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Fun Interview with Lunarpages Newsletter

Aug/19 in Personal, Web Hosting

Hey for those of you who wondered what it is  do for a day job, here’s your chance.  Was looking back this morning at an interview I did for the Lunarpages monthly newsletter.  Here is how things start out…

Hey Mitch! Thanks for taking some time out from writing our Newsletter articles to handle a quick interview. 

Not a problem. Nice to be on the other side of the content stream every once in a while in front of my close and personal amigos, the always awesome Lunarpages clients.

You’re another one of those people who work for Lunarpages and does just about everything in every department. So what’s your official job title and what do you do for LP?

I don’t know if I have ever been given one? I guess officially I would be considered a Level One Customer Service Representative, Senior Forum Moderator, Content Writer, Sales Guy, Blogger and Official Odd Jobs Associate. Think I almost got everything covered there.

You can check out the rest of the interview on the web site.  Had been a while since I had done any sort of interview, hope I wasn’t rusty.  I guess what they say about, “time flying by when your having fun” is true.   End of next month will mark my two year anniversary of being with the company, and hopefully I’ll have many more years to come.

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Different Quote Level Colors for Thunderbird

Aug/13 in Desktop, Personal

tips_quotelevels Scrolling down a really long e-mail trying to sort where one message ends and another one starts can be a pain. Thank goodness though for this Thunderbird tip that will add different colors depending on the level of the quote you are at.

Just copy and paste this to your userContent.css file for Thunderbird:

/* Quote Levels Colors */
	blockquote[type=cite] {    color: navy !important; background-color: RGB(245,245,245) !important;
	}
	blockquote[type=cite] blockquote {    color: maroon !important; background-color: RGB(235,235,235) !important;
	}
	blockquote[type=cite] blockquote blockquote {    color: green !important; background-color: RGB(225,225,225) !important;
	}
	blockquote[type=cite] blockquote blockquote blockquote {    color: purple !important; background-color: RGB(215,215,215) !important;
	}
	blockquote[type=cite] blockquote blockquote blockquote blockquote {    color: teal !important; background-color: RGB(205,205,205) !important;
	}

There are a handful of other Thunderbird config tips and tweaks you might want to check out from Mozilla’s site too. This is the best one in my opinion though.

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Mitch’s Favorite Thunderbird Add-ons and Themes

Aug/12 in Hot Web Topics, Personal

Continuing the e-mail trend from yesterday, today I thought I would share some of my favorite Firefox add-ons and themes. Listing the add-ons I use with Thunderbird is an easy task.  Why?  Well… there are only two of them. 

ico20_tb  Quicktext – Keep a list of pre-written messages to use in your e-mails.  It also accepts variables so personalizing a static message with information you have in hand is easy to do.

ico20_tb  Minimize to Tray – This extension minimizes Thunderbird to the system tray on the task bar.  This way I can keep Thunderbird running without it getting in the way when I don’t need it.

There are only a handful of themes really worth checking out too.  Here are a few of my favorite themes for Thunderbird:

ico20_tb  Azerty ‘mail – Brighter and unique icons, but still keeps the same look and feel.

ico20_tb  Charamel – A tan colored Thunderbird theme that is awesome, except for a few little things here and there that keep me from using it 24/7.

ico20_tb  Silvermel – A silver port of Charamel, same look (and bugs) – just a different color.

The rest of the popular themes out there all look like Apple/Mac clones (insert yawn here), and do we really need more than one of those? I think not.  Really wish DeviantArt had some better ones too, but they seem to be a little lacking with the Thunderbird skin section.

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Mixing POP3, Gmail and Thunderbird for E-mail Anywhere!

Aug/11 in Online Apps, Personal

Now not saying my e-mail situation is the best setup around, but I do like to think I have a pretty neat foundation in place.  Mixing Gmail with Thunderbird and my other mail accounts elsewhere I have everything sent to one place and I can get to it all from one login location either on the desktop or on the Web. 

Import POP3 Accounts into Gmail

First things first, we have my Gmail account.  This acts as my main mail account.  From there, I have added all my other mail accounts from other various locations (such as lunarpages.com or mitchkeeler.com) to Gmail.  Google’s e-mail client can act as an e-mail fetcher for all your other POP3 e-mail accounts.  Here is a post from them describing how to set that up:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ctx=mail&answer=21288

The short version would be go to Settings > Accounts and then “Add Another Mail Account”.

Get Gmail to Work with IMAP

This is where problem two comes into play.  I want to be able to use Thunderbird on my desktop PC to manage my e-mail and then Gmail via the browser on my laptop (or anywhere else) to get to all my same mail via the Web.  To enable IMAP in Gmail:

  1. Sign in to Gmail.
  2. Click Settings at the top of any Gmail page.
  3. Click Forwarding and POP/IMAP.
  4. Select Enable IMAP.
  5. Configure your IMAP client and click Save Changes.

To configure Thunderbird for Gmail/IMAP, be sure to check out this post here:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=77662

Now for the Little Annoying Things

Alright, my mail system is in place and I can mirror Thunderbird with Gmail (or vice versa).  There are a few small kinks yet to be worked out though.  The worst of them is that your address book will not stay in sync between platforms.  You can do this manually of course, but that is a pain in the rear.  There are also a few configuration tweaks you have to change to get your tags and folders to match up with the right spot inside of Thunderbird.

Lifehacker has done a good write up on most of these other little tweaks you may wish to do, so check that out for more information.  There you have it.  It might not be the prettiest system but it does get the job done. 

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Mitchelaneous : Followed by More than 600 Awesome People

Aug/06 in Personal, Web Development Tutorials

600plussubscribers Just wanted to share some exciting news this morning, Mitchelaneous has finally broken the 600 subscribers mark!  I’ve been watching this one for a while, since I had been hovering in 580 subscribers to 590 subscribers for some time.

To check out every single post, be sure to check out the archives (all of them are on one single page!)  It goes all the way back to an article that no longer exists anymore.  Fun times, indeed.  If you want to go WAY back in time – check out how things looked back in 2005!

Mitchelaneous in 2005!

Not old enough?  Well happened to find a version from back in 2004 (the year the Mitchelaneous fun started here):

mitchelaneous2004

Want to help celebrate?  Tell your friends, family and your neighbor’s dog they should be subscribing!  Need some help?

Subscribe in a Reader! | Subscribe to Mitchelaneous by E-mail

Add to Google Reader or Homepage Subscribe in NewsGator Online Add to My AOL Add to netvibes Subscribe in Bloglines Add to The Free Dictionary Add to Plusmo Subscribe in NewsAlloy Add to Excite MIX Add to netomat Hub Add to fwicki Add to flurry Add to Webwag Add to Attensa Receive IM, Email or Mobile alerts when new content is published on this site. Add to Pageflakes

You can also just copy and paste this into your feed reader of choice too:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/mitchelaneous

Thanks for following me for the past 4+ years!  You are the awesome 600+ that keep me going day after day and I REALLY do appreciate it.

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Need Organizing Help? Colorful Vista Folders!

Aug/04 in Desktop, Personal

Remember a few posts past, when I asked if anybody had a solution for Windows Vista color coded folders?  I had this on Windows XP with the help of programs like Folderico.  That is when I decided it might be better off creating my own colorful Vista folder icon pack so I could just do this myself – no extra program needed!

vista-colorful-folders

Download the Vista Colorful Folder Pack! (.zip)

All of the icons are  in the .ico format, and supports the following sizes:

256 x 256, 128 x 128, 64 x 64, 48 x 48, 32 x 32, 24 x 24, 16 x 16

Why color code your folders? Having color coded folders for certain documents is more than just about “making things pretty”.  It is also very helpful when it comes to getting things done.  Let’s say you use the green folder for your bills, green is the color of money – hence it makes you jump right to it instead of having to hunt through all those yellow folders.

Depending on how popular these are, I might release more colored folders in the future. Feel free to use them however you like.  If you pass it around to a friend, might also mention where you got it and ask them to subscribe to my RSS feed for more!

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Hosting Podcast Tease for Episode 158

Jul/25 in Personal, Web Hosting

Loads of hosting fun from this week’s past show. Did you check it out?
If not here are just a few topics from this week’s episode of the Web Hosting Show.

  • HostingCon Sold Off to iNet Interactive? – iNET Interactive, those darlings of the web hosting world who brought us such things as webhostingtalk.com, hostvoice.com, and hostingtech.com have acquired the HostingCon conference.
  • Interesting Tool to See if Your Site is Up or Down! – Previously I told you about an awesome web site status tool that could help you tell if your web site was up or not.  Down for everyone or just me looks to have become a real success.  I have one better though, thanks to a suggestion from a Web Hosting Show listener named John.
  • The Mess That Was .ME Domain Name Registrations? – You may have caught wind of some of the .me buzz last week, as GoDaddy started taking registrations for them for $20 a year (and you have to sign up for two years, so that should really be $40)… If eight people say they registered it, that will leave seven people really unhappy about the whole ordeal.
  • The Simplest FTP Program Ever!?! – I often hear complaints from people that FTP programs are too hard to use.  There are too many options, too many buttons and too many configurations you have to learn about.  For those people out there looking for a  simpler FTP program I offer to you DropUpLoad.

Interested?  Then go download and listen to the Web Hosting Show, episode 158! Also be sure to grab the RSS feed, and pick it up on iTunes too.

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Don’t Be Afraid to Pimp Yourself on the Social Web

Jul/22 in Hot Web Topics, Personal

socialize As I remove MySpace and add Plurk to my own Mitchelaneous side bar, I thought this would be as good of a time as any to bring up the fact that you should not be afraid to socialize and meet new people.  Sure, some places build a fan following because of great content but great content alone can not win any popularity races. 

You have to get out there and proverbially pimp your goods.

Let people know at least a few places where they can follow you or be your friend, and they are given a few more “gateways” to get back to your blog and content.  Think of it this way, which am I more likely to be friends with:

  • The guy who’s web site I never knew about because he doesn’t push it out in the real world
  • The guy who is trying his best to make friends, and inform the public he’s out there and ready for his close up

I’m not afraid to mention anybody who wishes to can add me as a friend on:

Twitter | Facebook | Plurk | MySpace | Pownce | LinkedIn | Flickr

Don’t be afraid to promote your favorite social web site profiles.  By not doing so, you are missing a good chance not only to make a few friends but get some free press for your own web site.  Don’t be a wall flower, be that comfy chair everybody likes to sit on. 

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How Do You Customize My Documents?

Jul/18 in Desktop, Personal

fun-folder I’ve been out searching for a program that will allow me to quickly color code the folders on my Vista machine.  The only problem is, I can find a lot of good programs that work with Windows XP but this must be a harder task to accomplish on Vista.

Here are a few of the Windows XP programs I have tried (all good solutions by the way) that just haven’t gotten the job done thus far.

So I am asking you, do you know of a good Vista folder customizer out there?   I need something that would allow me to quickly change the colors to kind of help organize things a ‘bit in my PC.   Better yet, how do you organize your “My Document” folders?

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DirecTV, Stop Letting Me Down!

Jun/18 in Personal

Back a few weeks I decided I’d upgrade to DirecTV’s HD lineup.  This of course meant I would have to get two new boxes for my house (one regular DirecTV DVR and one HD DVR) and a new dish.  Ever since then I have almost been kicking myself because DirecTV’s customer service has… well, totally sucked.

Back on June 4th I setup the order and they said they would be here to set it up on the 13th.  Oh goodie I said, can’t wait to get it up and running.  Well, about 9:00 AM on the 13th they said they wouldn’t be here cause they didn’t have enough techs working.  Fair enough, it was Friday the 13th afterall.

Next they were suppose to show up Monday, the 16th.  I got excited again because I thought I’d get to watch WWE RAW on my new TV in high definition.  Oh goodie I thought again.  Well, Monday about 1:00pm (an hour after their deadline for being here) I contact DirecTV to see where they were at.  The first person I talk to doesn’t have a clue but she gives me a local number.  Call the local number and I’m told they still don’t have enough techs to work in the area, and they move my install date again… to today.

So here we are.  Will they show up?  Will I have to call them to see why they haven’t shown up?  Should know sometime this afternoon.  Overall though, I have to say I am pretty disapointed with DirecTV’s customer service in a whole.  What if I was a new customer?  Heck – Dish Network is looking kind of nice by now.  Wonder how good their tech support is?

Update: Still nobody, and they got 20 minutes left to get here to meet their “promise” of behing here from 8AM – Noon.  Posted about it on their user forums too.

Looks like DirecTV deleted my thread without reason?  Wasn’t anything bad there – just going over what had happened thus far.  Once again, DirecTV ends up with two thumbs down as far as customer service goes.

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