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OSX: How the heck do people approach email? Specifically, OSX "Mail" in this case. And, where did record album art go?
Tue, 27 Mar 2007

I think I must be missing something extremely obvious; thats entirely plausible given my current state of mind. If I am, let me know :) My question is -- if you have more than a few mailboxes, say a couple dozen or even hundreds, how do you file your mail? Drag and drop seems rediculous in this situation. (Mailboxes could be by author of email, or by project, or by whatever criterion. I use author, but for the following you can sub in whatever splitting technique you use.)

Asides: 1) This was sunroof-day, the first day of the year where I opened up our sunroof for a drive. Course, we bought the car in winter, so this was a cool occasion. 2) Where did album art go? you remember on records and such, where you'd have a painted cover by Roger Dean or the like?

Background for the question:

I'm considering switching to Mac Mail for some email activities; I'm for sure sticking to my existing mail package (Unix Pine if you must know) for a lot of other activities. Both use IMAP so I can keep all my mail physically located in one place regardless of which tool I use to manage any given message. Cool stuff, and as it should be for a cross platform developer. But in setting up Mac Mail ("Mail" hereafter), I find myself seeking one particular feature that just seems a super obvious requirement for everyone.. yet its missing. Obviously everyone else has a different workflow to me.. yet I'm surprised :) Being a developer and not a user does make one different, but for email.. we're all users, right?

I keep 'unprocessed' email in the inbox; I may have read a given message and not acted upon it yet, but still need it in the inbox. Eventually I file it. In my existing mail package, I just hit 's' to save the mail, and the default location is (configured from a menu item in the mail application) a mailbox named after the source email address -- one key and a return and I'm off to the next email. Example: If I'm reading an email from fooblorb@generic.com and hit the save key, it goes to 'fooblorb' unless I indicate otherwise. Nice and easy -- hit 's' and 'return', done. No fuss, no mess. This was the norm for dozens of email applications not that long ago.

With Mail you've got an Inbox; I can read email in it, and save them to a folder by drag and drop or a menu that lists folder to drop the message into. Well and good.. if you've got maybe 10 friends. If you've got 1890 folders in one account like I do, good luck scrolling 3/4 down to drop an email off a few times a day. Seems like a flawed UI .. drag and drop, and scrolly lists, just don't work for more than a handful of values. (Yes, I can trim down the folder count, but the problem remains.. I'm sure lots of people know more than 20 or 30 people .. and having to manually seek a text item from a list is never really fast to us poor humans. This is why in 'pick a country' lists in a web browser, they usually put a Canada and US option at the top.. seeking down to find US every time would annoy the hell out of you.)

Some options present themselves, but not well: Set up a 'rule' so that mails can filed to folders based on author. Great, but then they've not in the inbox anymore .. so you search through lots of folders to find all new mail.. silly workflow. After setting that up, you could set up a new virtual inbox that is a saved query, showing 'unread' mail say. Course, I like to read and then re-read and reply later, so thats unworkable as well since my inbox would be losing emails as I read them, not as I file them. I could try and manage with little flags and colours, but lets get serious -- in Pine, elm, mutt, gnus, and other older email packages you just hit the save key, and you're done. Perhaps some rules can be 'automatic', and others 'manual', but again.. we're getting pretty fiddly, for what amounts to 'one key' in other applications.

I do realize the idea of having conversations spread across multiple mailboxes by author-of-individual-message is antiquated, but it was also mega common, and works fine. (I can search by thread if I want to.. but for me, I 99% of the time search by person, or whole conversation is with one person. Most email for me is not amongst 10 people at once, but a one on one. I'm betting the same is true for most conversations.) Since I'm setting up across IMAP, I expect Mail to work to the existing system, not require me to import gigabytes of email and rework the storage just for it.

I'm betting theres some cool AppleScript solution, but I also know this same problem is present in many other current email applications. They tend to assume one big database, or some other organization scheme, and you adjust to fit their usage and use search views. Or perhaps most people have only a dozen mailboxes at a time, I dunno. I prefer applications that bend to my usage however, not the reverse :) I've been trained by these old apps, and I like my system like an old codger. I know I've been doing email for some 20 years or more and am a little set in my ways.. but how can I be the only one? :) And yes yes I know, few people get as much email as I do :)

I would think that if most people file-by-rule at all, and thus must use a virtual inbox that shows 'recent' email, it would be a default-on feature. So it makes me wonder.. how do most people manage their email? And more to point.. how can I bend these tools to my will?

At work I manually file every email .. by project, or to the trash after awhile. It makes sense for work since theres only maybe 10 projects at any given time and a few dozen over the year so I can sub-folder to save having to see more than a few at once. I don't want to manually file every email at home.. It should be as easy as a rule that applies only when you fire it off, and it should be a regular expression (or AppleScript?) to guess the mailbox name. Like we've been doing for 20 years in other applications.

I'm certain this had been done to death; any Mac nerds have a pointer for me?

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Baby: Women -- help us out a bit here :) Give it up for a new mom!
Mon, 26 Mar 2007

Today I guess was another of the 'fussy days' where the baby is kranky all day and just wants to be held. I get home from work and mommy is a little frazzled .. barely had time to have a cereal in the morning and no time for lunch or even to get a drink for herself; she got a few IM's in to me so we could communicate a little, but in general.. a tiring day of carrying the baby around while shushing. For those who've never done it -- its harder than you think, and tiring to caring a squirming twelve-pounder around :)

She was much fussier last Friday, but pretty good on the weekend when we were visiting. I think it tires the baby out to have lots of folks around so she ends up being quiet .. but the last few days where it was just my wife and her for the night and day, the baby was a fussy-bussy. Its hard on the wife, for sure.

After being sleep deprived and dealing with this all day, today my wife was a little on the upset side; she worries she's not doing her part since I have to take over when I get home from work "after a long day of work" .. "shouldn't I be able to do it all?". She's still worried about running up to shower while alone in the house (due to risk of fainting, however low). She worries about the baby fealing abandoned if she flops out to do email for a few mins .. so she ends up carrying the baby until just being exhausted.

I tell her .. she's not superwoman; she can't do _it all_ though she wants to. The baby has fussy days or weeks, and it _is_ hard. Just because other women don't show that its hard, it merely means they're not revealing that difficulty publicly, just as my wife wouldn't. I tell her that I have the easy part since I'm just going back to work.. stuff I've been doing awhile and I enjoy, and that doesn't involve squirming screamy babies. That my job is easy, and her job, being the mommy.. is hard. The hardest. Rewarding, but it _is_ tough. Maybe just for a couple months, or who knows.. but not to beat herself up. I say that a lot -- it is tough, so don't beat yourself up. You shouldn't be ashamed for wanting to have a few minutes to yourself.. you're human, and you need to unwind for 5 mins if you can get it.

She worries that she doesn't feal enough love and attachment to the child yet. Its not that my wife is depressed.. she seems fine and doesn't sound like post-partum or the like; she's just tired the heck out and as we all know.. a little sleep dep seriously messes with your calm. So she doubts herself.

My wife is amazing. She's doing an awesome job, and the baby loves her and responds to her singing until she's raw in the throat from it :) She's a great wife, my best friend, and a great mom. But she's tired.

Women out there, if you're reading .. please reply on Livejournal and let my wife know she's not alone.. that it is hard, and that she's normal. She's just like veryone else. She's not failing, the baby won't grow up hating her, none of that. Give it up for a new mom .. its a tough job, but it has to be done :)

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Gaming: Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
Sun, 25 Mar 2007

Normally I'd open up a review with a haiku, but I'm pretty beat right now. Permit me to be brief and provide the Pulp-free version of a blog entry.

Yes yes, I'm taking some time to write up something, and also admitting that while caring for this amazing baby, I've found a few minutes here or there to play a game. Not much, but a little :) Permit my sleep-dep to ramble, and don't mind the total lack of structure please :)

Puzzle Quest is a new game for the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS; it combines some elements of classic RPG's with a popular puzzle game in a smorgesbord of 2D fun. Interestingly, it works. There are really two or three kinds of RPGs .. the Japanese style (J-RPG) with its emphasis on story and console flavoring, and all the others where you have stats, item databases, and dungeon romping without a plot. Mixing with these formulas tends to annoy the faithful.. but this cuncoction is pretty darned slick. Peanut butter and chocolate.

RPG-wise its fairly simple -- you're a hero, you have to walk around an 'over world' doing quests. Standard issue. A dude in one city (blotch on the map) tells you to kill some monster in some other place (another blotch), so you wander on over and do your business. Theres a fair number of other things you can do to keep things interesting - shop for gear, build a castle, add a dungeon to your castle to capture folks to torture skills out of, and other such things. All is presented with a simple UI to get to the point, rather than hinder you with a lot of effort. Now, a lot of us play RPGs for all the effort but thats not what Puzzle Quest is about -- its a boiled down RPG for the sake of propelling you from encounter to encounter, and to provide a framework for spells and gear and such to make sense. Its like a boardgame version of an RPG, when you move your chit around picking up interesting abilities and gear, then go woop some ass. You don't go into any 3D-dungeons or the like.

Combat and research and such are all performed through variants of one puzzle game. Folks will be most familiar with it as Bejewelled, but that game certainly isn't the origin of that puzzle style. Anyway, while in those games the goal is simply to clear the board by matching alike pieces, in Puzzle Quest there is infinite depth built atop this base. Matching coloured gems removes them from the board and gives your character mana with which spells can be cast. Clear red gems to get red (fire) mana for instance. Clearing other items causes direct damage to the enemy, or gives you cash, or experience for levelling up. As you level up you get new abilities (depending on your class), and all this mana is used to fire off spells. For instance.. match 3 skulls to cause some damage directly to the enemy, or collect some (say) red and green mana and fire off an attack spell or effect.

The Warrior class for instance has abilities that turn this mana into direct attacks usually, or influence the board to effect it; ie: One ability clears a small region of the board (the squares around the target square), which can be handy so you can wait for a certain board layout and whammo it rather than working piece by piece. The Druid class is more healing oriented than direct damage, so spends its time manipulating the board, delaying the enemies moves, or healing itself. Where a Druid plods along doing slower damage to the enemy, or messing up his attacks, the Warrior is all about trying to pounce on the skull-blocks or do damage spells. Less survival in weird encounters, but everything moves along quickly. Fights are longer for the healer, but more 'under control' so gameplay feels different. Theres some depth to it .. not just the same thing over and over a la Bejewelled.. here you're working towards building sufficient mana types to fire off a spell or combo, while looking ahead to poach the pieces the enemy might need. Set yourself up with a multi-move set of combos, or work on building experience and gold for levelling up instead of going right for the enemy throat. Enemies vary in ability -- a spider can 'web' your character so you lose some turns, while a thief might steal some of your gold or do surprise attacks. All these many things occur on the game board. Cool stuff.

All in all, you're spending 90% of your time playing a Bejewelled-like game that works within the questing and adventuring framework familiar to J-RPGs. Nothing too serious, but pretty darned entertaining. Lots of cool items to buy and things to do.

And since each match is quick (5-20mins), you can play in the middle of the night between bouts of crying. Baby crying I mean. Usually, anyway ;)

I like it. I like serious RPGs usually, but I've not the time to read the back of the box of one these days. This hits the RPG and puzzle fetish in weird yet satisfyingly kinky ways.

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Music: Well, what in the name of the three rings of ferber? Er, Lullaby Renditions of NIN
Sun, 18 Mar 2007

Some days you just miss things that are obvious, while other times you accidentally tread into a doorway others have passed by for years. (Ideally when this occurs, you type 'look' and are told by the dungeon master you're either in the land of the troglo-humans or the dimension of supermodel-bimbos.) This day, however, my brother in law tread to my door and handed me this item pictured below .. an item scarcily believed to exist until it lay clutched in my sweaty fingers, like the last chocolate bar in a world where vermin destroyed the cocoa crop forever. <-- yes yes my friends, the sleep deprivation talks.

Now, I've not actually listened to it yet, but soon enough my dear friends. For now I must snuff in its . Should you flip over this CD, you see such wondrous words as 'glockenspiel', and a word that oozes 70s .. 'mellotron'. Or maybe the mellotron is the bad guy in the Transformers, I'm not sure anymore.

BTW, yes, I debated the 'baby' versus 'music' category. I might listen to this in the presence of non-unimonthians, so here it goes.

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Baby: Kryptonite. Being human.
Wed, 14 Mar 2007

One thing I realized the other day, which confused me a bit -- after going through a couple quick bouts of 'omg, my wife might die' (probably not, but it seemed possible at the time*), I realized that for one of the first times in my life I was in over my head. Its an odd feeling of insecurity when you don't really know where things are going (I've always had various plans, you see), and discover you've not done any research, and you're dealing with an alien species -- what do you want? why are you crying? A little insecure.. who? me? who knew! Damnit, I'm human again :)

I also find this huge need to talk to people, especially my close friends who for the last while I've let slide by a bit in our pseudo-slight-depression as we waited for the baby options to come to term. Mr brother and I were raised to be independant, but here I am looking for every possible idea and confirmation. Like finding yourself walking in a cave, listening for every voice. The net is cool this way .. looking for mailing lists and blogs, you can see every dad goes through the same things, and so many people I've bumped into over the years are offering their voices. It is encouraging, and very much what I need.

SMS texting has been the godsend; it takes little time, and is asynchronous.. so I've been chatting away with a dozen people I've not talked to nearly enough. Have a kid, act like a teenager :P

* The wife? What happened? I know I know.. the long story is needed, but I'll go a piece at a time. For this piece, just let me offer -- there was a moment when blood was pouring out there, not like a faucet but something like that and there was a few inches deep pool around her bottom. (Too much information?) She started to get light headed, so I was talking to her .. to make sure she was answering right, to encourage her to get those last pushes done, to let her know she was amazing and like a train -- could do it. But her blood pressuer had dropped to some very low numbers and it made me worry. It got weird there, but she seemed to recover a bit and we cried as the baby came out .. me for that joy and for the determnination and pain on my wifes face, and her for the joy of seeing what she'd been carrying for 9 or so long months. I'll write about all that later, but what scared me was at one point a few mins later when they passed my daughter to me and said very sternly.. "take care of your daughter". I watched paralyzed as the nurse pushed the 'help button' on the side of the bed and said something like "I need help in here". My wife remembers hearing "do we need more blood?" and "transfusion" but they opted not to. But there I was, pushed aside, holding this fragile little baby in my arms, watching blood pour from my wife, her getting dizzy, and a half dozen medical 'folks' doing 'stuff'. I'm sure it wasn't as serious as it is in my memory, but these images are part of what freaked me out. There are some amazing emotions and images forever burned into my mind, but these ones I won't miss when they fade.

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Baby: How babies change you (not How you change them, and not How you don't walk around in your jammies anymore). And -- How to go to work again?
Wed, 14 Mar 2007

Permit me to ramble; the luxury to edit a post is long gone :) If your time is short, skip to the end -- help me find a workable sleep/work schedule so I can enjoy life with my wife, and still get both of us some sleep, and properly care for the baby.

I don't think I've lead a lazy lifestyle, but more a 'just in time' one. JIT is a good thing in service delivery and compilers, so it must be good all the time right? Anyway, as a male its been easy -- shower every day, and if you need to go out its merely a 10 minute pulling on of the clothes operation. When you get married you quickly learn that the fairer sex takes an hour or more to get ready, and that you should appreciate such devotion. Maybe this is what leads to male JITness. Then you have kids, and being a little lazy seems to go out the door. Overnight you become a soccer-mom. So, future child who will never read this -- we were normal once, and you broke us in hours :)

I suppose this posting is another in my 'uncoolerer' thread, where I tell the future child that 'once we were cool, then we had you, and being a parent by definition makes you uncool.' You can no longer just-in-time when you've got a newborn around -- we pack her up to get out the door to the baby-doctor and theres a poop-explosion, or crying, or formula-preparation to ensure we've got enough. Heck, longer term -- you could always grab take-out for yourself if you run out of food at home, but when you've got a child you're on the look out for everything - enough laundry done for her? enough food? anything we need to get ready so we can leave in an hour or two?

She's nor even two weeks old, but here I sit planning on what items to move from floor to floor (since my wife is still weakened and floor-locked), and planning to get the oil changes done, and ensure I'm on top of my birth paperwork and taxes .. all these things, since time is so utterly precious in a very different way now. I used to not worry about minutia, but now it seems like we have to be on top of our game to squeeze every ounce of sleep in when we can, or eventually, to get the kids all ready for school or hockey practice on time..

Anyway, I digress. As you can see, I've come a long way since the other days panic. We're starting to get the hang of things.

Still, I've not returned to work yet. We're already not getting 'enough' sleep.. perhaps enough, but not how much we want. I know my sleep cycles are totally messed up and I'm expericing symptoms of jet lag, but it'll sort out. Of late we've been trying to hit the sack at 8-9 since we're tired, but end up chatting till 10-11 anyway since we miss each other and need to go over all the things that've happened lately. My wife falls asleep near instantly, yet I can't fall asleep until 1 or 2 am it seems.. then change and feed the tot, and she sleeps another hour or two or three and I hope to squeeze a bit in. Repeat a few times until its 6 or 7 am and then I try to actually crash and let my wife take over.. since she's now slept from 10 through 6 or so and hopefully ignored enough crying to get some rest. Since I'm totally trashed from being up a day and most of the night, I crash from 7am or so through eleven .. likely explaining while I can't sleep until 2am. But I hear every girgle and motion the tot makes, keeping me always semi-awake, and eleven through 8-9 is a pretty short day-cycle when you're used to 16-hour day cycles. Its a survival sleep pattern where the days woosh by, but we don't feel totally wrecked.. just half wrecked and in life-pattern shock.

Whats a normal sleep cycle for a couple with a newborn? ie: One works and one is home with the baby.

Some obvious options come to mind -- alternating baby duties, alternating nights so every other night one person gets a full sleep, shifts in a night so theres relatively well defined duty-periods.. any others? Requirements are 'seeing my wife so we don't just become room-mates' and 'enough sleep to survive', and nice to haves include 'getting enough sleep to actually feel good' and 'time to play games or watch TV again.' For these last few years where we were a little depressed by lack of babies, I enjoyed playing some games and reading and we enjoyed a few TV shows and such.. you know, normal people stuff. It'd be nice to have some of that too, so we don't just end up living purely for the baby, but a little for ourselves too. (Is that selfish?) Forget time to browse the web and time-killers like that :P And forget doing things off the cuff.. now it seems the baby wants one of us with her all the time, so need to tag off .. one of us can make coffee for the other, etc.

Say I work 10-6, and allow for an hour of travel on each side.. that means out of the house 9 to 7. Could work ealier or a bit later, though I'm trying to avoid rush-hour. If I want to see my wife, do I need to work those nutty hours all the other dads I work with do? 7-3 and such? urgh! Anyway, if I try for out-of-house 9 to 7, trying to get the newborn to bed by 8-9 so we have some time to ourselves for bed by 10-11, how will that work .. off the cuff:

Total guesswork: home - wake up: 8:30am
work - drive: 9->10am
work - office: 10->6pm
work - drive: 6->7pm
home - take over baby so wife can rest a touch: 7->9pm
home - put baby to bed: 9->10pm (hopefully less time?)
home - relax with wife: 9:xx->11pm (already too late.. must shift eveyrthing earlier?)
home - my shift with baby: 11pm->2am (so get 6.5 hours sleep?) home - sleep: 2am->8:30am wake up

This scheme hasn't been thought out at all, but lets check the summary for my side: Sleeping for 6.5 hours in the night, maybe squeezing some more in there somewhere.. not bad, but not ideal for sure. Seeing wife for only an hour or two.. pretty bad. I truly regret screwing around before the baby for all those years when it should've all been with the wife. Clearly, optimizing travel time would be ideal, but I _like_ driving to work and being able to show up earlier or later at leisure..

Now, what does that scheme do to my wife? She'd have the baby duty 2am to 7pm.. like 17 hours. Brutal, but maybe thats the girls job since I'll be working? She'd get sleep 11pm through 2am so a good 3 hours plus any cat-naps. Wow, insane. Note also she is still weakened from the blood loss, so getting around in the house and carrying the baby and such tire her out. We need to get her some sleep in here somewhere! Or do the mothers always get by on catnaps while the baby sleeps?

Clearly this schedule is unworkable!

We'll have to sort it out soon, and find some workable balance. I worry we'll end up with only 3-4 hours sleep a night each, and barely seeing each other, for a couple months anyway.

What have all you other parents done with your newborn, to enjoy life and survive and such while working?

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Baby: Its a girl! - Or, How I learned what truly being sleep deprived is like
Sun, 11 Mar 2007

There is so much I can and hope to say about the baby and birthing process. Men - wear comfy shoes that you think you can stand for 35 hours in, and women - you are all each and every one truly amazing. If I ever get free time again I will write about the birth, the in-hospital after-birth, the coming home, and life in chaos, but time is so utterly precious right now I'll be brief. All of these events are incredible and soul altering, but of all things, I feel I must whine a bit this time. Consider this the 5th or so posting about the birth, where the others will come sometime :)

o My wife is amazing; I could never have done what she has done with anywhere near as much energy and strength .. especially after the complications and such she's been through

o Our baby is beautiful beyond belief, but boy can she wail :)

o You know, when having a baby, life will be forever different, that sleep will be interupted and priorities will change; but you cannot understand the scope of life shock until it happens.. omg! It makes you wonder, at this early point, how anyone survives at all. I know it will get better but right now, it just seems like a scary future :)

There is so much to say about the baby and life and all, but right now I'm feeling super-stresses; worrying about my wife and the baby and caring for them at the expense of myself has shaken me .. walking for 5 hours at night time to get the baby to sleep through her cramps (she's not pooping enough) has totally messed me up. I want to spend more time with my wife (I so regret everything I did that was not with my wife, before the birth), and have a good nights sleep again, and I wonder when (if ever) we'll be able to flop down and watch TV or I'll have a moment to read .. or play a game or any such frivilous thing. Right now we're still in that panic-period where the baby is either asleep or screaming (usually the latter :), so we spend all our time being amazed by tiny toes, or trying to just get past the current tirade to the next time when we can rest.

Luckily my mother-in-law popped by a few times so I coudl crash for a couple hours during the day, but its still left me weird; we've decided 'bed time' is now 8pm and hoping to last 12 hours, so that somewhere in that 8-to-8 period we might get 5 hours or more sleep. Catching a cat-nap for an hour or two in the day is a rare luxury, but then just makes for problems later when we try to really hit the bed.. <-- overwhelmed

Just .. wow. My wife lacks energy from loss of blood et al, but she can handle it all .. simply amazing. I find myself a bundle of nerves, rushing store to store to buy what we need, worrying about getting to a doctor to help with the babies constipation (counting the hours until Tuesday for that appointment), and dealing with sleeping in scraps during the day while zombing during the night.

Heres to hoping that sometime in the next couple weeks it'll get better.. I'm not sure I can handle it all as it is, though I know that I will somehow or another :)

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