Please help.

I am trying to use icedove as my mail client (just cant rely on Modest).

I use gnubiff to constantly monitor my inboxes and provide imap idle support (avoid the animation it takes 15% CPU, just using icedove makes my machine really slow).

I use icedove to read and write emails.

I got IMAP-idle and the battery life is better then it used to be with Modest.

Open problems
1. Get aplay to work - so I can make gnubiff beep when I get an email.

I can get the music player to play (after running the XMMS2d), but I can't get aplay to play a simple wav.
(can't open shared library /usr/lib/alsa-lib/libsound_module_pcm_alsa_dsp.so
play soxio cannot open output file default!
cannot open audio device.

2. Get the LED to flash when there is an email waiting (this is less important for me, as I always have some emails waiting).

3. Get gnubiff to launch icedove when double tapped on.

4. Get icedove to launch faster (I know, this is a lost cause).

I will gladly settle for #1.

Thanks