January 2011 Archives

I've long relied on the notification area (aka system tray) notification feature of Thunderbird to inform me of new mail. Its main weakness is that it notifies of any new mail which in my case means its triggered by list mail which arrives constantly throughout the day, making the notifications somewhat useless. I only want it to notify me of new mail directly addressed to me which, after filtering, is anything left in the Inbox. Unfortunately its not possible to enable the system tray alerts for specific folders; its a global on/off feature.

After much searching I discovered the Mailbox Alert extension which allows you to configure specific types of notifications on a per folder basis. Its only half of the solution though as it doesn't support the Windows system tray but it does allow you to run any executable as an alert. Now all I needed was some utility to create a system tray icon which when clicked will activate the Thunderbird window. Sadly I'm not a Windows programmer so writing such a tool from scratch is a bit beyond me.

I searched high and low and eventually found my solution in the most awesome AutoHotKey. Despite its name its a lot more powerful than just hot keys; it can control almost any part of the Windows GUI, and the Tray module provides functions to manipulate system tray entries.

I ended up with this script which I compiled into an .exe using ahk2exe. Then I told Mailbox Alert to run said .exe for any new mail in my Inbox.

If you don't understand how AutoHotKey works biff.exe should work for most people.

If it doesn't work then you will need to edit the source. A couple of foreseeable issues are the path to the Thunderbird .exe (in order to use their notification icon), and that the script searches for "Mozilla Thunderbird" as the title of the window to activate.

Some other notes about how the script works: in the general case SingleInstance ignore ensures that only one copy of this script is running at any time, i.e. if several batches of emails arrive in my Inbox before you notice the alert you'll only get one icon in my system tray. If you then click the system tray icon it will foreground the Thunderbird window and exit the script. The remaining WinWaitActive call is to ensure that if alert has been fired (i.e. the notification icon is in the system tray) and I switch to Thunderbird via Alt-Tab or via the Task Bar that the system tray notification is still cleared.

In short, this hack should behave identically to the native Thunderbird system tray notification feature except that you can configure it per folder, and even have different notification icons for each folder with a bit of creative editing.

There's plenty of press around the big retailers push for changes to the GST exemption on imported goods valued at less than $1000.

There are further aspects which I think have been overlooked so far, particularly in terms of implementation.

Currently if a consumer purchases an item that exceeds the $1000 GST exempt threshold they are required to make an Import Declaration (PDF) to Customs and Border Protection using form N10. This form can be submitted via email, fax, post or in person. Additionally there is a processing charge (PDF) imposed by Customs. This varies from $40.20 to $65.75 based on mode of arrival (sea/air) and form submission method (electronic, manual).

Aside from the time penalty of filling in & submitting the Import Declaration form the Customs processing time for such declarations is 5 business days, and up to a further 3 days for payment processing.

So really what the big retailers are seeking is not simply an increase in cost to the consumer of 10% GST; they also seek to introduce inconvenience to the internet retailing experience, and a minimum additional cost of $40.20 on top of the GST.

As an example my most regular online purchases are from Book Depository (UK & US), with an average price of around AU$15. These are typically delivered to me within a week. That would blow out to 2-3 weeks, and cost me $55 in total.

Customs could perhaps drop the need for an Import Declaration and simply send an invoice for the required GST based on the vendor's declared value, though I don't know if this would be legally valid. However there would still be significant labour involved in this process given the wide variance in packaging & labelling so I expect the processing fee would not drop significantly, nor the processing time. Keep in mind that every second that your package is held up in Customs means it needs to be inventoried and warehoused, and once payment of the GST is received the package needs to be searched for and shipped. Even the most efficient online retailers (i.e. Amazon) do this process manually today so there is no reason to believe that Customs could do it any better.

Would an additional 2 week wait for your online purchases encourage you to visit your local retailer?



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About this Archive

This page is an archive of entries from January 2011 listed from newest to oldest.

December 2010 is the previous archive.

March 2011 is the next archive.

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