Phil's Blog

Hi foxes!

I have bought a Magic TrackpPad from Apple few days ago. And today, I'm using it under WinXP on my laptop.

It was quite tricky to set up, but now, I'm very pleased to use it. Definitely,using one figer as a left click, 2 fingers as a right click, vertical scrolling in application using 2 fingers is really nice. You should give it a try, even if 69 euros is expensive.

To set it up under windows, here are the main steps :

• 1. install the apple driver. You can extract them from BootCamp.exe. Or you can download it from here.
• 2. Turn ON the bluetooth hardware.
• 3. From Control Panel > System info menu, look for an USB bluetooth device
• 4. Write somewhere the name of your hardware device ID. For me, it was :
  
  • USB\VID_0DB0&PID_A97A&Rev_3164
  • USB\VID_0DB0&PID_A97A
• 5. Edit the following file : C:\WINDOWS\Inf\bth.inf


• 6. In a section such [Toshiba.NT.5.1] add the previous lines such as :
  
  • TOSHIBA MSI U100 Integrated Bluetooth 4= BthUsb, USB\VID_0DB0&PID_A97A&Rev_3164
  • TOSHIBA MSI U100 Integrated Bluetooth 5= BthUsb, USB\VID_0DB0&PID_A97A
• 7. Save the changes.


• 8. Remove any bluetooth stack different from the WinXP one (the reason). For example, I had to remove the "Blutooth Stack for Windows by Toshiba" on my laptop, from the Add/Remove Application menu.


• 9. Reboot your laptop OR turn off/turn ON the bluetooth hardware.


• 10. The bluetooth hardware will be automatically detected. Windows will look for driver installation. You should point to the following folder : C:\WINDOWS\Inf


• 11. driver will be successfully installed.


• 12. You will get a "Bluetooth Menu" in the "Control Panel"


• 13. You can pair the magic trackpad now, and you will get everything available under Windows with the Magic Trackpad.

Enjoy the new experience :)

Labels: apple, bootcamp, driver, magic trackpad, mouse, win, windows, winxp, xp

Hi,

For some weeks now, I'm trying to use emacs as a mail reader. I want to remove sylpheed as I don't use it very often. Plus, I would like to become more power using emacs too.

As today my main machine is running under windows, things are a little bit more complex than using any unix.

So, here is my configuration : emacs 23.3.1.

To be able to get your mails from IMAPS servers, you need to be able to open a SSL connection. You can read Configuring Gnus and Gmail With IMAP on MS Windows. I prefer to use stunnel. So, I can manage a simplier gnus.el configuration.

Example for gmail:

1. stunnel file
1. [imaps-gmail]
2. accept=localhost:12345
3. connect=imap.gmail.com:993
2. gnus.el for email reading
1. 
   ;;limit the number of fetch email (too avoid to slow down the system and to run in out of memory)
   (setq gnus-newsgroup-maximum-articles 30)
   ;;here, only 30 mails are fetched
   
2. 
   ;;gmail account
   (setq gnus-select-method '(nnimap "Example GMAIL"
   (nnimap-address "localhost")
   (nnimap-server-port 12345)
   (nnimap-authenticator login)
   (nnimap-stream network)
   (nnimap-authinfo-file
   "~/.imap-auth")
   ))
   
   
3. the imap-auth file
1. 
   machine localhost login GMAIL_LOGIN password GMAIL_PASSWORD port 12345
   

You must have at least one gnus-select-method in this file before using the gnus-secondary-select-methods !!! It is hardly said on the web.

A great tutorial,My experiences from setting up Gnus with nnimap and Courier IMAP, about the splitting feature provided by emacs. Splitting is like an automatic sorting according to rules, like in outlook.

Sources

1. Official emacs wiki : GnusGmail
2. emacs wiki : gnus nifty tricks: the basics
3. sample gnus.el config file
4. another gnus.el sample
5. a discussion about "the gnus-secondary-select-methods and use of variables"

Labels: emacs, gmai, gnus, imap, mail, microsoft, MS, nnimap, split, splitting, ssl, stunnel, win, windows, xp

Hi Foxes!

When you are dealing with many mail account, you know, it takes a lot of time. Firrst, you have to found an efficient email client, and that is very difficult. Plus, today, everyone is using IMAP protocol to deal with email, if it is not the HTTPS provided from GMAIL or another webmail gateway.

So, according to some reading, the best combo is to use a local IMAP server which will retrieve/fetch mails from a remote server to the local server, then use a regular mail client to read mail which are on the local computer. So, reading is fast, search is fast too, and you can read your mails offline too :D.

I let you read this comment.

So, one nice solution may be to use :

• offlineimap to create a maildir mail database from a remote IMAP server. It needs Python.
• use an email client which fully support maildir database OR use a POP/IMAP local server such :
• dovecot on linux
• xmail server on linux and windows
• UW Imap on windows and linux. No more under development
• panda imap
• an email cliant such GNUS (emacs), Mutt, Alpine, etc.

Such combinaison is described there for MacOS.

Another solution is to use a local mail server which can retrieve mails from a remote server, such as :

• hmailserver is working pretty nice under windows. You should read ALL the documentation. Everything is on the website. It is quite easy to configure everything.

Labels: gnus, imap, linux, local, mail, maildir, mutt, offlineimap, outlook, pop, server, thunderbird, windows, xmail

Hi foxes!

   Since web browsing is more and more ressource consumming, I was looking for a way to save some CPU and RAM memory when I was listening music and browsing internet under windows. Usually, I was using the great VLC software. Now, I'm using   Evil Player. It can plays OGG, MP3, FLAC files.It has a very small footprint (around 3Mo once it has been minimize in the system tray), it is efficient. Today, it fills my need.

You can have a look to other mp3 players :

•   Comments on many MP3 player for windows



•   Evil Player




•   audio player



•   xmplay




•   1by1



•   Damn Small Media Player




•   CoolPlayer



•   Billy




•   Spider Player Pro (it is FREE, licence is written on the download page)



•   FooBar2000

Labels: 1by1, coolplayer, evil player, FLAC, foobar, foobar2000, light, mp3, music, player, small footprint, spider player, tiny, windows

Hi foxes!

If you are using a netbook as I do, you should have a look at the alternative shell for windows, which are supposed to be :
1. lighter in memory usage,
2. fully customizable (nice for any geek).

Here are the most interesting ones, still in developement and open source :
Emerge Desktop (aka ED) Last update February 2011.
LiteStep and a french distribution. Last update April 2009.
BBLean which is a port from Blabckblox from unix. Last update december 2009.
The wikipedia page with a list of window shell replacement, and another page with kind of the same list.

Labels: bblean, ed, emergedesktop, explorer, litestep, shell, shell replacement, windows

Hi all!

Still looking for a light footprint, fast email client under windows, I have done some googling and here are what I have found:

• i.scribe / in.scribe. It seems to be efficient, light and still in development. The free version, i.scribe, can only support one account. I have not achieved to configure gmail using IMAP protocol. So wait for another update.
• Becky. It seems very efficient, light, powerful. But it is 40$. You can try it for free for 30 days.
• Mulberry. It doesn't seem to be still in development. Open source, light and efficient email client. It fails in fetching all my email from my gmail account. But it is very fast! There is a nice review about it there
• The Bat!. It seems as good as Becky.
• sylpheed. I'm using this one daily. It is light with many features, but to me it is slow on windows (v2.6.0). I will install the version 3.1 this week end. UPDATE: i have moved to the 3.1 version. It is as light as usual, works, and maybe a little bit faster.
• Alpine mail, a full CLI mail client.
• Mahogany mail, last realase august 2006. Not supported : PGP.
si.mail. Not supported : IMAP, PGP.
• an interesting service to secure and follow email use : opolis

Labels: alpine, becky, gmail, i.scribe, imap, in.scribe, inscribe, iscribe, mail, mulberry, opolis, pop, sylpheed, the bat, thunderbird, windows

Hi,

Here are some light tools that I'm using quite often:

FAR2 - Farmanager for file browsing
mydefrag as a defrag tool to optimize the defragmentation space.
ultradefrag as a defrag tool to do a quick defrag operation.
fast copy to make quick file transfert.
malwarebytes to scan and remove malware on my laptop.
0irc, an open source IRC client full CLI for windows. Feel free to contribute to improove it. Here is its wiki page
If you have some other light tools, feel free to share them.

Labels: 0irc, defrag, defrag tool, far manager, far2, fast copy, file browser, file manager, irc, mydefrag, quick copy, ultradefrag, windows, winxp