Beagle

The extension has finally reached a usable state after a couple of hectic days. I still have a few things on my TODO-list but they are only minor issues compared to what I’ve been dealing with. Despite that I still want to hold on the extension for ... [More] one more day (I’ll release it tomorrow no matter what) ’cause I want to figure out a small overlay issue that I’m having. I also need some time to write a small “usage” documentation explaining everything you might need to know. So, if you are up for it: check in tomorrow, I’ll release the extension to the public. Everyone that wants to test should not miss this [Less]

London was fab; now in beautiful Birmingham. For those attending lovely GUADEC, an apposite reminder: My keynote is Thursday morning, 09:30. And do not miss Joey's torrid meta-metadata chat, which is under way as we speak.

I’m usually quite time optimistic and it seems like I’ve done it again… My “todo” list currently have seven tasks that I must complete before even thinking of making a release. These tasks have popped up today as I’ve been working (which I’ve done ... [More] pretty much since I woke up this morning) and I didn’t realize how “much” there’s left to do. I really want to make a release ASAP but I don’t want to release anything until all vital parts are there. The GUI code and some of its “hard-to-find”-features are the main reason for the delay. It took me a while to find some of the functions that I really need. But I’ll continue working all day tomorrow and make another post about my progress then. Time to get some rest. [Less]

The browser element : A frame which is expected to contain a view of a Web document.(From http://www.xulplanet.com/references/elemref/ref_browser.html)In firefox extension we usually use this element to load an document in the background.I ... [More] implement "Index This Link" using browser element.How ?When the menu item is clicked , weget the link URLopen a new window chrome://newbeagle/content/indexLink.xul , and pass URL and current window element as argumentsWhen chrome://newbeagle/content/indexLink.xul is loaded.init beagleInvisibleBrowser with opener. (the window which this window)load the passed URLonce the URL is loaded.call winodw.opener.beagle.indexIt with the load document .In this way, the linked document is indexed just like I loaded it in a new tab , and then "index this page ".Another problem , why open a new window ?We can't put a browser element in the status bar / toolbar or any other place using overlay. So We have put open a new window , and put a browser element in it . (not visible,of course).We should let user know that we are downloading something. And also it may take some time , We must allow the user to see the process and cancel it . [Less]

Just wanted to give a tiny report on what’s currently going on. The “core”, if you will, of the extension is nearly complete. I’ve come across a small bug that makes Thunderbird segfault every now and then (not very often though). I’m building a ... [More] debug build of Thunderbird as I’m writing this to track it down (Thunderbird should never crash). This is also a request from David as he wants to help track the bug down. I’m also going to try out some code that I need to complete my extension which he is the author of (code that is not yet in trunk). Without this code I won’t be able to act upon renaming of folders or when something is thrown out of the trash bin. Once this is done I’ll start with the GUI part, which hopefully won’t take more than a day. I’ll throw up an .xpi for easy testing as soon as I’ve completed the GUI part, since that’s when it’s appropriate to begin testing it. Performing a full index is totally possible at this stage too, the data wouldn’t end up in beagle until I’ve finished the backend, though. [Less]

Back in India, I did one good thing. Finished adding Alexis Christoforides' project of Google Summer of Code 2006 Beagle over the network. Its a bit untested with the recent versions of beagle and I didn't read the code completely, so I left it in a ... [More] separate branch for the time being.What can you do with this wonderful project ?- Start beagled on one machine- Add that machine (with port 4000) to the list of neighbourhood nodes via beagle-config on a second machine in the network- Remotely query the beagled on the first machine from the second machineThe SoC project was a complete one, with GUI support. However, I only added the basic infrastructure and enabled the cli tool beagle-query to query remotely. I am not sure if querying for emails remotely makes sense, how will the results be opened ? As of now, only the filesystem backend is enabled to send query over the network.Ideally, beagle should automatically find out other networked beagled in the network. Don't despair, there was another SoC project in 2006, Avahi Integration by Kyle Ambroff doing exactly that. Sadly I am too preoccupied to work on integrating the Avahi work. But with that and the GUI parts of Network Beagle, beagle would be useful in more ways than ever. [Less]

The high availability and quality of ETFs provides a strong foundation for a cost-effective retirement strategy. Of course, Wall Street (at least one half of it) hates ETFs, which are cheap and don't allow brokers to extract generous commissions. ... [More] Worse, a good ETF-based strategy can outperform a more managed approach. Cheaper and better, just like Linux! Given the decision to setup a lazy portfolio, you need to decide on an allocation strategy. There are many long-term trends that I believe are likely to continue; ETFs allow their monetization and integration into your investment portfolio. For example, I've never been a fan of individual stocks as an investment asset (I am making a distinction here between trading and longer-term investing). Over time, the individual investor will not—cannot— generate the same level of return that a mutual fund will garner. Moreover, in the long run, mutual funds have a hard time beating their benchmark indexes—even they cannot beat the street. So I would not want a long-term investment strategy built around my own stock selection, or even mutual funds. But I would want an ETF or two that tracks a broad swath of the US market. Such a move might sound pedestrian, but it beats having a dog like Magellan stink up your retirement. Another trend that I suspect is only going to accelerate is the decline of the dollar and the growth of emerging markets. The easiest way to realize the former is a fund that invests in mid- and large-cap offerings in Europe, Asia, and Australia. Such a fund bets on continued growth in those markets, but what they also back is the health of those currencies versus the dollar. To bet on emerging markets—veritable money trees, like investing in pre-Industrial Revolution America—there are plenty of focused ETFs. Due to information asymmetry, illiquidity, and corruption, there is actually a good argument for going with a managed fund for your emerging market allocation, but there are some smart yet low-fee ETFs, too. Just the sort of moron from which you want to take investment advice A third asset class I would want in my long-term portfolio is real estate. REITs have had an interesting ride lately, but I feel that they still have a place in any serious retirement plan. There are a handful of ETFs that track REIT indexes. Thus, for the aggressive and long-term investor, consider my "bet the farm on overseas" portfolio allocation: 35% Vanguard Total Stock Market (VTI) or iShares S&P 500 Index ETF (IVV) 25% iShares MSCI EAFE Index ETF (EFA) 20% iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index ETF (EEM) 10% iShares Dow Jones US Real Estate (IYR) or iShares Cohen & Steers Realty Majors ETF (ICF) 10% iShares Russell 2000 Value Index ETF (IWN) This portfolio allocation is bound to shower you in gold. Or it might result in a complete loss of value. And your wife will leave you. Alone and a diet of cat food: You have been warned. Reinvest all dividends and rebalance annually. Oh, and the smart investor—unless immortal—eschews annuities as if they were a Michael Bay film. [Less]

Is no news really good news? :-)Well, I’ve got some code up and running. It doesn’t install anywhere yet, but does talk Xesam in it’s own limited and special way. The parser is possibly not too efficient, and definitely has trouble parsing more ... [More] complex queries (ones with multiple or data elements). You can find the code is in the Gnome subversion repository.There’s a list of outstanding issues in the top-level directory. For example, a major concern is that there isn’t much of a grouping mechanism in Beagle for queries with lots of ANDs and ORs (something like “(a and b) or c” is not possible right now).In the initial implementation I left a lot of the smaller details hanging, I’m going about addressing these now. The set of supported metadata fields needs to be finalised before I can touch upon the set of fields returned and sorting order. The parser is also could do with some touching up (I’ve kept it as simple as possible now).All this should push the adaptor closer to completeness. [Less]

I think I’ve decided to go with an extension now. Been playing around with Thunderbird all day, trying to figure out how they work. So far I’ve been able to create the extension base (so that I can build and install a working extension) and I think I ... [More] understand the basics well enough now. I finally know what XPCOM is and how it works too, only that is mind blowing The biggest break through so far is that I’ve actually managed to figure out how the account manager works. I can now handle when accounts are added, changed or removed. Very basic, but it’s something. [Less]

I’m starting to question myself if the current approach I’m taking is really worth all the fuss. We will always have the problems with parsing Mork files and the backend itself is going to be incredibly complex all in all. Also got a response from ... [More] David Bienvenu yesterday and he suggests writing an extension instead of taking the path I’m currently walking. This is the way both Spotlight (which David has been involved with) for Mac OS X and Google Desktop does it. It seems very rational and would make things a lot easier. We would lose the capability to index when Thunderbird isn’t running, but we would actually be able to “index” things when beagle isn’t running (the design would be similar to the IndexingService backend), if I decide to implement it this way. I know that some people read this by now and I would like your input in the matter. Should I go on as I intended from the beginning or take the alternative road and write an extension (which would require a less complex backend) instead? Also, David is putting some effort in adding support for loading individual mails in Thunderbird from the command line, which is one of the things I’m going to need in the future. We’ll see how this evolves, but it seems promising. [Less]