Author: Arné Klopper

Recently I bought myself a new laptop(“notebook”) so I can be more mobile and work wherever I find myself at.
Pre-installed with Windows XP Professional I was now looking for my office tools. Previously I primarily used Microft Outlook and Microsoft Office for my “Office Tools”.

So I decided this time as I do not want to spend money on buying these packages that I will go the Open Source.

So firstly, I searched for an alternative for Outlook and found Thunderbird(check to posts back), which was amazing.
The second thing I installed was OpenOffice 2, which I cannot get enough of. Although not all functionity work the same as in normal Mircrosoft Office, the basics are there, and I get the work done.

At the moment my notebook looks like:

• WindowsXP Pro
• Mozilla Firefox
• Mozilla Thunderbird
• WinSCP(Secure Copy for copying file to Linux machines)
• putty
• Scientilla Text Editor
• Media Monkey (For music)
• VLC Media Player (for the vids)
• Tortoise SVN(for software dev)
• Gimp

Due to me not having a valid Microsoft Office license, I was looking for an alternative to Outlook to store all my email and appointments, but added to that I also wanted an application that would work with Plaxo(an address book management tool).

So there I went to Plaxo‘s site to see what mail applications support Plaxo, and there I find Mozilla Thunderbird, an Open Source project, from the creators of FireFox and the best of all FREE.

The first time I installed it, it just seemed lighter and response time was excellent. The FireFox feeling was present immediately, as the user friendly-ness combined with internet junkie shortcuts makes it very nice and makes you get what you want done in a breeze.

Everything up and running, now the next problems that arose were:
1. Getting all my old email out of outlook into Thunderbird.
2. Configuring Thunderbird to work with Plaxo

Migrating from Outlook to Thunderbird
Actually, migrating to Thunderbird was quite easy:
1. First, setup Outlook as you default email application and then go into Thunderbird(but not setting Thunderbird as you default mail application).
2. Go to Tools, Import…. , and select Outlook from the list, and voila, all you folders and mail are imported.
3. Now for the most important part 😉 , set Thunderbird as you default mail application.

Using Plaxo within Thunderbird
Actually, all you have to do here is download the Thunderbird extension from Plaxo.
Then, Tools, Extensions (same methodology used for Firefox) and select the extension file downloaded, and your set.

So far I have no complaints with Thunderbird, but still it is my first day.

Today we had some problems with a database getting slow, then we had to vacuum that baby .!!

As records are updated in Postgres, files become a bit unorganized and bulky. This condition can get very bad as more records are updated and added.

Vacuum is a command that sort of makes the problem better for you.

When run the first time on a database that has run for quite some time, you will immediately see the performance increase.

There are three(/4) types of Vacuums that can be done on a database

1. VACUUM
This is a standard vacuum. Least intensive and just marked the unused spaced in the file.

2. ANALYZE VACUUM
This updates the index.

3. FULL
This physically removes the unused spaced in the file.

Usage :
VACUUM [ FULL ] [ FREEZE ] [ VERBOSE ] ANALYZE [ table [ (column [, …] ) ] ]

Finally I decided on a premade theme.

I like this Desert theme, looks really nifty.

One problem I have is that the links are not categorized anymore, usually it was organized in cats like Blogs, Cool Sites etc.

I’ll fix that at a later stage, I don’t think it would be a biggy.

Well, there was the MillionDollarWebsite(can’t seem to find the URL), the guy made his million, now these guys are really going to some troubles promoting and making it worth your while.

They’ve got the magic ingredients: GIRLS and CARS.

I think these guys are really original, and so what if they make a quick buck, they really have a nifty idea, check our www.smashmyviper.com

Ha, I’m certified(now also in the physical world).

Zend, the people that initially started with the Zend Engine and started the whole PHP revolution, provides certification for programmers all over the world to be able to get Zend Certified!!

Last year(29 September 2004) I took up to the challenge and took the exam, and past with flying color(actually they only say pass) Last month I received the proof, a certificate(already framed by Zend) and a product CD, and some cool stickers and a nice letter congratulating me on my accomplishment.

I was the fourth person in South Africa to be certified ( link here ) as a Zend PHP Certified Engineer.

I also received an email from the people at Zend giving us the rights to use a special logo, cause we are one of the first 1000 PHP ZCE..