So I managed to finally set up Mutt for multiple IMAP accounts along with some sharing of the configuration via Dropbox so I only have to maintain one configuration between MacOS X and Linux (and whatever else I may use), and I’ll show you how.

First of all, you need to install Mutt. If you’re on any sort of Linux, then there’s probably a native package for Mutt and you should just install that. If you’re on OS X you’ll need to build it from the source, which requires that you’ve have the Apple Developer Tools (gcc and stuff) and probably Fink or MacPorts for dependencies – e.g. BerkeleyDB – and also you’ll have to apply the Trash Folder patch to the Mutt source (at least if you want to use your IMAP Trash folders instead of directly deleting mail). On my OS X all I had to do to build Mutt was the following:

$ wget ftp://ftp.mutt.org/mutt/devel/mutt-1.5.21.tar.gz
$ wget http://cedricduval.free.fr/mutt/patches/download/patch-1.5.5.1.cd.trash_folder.3.4
$ tar -zxvf mutt-1.5.21.tar.gz
$ cd mutt-1.5.21/
$ patch -p1 < ../patch-1.5.5.1.cd.trash_folder.3.4
$ configure --prefix=/usr/local --with-curses --with-regex \
    --enable-locales-fix --enable-pop --enable-imap --enable-smtp \
    --with-sasl --enable-hcache --with-ssl
$ make
$ sudo make install

However, I do have Fink installed, which may be the reason that it was so very easy. If ./configure fails (e.g. because of some missing dependency) you’re on your own. Same goes if you’re using Windows.

Anyways, with Mutt installed, we can now get started on the configuration files. (Mutt won’t do anything for you before it’s configured.) First of all, we need to setup some directories to hold the configuration files, certificates and caches. Now, I don’t want to share certificates and caches between my various machines/OSes (because of potential DB incompabilites), so let’s create a directory in our home directory to hold that. However, the Mutt configuration along with the account settings is what we want to share between machines/OSes, so we’ll create a directory in Dropbox for that and then create a symbolic link between the home directory and the configuration in Dropbox.

$ mkdir -p ~/.mutt.local/cache
$ mkdir -p ~/Dropbox/mutt.config/accounts
$ ln -s ~/Dropbox/mutt.config ~/.mutt

Now let’s go ahead and setup two accounts. I won’t go into too much detail about this, because you can find this stuff all over the internet. So first off we create the file ~/Dropbox/mutt.config/accounts/lillesvin for the first account with the following content:

#~/Dropbox/mutt.config/accounts/lillesvin
account-hook "imaps://lillesvin.net/" '\
set imap_user = "username@lillesvin.net" imap_pass = "PasswordGoesHere" '

set from = "username@lillesvin.net" # From-address for this account
set folder = "imaps://lillesvin.net/INBOX"
set spoolfile = "imaps://lillesvin.net/INBOX" # Inbox
set postponed = "+Drafts" #Drafts folder
set trash = "+Trash" # Trash folder (if you applied the Trash Folder patch)
set record = "+Sent" # Sent messages
mailboxes "+" "+Sent" "+Drafts"
set header_cache =~/.mutt.local/cache/headers
set message_cachedir =~/.mutt.local/cache/bodies
set certificate_file =~/.mutt.local/certificates
set smtp_url = "smtp://smtpserver.example.com"
set imap_keepalive = 900
set imap_check_subscribed

And for the second account we create the file ~/Dropbox/mutt.config/accounts/gmail with the content:

# ~/Dropbox/mutt.config/accounts/gmail
account-hook "imaps://imap.gmail.com/" '\
set imap_user = "username@gmail.com" imap_pass = "PasswordGoesHere" '

set from = "username@gmail.com" # From-address for this account
set folder="imaps://imap.gmail.com/"
set spoolfile = "+INBOX" # Inbox
set postponed = "+[Gmail]/Drafts" # Drafts folder
set trash = "+[Gmail]/Trash" # Trash folder (if you applied the Trash Folder patch)
mailboxes "+INBOX" "+[Gmail]/Drafts" "+[Gmail]/Sent Mail" "+[Gmail]/Spam" "+[Gmail]"
set header_cache =~/.mutt.local/cache/headers
set message_cachedir =~/.mutt.local/cache/bodies
set certificate_file =~/.mutt.local/certificates
set smtp_url = "smtp://username@smtp.gmail.com:587/"
set smtp_pass = "PasswordGoesHere"
set imap_keepalive = 900
set imap_check_subscribed

Now Mutt at least knows about the two acounts, but we’re still not able to use them untill we’ve created the following muttrc in ~/Dropbox/mutt.config/:

# ~/Dropbox/mutt.config/muttrc

# Global settings:
set realname = "My Real Name" # Name to put in From on emails
set editor='vim + -c "set textwidth=72" -c "set wrap" -c "set nocp"'
unset imap_passive
set charset = "utf-8" # We want this and the one below to force UTF-8 (only with UTF-8 terminals)
set send_charset = "utf-8" # Force sending as UTF-8 (only works with UTF-8 terminals)
set mail_check = 60
set timeout = 30
set edit_headers = yes
set move = no

# Make account switching possible
account-hook . 'unset imap_pass'
folder-hook 'lillesvin.net' 'source ~/.mutt/accounts/lillesvin'
folder-hook 'imap.gmail.com' 'source ~/.mutt/accounts/gmail'
macro index <F2> '<sync-mailbox><enter-command>source ~/.mutt/accounts/lillesvin<enter><change-folder>!<enter>'
macro index <F3> '<sync-mailbox><enter-command>source ~/.mutt/accounts/gmail<enter><change-folder>!<enter>'
# Default account
source ~/.mutt/accounts/lillesvin

I’ve stripped almost all unnecessary stuff from muttrc (again, you can find all the gravy by simply googling), but this should be a minimal working setup. To switch between the accounts you simply hit F2 and F3 for the lillesvin account and gmail account respectively. And to get a nice overview of all folders you simply hit ‘y’. Now all there’s left to do is to actually open Mutt and see if it all works as expected. (You better get used to hitting ‘?’ for help – at least in the beginning.)

$ mutt

Enjoy your Mutt!

Now, Starcraft 2 requires a pretty good graphics card, so if I want to stay on OS X, I’m going to have to go with at least a MacBook Pro 15″ — i.e. a 13.200 DKK computer ($2350 / €1770). Now, that’s a hell of a lot of money. Alternatively, if I choose not to care about OS X and just try to get value for my money, I can get an MSI FX600 with equal or better specs for 6.000 DKK ($1050 / €800).

A quick comparison of some key specs. (Specs and prices from http://edbpriser.dk)

Granted, GDDR3 RAM is a lot better than just DDR3 (the G makes all the difference), but it’s not 4 times better.

On top of that, I’ve lost absolutely all respect I had for Apple when I bought my MacBook back in 2007. The upcoming Mac App Store and shit like that is just downright retarded. Meanwhile Microsoft has actually been doing pretty much the same as they’ve always been doing, but compared to Steve Jobs’ insane world domination plot, Steve Ballmer is actually starting to look like the sane one of the two. And Windows 7 is getting rave reviews, so why not give that a try, now that OS X is going “Trumpets!”

Now I’m just left thinking, why would anyone (today) spend money on a Mac, when you can get the same specs in non-Apple computer for less than half the price? The MSI obviously doesn’t look as slick as a unibody MacBook, but it looks alright — I mean, it’s not downright ugly if you peel off all the stickers, and the day I pay 7.000 DKK ($1250 / €940) for just the design, is the day when someone ought to shoot me in the fucking head.

My current desktop.

Who would want to be stuck with OS X or Windows?

Setup:

• GTK2/Metacity: Elegant Cold Blue Flat
• Icons: AnyColorYouLike
• Title bar font: Aldo
• Application font: Butter
• Clock/date font: Digital-7
• Wallpaper: Annotated / Raw
• Conky: .conkyrc
• Docky: bluesmoke

Well, back to work with some LaTeX in Vim. Haha! Even after 10+ years Linux still rocks my world.

Steve Jobs: “Home sharing: we‘re going to let you copy songs, TV shows, etc. with up to 5 computers in your house.” (Emphasis mine.)

Well, thanks a lot. Are you really going to let me do that? Gee, Steve! I don’t know what to say. I can play my DVDs on pretty much any device with a DVD drive without being limited to 5. I can even let friends borrow them without being worried that I won’t be able to see them myself when I buy a new DVD player because it would just happen to be the 6th device to play back that particular DVD. And don’t get me started on my vinyl collection.^[1]

I’m not sure I want an OS riddled with antifeatures, where I’m at the mercy of what Steve Jobs and Co. will let me do with my data.

^[1]: Irony would have it that in this recent press event, Apple announced the iTunes LP, which is basically nothing like a vinyl, but more like the many failed attempts at releasing extra material in a data track on a regular CD album. So get ready for craploads of cheesy DVD-like animated menus and metric tonnes of completely useless and indifferent bonus material.

So in this post-apocalyptic wasteland of a world it is now possible to actually use OpenOffice.org and send your ODF document to a Word user and expect them to be able to open it! While this is somewhat unexpected coming from Microsoft, it’s really a huge benefit to all word processor users of the world and a nice move from the people in Redmond. Of course, they’re not just doing it to be nice — there are certainly financial aspects to it — but still it shows that they are “getting it” even though it’s taken them some time.

Now, let’s sit back and watch how long it takes for Apple to implement native ODF support in Pages, Numbers, Keynote, etc. My guess is that it’ll be a while. Actually, I’m getting more and more tired of being held hostage by Apple’s ideas of what I want — and am allowed — to use my computer/OS for, while Microsoft seems to be heading in a more sensible and  Open direction. Of course, first and foremost I’m a Linux-user, but with Windows 7 getting rave reviews and these nice additions in Office 2007 SP2 (not that I do, or ever will, use Microsoft Office or any other office suite for that matter) I might just give Microsoft another chance after ditching Windows back in 2001. Kudos to the Redmond crew for going with what the users want instead of what they want the users to have.

Effectively this means that all combinations from alt-1 – alt-9 are useless, which means that the following characters can’t be written in Firefox 3 on OS X with a danish keyboard layout: ¡, “, §, £, ∞, ™, ¶, [ and ]. I find it especially troublesome that the hard brackets doesn’t work, since they’re extensibly used in BBTags, as replacements for < and > when writing HTML examples in a place that doesn’t handle < and > well, it’s used as scope delimiter in Functional Grammar notation and in a ton of other places.

I’ve scoured the web for a solution (as well as about:config) but to no avail.

So, MuSe and MIDI… It may just be me, but it seems I’ve tried every possible combination of settings and soft-synths, but still no cigar. I know that the keyboard is recognized, because — as I said — I can use it with LMMS, but MuSe just seems to make using MIDI really, really complicated, which is too bad. If anyone knows of any up-to-date documentation on the subject, please let me know, because what I’ve been digging up on google is ancient.

Anyways, I hope I don’t get too carried away with MIDI and totally lose the ability to keep it simple — don’t hesitate to let me know, if that happens. For now you’ll have to settle with my old tracks, until I’ve figured out how to work MIDI on Linux — or at least until I figure out how to make GarageBand obey my every command (hehe, yeah right… Like Apple would let me do that.) Alternatively, if Ardour make that native OS X port available soon and it has (some) MIDI editing capabilities, I might actually use that, because it absolutely rocks my boat.

Finally, if you have any tips or tricks (anything!) regarding MIDI on either Linux or OS X, please comment away (or email me). It’ll be greatly appreciated!

First of all when I boot, I get an message telling me that “No Updatable Devices Found”. I guess it happened after a system update, where the firmware for the device was to be updated, accurding to the Software Update program. I don’t use the drive that often, and I wouldn’t know if it did update it or not anyway. But this almost meaning less message annoys me, since it kind of shouts to my facethat the Playmoile OS doesn’t work as “Boom” as it says in the glitter adds.

While the first problem properly is a minor issue easy to solve, did I know how. This one is really odd. It concerns Firefox (Ff) and the OS X window manager, and is here parted in two issues. First; the Ff window reaches into top menu bar area. Either on top or underneath. In the picture it’s underneath. It was dragged into that area, but afterwards I can’t drag or click the bits of the Ff window that is in the menu bar area. Say it was on top and in a similar position as in this picture, then clicking the green radio-button to max the Ff window would instead unfold the Edit menu.

The other odd part is that Ff occupies the dashboard area. So when I enter the dashboard, it’s like Ff didn’t care and stay on top. Both of these two odd issues don’t happen all the time, I have to add, which makes it even more odd.

But no — check this picture:

Wouldn’t one expect to get X11.app installed by installing exactly that packages? – It’s what I’ve done the last time I installed X11 (to run Gimp, on a previous install of on another HD before it hard died). But now the installer can’t cope with something being too fresh. I’m happy that it don’t downgrade my (developer) sources, but why on earth doesn’t it just skip that and install the binary.

The install dvd didn’t have the same problems as this installer – thankfully.

I know it’s just a little thing and that it probably doesn’t really matter, but I do, none the less, think it’s a bit inconsiderate of Politiken.

Update (Sun, Feb. 18, 2007 15:49): As I said in the comments I actually mailed the author to mention it (not to whine or bitch about it) and today she sent me a nice and friendly reply and told me she wasn’t aware and that she’d try to keep such things in mind in the future. Apparently she’d had the same reaction from a lot of other readers. I guess the proper heading for this entry should have been Accidental FUD. Anyhow, it’s nice to know that you’re being taken seriously even though it was really just a silly little thing. :)