Vivid reporting and photoblogging from Kevin Sites.

198 Comments »

While downloading mail, Thunderbird reported that it failed to properly close some file because of a problem with one of the msg filters. Msgs in my inbox now were uniformly blank. TB asked me to delete inbox.msf and start again. I did. Didn’t help.

The msf file apparently is where header info is kept. The msgs themselves are stored in files without extensions that mirror the names of the folders you’re using within TB. And, sure enough, my inbox file showed a happy 7MB, about right considering I’ve only been using TB for a few weeks.

Unfortunately, my inbox file is 7MB of zeroes. So, it looks like I’ve lost all of my email for the past few weeks. Unless someone has a bright idea.

I am a backup fanatic. But I hadn’t gotten around to figuring out which TB files to back up. So, the msgs are just gone gone gone. Well, at least back to Nov. 1 which is when I did my last image of my drive. And that mail file is all of 7K.

I’m sunk. Sigh.

16 Comments »

I’m beginning a week of nutty travel to ulp-worthy events

This morning I’m keynoting MESDA, a Maine technology association meeting. I’m inaugurating a new presentation that touches on the themes of the book I’m trying to write about how the new principles of organization arising in the digital world undercut principles that have guided the construction of knowledge and institutions for the past 2,500 years. Ulp.

On Monday I go to DC to give the first in a speaker series sponsored by the Library of Congress. It’s going to be run live on C-SPAN, I’m told, including viewer questions. Ulp. I’m talking about the same stuff as at MESDA, although shaped differently. In fact, the title is “The Shape of Knowledge, or, Everything Is Miscellaneous.”

On Tuesday, I’m keynoting the Jupiter Inside ID conference. What I know about digital ID would fit inside an introduction to a keynote, so I’m taking a bizarre route through ordinary language philosophy to argue that when it comes to ID, we ought to let the norms of the real world be our prima facie guide. Another new presentation. Ulp.

Later on Tuesday I go back to the Library of Congress to participate in a day of discussions.

Then I go to Providence for a day of the ASIS conference of information scientists. I’m there to learn.

On Thursday I come back to DC for a day of interviewing people at the Library of Congress for my book. (Yes, if I were smart I would have done the interviews before giving the lecture.)

Ulp.

3 Comments »

Now that X1 indexes Thunderbird, I have switched from Outlook, at long last. (I’ve been using TB as my mail client on my laptop for months.) TB has imported all 150,000 msgs from OL and I’ve re-created most of the dozens of message filters I was using in OL. As soon as I figure out how to de-sync my Palm pilot from OL and train its beady eye onto TB, I’ll be almost done.

Just one thing remains…

I wrote a bunch of VBA scripts to help automate some tasks in OL. I’d like to recreate them in TB. But I don’t know the JavaScript that will let me access selected messages in TB. Nor am I sure how to attach JavaScript code to TB in the first place. I’ve had no luck finding documentation about how to do that. (Once I can get at the messages, I’ll be ok writing the little string-handling routines in JS. Probably.) Anyone know of some documentation?

3 Comments »

Dan Gillmor puts it well:

As noted, the Bush administration’s anti-liberty record isn’t the responsibility of outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft, despite the zeal with which Ashcroft has torn into Americans’ civil liberties. Now Bush has nominated for attorney general the man who so infamously endorsed torture as a tactic in the war on terrorism, and has defended the administration’s claim that the president can lock up anyone indefinitely without even providing access to a lawyer. It’s going to be a long four years.

2 Comments »

Oy, Mena, get well soon! We want you to have the movable type of knee! (Thanks, AKMA, for the link.)

Be the first to comment »

My daughter and I have made a short movie (58 seconds) for your enjoyment. It’s called RingTone.

Real player
Windows Media Player (low resolution)
Windows Media Player (higher resolution)
QuickTime

6 Comments »

Having returned the Sony Ericsson T627 I bought last week because it has the worst UI in history, I now have a Motorola v220. So far so good, but why can’t I record my own voice saying “Pick up the damn phone, fool!” and use that as my ring tone? Why isn’t that a standard feature of all cell phones?

Not to mention the possibility of celebrity ringtones. I’d pay Cory or Doc to speak my ring tone. Or Doc and RageBoy together. Geek heaven!

10 Comments »

According to The Boston Globe (link will break soon), Governor Mitt Romney is ready to sign into Massachusetts law a bill that can send you to jail for two years for secretly videotaping nude or “partially nude” people without their knowing it. (Hmm, aren’t we all partially nude most of the time?) Ok, fine, although why the article’s author calls nudie-snappers “video pirates” is beyond me.

Stores can suspend the law so that they can still videotape us in fitting rooms so long as they post a notice and avoid snickering out loud.

The article then adds, without explanation:

The ”anticamcorder” portion of the bill is designed to fight the growing global market in pirated films. The bill is the brainchild of the Motion Picture Association of America, which is pushing similar legislation state by state in the hopes of attacking the piracy problem at its roots.

I’m guessing that Massachusett’s law is modeled on the California Anti-Camcorder Bill (SB 1032) that has resulted in people who attend screenings having to go through metal detectors and be subject to surveillance via night-vision goggles. Ah, 1984!

Not to mention what’s the point of going to a screening if you can’t masturbate to it using a metal glove?

1 Comment »

I’ve got the beta of X1, my favorite desktop indexer, and it’s back indexing Thunderbird, the almighty Mozilla email client. Woohoo! Give it a few weeks to go live…

3 Comments »