It’s Such a Perfect Day, the Video

Eingang — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 12:27:13 +0000

“Just a perfect day,
You made me forget myself.
I thought I was someone else,
Someone good.”

I was visiting the UK from Switzerland when the BBC aired this “commercial” for themselves in 1997, based around Lou Reed’s classic Perfect Day. I remember being completely blown away by the production in terms of its visuals, the diversity of performers, and the BBC’s not-so-subtle message. On a beautiful blue-sky day here in London, it makes me cry a little watching it but in a good way.

Wikipedia (2012) lists the artists in order of appearance, with columns indicating verses/sections, as:

Lou Reed
Bono
Skye Edwards (from Morcheeba)

David Bowie
Suzanne Vega
Elton John
Andrew Davis

Boyzone
Lesley Garrett
Lou Reed
Burning Spear
Bono
Thomas Allen
Brodsky Quartet

Heather Small (from M People)
Emmylou Harris
Tammy Wynette
Shane MacGowan
Sheona White (tenor horn player)

Dr. John
David Bowie
Robert Cray
Huey (from Fun Lovin’ Criminals)

Ian Broudie (from The Lightning Seeds)
Gabrielle
Dr. John
Evan Dando (from The Lemonheads)
Emmylou Harris

Courtney Pine (soprano saxophone player)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Andrew Davis
Bono

Brett Anderson (from Suede)
Visual Ministry Choir
Joan Armatrading
Laurie Anderson
Heather Small
Tom Jones
Heather Small
Lou Reed

I hadn’t realized not all the artists were British until I saw the Wikipedia list. I hadn’t remembered or perhaps recognized Suzanne Vega back then, but she’s definitely an American songwriter, as is Emmylou Harris. And, of course, Tammy Wynette (!) is quintessentially American country. It makes me wonder how they chose artists and why some appeared multiple times. If the Wikipedia list is correct, Heather Small (from M People) appeared three times.

In any case, enjoy!

Wikipedia (2012). Perfect Day (Lou Reed song) [online]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_Day_(Lou_Reed_song) (Accessed July 12, 2012).]

Thunderbird-based Postbox Drops Price Massively

Eingang — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 11:51:02 +0000

Credit: Postbox, Inc.

Postbox's mailbox application icon

Postbox, the Thunderbird-forked e-mail client I’ve been playing with for the last month after a discussion with Alan Cann about e-mail clients, has just substantially dropped in price from $29.95 US to $9.95 US. The previous $10.00 US discount if you tweeted about it has been reduced to $5.00, but it means you can buy Postbox (Mac OS X or Windows) starting at only $4.95!

This price drop comes probably not coincidentally as Mozilla’s chairperson announced Mozilla won’t be putting resources into further feature development for Thunderbird. The price drop also makes Postbox more competitive with Sparrow, another Mac e-mail client. Both applications tout their wonderful Gmail integration features, but I’m a long-time POP/IMAP user keen on keeping my mail on my laptop and not in the cloud, so I’ve been appreciating the robustness of Postbox’s POP/IMAP Thunderbird heritage.

Postbox’s recent blog post highlights some features they’re most proud of: unified folders/account groups; integrated social networking features with Twitter, Facebook , and LinkedIn; conversation view (across multiple folders!); Dropbox, Evernote, Things, Alfred, and Omnifocus integration; various bits of Gmail support including labels and keyboard shortcuts; quick reply; and quick move. I didn’t find the social features that compelling, but some of the others have been useful. I’ll write more fully about my Postbox experience in a separate series of postings, but it’s worth taking a look at—at least on the Mac. You can try it for 30 days and there’s a 60-day money-back guarantee too. Download it from http://www.postbox-inc.com/.

Enjoy!

Updates

I wrote most of this article on Google+ on July 10th and there have been some developments since then.

Update 1: I bought my license less than 2 weeks ago and so was dismayed to discover I could have paid only $4.95 US instead of $19.95 US (that includes the discount for tweeting about it). I contacted Postbox’s sales support team who told me they’d be happy to refund me $15.00 US, but I should be aware that the new pricing doesn’t include any one-on-one support. The Postbox team will be concentrating their efforts on improving the self-support options available (currently knowledge base articles, a user guide, and a FAQ. So you might want to consider that prior to asking for a refund.

Update 2: Some concern was expressed that with Mozilla ceasing active development of Thunderbird, Postbox wasn’t that compelling anymore. Postbox, Inc.’s co-founder Scott MacGregor was previously Thunderbird lead engineer and Sherman Dickman, the other co-founder, was previously a Mozilla director of product management. They started Postbox, Inc. in 2007. Postbox has its own developer team and has been developing independently since forking. It’s therefore, in my opinion, just as viable to purchase as any other software, with the bonus benefit of building on top of an already proven application.

Update 3: The tab on the right-hand side of Postbox’s buy page that gave details of the Twitter tweet discount seems to have disappeared. It probably was too successful! No more discount, I guess.

E1n1verse » personal

It’s Such a Perfect Day, the Video

Thunderbird-based Postbox Drops Price Massively