Clear Thunderbird Cache

Scenario: something weird happening with stored mail in Thunderbird. e.g. I was notified by mail notifier that a new message had arrived but it never appeared in my Thunderbird mailbox. However, it could be located by Thunderbird's Search apparently in the Inbox; but when attempting to open it from the Search results the message is entirely blank. (Note: IMAP server).

Solution: close Thunderbird, remove Thunderbird's cache and restart. Cache is rebuilt and missing message appears in Inbox.

HowTo: somewhere in your home folder is Thunderbird's local storage.
Mine is below $HOME/.mozilla-thunderbird/ uisfqgoc.default

: cd $HOME/.mozilla-thunderbird/ uisfqgoc.default
: find . -name '*.msf' -exec rm {} \;

Done.

dvbcut patched to add navigation buttons.

dvbcut patched to add navigation buttons.

(derived from svn 11, Sep 24 2006)

The modes are

• Fr : Step by frames.
• I-Fr : Step by I-frames
• Aspect : Step by frames which describe a change in aspect ratio. (see below)
  
• Black : Step by frames which are entirely black (does not work)
  
• Time : Step by approximate time

The current mode is highlighted (I-Fr is the default).

The nav buttons change the current position, depending on the current mode.
The digit shown on each button is not the number of units moved, but is just a marker.
The number of units moved is (intended to be) configurable, depends on the current mode, and is usually non-linear.
e.g. for each mode, my nav buttons are programmed to move the current position by ...

• Fr: 1,5,10,25,100 (frames)
  
• I-Fr: 1,2,5,10,50 (I-frames)
  
• Aspect: 1,2,3,4,5 (changes of aspect)
  
• Black: broken
  
• Time: 1,10,60,180,300 (seconds)
  

In each case the movement to the new position is accompanied by "fast-play",
i.e. all or some I-Frames ares displayed.

• Fr: all I-Frames are shown
• I-Fr: all I-frames are shown
• Aspect: some I-Frames are shown
• Time: movement is "quiet" until some I-Frame is found "close" to the target, then all I-Frames are shown.
  

There was originally intended to be a ValN label (value) for each nav button, to
display the magnitude of the step associated with each - but this was never
implemented.

The context nav button fast-plays a small region around the current position.
It does this:

1. Remember current position as "currentpos"
2. Jump back 10 Iframes. (remember this as "leftpos")
3. Pause 1 second.
4. Fast-play forward until currentpos
5. Pause 1 second.
6. Fast-play forward until find 10-Iframes.
7. Pause 1 second.
8. Jump back to leftpos.
9. Fast-play forward to currentpos.

Footnotes:
Aspect: Navigating by change-of-aspect is particularly useful when processing an "old" tv program in 4:3 format which is interrupted by "new" adverts in widescreen.

OpenOffice opens fullscreen without window controls

Running OpenOffice 3.0.1 - OOO300m15 (Build:9379)

Windows appear with no X-window borders or controls, kinda full-screen.
Just noticed it recently.

Fix: rm $HOME/.openoffice.org*

Reference

Mount USB stick with mixed case

Scenario: USB stick formatted with as FAT32 for wind0ze compatibility, but when you mount it on linux any file or directory created with an entirely uppercase name appears as lowercase. Or maybe everything appears as lowercase.

Here's some magic for /etc/fstab to mount a volume labelled FOO on /mnt/foo with mixed-case support.
- enter this all on one line, the "\ " are just for (in)convenience here.

LABEL=FOO /mnt/foo vfat \
nodev,exec,noauto,user,users,umask=000,gid=1000,uid=1000,\
shortname=win95,codepage=850,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0

This isn't specific to USB sticks, but that's where I commonly hit the problem.

Install Unixmail reader in Thunderbird

As delivered recently, (200904) Thunderbird does not offer the option of setting up an account to read local (unix) mail.

This is due to the absence of a configuration file "movemail.rdf". Possibly due to madness in the Mac (the way the change is described smacks of developer arrogance) but you can find a description and clues to fixing it on the Mac (here)

To fix on linux, grab the rdf file from Thunderbird sources or from here and copy it into the installed thunderbird lib directory.

On Archlinux, that is /usr/lib/thunderbird-2/isp/.

Login to Desktop or Console Prompt

1. Boot to console prompt: manual login, then startx ...
OR
2. Boot to Desktop (auto-login as USERNAME) ...

(on Archlinux)

---

1. vi /etc/inittab

id:3:initdefault:
# Boot to X11
#id:5:initdefault:

2. vi /etc/inittab

#id:3:initdefault:
# Boot to X11
id:5:initdefault:
#
# .... other stuff
#
# Example lines for starting a login manager
#x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/xdm -nodaemon
x:5:once:/bin/su USERNAME -l -c "/bin/bash --login -c startx >/dev/null 2>&1"
#x:5:respawn:/usr/sbin/gdm -nodaemon
#x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/kdm -nodaemon
#x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/slim >& /dev/null

---

References

Arch Boot Process, Auto Login, Login Manager, Start X at boot

Java misbehaving in Awesome window manager

Some Java apps just don't want to play with Awesome wm.

Basically, recent Java vm is stuffed; presuming that re-parenting window manager is the norm.
Ref: openjdk bug report

Fix for Sun java - set this in the env before launching the app

export AWT_TOOLKIT=MToolkit

openjdk may have a different fix. See this Debian bug report