One Shot Design

I have taken delivery of a Zareason Linux box. Besides Dell, Zareason is one of the few computer assemblers to endorse Ubuntu Linux. They offer to built custom computers on Shuttle’s KPC ”towers” with the option of preinstalled Linux Ubuntu.  The tower is about the same size as a shoe box and feature a customisable front cover.

After unpacking, I plugged it with a Western European power cable and switched it on. Failing to activate the WiFi card, I emailed Zareason tech support, who replied within 7 minutes with the solution: I hadn’t noticed an antenna that needed to be screwed on the card. And voilà! I connected it to my USB external drive and loaded the pictures folder. I then proceeded to painstakingly list all the additional applications of the Dell laptop to install them on the KPC.

Zareason deserves a 5 stars rating for the outstanding customer support service.

Having used the Novell Evolution suite on my GNU/Linux Ubuntu installation, I decided to give a try to Yahoo’s latest mail client Zimbra.
Located in San Mateo, California, USA, Zimbra Inc. was purchased by Yahoo! in September 2007. Their main product, the ZCS server uses several Open-Source projects and runs on Linux and Mac OSX. The ZCS server is compatible with clients such as Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail, Novell Evolution; and with mobile devices such as the Nokia E series, Blackberry, Windows Mobile and the iPhone. Zimbra Inc. also publishes a desktop suite featuring email client, calendar and address book, and this article will be focusing on the desktop suite alone.

Two years ago I favored Evolution over Thunderbird because the first came bundled with the Gnome desktop, and it was well integrated with the address book, Pidgin and alarm notifier. Novell’s mail client also stores my sent mail remotely (and not only locally) and it does not mess up like Thunderbird after a launch as root. I have been very satisfied with the Evolution suite ever since, yet when it displays my Google mailbox in IMAP, I get each new mail twice: first in the Inbox folder, then in the [Google Mail] > All Mail subfolder, which means that I have to set mail as read twice.

So far so good. After a straighforward installation through Ubuntu’s Synaptic software installation interface, Zimbra seems to be fairly quick in accessing my IMAPs folders and displays them in a more practical fashion. I noticed that it also displays mail conversations, very much like in online Googlemail. It appears the Zimbra address book only imports contacts in CSV format at the moment (Evolution handles Vcards), so I’ll need to figure out a way of importing my address book.

I’ll be reporting over the next weeks as I play along with Zimbra.

2008.10.28 - The interface has a set of default skins. After trying them all, my choice fell on Waves, which looks Vista-ish.

2008.10.31 - I can individually set local folders to syncronize with the remote ones. Both the Junk Mail folder and the Trash can be batch emptied with a right click option. On Evolution this operation is only possible on the Trash folder, not the Junk Mail one. I have Zimbra running on two computers, and all I have to do is hit the Send/Receive button to sync each iteration with my IMAP accounts.

2008.11.11 - Unlike Evolution, Zimbra recognises which messages I already have read through a browser on my Gmail account.

2008.11.18 - Zimbra also recognises my message Drafts on the Gmail account.

Ont Tuesday the 21^th of October 2008, Apple CEO Steve Jobs gave figures to illustrate who apple Inc. is now the World’s third largest phone seller in terms of revenue as reported by AppleInsider.

Let’s look at the ranking. Nokia is clearly number one with $12.7 billion. Samsung number two at 5.9 billion. Apple is number three at 4.6 billion, Sony Ericsson is number four with 4.2 billion. LG number five at 3.4 billion, Motorola number six with 3.2 billion and RIM number seven at 2.1 billion. Pretty amazing.

On the 21^st of October 2008, Google released the source code of its mobile OS android, encouraging developers to hack it (iterative development). This opens the door for programmers who wish to un-Googleize the OS (ie removing all the Google-oriented software), or make it run on other hardware (such as the *wink* iPhone for example). Google will also hold an an annual “Android Developers Challenge”, awarding prize money for innovative software tailored to the platform.

The first G1 reviewers took delivery of their phone on October 17th. While unpacking it, some reviewersbecame aware of an iPhone-like remote kill switch mentioned in the terms of service:“Google retains the right to remotely remove those applications [that violates the developer distribution agreement] from your device at its sole discretion.”