..at the Escher-Wyss-Platz. I’m glad this new tramway for the booming Zurich-West district is finally being built. I’d wish it took less time though – the total construction time will be 3 years! For a new tramway of roughly 3 km length this equals to less than 3 m of new tracks per day at a cost of about 300’000 CHF (270’000 USD) per day (or 100k CHF per meter).
Setting up Procmail and Postfix with maildir for mobile usage
When I’m on the road, I can check my private and business e-mail using my very handy Nokia e61i smartphone (which I like a lot, apart from its rather unstable web browser). However, as I’ve never been far away from a computer for a long time so far, I’ve only used to check mail that was delivered to my inbox, and not to any of its about 200 subfolders (I once tried to subscribe to all folders – the mail client of the e61i simply crashed ;). Now, I figured I’d need to do something about this in order to not miss any of the mails that are automatically moved to a subfolder by the server-side procmail mail filter.
The solution: Simply create a new procmail rule that copies (that’s what the c stands for) any incoming message to a special folder (I named it “mobile”; note that my postfix uses the maildir format to store messages):
:0 c
.mobile/
Preferably, this rule should be placed after the spam filtering rules (you don’t want to pay for spam on your mobile, do you? ;) and before the normal procmail mail filter rules (which move every incoming mail to the appropriate subfolder). You can also use a dedicated rules file for every group of similar rules. For example, I include the files spam.rc, mobile.rc, lists.rc (with their according rules) in the main .procmailrc config file.
Now every mail that wasn’t filtered by the spam filter gets copied to the “mobile” subfolder of your inbox prior to getting moved to the appropriate subfolder (by the rules in lists.rc).
On my e61i, I hence only need to subscribe to the “mobile” subfolder in order to catch all incoming messages. As you can’t unsubscribe from the inbox subfolder itself, you should set the maximum number of caught new inbox mails to 1 (which is the minimum) in order to avoid fetching things twice. You can further configure that only headers are fetched to minimize the amount of data[1] that is automatically downloaded with every mail check (also: switch off polling if you don’t need it).
Note that another advantage of this solution is that you won’t tamper with any of the original messages (that are either in your inbox or in any of its subfolders). Some might call this a disadvantage though.
That’s it, have fun! :)
[1] I pay 0.10 CHF per 20 KB, i.e. 5 CHF (5 USD) per MB (which is incredibly expensive as I currently don’t have any flat rate data plan -> please don’t send me a mail bomb just for fun, else I’ll have to write a more sophisticated procmail rule that only copies messages < 100 KB to the mobile folder)
Ready, steady, go!
Refreshing. Innovative. New. Creative. The sky is the limit. Startup fever. Brian Haven:
This new job is ambiguous. I don’t have a job title. The company doesn’t have a name. At the moment, there are only three of us. We don’t know what this will become, we only have a general direction. My office will be at my house… in Austin… and in cyberspace on IM, Twitter, Facebook… To many, this recipe might spell fear. To me, it’s comfortable. I thrive in the unknown–no rules, no baggage, no momentum to pull us into mediocrity. We get to build this from scratch in a thoughtful and disciplined manner. It’s my opportunity to bring my engagement ideas to life and the perfect time to leverage my background to apply a design thinking approach to the way we, and our clients, do business.
I had the joy to experience the reviving entrepreneurial spirit at yesterday’s public beta launch party at the Wuala office in Zurich. And I experience it daily when working for my own company – Printscreen GmbH. A great feeling indeed, and inspiring others, too.
Global version of Xero expected by early 2009!
Wow, that’s what I call modern corporate communications and a quick reaction to feedback (see my earlier blog post)! Nice to see that Xero sets a new standard in this area, too.
Rod Drury, CEO and co-founder of Xero, just announced on the Xero company blog that there will be an international edition of the Xero online accounting system soon:
As you’d imagine, designing and building a proper yet fun-to-use accounting system that scales globally is no small task. Our approach has been to evolve Xero with the feedback of customers and partners in our initial markets, while building up our internal systems to scale internationally.
The plan is to have a global version ready by early 2009.
And there’s no doubt Xero will celebrate a huge success in Switzerland and all over the world!
Windows: Tame the “Restart your system” reminder
For how to get rid of the Windows “Restart your system” reminder, see Coding Horror: XP Automatic Update Nagging
Xero: The ideal online accounting solution for startups/SMBs?
When going through Jakob Nielsen’s list of the 10 Best Application UIs of 2008 [1], I’ve noticed there’s also an online(!) accounting(!) system for SMBs among the winners:
Xero – The world’s easiest accounting system.
This is a big surprise, as I’ve already tested quite many accounting systems for SMBs/SMEs, both standalone and web applications, but none of them was particularly easy to use. The point isn’t that I couldn’t use a complex accounting system [2], the point is that I don’t want to if it isn’t necessary. In other words, every hour I can save on accounting and invoicing, I can spend on business development and software development. Which obviously makes sense.
Considering this, the price of 49 NZD (34 USD) per month for Xero is a fair deal. The only thing that isn’t customer-friendly at all, is that they decided to go with an opt-out free trial model (i.e. if you don’t cancel the trial within 30 days, you’ll be charged). Definitely worth a try, though.
[UPDATE 20080813: Note that Xero is not available for purchase in Switzerland yet (hopefully soon). You can still try the demo though.]
[UPDATE 20080814: I’ve quickly tested Xero. Conclusion so far: I like it a lot! It delivers, what most startup companies need in regard to accounting and it makes things as easy as possible. In fact, I’ve never seen a more intuitive accounting system before! It will definitely set the new benchmark in its class. Let’s hope there will be a Swiss edition soon. Kudos to the makers of Xero in NZ: You rock!]
[UPDATE 20080815: Xero’s plans are to have a global version of Xero ready by early 2009, see my follow-up blog post]
[1] Also noteworthy: CMSBox, a very user-friendly CMS made in Switzerland.
[2] Among others, two of my majors at the University of Zurich were Management Accounting and Managerial Accounting.
[3] Of course, you could also outsource all your accounting duties, but particularly for a new startup with a minimal headcount, the outsourcing efforts generally outweigh the benefits.
Gentoo: Emerge errors after a Python upgrade?
If you encounter seemingly “strange” Python errors when emerging apps after a Python upgrade, execute:
# python-updater -v
This will rebuild packages that are broken due to the Python upgrade (Note: You can also manually emerge the packages python-updater lists)
Gentoo: Troubles with Trac and mod_python-3.3.1?
If Trac doesn’t run anymore after an ’emerge -uD world’ (i.e. there’s a “500 Internal Server Error”) and Apache complains about “ImportError: No module named trac.web.modpython_frontend”, here’s the solution:
(IOW: Emerge mod_python-3.3.1-r1 from your local portage overlay and restart Apache)
Printscreen GmbH established on 08.08.08 :)
As planned, Printscreen GmbH has been established today, i.e. on 08.08.08! :) Isn’t this a superb date for establishing a new company? I think so and I’m really glad and proud it worked out.
Thanks a lot to the notary and the jurists at HRA Zurich who made it possible!
Quick review of the Logitech ClearChat Stereo headset
My new Logitech ClearChat Stereo headset just arrived. Here’s a quick review of it:
Plus
- Low price, less than 30 CHF/USD (= budget class headset, don’t expect too much)
- Fits well and is very light-weight (unlike those heavy headsets for gamers etc.). Can thus be carried in hand luggage etc.
- The cable is attached to one side of the overhead band only (which is more convenient and facilitates the overall handling)
- Good cable length (2 m, just about the right length so you can use the headset both for laptops and desktop computers)
- The adjustable overhead band is very handy (There are still many budget headsets with fixed overhead bands). It’s also comfortable when wearing glasses (in contrary to most neck band headsets).
- The size of the (open) earbuds is comfortable and they don’t warm your ears too much (like those cushioned closed earphones)
- Sound quality of the earphones is okayish (= sufficient) for Skype, Internet telephony
- Sound quality of the mic is also sufficient for Skype etc. (but not for singing Karaoke and the like)
- The in-line controls for the volume and mic mute are very handy (else you’d need to adjust these things in Windows/Mac OS X/Linux)
- Uses simple plugs, not USB (lighter, cheaper design, compatible to almost any computer or audio device)
Minus
- Sound-quality-wise, you get what you pay for. Don’t expect high fidelity sound. It’s clearly a headset for Internet telephony only.
- Not recommended for gamers (too low-fi and the open earbuds don’t protect enough from environment noise)
- Not recommended for listening to music (lacking “crispness” of the sound, lacking frequency linearity, lbass frequencies are rather dull, dito for the heights) or for watching a film (dito).
- Microphone can be rotated vertically only (which is sufficient for most people, but some would probably like it to be horizontally adjustable, too)
- Microphone is on the right, not on the left (which is not necessarily a disadvantage, but is somewhat unusual as most headsets have the mic mounted on the left)
- It’s not a very solid headset. Better don’t smash it to a wall. And yes, it will definitely blend (though nobody has tried that yet ;)
All-in-all: Recommended for Internet telephony, not recommended for gamers, audiophiles and cineasts. Which is pretty obvious, considering the low price.