William F. Buckley Jr. Is Dead at 82 - New York Times

William F. Buckley Jr. Is Dead at 82 - New

I can't say it any better than the NY Times:

William F. Buckley Jr., who marshaled polysyllabic exuberance, famously arched eyebrows and a refined, perspicacious mind to elevate conservatism to the center of American political discourse, died Wednesday at his home in Stamford, Conn.

He was a man with an amazing vocabulary and quick mind. I never developed a taste for his books, but I will miss reading his articles and interviews/debates on TV. Both he and Kurt Vonnegut will be missed.

Inbox Heaven - The Ultimate Email Setup

Inbox Heaven - The Ultimate Email Setup Put Things Off

This is a very good overview of how I setup a unified inbox for all my e-mail. Originally, I hosted mail on my servers and performed filtering using blacklists and other basic filters, but this is a waste of time at this point.

The other issue is that I have multiple domains, some of them over 12 years old, and I want to aggregate and filter all my mail from a central location. Google Mail (GMail) is the best solution, IMHO and Nick outlines how to use it to good effect.

In addition to his comments, I highly recommend using GTD Inbox to flag your messages and manage tasks within GMail.

You also need to be aware that GMail will fall down and die if you have over 50,000 objects in your inbox. This is rather insidious bug (feature?) that I ran into because I get a ton of SPAM and I configured GMail POP to leave mail on the server. Not a good move. To resolve this issue, you have to configure a POP client to download your mail from your primary server.

After running into this issue with my primary e-mail address (paulbegley.com), I configured GMail to remove all messages from my inbox and I connect to GMail using IMAP to archive my mail locally once a month to my primary workstation.

Regarding Search, you have two options - Google Desktop Search or Microsoft Desktop Search. Google Desktop Search is compelling if you access your mail through a browser. If you primarily live in Outlook and use GMail POP/IMAP connections, I prefer Microsoft Desktop Search.

Hey Hillary, I understand "Experience Counts"

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w235/indianluvsguitar/25healy_600.jpg

My DSL has fallen and it could not get up...

In my attempt to migrate to VoIP from Verizon land lines, Verizon disabled my DSL and I have been off line since last Friday.

Just so people reading this don't think I was being stupid, I realize my primary phone number was associated wtih my DSL circuit.  In fact, I contacted Verizon DSL support and specifically asked about the process to migrate my primary number to another provider.  I was told "...your DSL circuit will automatically be converted to a dry loop circuit.".  They repeated this twice in the conversation when I asked for confirmation.

What actually happened was my number was successfully transferred to AT&T CallVantage VoIP on Wednesday.  On Friday, my DSL circuit was disabled at the CO (central office).  After four hours on the phone, and escalation to third tier support, I discovered that my location is not eligible for a dry loop circuit for technical reasons (probably distance). 

I was on the phone off and on for four hours.  I spoke to every department associated with selling, billing, and supporting Verizon DSL.  I was told to call the wrong department on multiple occasions.  I was on hold for a total of 58 minute for Billing - the call was dropped after 30 minutes, I called back, was put into the queue, and on hold for an additional 28 minutes.

The last call I made Friday was to Billing.  I was on hold from 5:45PM until 6:35PM only to find out from the Billing customer service guy that I *really* should have called Sales, but they closed at 6:00PM EST and I would have to wait until Monday at 8AM to pursue a fix for my DSL circuit which Verizon automatically disabled.

It was the single, most painful customer service experience of my life.  I am detailing it and plan to submit it as an article for a technical publication.

I will publish it in full here with all references.  I have six pages of notes with dates, time stamps, and contact information.

I did pursue options on Monday, but by the end of the day, the best they could offer was to establish a new DSL circuit with an install date of February 22.  This was two weeks after Verizon shut down my DSL circuit and after I transferred my home office number back to Verizon from AT&T to facilitate the fix.

I called Comcast and they had a broadband connection installed Thursday afternoon.  The tech showed up early and the circuit was up and running 30 minutes before he was scheduled.