2005/03/27 Thunderbird

The recent Thunderbird releases incorporate Mail, News and RSS into one place. Thunderbird also lets you add extensions. And of course, since Thunderbird is now an RSS reader, you can subscribe to a feed that tells you about new extensions.

I liked that the RSS feed articles display in the same window where you'd read News or Email, but if you click on a link within, your default browser handles that. In general, Thunderbird now seems faster and much smoother than it was the last time I tried it.

Of course all the things you'd expect are included; mail filtering, spam training, and more. I was a little disappointed that the message composition defaulted to HTML mode (I just hate encouraging the use of HTML in email), but I suppose that is a losing battle - the masses insist upon it, and it would be suicidal to not do it. There's spell check included, and support for digital signing and encryption.. if you haven't looked at Thunderbird in a while, take a spin.

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Sun Mar 27 14:58:51 2005: Subject:   BigDumbDinosaur


I was a little disappointed that the message composition defaulted to HTML mode (I just hate encouraging the use of HTML in email)...



Dunno that there's anything particularly bad about HTML in E-mail, other than the expected message size bloat. Even that isn't much of an issue anymore. It's not as though we're back in the days when each megabyte of storage was so precious we went out of our way to avoid waste. <Smile> And, yes, bandwidth consumption resulting from moving ever larger messages can be a problem if one is relegated to dial-up to get mail (I try to avoid sending bulky messages if I know the recipient is limited to POTS to get on-line).

In some cases, embedded HTML can be useful, such as when I'm attempting to explain to someone via E-mail how to do something on their computer. In such cases, I use color and font changes to distinguish things that have to be typed on the keyboard from explanatory text. And, inserting the occasional screen-shot can be beneficial -- something that would be harder to do without HTML.



The use of HTML in mail is as inevitable as getting a property tax bill each year (unless you rent or live for free).



Sun Mar 27 16:45:43 2005: Subject:   TonyLawrence


I agree HTML is inevitable, but that's as far as I'll go :-)

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