatibility Test Suite(CTS) as a tool to enforce common protocols.

Prediction 2: Wearable Android

Marko Gargenta: The form factor for Android boards is getting to be very small and the price of the actual chipset is approaching the $100 point for a full-featured device. This allows for development of wearable Android-powered devices. Some of them will be for fashion purposes, such as watches. Others will be for medical and safety applications. I predict that toward the end of this year we're going to start seeing high-end fashion accessories based on Android. We may not be aware they are Android-powered, and we may not be able to develop for them. At the same time, early medical devices will emerge, initially for non-critical applications. These will likely be closed, purpose-built systems with little opportunity for development or extension.

Prediction 3: Android and networked cars

Marko Gargenta: This is the next big frontier for Android to seize. The car industry is now at the point where the mobile phone industry was 5-10 years ago. People are going to want more from their car systems as they realize that things like Google Maps beat any stock navigation system. Consumers will want car-based connectivity to the Internet as well as apps.

The first stage of networked car development will involve using Android to build proprietary systems. This is already underway withcommercial systems being built for cars without users even knowing the systems are based on Android. The second stage will involve connecting the cars to the Internet. This can be done in a couple of ways: cars can have radios with their own connections to the Internet or a driver's mobile phone can be tapped for online access.

Whatever approach we take, 4G and LTE network developments will help the process quite a bit. Once the cars are connected, manufactures will have the opportunity to open up kits for developers to build purpose-built applications for those systems. It is likely that manufacturers may tightly control what apps are allowed into what vehicles by running their own proprietary app stores with strict policies and quality control. This is simply the nature of the auto industry to self-police itself and focus heavily on testing the software. It is not very likely that we'll be able to simply download car apps from a major app market right away.

Google Chrome Book

Well, at last the much awaited and much talked about product is launched by google and ready to be shipped to end users. Looking at the specifications I am impressed with hardware capabilities,boot speed and battery backup(8.5 hours). Also this device provides solid state storage which is much reliable, and also hope Google’s claim about layered security from viruses is true and reliance.

But one think I am not impressed is with the price they(both samsung and acer) are quoting $500, which is very steep and for the same price you can get windows 7 laptop with similar hardware capabilities and disk space. That aside, I still think this new model of the laptop is the future of computation.

Microsoft Windows 8 specifications

Looks Microsoft leaked some confidential documents related to windows 8 design and specification. After seeing these specification if really implemented we will be having completely new experience with the Windows 8. I am just putting some screenshots here and you can get all the details from original post.  Also windows 8 comes with IE 9, though the first beta of IE9 is going to be released in Aug 2010.

Microsoft launches Office 2010

Microsoft launched Office 2010 with lot of new features to get back the users who are now using google docs. Some of the new features are looking good on paper not sure how efficiently they are implemented.
Some of the exciting new features:
- Editing photos in Word
- Using video in PowerPoint
- collaborating on documents and managing e-mail conversations in new ways. Moreover
- users can manipulate documents stored on remote servers from anywhere.
Of all the features the last one looks very good to me. Lets wait and see.

OpenOffice 3.2 is much better

OpenOffice 3.2 is much better than what I had experienced with the earlier versions of this Open Source Office suite. Version 3.2 is much faster and it almost starts up with in 20 seconds just like MS Office 2003. There are lots and lots of features available and even we can lean and create our own extensions just like in good firefix.

If you get a change don't miss to try this. You can download the latest version from their official site.

http://download.services.openoffice.org/files/stable/3.2.0/OOo_3.2.0_Win32Intel_install_wJRE_en-US.exe

What is Blu-Ray Disc?

While current optical disc technologies such as DVD, DVD±R, DVD±RW, and DVD-RAM rely on a red laser to read and write data, the new format uses a blue-violet laser instead, hence the name Blu-ray. Despite the different type of lasers used, Blu-ray products can easily be made backwards compatible with CDs and DVDs through the use of a BD/DVD/CD compatible optical pickup unit. The benefit of using a blue-violet laser (405nm) is that it has a shorter wavelength than a red laser (650nm), which makes it possible to focus the laser spot with even greater precision. This allows data to be packed more tightly and stored in less space, so it's possible to fit more data on the disc even though it's the same size as a CD/DVD. This together with the change of numerical aperture to 0.85 is what enables Blu-ray Discs to hold 25GB/50GB. Recent development by Pioneer has pushed the storage capacity to 500GB on a single disc by using 20 layers.

Blu-ray is currently supported by about 200 of the world's leading consumer electronics, personal computer, recording media, video game and music companies. The format also has support from all Hollywood studios and countless smaller studios as a successor to today's DVD format. Many studios have also announced that they will begin releasing new feature films on Blu-ray Disc day-and-date with DVD, as well as a continuous slate of catalog titles every month. For more information about Blu-ray movies, check out our Blu-ray movies and Blu-ray reviews section which offers information about new and upcoming Blu-ray releases, as well as what movies are currently available in the Blu-ray format.

You can find the blu-ray FAQs in the official site.

Disable Thunderbird 3.0 Global Seach and Indexer if you are already using Google Desktop search

Last week I have installed Thunderbird 3.0 and found that its memory foot print is way high than its previous version. After digging I figured out that the reason for this high memory foot print is because of the new auto indexing and global search features packaged with thunderbird 3.0. I have disabled that option and found that the memory foot print used by Thunderbird 3.0 is same as its previous version.

I suggest you not to use this feature in Thunderbird 3.0 unless you have some other global search options like Google Desktop search. Actually I recommend all to use Google desktop search for any kind of search options on the disk. When you are installing Google desktop search application be careful and do not select any option which may give Google  your  personal information and search details.

How to stop indexer in Thunderbird 3.0

Thunderbird 3.0 comes with a very nice and powerful global search functionality. For this when you fist start the thunderbird 3.0 after installation, it will try to index all the messages in your your inbox and folders, which will kill your machine and stop you from doing anything else on your machine. If you want to stop that and only want to run the indexer only when you are away from machine  then you can disable the indexing task by going to Tools-> Options..->Advanced-> Uncheck the box "Enable Global Search and Indexer", which will stop the indexing and global search functionality. Note that once the complete initial indexing is done, you don't have to disable this option as the thunderbird 3.0 just does the incremental indexing when ever there is a new mail.

Thunderbird 3.0 released

Long wait if over and the new version looks great and works great. Few things I notices after I started working on this

1) The UI and tabbed interface is much better than what I have anticipated.
2) The feature like "Show in conversation" you get as part "other actions" in message body is pretty good and at least very useful form me.
3) Search is pretty good and it has an option to search with in the body of the message, for which now I depend on google desktop search. But the indexing task of existing mails literally killing my laptop as the memory used by Thunderbird reaching 200 MB and there is no option to pause or stop indexing :(
4)  One thing I didn't like at all is there is no lightening add-on available for Thunderbird 3, now I am forced to use the nightly build. I really hate to use these nightly builds. But one good thing is the nightly build UI looks good and some how feel its faster than 0.9 version but takes too much memory, can't blame its after all a development build.
5) Thunderbird 2.0 tags and filters still work in Thunderbird 3.0 and that's a good new for me.
6) When indexing is running Thunderbird  3 is taking around 90 MB of main memory(RAM) which in my opinion is not good and hoping to see some fix in next releases.
7)Delete functionality still needs some improvements as I am still ending up with hung session when ever I try to delete more than 100 mails in single go.