The Power of Peer Pressure

So after the storm night before last, I tried all sorts of methods of restoring Jo's emails that she's been saving for... erk... seven years. I tried rebuilding the database, I tried renaming all the files and re-importing, I tried converting to a different format, I tried Netscape import, I tried Thunderbird import...

Nothing. Aside from half the inbox, I can't find any of her mails to save. Anywhere. She's all "Don't worry about it" while I am screwing over it. Figures.

Anyway, I've been using Firefox and Thunderbird for a long time now, but Jo has always been "Keep your odd software away from me!". For anyone that doesn't know, Firefox is a browser (akin to Internet Explorer) but with better features, and Thunderbird is an email client (akin to Outlook/Outlook Express), again, with better features. A weekly scan for nasties on out machines usually comes up with one or two for me, and a wad for her - but still she won't swap it.

Being the persuasive person that I am, I finally managed to convince her to swap. So she now has both running on her system.

But Wait - there's more!

After that, I was showing her the stuff in Blogger Beta, and convinced her it's sooo much better, and hey-presto, she swapped to that too! OK, my only reason for getting her to swap was so I can comment on her blog. Ulterior motives and all that ;)

And then last night I managed to convince our friend Ian that HE needed Firefox/Thunderbird as well.

Now to work on convincing Stuart to switch to Beta as well so I can continue to comment-spam him...

Edit: For anyone that doesn't know, Blogger Beta users can only comment on normal blogs if we select the "Other" option - which means you've got to set your blog to "Anyone can comment". If you've set your blog so that only registered users can post, then we can't comment. If you're worried about spammers, select Word Verification instead. There are a few of the blogs I read that I now can't post on, so come on people, let my spamming resume! I'm not naming names though, as a couple of these people don't want their blogs advertised.

Which leads me to another feature of Beta - you can set it so that only certain people can view your blog! Privacy! Secrecy! No one can stumble onto your secret hidden blogs any more! YAY!