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.

--
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.