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Music I like: Tora! Tora! Tora! by Depeche Mode

25 March 2021 By Avinash Meetoo Leave a Comment

I first heard Tora! Tora! Tora! by Depeche Mode in 1985. I was 12 at that time and the song was amazing on so many levels.

Tora! Tora! Tora! was released 40 years ago (in 1981) on Depeche Mode’s first album, Speak and Spell. It was electro at its best. The bassline was amazing as were the drums. And the lyrics were profound. It was a song about war or, rather, against war. Deep lyrics which had a big impact on my young mind at that time.

It was also the first DM song made by Martin Gore which would give an idea of what the group would move towards during the next few years… More electro and darker but more profound lyrics.

Music I like: Panic Attack by Avinash Meetoo

25 March 2021 By Avinash Meetoo Leave a Comment

This is Panic Attack, a song from my third album, Turn Around, released in 2016. The working title was Albino. I composed the song in 2015, did a new arrangement and mix later and played all the instruments except the drums. I also did the mastering.

Interestingly, this is the track I have listened to most during the past 15 years… More than any Depeche Mode song!

This is the first post of a series of posts I will make over the weeks on the music I like most.

How to create a permalink for a Microsoft Office 365 Outlook email

12 February 2021 By Avinash Meetoo 3 Comments

At work, I have to use Microsoft Office 365. Sure, I’m more used to Google or open-source software solutions but, well, the Microsoft offering is not bad at all.

One small issue I have is that, in the web version of Microsoft Office 365 Outlook Mail, the URL which is in the address bar when reading an email is not a permalink. In other words, copying that URL in, say, a task manager is useless because, clicking on it, will not bring you back to the email. Rather, it goes to the Inbox, which is useless.

I got the solution from Nick on Superuser, part of the Stack Exchange franchise. The three steps are as follows:

In Outlook Mail, in the list of all emails, right-click on a specific email and, in advanced actions, choose “Create Task”. A new task is created in To Do.
In To Do (which can be accessed by clicking on the checkmark icon at the bottom left of Outlook Mail), click on the newly created task and a right side information panel opens up.
The permalink is the “Open in Outlook” link. Right click on it and copy the link.

VoilÃ .

This is much more complicated that in Gmail (where the URL is always a permalink) but it’s better than nothing… For me, this is important as it allows me to use GQueues with Outlook Mail.

One caveat: moving the email to another folder (e.g. archiving it) invalidates the permalink. What I do is to archive first, search for the email then create the task. It is tedious but it works.