Kelly Alioth Drinkwater ([info]aliothsan) wrote,
@ 2008-03-10 00:53:00
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Entry tags:hack, squee

Softwarey things
(1) I tried these about:config edits to make Firefox run faster, and they seem to have worked splendidly. I can't tell if the application opens faster, which was my original intent, but it certainly opens pages a hell of a lot faster -- LJ in particular is much faster, and even Gmail is a bit faster.

(2) Gmail is highly featureful but kind of slow to load. Does anyone know of a fast text-based email client that does the organizing-messages-into-conversations thing, or has tags, or supports "owning" several addresses and sending mail from each?

(3) Woo keystroke navigation! Woo QuickSilver, which apparently makes it way easier to navigate Macs by keystroke -- I haven't learned to use it for anything but opening applications and the occasional URL, but I can already tell it's good because it does an excellent job of learning what you mean. I type `f' and hit enter, and it opens Firefox. Speaking of which, woo keywords for bookmarks and searches! Seriously. So much better than bookmarks-toolbar buttons for frequently-visited sites.


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[info]bwillsouth
2008-03-10 05:33 am UTC (link)
(1) Congraturation
(2) That's called HTML-only Gmail
(3) Woo! There are entire *nix window managers specifically for keystroke-fans. (Psst Linux'n'*BSD >> OSX, the for-money, polished-up bastardization of BSD it is)

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[info]aliothsan
2008-03-10 05:38 am UTC (link)
(2) I tried that, it's an improvement but it still has a longish loading time
(3) Yeah, it's come in my mind to get Ubuntu or similar on this box, but I need to do quite a bit more background work before that happens.

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[info]bwillsouth
2008-03-10 05:50 am UTC (link)
(2) Then stop being such a speedwhore! ;-) Gmail is the superiorest thing. You could just use an external email client I suppose, if you can find one that can do conversations too, because Gmail has POP support.

(3) I'm mostly teasing you as I am writing this on a computer running ArchLinux. (Not the friendliest distro--chosen because I cut my teeth on FreeBSD and Arch is the closest in nature and philosophy to it.)

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[info]candrodor
2008-03-10 08:06 pm UTC (link)
INTERNET ON CRACK!

Cheers. :D

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[info]Flesh-eating Dragon [wordpress.com]
2008-03-11 02:22 am UTC (link)
Thanks for the Firefox speedup link. I've tried it (only I set the thingy to eight instead of thirty) but it needs testing over time to see how much difference it really makes.

Personally, I feel that a bigger problem with Firefox than speed per se is poor task prioritising. I mean, sometimes when it's loading a page it takes forever to respond when I do certain things with the mouse such as switch tabs. In my view, tab switching/closing, menu selection, etc, should be prioritised tasks that interrupt mere content loading.

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[info]aliothsan
2008-03-11 02:30 am UTC (link)
I set mine to 20 instead of 30, and that improvement is plenty IMO.

Oh, definitely. I have a recurring problem with opening blog entries from my google homepage. The way it's laid out, most often the first thing I do is open a Language Log post in a new tab and then scroll down -- and a lot of the time the scroll hangs. Grar.

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[info]coolerq
2008-04-07 11:16 am UTC (link)
For (2), you might try PINE, the Program for Internet News and Email. It's been around the block a bit (it turns 20 next year), but nothing beats it for speed. It's also standard on Athena :)

It supports all three of your requests. You can view messages by thread with $H (Sort by tHread), though it's not quite as nice as Gmail. You can define keywords (tags) by visiting Setup->Config->keywords from the main menu, and apply them with the * key in the message list. You can configure multiple sending addresses with the Roles functionality, in Setup->Rules->Roles. You can also configure heuristics for which address to used based on the message you're replying/forwarding.

It will take a bit of getting used to it, but once you do, it's sooo much faster than using a graphical client. I have 70,000 messages in my inbox right now, and PINE is still lightning fast. One thing about PINE is that it's designed to be very easy to use, which means that the defaults are almost always for features to be disabled. One of the features you'll want to turn on almost immediately is "enable-aggregate-command-set", which allows you to select groups of messages and apply actions to them.

--Quentin

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[info]aliothsan
2008-04-07 12:36 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, the planets seem to be aligning in that direction. Thanks for the pointers!

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[info]aliothsan
2008-04-07 12:40 pm UTC (link)
...Username? I can't find out much about you from your LJ profile. Unless you prefer to maintain an air of mystery? :D

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[info]coolerq
2008-04-08 01:40 am UTC (link)
My MIT username is just "quentin".

There's a bunch of information about me linked from my website link in my profile.

--Quentin

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[info]aliothsan
2008-04-08 02:05 am UTC (link)
...Ah, somehow I missed that. How'd you come by my LJ?

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[info]coolerq
2008-04-09 03:16 pm UTC (link)
Ah, funny story, that...

I came across your livejournal after coming across your blog in your MITDir information, after you asked a question on -c rcc-request :)

--Quentin

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