I had written earlier about my woes. A week filled with inexplicable crashes while "Building summary file for Inbox" and, generally spiking up the CPU during indexing later, I decided that it was time to end a functional relationship.

Thunderbird was replaced with a stack that comprises of mutt+offlineimap+imapfilter+postfix. The last one was more of a necessity as msmtp wasn't cut out to be receiving the emails and then sending them out later when I went online. With a number of dot-files available that helped bring this configuration up, the only evolving bits is the imapfilter config.lua. With the number of lists and stuff that I am on and the volume of automated notifications I receive, it is going to take some time before I finally get things working (I wish I could export the existing filters from Thunderbird into an imapfilter readable file). The mutt is built with a sidepane patch which means that I have excluded it from yum updates. But that's fair trade. With the Thunderbird datastore added as a directory, I have the old mails easily read.

That's about it. I am still tweaking mutt a bit every now and then for ease of use, but otherwise it has been a fairly good ride.

I have been using Airtel's 3G services in Pune for a couple of days now. Here are the first impressions.

• availability/coverage is spotty. For example, it will work near Aurora Towers but not work near the GPO. Which is very odd
• coupled with the spotty coverage is the fact that it mostly requires you to be near some window etc to get it working. As an example, if you are sitting near one of the Moledina Road facing windows at the Dorabjees Coffee Shop it will work, try it near the yoghurt section on the first floor and be prepared to be disappointed
• most folks say that 3G causes battery drain, I haven't noticed anything unusual
• however, it does take a longer time for network/data signal to align itself (bars on the phone). It could be that the network infrastructure itself is facing issues, but an example could be parking at the ground floor at Mariplex, losing cell signals, coming up till the KFC/Juice Bar and then waiting for close to half a minute before I get signals. Nothing of significance has changed in the phone in terms of firmwire or, application stack. So, it is a curious experience. You can repeat this if you park at Dorabjees and come up.
• I am noticing more signal drops than before. Again, the network might be congested.
• It takes some time, sometimes connecting and disconnecting twice to get on to the 3G network and actually send/receive data. Else you can see that data is being sent, but nothing is coming down the pipe.

Runa is still on the 2G plan. And, she doesn't seem to have the above issues. So, it makes it even more unusual.

On a side note, call drops on the network seems to have increased.

I've been using the Milna application on my phone for a couple of days. This is a "social networking" application with a bit of a twist - it is location based and, requires that you post what you want to do. Users near you (the distance is configurable, but you'd want to keep it really near you) can join in and, together you'd have a blast. Good fun really ! You don't necessarily have to be on any specific network or, be "friends" with anyone. Just make a wish and perhaps you'd have folks joining in. They need to be using the app though. So, you should ideally keep pointing out the website to them.

And, as I was thinking, the app could be a good fit to organize a flash mob ;) or, a party or, a jamming session. Or, anything that can have you making new acquaintances and perhaps striking up a friendship. Runa pointed out the small concern that it might also be used for stalking, but I guess that is something the app developers have already thought about. The app (or, if there is a custom web service ever) can also be used as private instances. Think of a private Milna server/instance for your team and you could perhaps have a "Chatter" like thing going.

For me the current downside is the lack of users near me using the app. That needs to change.