Gmail: mutt vs. web interface

I am a very serious gmail user.  I think it's a good service.  I have already written on this blog that I am a serious fan of the mutt email client.  Please understand that I don't feel that any other gui mail client competes for the speed with which I can process my email.  So I don't want this to be a email client vs. email client war, I've already said my peace on that and if you don't like that please find another blog.

I do think it's important to check and see what the critical differences are in the two methods I use to access the service.  Clear declaration, that I use imap with mutt so I am not caching or storing the email local (i.e. POP3) which might make a difference in this argument.

After using the web interface with the google labs on for keyboard shortcuts, and giving myself a solid two week time frame during which to become proficient with using the keyboard with the web interface.  I have to say that is can be quite efficient on it's own and very usefull, so the below comparison has everything to do with web+keyboard vs. mutt and the efficiency with processing/managing emails.

Gmail web Pros:
Search speed: very fast and process all headers and body.
Open Access: any OS, any PC commands and interface available

Gmail web Cons:
No gpg support: not for key verification, not for encryption.
Conversation presentation: does invite confusion about where messages are

Mutt pros:
More refined searches: the limit statements are crazy specific
GPG support: completely, inline.
Closed Access: w/ssh access offers only encrypted channel

Mutt cons:
Software requirement: somewhere there must be software installed
Complete searches: if you do a search of body content takes a long time

I have to confess, that with multiple accounts, I have a serious need for some features on some accounts and needs for other features with others.  I actually have one account that I use both interfaces with often.

Find you comfort level, be realistic about access and real needs, if you would like to have high security and choose mutt, it might be very uncomfortable to use a mobile phone for access with a crampped keyboard.

Be practical, pragmatic and safe.

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CafeNinja

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Mythtv - wow, why didn't I do that before?

MythTv.  I think most of us have heard about it, but have put if off since it sounded too difficult, or complicated or required a bunch of hardware we didn't have.

Well, this changed slightly for me once I had enough of a media library (don't ask me where I got it from) that it was just becoming silly to manage on one computer connected to the TV in the living room.  With some shows for the oldest son only, some shows for the wife only and then some shows that really should have all of us together in a room at one time, it was becoming too restrictive to tie the media to a dedicated machine, with single user and single space access.

So I dropped in mythtv.  Standard repo stuff from Ubuntu 10.04.  I added all the additional repos that looked interesting and that gave me the server "backend" and the player "frontend" on the house server which had all the media.  I then installed the frontend on 2 mac's, and 4 other Ubuntu systems.  And now everyone can connect and watch their shows without needing to be in the living room.

I had a few glitches, the mac binary frontends were the easiest to set up.  But once done, it's running great.  I will be taking the time to push over the photos and the music since that just makes since as well as it's working for video.

-- CafeNinja

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

I was h4cked - episode 38

For those new readers of my blog, I had written podcast reviews of most of the stuff I have in my podcatcher.  One of those shows was h4cked.com.  The guys over there asked me to join their "oval table" review panel of Ubuntu 10.04.  Since I already had it installed, I joined in.

I'l like to give fair warning to anyone who might go over there to hear the show.  It is not safe for work, and unless of a mature age, I would not recommend you play this for your kids.  But if that doesn't scare you off, go over to h4cked.com and play the episode that I took part in.

Enjoy.


-- CafeNinja
 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Dnsmasq for your personal domain and access list needs

With the addition of the dnsmasq server to my LAN (preferably wired) based server, I am able to manage dhcp myself.  To what benefit you may ask, I'm glad you asked.  First is that I can actually set the IP of computers connecting to my network, and group as needed/preferred.  I can also use MAC address to authenticate, so hardware address filtering is not limited by small cheap routing equipment (I discovered a limit of 30 known hardware addresses to put in my wifi router).

So the most minor feature is that when I connect via ssh to my server from the internet back to home, I can use proper hostnames which I know will always resolve to those computers.  No more ssh'ing to one IP after another, just use the name of the computer and if connected will always work.

Simple "sudo apt-get install dnsmasq" and edit the dnsmasq.conf and hosts files.  It is heavy with comments in language which is moderately clear.  There are many guides on the open internet to follow if you have questions.  Turn it on for the safe host name resolution of your internal network.

--
CafeNinja

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Mutt - the cool kid's RC file

 I've gotten quite a few recent requests in regards to my muttrc file.  I blame notKlaatu for that.  For those who don't know, it's the file that sets all the preferences in the most awesome text based email reader, mutt.

So I'll keep the post short since the file speaks for itself.  It has comments in it.  As a disclaimer this one is being used with mutt 1.5.20 (2009-06-14) patched with the sidebar patch (see previous posts).

Get a zip of my Gmail prepared muttrc file here.

Enjoy everyone.  Tell your friends to come by and have a peek.

--
CafeNinja

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Ubuntu New Branding - "Light"

I saw in an interview with Mark Shuttleworth, that Canonical was planning to change the branding of Ubuntu.  The new generation of branding would be called "Light" vs. the now 6 yr old branding of "Human" which brought us the famous brown for which Ubuntu has received much critizism in the past.

I have to say that looking at the shots that are available at the Brand page at the Ubuntu Wiki, I think it looks sleek, professional and clean.  All art will have it's critics, and in our community I think quite a few of them are too vocal when you can change any/all of the artwork that you don't like.  I mean really, Suse fans don't give them this much grief over the chameleon.

Anyway, again I keep coming back to the fact that Canonical is not the project, it's the company.  And honestly, every company on the planet without exception (besides the ones that don't make money) spend time and money on marketing and branding.  They should be no exception.

I would just like to put in my vote of "thumbs up" and best of luck.  I truly think it is much more professional looking and as an advocate, with the product looking this slick, I'll have less selling to do than with the previous "Human" theme.

Chime in, let me know what your thoughts are.  And no matter what anyone tells you, this was not Alan Pope's idea.


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CafeNinja

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Backup! Backup! Restore!

I'm sure many of my fans probably think that I only use the command line.  While true that I do use command line considerably.  I also use gui tools.  As I just set up yet another virtual machine in Virtual Box, I thougth I might explain how I add the world of text to gui.

So, I've written about my gpg encrypted password file.  I leave it in my dropbox account as well as a the gnupg.vim plugin.  Of course, dropbox is primarily a gui application, which has a command line element that can be used after the gui has been launched.  So the first thing I do is set that up my password file.  Then also from dropbox I have bashrc and bash_aliases.  I soft link those to the home directory as well as the bin/ folder where I dabble in scripting.

After my last install, I started making my list of apps that I install on my Ubuntu systems knowing they are in the repos.  Basically I just cat that file and paste and wait. 

While that's going, I get the firefox up and running where I add my xmarks extension and run it.   This brings by browser up to speed more or less.  Once my chromium is installed, I just have it import the settings from firefox (google chrome the same).  Again, that's a matter of a gui application that I do rely on and use on many different systems, even cross platform.

This puts me in very familiar teritory and within a short time after a fresh install, I have my bash shell restored with my comfort zone of aliases, my browser set up with bookmarks and the odds and ends that I keep in my Dropbox.   The single behaviour modification that I keep on is making sure that anything I "might need later" I put in my dropbox or my Ubuntu One (gui).  Included in that would be the most recent .deb for skype, google chrome beta, and anything else where just having it arrive in the dropbox/Ubuntu One sync keeps me from having to hunt it down online.

This kind of file syncing actually has made system restore or first set up quite easy.  I have done this a few times and now it feels quite "normal" and I have no worries at all if any one (or truth all) of my systems were to die, I could still recover in short order.  Working directly out of my backup system/service keeps me always on the spot should anything go wrong.

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CafeNinja

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.