Postbox (http://www.postbox-inc.com) is a new email client that is still in beta testing. I’ve been beta testing with them for a month or 2 (or 3?) now and, generally, like the email client and the company. They have been responsive to ideas (for the most part), and have some good ideas built into the client. Topics, the Inspector, etc … Plus its cross platform (Mac and Windows) which and the are working on some platform specific features (quicklook, spotlight, etc …). It still doesn’t “feel” completely like a MacOS X Application, but its getting better.

The project is built on Thunderbirds codebase so, like in thunderbird and firefox, there are a ton of hidden preferences. I’ve started compiling a list of the ones that I am using:

http://www.the-forgotten.org/tech/postbox-config-options/

For those that follow my website and use it for information (pics, videos, etc …), apparently more people than I thought visit here, I have several websites … and each has different information. I’ve listed all the interesting ones below … I hope this helps reduce the confusion, I got a lot of questions about things were over christmas. If you can’t find something shoot me an email.

The-Forgotten.Org — This website … This is mainly where I post Aviation and Tech related things under those pages. I also make extensive use of my Links pages as my personal bookmarking site. I don’t really post “Blog Posts” here all that much anymore.

Katherine & Mike — http://www.kathnmike.us … This is Katherine and I’s website. We don’t post frequently, but we provide updates as we have time. Our ‘official wedding webpage’ is also on that website. This is where we both post our Blog posts now …

Photo’s and Pictures — Both Katherine and I use SmugMug for our photos. The links to both Katherine’s Photos and My Photos are on kathnmike.us. Orginizing the photos is a never ending battle, but we pretty much have it under control.

Mike’s Videos — My videos can be found on YouTube, and are also linked from this site AND kathnmike.us. Now that I have a video camera more videos will be going up there … I’ve got a couple on the camera that need to go up but haven’t had a chance to play with them yet .

I’ve never been completely happy with Flickr. I started using it several years ago because I got tired of maintaining Gallery on my servers when services such as flickr and smugmug existed. I originally chose flickr because it was free, but after i started scanning my family pictures I hit the upload limit fast and bought the pro account. Setup my sets and left it at that for a couple of years.

When I started dating Katherine and showing her some pictures she commented on how awful Flickrs navigation is. Flickr’s strength is when you are using its tagging features and searching for lots of pictures … especially if you want pictures from multiple people. I always browsed my pictures in iPhoto on my local machine, not on flickr. I used flickr to link to pictures and let other people browse them. But for people that are not used to tagging and searching tags, using Flickr really IS very cumbersome.

I recently became re-aware of SmugMug from Lifehacker. A friend of mine used it years ago, but i dismissed it because I was running Gallery on my servers. Then i ignored it because I was already using the free flickr and decided to just stick with it. Having some time to kill this week, i decided to give smugmug another serious look and signed up for their 14 day free trial and used Smugglr to automagically migrate my flickr data over to SmugMug. The import worked well, only 4 images failed to import properly. My only complaint about Smugglr is that it didn’t tell me which images didn’t import, so i need to figure that out by hand.

All in all I’m happy with SmugMug, and paid for the year subscription (50% off with the coupon code “flickr”). It allows much more customization and organization options than Flickr does: Categories, Sub Categories, Themes (global and individual galleries), etc …. I feel like I am in control of my pictures again instead of just having a stream of all my images and some “sets” which always felt like a hack to me. If i know what i’m looking for search the tags in flickr worked well, but sometimes you just want to browse your images. SmugMug excels at just browsing things, if you spend the time to setup categories and sub categories and organizing your galleries.

Here is my new Photo website, enjoy:

http://mbond.smugmug.com

I updated the navigation in the left hand bar as well. I won’t be getting rid of my flickr account but it does expire in January and I won’t be renewing the pro account. Pretty sure that means things will disappear after that.

Scheduled 10 hours in a Citabria with a CFI in August. FINALLY going to have a chance to get my tail dragger endorsement .

Hoping that I have enough time left after doing the tail dragger stuff to do some spins. That would be most excellent.

Who’s the idiot that decided to disable php.ini’s SMTP variable on linux and assume that everyone can use sendmail off the local box? Apparently, its a windows only setting. So its not that PHP can’t support using an SMTP server, its that they specifically disable that feature on linux. Brilliant.

Enter smtp_mail.php a php class that works similar to mail() but honors what you have set in php.ini. Not a perfect solution, but better than nothing.

We just launched the redesigned website at WVU Libraries, check it out: http://www.libraries.wvu.edu

That site has taken a significant portion of my time for the past 3 or 4 months, looking forward to starting something new next week.

Back in October there was a slight problem with my shower. It developed a crack in the bottom that was shaped strikingly like my heel. That weekend I tore the shower and carpet out of my bathroom and installed a new shower. The shower, it turned out, was the easy part. Getting a new floor and shower doors proved to be the more difficult aspects of it all.

6 weeks later, my shower doors FINALLY arrive. I installed them Friday night (12/7/2007) and today took my first shower in my brand new shower stall.

Flickr Photo Set of the progress from start to finish

3.4 more to go to reach the 100 hour mark.

At 8am on July 25th, 2007 I arrived at the Morgantown airport. Preflighted the plane and flew down to Elkins airport.

10am, I had my oral exam. The examiner told me he would meet me out at the plane. I passed the oral.

11am, we were in the air. My practical test was going well so far.

11:50am, I walked back into the terminal. Fast test. Very fast. I was worried.

by 12:00 noon I had my temporary pilot certificate in my hand, and a huge smile on my face.

Been waiting to hold one of those in my hand for very nearly all my life. Gonna fly around for a couple months, practicing everything i’ve learned and making it perfect. Then I’ll begin my instrument training sometime this winter.

If you are in or around the Morgantown, WV area and have a plane or are looking for a co-owner in a plane contact me. I’m very interested in working with someone to fly their plane or own so that i can stop renting planes from flight schools.

Concerning Karate …

I’m testing for my brown belt this coming Saturday (April 14th). I’m in the best physical shape that I have been for years. I’m almost 20 pounds lighter than I was 3 months ago, my endurance/stamina is where it was when I was in high school. I have no doubt in my mind that I will still be standing at the end of the test (not something I can claim at the end of my green belt test).

That isn’t to say I’m not worried about the test. It’s one thing to make it through the ordeal, its another to pass it. I know all the material; drills, katas, judo, akido, etc …. I know I know it, but I’m not convinced my technique is good enough to earn a brown belt. I know there is a lot of room for improvement still, and this is blatantly obvious every time I watch the person leading class how much more I can improve.

To say I’m nervous about the test would be an understatement of epic proportions.

Concerning AOLIM …

I was creating new AOL Instant Messenger accounts for librarians yesterday (something I’ve been doing almost weekly for a while now) and noticed that you can now use your existing email address as a AOLIM user name. This is something i’ve been after for a very long time, and was my biggest reason for not using AIM.

I still prefer googletalk over AOLIM, but you can now get a hold of me with AOLIM using ‘mbond@the-forgotten.org‘

Concerning Web Development …

I learned about FireBug today … if you do web development, go get it now. Its crazy cool.

I’ve also been spending time working on a new web page for the Dojo, http://greatmartialartist.com/. As you can see I am not a graphic artist … but the web page is coming along nicely, with a lot of nice features for students when it is done.

Concerning Television …

TV sucks these days. There is hardly anything on to watch … but if you are going to watch TV try to do it in High Def, it really makes a difference.

The new Chiller channel on DirecTV is probably the best channel ever, even if it isn’t in HD.