carlfoxmarten | Thunderbird, from v3 to v11

My Linux distribution updated the version of Thunderbird it has from the old version 3.0.something to the absolute latest version, which was version 11.

With this update, it's no longer complaining about becoming obsolete and unsupported, but it's also become incompatible with the theme I was using.

Thunderbird has always lagged behind Firefox in a very significant way in the themes and extensions department, but the leap to the rapid version-number bumping has only made this worse.

There are no good themes available for Thunderbird in general, especially compared with the sheer variety that is available for Firefox, and even fewer that are compatible with Thunderbird 11.

If I can find a good theme for this version, I might be able to stand it long enough to get used to it, but they've also changed a whole bunch of other things.
For instance, now Thunderbird hogs half my processor, doing nothing (which the old one never did, even when checking things for updates), the quick message-viewing pane used to have a way to slim down its information header (it doesn't any more), and they haven't been very effective with the amount of space things use.
(I'm rather picky in that regard. If you waste usable space in a manner I can't fix, you've failed me)

Yes, I'm being picky.
Yes, it just updated today.
Yes, I was used to the old version.
But Thunderbird 11 has failed me on several levels, and I will not even begin to appreciate it again until each and every one of these concerns are addressed.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

DHLawrence persuaded me to give Firefox a go...

(BTW - How's the job hunting?)

As opposed to Microsoft browsers, Firefox is a large step up in freedom and security.
The themes and extensions available for it have quite a wide variety.

I don't use it much any more because I'm now so used to Google Chrome handling each tab separately.
(it was getting annoying, loading a page in one tab, then switching to another tab and waiting for the first page to load before the second tab's page was rendered again)

On the job front: Poorly.
I'm having some conflicting emotions that I have to deal with, especially in regards to my parents.
The answers I'm coming up with, I'm relatively certain my parents won't like much, so I haven't been doing much about it.

I've been considering doing some temp work with an agency near here that my brother has been using for warehouse work.
They appear to have technical positions, but their search engine is quite broken.
(no matter what I plug in, it always lists every job posting they have)

Yes, again that was me about 20 years ago.

Temp work can be necessary in such a situation, but beware: once an agency knows that you are reliant on them for an income they'll refer you to temp work only and they'll pretend they have no permanent positions to offer. The reason: they receive an ongong commission for referring people to temp work, but only 1 commission for referring to permanent roles.

There was one particular agency I'll never forget. When I signed up with them I explained (as I did with all the agencies back then) that I was looking for permanent work but would accept temp jobs until something permanent came in. They conducted an interview, and almost immediately after that they started referring me to temp jobs. Over the following 4-6 years (I forget the exact number) I had bad experiences with some of their clients, and then I told the agency that I'd had enough and I wanted to de-register from them. All of a sudden they wanted to call me in for an interview for "what sort of permanent roles you want." In other words they never considered me for permanent jobs at any time I'd been on their register.

After that I divided up my list of employment agencies into those I would accept temp work form, and those that I was only dealing with for permanent jobs. I'd say it worked, because that's how I was referred to my current employer.

During the time that I was having intense difficulty with my current job and applying to employment agencies, I had a phone call from a new one, and the caller tried to pull a fast one on me. This was the conversaiton:

Employment agent: "Now it says here [talking about my applicaiton] that you want to do temp work."
Myself: [Very stern] "It doesn't say that, and you know it."
Employment agent: [Surprised that I'd caught her out] "Oh! Well I don't think we've got any permanent positions for you."
Myself: "Thank you for your time, goodbye!" [I hung up immediately].

(I have the next 4 days off work. I'll send you an E-mail to let you know if this ear infection has cleared up enough for me to play online).

I'm still not sure about using an agency to find a permanent position.

I've heard horror stories from someone who works IT at my university's campus about agencies charging $80 an hour for a temporary programmer's time, and paying only $30 an hour or so.
I think I'd rather search for a permanent position myself, or have one find me.
(my luck on work finding me, paying or not, has been moderately good, so I'm not terribly concerned on that front)

Valve Software allowed somebody to post their employee handbook online.
Every time I read more news on how they work and how they treat their employees, the more I think I'd like to work there.

Ah yes, I forgot that employment agencies in North America charge their applicants a fee. Down here that's not allowed; they only charge the hiring company.

I sure hope you do get to work for Valve. I imagine it would be perfect for you.

It entirely depends on which employment agency it is.

My brother is paid $12/hour flat-rate, and suspects they're charging $15/hour for his time, though he's not really supposed to find out.
(it's part of the contract, so you don't know how much of the pie you're missing)

We'll see about it being a perfect job.
Right now, I don't handle working alone very well (it's a self-motivation problem), and would prefer to start out under somebody's wing to learn things.

It's probably a good thing that Google didn't get me.
Somebody left Google, and posted a note as to why.

(Boy, that guy likes to talk - I could have summarised all that in just a few sentences. I did however like the analogy - "Google was the rich kid who found they weren't invited to the party and tried to hold their own party in retaliaiton.")

Sad about Google, but it's not surprising. Nothing lasts forever. Disney went the same way; losing its pioneering spirit and becoming a corporate machine. Sierra Entertainment allowed themselves to be bought out, thinking that they'd still be able to carry on with business as usual, then suffered the fall when it was discovered that their new parent company had been fiddling the books.

At least Google didn't suffer Infocom's fate - investing too much in one product that ultimately failed, then being bought out by Activision who dismantled them.

Thankfully Aardman Animations avoided the corporate maw - after Dreamworks interfered far too much with the production of "Flushed Away" leading to a dissapointing film Aardman decided to return to the way things used to be. Many other companies should follow their example.

the quick message-viewing pane used to have a way to slim down its information header (it doesn't any more)
If I get this right, they moved that functionality into an add-on. It was mentioned to me during the installation.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/compactheader/?src=hp-dl-featured

Hmm. I suppose moving that functionality into an extension would ensure that they got their extensibility working well, but removing features from the main program and relegating it to an optional extension just doesn't sit right with me.

I'm kind of annoyed that I didn't get a message about this during my install.
But that's Linux package managers for you...

Thunderbird, from v3 to v11

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