Thunderbird migration

After weeks of nagging by Eudora, I finally made the switch. Apparently the version I currently use will no longer be functional after March 31st for reasons I'll explain in a moment, so I figured I might as well deal with it now and avoid the last-minute panic. Oh, I took the usual precautions; I dumped all my Eudora mailbox files and folders onto a backup CD, just in case. And although I've deleted the icons from the desktop and the startup menu, I haven't actually uninstalled it yet. You know, just in case.

I should point out that I didn't make the change lightly; I'm an electronic pack rat (I keep everything, even though I know it's bad for me) and you all know that I'm the personification of the term "creature of habit." I've been using Eudora (sponsored mode) for, gosh, probably a decade or more, and I've stored up about 400 MB worth of e-mail (much of it unread, I hate to say, but I swear SOMEDAY I will!!!...), and I've really grown accustomed to its interface. But alas it appears that Qualcomm is more or less winding the so-called sponsored mode down in the next few months and turning it over to the open source community. To which I say: Huzzah Qualcomm! Nice one. Initially I was sorely tempted to simply download the "new" version (7.1). That would have been the easier and probably less anxiety-inducing route. But I already had Thunderbird installed -- I use it (very efficiently) for all my RSS feeds -- so I figured, what the hell. I've been a fan of Firefox and have never had any issues with it, nor it with me, so I figured I'd give it a try. And the migration seemed fairly easy & straightforward, so I went for it.

It's early days yet but so far, so good. I've had to add a couple of extensions, like MagicSLR, so I had an easier way to "send later" instead of being forced to send my e-mail out immediately. (Sometimes it needs to steep a little longer, or age like fine wine in a cask; sometimes I just really need to rethink some foul-mouthed rant before I let someone have it between the eyes.) And I installed another one to help migrate my address book over, because Thunderbird doesn't like the way Eudora handles contact information, or vice versa. There's some other functionality I'm missing, like the ability to change sig files on-the-fly. (If anyone knows how to do this already, let me know; I haven't seen any in the Mozilla forums.) But the mail conversion and file/folder transfer went smooth as buttah, and mostly it's been a pleasant, and fairly uneventful, transition... he writes, with fingers crossed.

Not sure why I'm telling you this, except it may be some sort of manifestation of an averse psychological response to reviews of MS Vista and its creepware functions. Open source is good. Open source is free! (Although I donate modestly to the cause.) Now, I just need to work up the courage to install Open Office and finally do away with MS Office.