At work, I usually either use a drive imaging program to load the operating system and applications onto a machine. If I'm reformatting a customer's machine, I use WPI (Windows Post Installer) to silently install programs. At home, however, I'm a little less cautious when I reformat and often forget to back up my program installers.

That's when something like the Smart Installer Pack might come in handy. It's a pre-packed set of popular applications that you'd likely want to install on your own system (or a friend's) after a fresh format.

It includes a host of apps like Firefox, Chrome, OpenOffice, Winamp, Skype, Daemon Tools, Picasa, Winamp, Thunderbird, Adobe Reader and Flash, WinRar, Rocket Dock, CCleaner, and more. Everything downloads in a single file, so you won't be cluttering up your drive with a bunch of separate installers.

SIP has two drawbacks. First, the installers are interactive, not silent, so you'll have to click through manually. Second, there are a few apps I'd normally install instead - like 7zip and Sumatra PDF. Shortcomings aside, this is still a handy way to get a system up and running quickly with a solid group of commonly-used programs.

Postbox is an email client and address book application for OS X and Windows built on Mozilla Thunderbird code. But Postbox has a ton of features that you won't find in Thunderbird, including a number of social features and connections to web services like twitter, FriendFeed, and Facebook.

You can easily import your contact list from Outlook or Thunderbird into Postbox. And when you login to Facebook, those contacts will be added as well. Postbox indexes your messages, contacts, images, links, and attachments, making it simple to search for items stored in your emails.

There's a to do list, but no calendar. And there's no support for plugins, which means you can't use the Lightning Thunderbird extension. But Postbox is still in beta, so perhaps we'll see a built in calendar or add-on support down the road.

[via CNet]

More than half a year since the folks at Mozilla Messaging released the first alpha version of Thunderbird, the team has released Thunderbird 3 Beta 1. The latest release features a bunch of bug fixes and some new features, including:

• A tabbed interface for mail
• Integration with Windows Vista Search
• Integration with the Mac OS X Address Book
• IMAP improvements for faster message viewing

You can also use the Add-ons Manager to search for, download, and install plugins and themes much the same way you can with the Firefox 3 Add-ons manager. You can find more improvements in the release notes.

Thunderbird 3 Beta 1 is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

DownloadSquad reader Leni Mayo sent us a hot little tip. He has written a script called Zindus for Thunderbird which syncs Google contacts with the address book. It works on version 3.0a as well he says.

Here's a list of the fields that you'll be able to move from Google to Thunderbird:

• Full Name
• Primary Email address and Second Email address
• Phone Numbers: Home, Work, Work Fax, Pager, Mobile
• Instant Messaging (AIM)
• Company and Title
• Notes

There's a few caveats because Google handles contacts differently, so go check out Zindus homepage for a full explanation. It's worth it if you're a die-hard Thunderbirder.

Last time we checked in on Firefox backup utility MozBackup, the developer had just added support for Firefox 3 beta. Apparently it's been a busy half year over at MozBackup HQ, because this week MozBackup 1.4.8 was released, with the following new features:

• Create automatic backups via command line
• New Installer
• Supports backup of unknown files from user profiles
• Backup profiles and settings for: Firefox 2/3, Flock, SeaMonkey, Netscape Navigator 9.0, Netscape Messenger 9.0, Thunderbird, Spicebird, Firefox Portable, and Thunderbird Portable

If you're just looking or a quick way to backup your Firefox extensions, bookmarks, and other settings, you can always check out the FEBE and CLEO Firefox add-ons. But MozBackup looks like a nice all-in-on tool if you have several Mozilla-based programs that you want to backup.

MozBackup is available for Windows 98 through Vista.

[via CyberNet]

Been so buys buying smaller media companies that you haven't had time to keep up on the week's news? Here's what you've been missing, CBS, Condé Nast, and Comcast:

• Thunderbird 3 alpha 1 available now
  Firefox may get all the attention, but Mozilla's Outlook-clone/killer also shows that open source software can hold its own in the instant messaging space. This week saw the release of Thunderbird 3 alpha 1, which uses the Gecko 1.9 rendering engine, adds support for tabs, and a ton of other tweaks.
• OpenSolaris 2008.05, and other places the sun don't shine
  Sun released the open source version of its Solaris operating system this week. It's pretty, features the Gnome Desktop environment that should be familiar to Linux users, and is incredibly difficult to get working on common software. Join us for a romp through the world of OpenSolaris. You'll laugh, you'll cry. You'll thank us for trying it out so you don't have to.
• Torrent2exe turns any torrent file into a single-source BitTorrent client
  Ever try to explain to a friend how BitTorrent works and then suggest they download uTorrent just so they can download some large file from the web? Turns out there's a way to avoid that confused look on their face. Just grab the torrent file, upload it to Torrent2exe, and you'll get a single executable file that you can give your friend. When they click, the file will download just as easily as if they'd clicked a download link in their browser. You know, as long as someone's seeding it.
• Microsoft launches WorldWide Telescope public beta
  Why spend time gazing at the stars in your backyard when you could sit in front of your computer instead? Microsoft's WorldWide telescope lets you navigate they sky just as easily as Google Earth lets you navigate the earth. The software also features guided tours from astronomers and tools for controlling a telescope plugged into your PC.
• Monitor your hard drive usage with DriveSpacio
  Right click on a drive or folder in Windows and you can find out how much space it's taking up. But Windows doesn't do a great job of showing you which of all your folders are using the most space. DriveSpacio is. Enough said.
• Splashtop Linux interface coming soon to every Asus motherboard
  Imagine being able to surf the web or make a Skype call within seconds of hitting the power button on your PC. Pretty soon, you may be able to. No, Microsoft Windows 7 won't feature instant-on capabilities. But motherboard maker Asus plans to add an instant-on Linux-based OS to a million motherboards a month starting pretty soon. While you're waiting for Windows to boot in the background, you'll already be able to use your PC.

The first alpha release of Thunderbird 3, the open source mail client built on the Gecko rendering engine (what Firefox and all other Mozilla products use), is now available as a developer preview. The Mozilla Messaging team has named this release "Shredder a1" to signify that this release is early, buggy and should NOT be used in a production environment. Mozilla is aiming this release at testers and developers and we don't recommend non-adventurous users taking the program out for a spin.

As the release notes point out, Shredder Alpha 1 is built on Gecko 1.9, the engine running Firefox 3.

Some other highlights:

• New add-on manager that allows direct installation of Thunderbird add-ons and customizations
• Mac OS X version is a native Cocoa application
• Improved message searching

Again, be aware that this is a developer preview and is certainly not ready for prime time. We had issues getting IMAP or POP support working with any of our Google Apps accounts on the OS X version of Shredder Alpha 1 and the app was kind of crashy. Still, we were impressed with what we could see and look forward to future developments.

If you feel ready to give the newest alpha a try, you can download it for your platform of choice here.

[via Mozilla Links]

Looking for another alternative to Microsoft Outlook? While Mozilla Thunderbird offers many of the same features as Microsoft's email client, you need to install plugins to add calendar and task management features. eM Client, on the other hand, comes equipped with a full featured email client and contact, task, and calendar managers.

eM Client is a Windows only application that has been in development since 2006. Version 1.1 beta of eM Client already offers a pretty robust Outlook clone, with support for IMAP and POP email and CalDAV calendars. While it's not exactly an Outlook killer yet, eM Client's developers are working on a few killer features:

• Google Calendar and Contacts Sync
• ActiveSync support
• Universal translation tool
• Facebook integration
• IM integration
• Anti-virus integration

eM Client also has a highly customizable interface, which is always nice.

A few months back, Mozilla announced plans to create a new organization responsible for development of the Thunderbird e-mail client. While Mozilla's Firefox web browser has been getting a lot of attention in recent years from both developers and the general public, Thunderbird has sort of been living in the shadow of its big, more popular sibling.

Today David Ascher announced that the new Thunderbird project has a new name: Mozilla Messaging. He also outlined a bit of what we can expect to see in Thunderbird 3:

• An integrated calendar (right now you have to install the Lightning add-on to get calendar functions in Thunderbird)
• Improved search
• Easier configuration

In the long term, Ascher says the team will also have to think more generally about internet communication. Many people use instant messaging, IRC, blogs, and VoIP to communicate and not just e-mail. It's unlikely that we'll see all of those services built into Thunderbird anytime soon. But perhaps one or two of them will creep in, or maybe we'll see development of chat add-ons in the future.

[via Mozilla Links]

This post's subtitle could be "Why Gmail rocks". If you're already a Gmail user, you probably already understand Gmail's unique way of grouping messages from the same conversation together and presenting them in one unified view. If that's the case, this article is probably not of much interest to you. But if you've never tried Gmail, and have never understood why your friends keep saying it's the best thing since sliced bread, hopefully we can help you out (and provide some alternatives if Gmail is not an option for you).

Grouping threads

Virtually all email clients have a view that presents a list of messages. The traditional way to handle this (and the way virtually all email clients and webmail interfaces do it) is to treat each individual message separately. The onus is on the user to keep various conversations (threads, in email parlance) straight in their head. This works fine when you receive only 20 or 30 emails in a day, but when you get up above 60 or 70, this model starts to fall apart. It completely fails when you get up into hundreds of messages per day or more.

The unique feature that Gmail brings to the table is the ability to intelligently group messages from a common email thread together, so that in your list of messages you will only see one entry per thread. Right off the bat this will take an inbox with 70 actual messages in it, and make it appear as if there are only 20 or 30, since you're only seeing one row per thread.

While more and more people (including most of the staff at DLS) are starting to keep all of their e-mail online, using services like GMail, Windows Live Mail or an Exchange hosted account, there are still plenty of people who prefer using an offline mail client.

While the advantage of storing mail locally is that you can access messages at any time -- whether you are connected to the Internet or not -- that also means that, well, all your mail is on your hard drive. Depending on how much e-mail you get, that can add up to quite a bit of space.

Boing Boing posted a great reminder/tip for all Thunderbird users, make sure you run File --> Compact Folders from time to time. You might not save 20 GB like Cory Doctorow, but you can still claim some space.

Outlook 2007 users can save space/clean up their e-mail boxes by selecting Tools --> Mailbox Cleanup. From there you can choose to archive old messages, empty deleted items folders, find messages of a certain age/size and delete duplicate or alternative versions of messages.

When was the last time you cleaned-up your mail program? If you can't remember, now might be a good time to archive old messages and clear out those deleted items.

Synovel plans to release a new open-source email/calendar/collaboration suite built on Mozilla Thunderbird. But Spicebird won't just be the equivalent of Thunderbird with the Lightning calendar extension thrown in for good measure. Rather, Spicebird is a new open source project that allows users to collaborate with one another.

In addition to the email client, Spicebird lets you send instant messages using Jabber, share yoru calendar with friends or coworkers, and subscribe to web-calendars using iCal. You can also subscribe to RSS feeds using the client or post to your own blog.

All of these features are designed to work together. For example, say someone sends you an email with a date in the text. Spicebird will automatically ask if you would like to create a calendar event, which you can do with a single click.

An alpha release is coming soon, but Synovel has released a web demo to whet your appetite while you wait.

[via Mozilla Links]

It's a problem we've all faced before: We venture away from web based email programs to try those cool-looking desktop email clients everyone's raving about. After getting through the hassle of making sure everything syncs properly, one of the problems many seem to face is duplicate messages. Well, open source Thunderbird users don't stand around letting problems be; They face them with Thunderbird customizations like the Remove Duplicate Messages add-on.

Released by Thorsten W. Schmidt on the Mozilla site, the add-on searches a given folder for duplicate messages and automatically deletes them by tagging all duplicates with a delete flag and one message with the keep flag. To use it, first install it from the Mozilla site. Once installed, open Thunderbird and right click on a folder. Click "Remove Duplicate Messages" and that's it.

The add-on also lets you configure what fields you want to compare such as sender, message, etc. It also checks sub-folders, and can analyze about 1000 messages per second. Finally, you can choose to keep the the bigger, smaller, unread, first found, or last found Message if you have a preference.

[via ghacks]

If you've got a hankerin' for Gmail over IMAP bliss using Mozilla Thunderbird as your mail client, we can show you how. This sub 4 minute video walks you through configuring Thunderbird to stay synced with your Gmail account.

Mozilla's open source calendar programs Sunbird and Lightning just keep getting better and better. Sunbird is a standalone application for Windows, Linux, and Mac, while Lightning is a calendar plugin for the Thunderbird e-mail client.

Sunbird and Lightning 0.7 are out today, and they feature a new event/task dialog, a new event summary dialog, and roughly a billion other new features and bug fixes. OK, more like 252. One nice touch is that events in the same time slot are shrunken so they fit in the display.

And as CyberNet points out, there's also a new version of the Google Calendar plugin for Sunbird and Lightning. The add-on lets you write data to a Google Calender using your desktop calendar client.

[Thanks Nikolay!]