Marlon Brandon V/D Linde

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Migration Notice

I have migrated to my own host,
you can find my blog/journal at http://mbvdl.net/wordpress/

yours.
M-

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Control

After working (now = 5AM) a couple of hours on a MIDlet I was coding, I will now happily roll down a fairly steep hill that hopefully ends on the 6 AM Metrorail.

The reason for this is that Windows just massacred my work, with no regard to undo, recovery or restoration. This "so called" code which I have written will never be written again, because I will rather stab my eyes out with my USB adapter.

I was copying a paragraph of text for a comment, I pressed control-A to select it all, when the Start-Menu committed suicide, After moving the mouse around in hope of finding salvation on my every so downward spiralling whirler of discord and lost work, the sound died. No more music was playing. Then my NetBeans window popped up and I managed to save one of the source files, and safely close NetBeans (Thanks NB, for being the only thing that lived in my horrible dying software warfield)...

When I finally gave up, I pressed CTRL_ALT_DEL to try and reboot my XP Professional, professionally. This worked... For about 5 second, when an every so vigourous eruption of Internet Explorer windows blasted onto my months old and already down the drain 15" Phillips monitor(Which I am running at 70HZ, because 60Hz is suicidal, and makes me want to die before giving birth to a spawn of Bill-gates eating demons)...

I hate this whole episode, which lasted about 1 minute. I will never forget this. I will now save this blog, and delete the one (currently useless) source file I have left, and save whatever dignity I have left, then go to bed, and MAYBE start all over...

Monday, July 11, 2005

Profimail - Yummy Email From Lonely Cat Games

So here it is. A short writing about Profimail And ProfiExplorer, with a few screenshots. My aim, as you should know, is to write about things I care about, and like(sometimes dislike). Today its all email. In specific, mobile email, the chance to get away from the desktop a bit more.

I have used Nokia's integrated email application for a week or two, before I got Profimail, and I would be honest in saying that the Nokia email app, is by all means sufficient. It does the trick, has enough features to just do the email job...

PS: click the screenshots for larger views.

Profimail, on the other hand, is one of those application you can use the words "fully fledged" on. There is not a dime being wasted if you buy Profimail (yes, its non-free, but its quality), and there won't be any dissapointments.

I have come to expect quite alot from my email clients lately, be it mobile or pc based, since I get a list of email daily, and send almost as much. I like being spoiled with features that makes it all fun, as well as productive. Profimail does that, by making things easier, and more entertaining.

The menu system and layout, with the easy navigation makes it a breeze to learn how to use Profimail, if there is even a need to 'learn' it. For my screenshots here, I have not much email to display since I recently cleared/reinstalled stuff on my mobile, and I didn't feel like downloadeding the days mail for the sake of screenshots, that is just too much over the top.

All options existing in a standard pc email application, can be expected in Profimail. Rules, Sent mail, Saved, font and image configs, size, headers being displayed etc.

There is also a great traffic byte counter, which is nice when you don't have a data bundle yet (like yours truely here), and for monitoring the email sizes as you download them.

Attachments like images and zip archives is no problem at all, just open them in profimail.

The configuration is simple, setup your account/s, go through the menus, tune all the settings the way you like them, and voila. With support for attachments, signatures and priority settings, as well as the sorting orders, what else do you need...



These three screenshots demonstrates the ability of profimail to change the colour schemes being used. This is handy, one does get tired of the same colours week after week. These are only three, but there is more available.










Updating the mailbox is as easy as doing it. Click update, it logs in, downloads email, sends mail, and bob's your uncle.

Obviously its almost essential to have a bluetooth keyboard for your mobile, since writing emails on keypads is not for the faint of heart.

Just as a sidenote, included with Profimail, is Profiexplorer. This is a pretty impressive file manager. I am quite used to FEXplorer, and I love it, but Profimail's solution is very usable in my opinion. I guess I use whatever is closest at that moment. Profimail's interface is just so smooth and soft, it feels great.

This is a copy and paste from Lonely Cat's Feature List:
  • Automatic synchronization of messages with mail server
  • IMAP folders
  • Attachments - view, save, send
  • HTML messages with images and hyperlinks
  • Built-in File Explorer
  • Address book
  • Signatures
  • Support for POP3 / IMAP / SMTP mail servers
  • Writing mails using T9 dictionary
  • Multiple email accounts
  • Rules and filters allowing selective message download
  • Opens and browses ZIP archives
  • Support for various character encoding - Western, Cyrillic, Central European, and more
  • Build-in image viewer - JPG, PNG and other popular formats
  • Text viewer for standard text, HTML and Word documents
  • Optimized for GPRS - get headers first, then download message bodies which you really want to see
  • Scheduled message download
  • Sound notifications
On a last note, get Profimail here, to try it out: Lonely Cat Games
Profimail is available for Series60, Series80, UIQ, Windows Mobile & PocketPC.

And thats the name of that song,
Marlon *gone*

TV Programming Is Unnatural and Constipation Inducing

I am 23 years old, and I am totally aware of the ubiquitous fact that I don't know anything yet. Yes, people "think" they know it all, but they don't. In fact, with age comes wisdom, or is that knowledge? But Nevertheless, In my most productive part of my life, the 'intelligent' section of the life slice, I have watched TV.

I have seen many sitcoms, one worse than the previous almost better one. I have watched a list of documentaries, from topics varying from anywhere to anything. I have seen movies that a normal daily human lifeform, would avoid for the fear of stabbing ones own eyes out. And last but not least, cartoons, many, all kinds and all sorts.

Now my writing is probably going to offend most of the 'daily' type of human beings. The one's that follow their trends and habits like sheep, from day to day. Frankly, I do not care. People offend me everyday, by saying things that I have learned to not laugh at anymore, to avoid being rude. But that's not the point is it. The point is, there is not a single day that I don't see or hear of a stupid program on TV.

First of all, we (South Africans?)... We have these really cheesy acted crappy local 'soaps' if you will, that is usually aired in the "open time" slots between 4:30 PM and about 7:00 PM. I will refrain from naming names, I cannot afford law suites or whatever it may induce, from simple minded fools writing and promoting these shows. But I am sure you know what I am talking about. Yes those shows that you run too, when they start. Those shows that the silly woman at work keep talking about. Those shows that people choose their icons from, and those shows which old ladies talk about all day.

I was almost convinced this one time, that these people were referring to real life situations. I was standing somewhere, I cannot remember where, and these two idiot girls kept going about "john doe" being in love with "jane doe" and that "dick doe" wants to murder him. They were all wide eyed, frantic, and panic stricken. It occured to me, that I might walk over there, and offer to phone the police. Later on, by the time I finished my really rip off drink, It became obvious that they were talking about a soap on MNET. I had this image of throwing one of them off the balcony, but then, they might die, and miss the day's episode.

Does that explain which shows I am talking about? Yes... You are thinking right. The one's that's turned up so loudly, when you take the evening stroll, you hear the annoying tune at every 4th house you pass.(Might be because of televisions annoying 900 times per hour advertisement break)

I really thought I would continue writing about the movies with their errors, and mistakes, and the idiotic US based movies, which are all entirely different, but at the end, all the same. The hollywood movies, in my humble opinion is like Spur food. They have a wide spectrum menu, but everything tastes exactly the same. Do note, that this is fine, I love the spur, when I am in the mood for that one taste. Same for the hollywood movies, oh and don't forget the fact that we don't have much of a choice, since Hollywood is being force fed down our throats.

Also remember that actors from Hollywood all think that they are some kind gods. Same with popular (junk crap pop idol bulldropping) music, they all sound the same, have no taste, engages in scandals weekly(for attention) and all look the same with their fake "body" attachments and skinny anorexic figures. So, I won't go there...

All I am saying is, get a life, live your own life, stop listening to morons like Gareth on 5fm speaking brave Gautenger yuppy words(because he is safe behind the microphone, and can always have the last word). Stop thinking that other people are gods. Start thinking about yourself, since you probably need the attention, look at you, it is disgracefull...

Just try and be yourself for a change, if you haven't forgotten. And stop supporting junk food, junk movies, junk radio, junk adverts, junk neighbours, and junk junk...

And I am turning comments off, because since 90% of the people reading this (potentially) will be one of those brainless sheep, I cannot afford to have spam here, and deleting JUNK posts takes time...

To all my regular readers, forgive me for the topic change, I will get back to the important stuff in life (inhuman devices and inventions) right after this.

Moochos.