December 29th is the day, if I don’t feel the itch to do it before then.

In my ~/.muttrc:

folder-hook "gmail.com" "source ~/.mutt/gmail.rc"
folder-hook "example.com" "source ~/.mutt/work.rc"
source ~/.mutt/gmail.rc # open gmail on startup

In my ~/.mutt/gmail.rc:

bind editor <Tab> complete-query
bind editor ^T complete
set query_command = "goobook query '%s'"

In my ~/.mutt/work.rc:

bind editor <Tab> complete        # default Mutt setting
bind editor ^T complete-query     # default Mutt setting
unset query_command               # default Mutt setting
source ~/.mutt/work_aliases

Notice the differences between the key bindings for “complete” and “complete-query” in the different RC files. Also notice that I’m unsetting query_command in my work.rc config. This is necessary to tab-complete the aliases out of the ~/.mutt/work_aliases file (the account details for my Google Account reside in ~/.netrc).

Hope this is helpful to someone else. I’m sure this is only helpful for a very small subset of users, but I wouldn’t be doing my due diligence if I didn’t post it. https://www.xkcd.com/979/ is relevant.

The ZXing team has a proposal for scanning barcodes to access wireless access points using a MECARD-like structure [2]. The structure of the format is like this:

WIFI:T:WPA;S:mynetwork;P:mypass;;

The parameter “T” can be one of “nopass”, “WEP” or “WPA” for the security type. The parameter “S” is your wireless access point’s SSID (make sure you append “_nomap” to prevent Google from tracking you [3]). The parameter “P” is the password, if any, of accessing the access point. So, a QR Code containing this information could be something like:

Hopefully other barcode scanners pick up on the proposed standard, and make this more ubiquitous. The obvious advantage is not having to type in lengthy passwords on a small screen. At any event, hope this is useful for some.

1: https://code.google.com/p/zxing/
2: https://code.google.com/p/zxing/wiki/BarcodeContents#Wifi_Network_config_%28Android%29
3: http://pthree.org/2011/11/15/google-wants-to-track-your-physical-location/

Hashcash is a really slick concept. The motivation is to combat spammers by using your CPU to calculate a SHA1 string starting with the first 20-bits as zeros based on a random number. Basically, a “proof-of-work” system. If the random number, combined with the timestamp and the recipient’s email address, doesn’t provide those first 20-bits of zeros, a new random number is chosen and hashed. Once the random number is found, it’s attached to the header of the email, and sent. The recipient of the email can then hash the full string, and see if the first 20-bits of the resulting SHA1 are zeros. If so, along with some other validity checks, then the hash is considered valid, and you can rest assured that the email was not sent by a spammer.

A valid stamp:

1:20:110303:aaron.toponce@gmail.com::d2e1fcbcbdb8bf08b804b65c4d61f5be:2b1825ea77c0bb82

You can verify this with:

% echo -n '1:20:110303:aaron.toponce@gmail.com::d2e1fcbcbdb8bf08b804b65c4d61f5be:2b1825ea77c0bb82' | sha1sum
00000d0a92fad840b05009c8692f43593c692589  -

Notice how the first 20-bits of the SHA1 hash are zeros? This is a valid hash based on the random number, the email address and the timestamp.

How does this defeat the spammers? Well, because finding the right random number that will produce a hash with the first 20-bits of zeros is computationally expensive. There will be one in at least 2^20 hashes, but the search in finding one is expensive. A modern computer can find one in under a second. But, if you wish to send bulk emails all at once, you need to create a hash “token” or “stamp” for each one. Due to the design of the algorithm to be slow, this will seriously hinder your ability to be efficient at sending bulk mail. Spammers be damned.

The proof-of-idea work is slick. The sender of an email has done the work necessary, and you can easily validate the work is been done much faster than it took to create. However, it appears from the website that all activity on the software has been abandoned since 2006, including updating the web page. Software is hard to find, and for the software that does exist, it’s only compatible with very specific versions of software, leaving old or new software out of the game.

A couple examples.

Penny Post is an extension for Thunderbird. The SourceForge page houses the extension that is only compatible with Thunderbird versions earlier than 3.0. However, there is a Github project working on a Thunderbird 3.0-compatible extension. However, this extension is not compatible with Thunderbird 3.1. The extension page has also been pulled from Mozilla Addons.

Hashcash-sendmail is a Perl script for Mutt. It works by coupling the hashcash binary and the sendmail binary together to deliver your stamped mail. However, if you are using Mutt’s buitin SMTP support, then the Perl script isn’t usable. Also, it appears that the author of the script has lost his domain, and there hasn’t been any updates since 2004, it seems.

Lastly, I have a Windows XP laptop for work with Thunderbird 3.1 installed. Of course, Penny Post isn’t compatible with 3.1, so I’m already out of luck. However, even the Windows Hashcash binaries are out of date by several years.

Nevermind trying to implement it into more popular MUAs, like webmail clients (Gmail, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, etc.), Outlook, Groupwise, etc. It just doesn’t exist. Yet, SpamAssassin has full support for identifying the “X-Hashcash” email header.

No matter where I look, I reach dead ends. This is unfortunate, because I see Hashcash as a slick way of beating spam, yet it appears that the spammers are laughing all the way to the bank. They’re not worried because no one is using it. And I have a feeling that no one is using it, because no one is developing anything for it. Everything out there is at least 5 years old and aging.

Maybe another slick proof-of-work system will come along. Who knows? I would like to work it into my daily email routine, but it appears that doing so with the current state of affairs is futile. I guess I could work on developing scripts and such that could be easily implemented into various MUAs, but with the amount of stuff I want to do after graduation, I’m guessing it’s fairly low on the priority list.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

The numbers need to be in binary, because robots read binary; of course they do. Here’s the result:

Because Mozilla Thunderbird lacks native calendaring and tasks support, there is an extension that makes this possible. Enter Mozilla Lightning. Initially, Mozilla had been providing a stand-along application called Sunbird, as well as the Lightning extension. However, as of April of this year, Mozilla announced their intention to drop Sunbird in favor of Lightning. In my opinion, this was the right move. I never really understood why there was a separate stand-alone application to begin with. Integrating it into Thunderbird just made sense, and made Thunderbird a better competitor on the MUA stage.

After installing the extension and restarting Thunderbird, it’s time to get your calendar setup with Google Calendar. If you’re anyone like myself, I use a vast array of Google services- Gmail, Calendar, Reader and so on. I’ve been keeping my calendar and tasks in Google Calendar for a while, so when I setup Lightning, I wanted it to synchronize with Google Calendar both ways. In other words, I want to add to my calendar from Google, and see the update in Thunderbird, as well as make a change in Thunderbird and see the update in Google. Fortunately, Google recognizes the importance of this, as do the Lightning developers. The synchronization is enabled through CalDAV. CalDAV is an open standard, so rock on.

It’s important to note that only Mozilla Sunbird 0.8+ and Lightning in Thunderbird support CalDAV synchronization. Grabbing 1.0 beta 2, which is the latest and greatest as of this post will get you covered. Setting up CalDAV with Lightning is rather trivial. These instructions are taken directly from the Google Calendar help page on the subject. Also, Lightning comes with Tasks support, as does Google Calendar, but tasks will NOT be synchronized with CalDAV. Only your calendar. I don’t have a solution yet for this.

1. Open the calendar application, ond select File > New Calendar. Screenshot.
2. Select On the Network and click Next. Screenshot.
3. Select the CalDAV format option. NOTE: Do not select the Google Calendar option. That is for read-only, and won’t allow you to setup to two-way synchronization that we’re after.
4. In the Location field, enter “https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/username@gmail.com/events” where “username@gmail.com” is your Google Calendar username (just your email address), and click Next. Make sure you’re using “https://”, or secure HTTP as plain “http://” won’t work. Screenshot.
5. Enter a name and select a color for your calendar. Screenshot.
6. In the pop-up screen, enter the following information:
   • Username: This is the complete email address you use with Google Calendar (including the domain after the @ sign). If you’re using Google Apps, be sure to enter your Google Apps email address.
   • Password: Enter the password associated with your Google account.
7. Click OK.

That’s it! You now have a fully working synchronization between your Thunderbird MUA and Google Calendar.

1. Use plain text (preferred) or HTML
2. Top-post only when forwarding. Bottom-post otherwise.
3. Trim your replies.
4. Keep you signature under five lines, and use the signature separator “– ” (dash, dash, space).
5. Do not attach unnecessary files, keep attachments small, and don’t attach proprietary formats.
6. Keep the width of your message under 80 characters
7. Use a client that sends threading headers.
8. Reply only to the necessary people (don’t abuse CC: or “reply to all”).
9. Be short and concise. Don’t ramble (stay on topic).
10. Break up your paragraphs.
11. Use proper spelling, grammar and punctuation (avoid CAPS).
12. Don’t answer spam, and don’t send out spam.

Break up your paragraphs.
When composing a message, creating paragraphs of text is critical to readability. You’ll notice I’ve done that with this post here. After four or five sentences, and especially when I create a new topic or idea under the topic, I start a new paragraph. I do so by giving an extra line break between the two paragraphs, so your eye can more easily move from one to the next, and stay on the sentence without getting lost. Do this in your email.

When there are no paragraphs, reading the email can be daunting. Especially if the text is one long, and very big paragraph. Because paragraphs are meant to break up ideas and topics, take advantage of it. As with other points brought up, it’s courteous to your reader. Also, it will force you, somewhat, to evaluate the length of your email, and identify whether or not you have been short and sweet. After all, the more paragraphs you have in your message, the longer your email is getting.

Use proper spelling, grammar and punctuation (avoid CAPS).
On thing email is not, is SMS text messaging. It’s not even writing by hand, as most typists can type faster than they can write. So, it is not acceptable to use “u” for “you”, “ur” for “your”, “thx” for “thanks”, etc. You have the keys on your keyboard for a reason- use them. Further, using this “txt spk” makes it difficult to read for many. Email isn’t confined to a limit on the number of characters you can send per message, and you generally aren’t charged per email that you send. So there is no reason to shorten your speech using this method.

You also have a shift key and all the necessary punctuation keys on your keyboard. Use those as well. This means use uppercase characters when you should. Use punctuation appropriately (EG: “Let’s eat grandpa!” versus “Let’s eat, grandpa!”). Most email clients come with built-in spell checkers. Use them. Nothing shows a lack of intelligence more than a terrible speller. Not only spelling, but grammar too. “You’re” versus “Your”. “It’s” versus “Its”. “They’re” versus “Their” versus “There”. “Than” versus “Then”. Et cetera.

LASTLY, AVOID USING UPPERCASE WHEN COMPOSING YOUR EMAIL. See how that seems almost like I’m shouting? Using CAPS is appropriate in certain situations, but as with everything, it should be used sparingly. When you compose your entire message in CAPS, you come across as angry and shouting. Immediately, people will become defensive, and you will probably get replies showing such.

Don’t answer spam, and don’t send out spam.
Unfortunately, one of the thorns in our side, is to deal with spam email from mass advertising, marketers, scammers and phishers. Don’t reply to these messages. It only adds fuel to the fire, especially if the spam is on a mailing list. Just ignore it, and move on.

Also, don’t send out spam. I learned this the hard way. When Firefox reached a 1.0 milestone (I had been using it around the 0.8 days), I sent an email about its release to everyone in my contact list. Family, friends, school teachers, church acquaintances, random people I had only met once, etc. The message probably went out to 200-300 people. It wasn’t long before I got a lot of replies from some frustrated people who were already familiar with the release, and didn’t appreciate me sending them an email about it. In fact, my email was referred to as “spam”. I was a little taken back. I wasn’t spamming at all. At least, I wasn’t trying to illicit information or make a sale by any means. But then, I realized that my mail was unsolicited, and there could have been a better means of getting the information out, if I really wanted them to know about it.

The same is said in general. There are times and places for announcements, and they are certainly appropriate in the right list or under the right occasion. It’s the ability to identify that time and place. If you’re unsure, then you should probably avoid it.

1. Use plain text (preferred) or HTML
2. Top-post only when forwarding. Bottom-post otherwise.
3. Trim your replies.
4. Keep you signature under five lines, and use the signature separator “– ” (dash, dash, space).
5. Do not attach unnecessary files, keep attachments small, and don’t attach proprietary formats.
6. Keep the width of your message under 80 characters
7. Use a client that sends threading headers.
8. Reply only to the necessary people (don’t abuse CC: or “reply to all”).
9. Be short and concise. Don’t ramble (stay on topic).
10. Break up your paragraphs.
11. Use proper spelling, grammar and punctuation (avoid CAPS).
12. Don’t answer spam, and don’t send out spam.

Use a client that sends threading headers.
When on mailing lists, it’s important to know what the main topic of a subthread is about and who is talking or referring to whom. Also, when replying, it’s important to keep your reply in the thread, and not start a new thread, because your client isn’t sending the appropriate headers to the list. As a result, make sure your client is configured to send the following headers in your email: Message-ID, In-Reply-To, References, and Supersedes.

This isn’t difficult to do. Most email clients that I’ve used on the GNU/Linux desktop do this for you automatically. But I have seen threads where they were broken up and started fresh, because someone’s MUA didn’t send the appropriate headers. As a result, because the thread is fractured and broken into many different email threads, as you can imagine, it’s very hard to follow conversations.

Reply only to the necessary people (don’t abuse CC: or “reply to all”).
When on mailing lists, and you wish to reply to a message, unless you want to contact the author of the message off-list, you should be replying to the list itself, not the author AND the list. This means, that when using “reply to all” or “reply to list”, make sure that only the mailing list address is the one you are replying to, and that your are not replying to the original author plus the list itself. This means the original author will get your message twice. So, please pay attention when you’re composing your reply, that you are addressing the appropriate people, and not producing any redundancies. Mozilla Thunderbird 3 has a “reply to list” button that should be used rather than “reply to all” when replying to mailing lists. Mutt can be configured to also reply to just the list by pressing “L”. Check your MUA to make sure it it setup correctly to reply only to the list, and not to both the author of the mail and the list.

In the corporate sector, usually a mailing list consists of many individual email addresses, some in the “To:” field, others in the “CC:” field. I’ve seen this get out of hand many times. When you’re replying to a thread where a mailing list address is not used, but individual email addresses are, think to yourself who the right recipients of the mail should be. If everyone on the list should be notified, then fine. But, if you’re addressing a specific case that will only benefit one or two people in the thread, then maybe you should cut a lot of names out of the reply. It can be quite annoying when someone sends a baby announcement to a corporate mailing list, and then everyone on the list presses the “reply to all” button, and everyone on the list receives a “Congratulations!” reply. The “reply” button going ONLY to the original recipient is the appropriate use here.

Be short and concise. Don’t ramble (stay on topic).
The longer an email message is, the more likely they are not going to read the entire message. Especially if you have a habit of it. When people read email, they want it to be short and sweet. Give me the gist of the idea, with pertinent information. If I need clarification, I’ll reply asking for such. No one wants to spend five minutes reading your rambling. Which, further means, that if you engage into a debate, and it begins to turn emotional, look at your reply. Is it getting lengthy, because you want the recipient to understand how you feel? They are probably not going to read it. In that case, it’s probably best to step away from the reply for a day, before getting back to it. At that point, you’ll probably notice the reply is substantially shorter, and less emotional.

A problem with rambling on and on is drifting off topic. Here’s an example of a reply to an email where the sender drifts from one topic to the other. The email is extremely lengthy, and hardly relevant to the topic at hand. Feel like reading it? Neither do I. The KISS principle applies to email: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

1. Use plain text (preferred) or HTML
2. Top-post only when forwarding. Bottom-post otherwise.
3. Trim your replies.
4. Keep you signature under five lines, and use the signature separator “– ” (dash, dash, space).
5. Do not attach unnecessary files, keep attachments small, and don’t attach proprietary formats.
6. Keep the width of your message under 80 characters
7. Use a client that sends threading headers.
8. Reply only to the necessary people (don’t abuse CC: or “reply to all”).
9. Be short and concise. Don’t ramble (stay on topic).
10. Break up your paragraphs.
11. Use proper spelling, grammar and punctuation (avoid CAPS).
12. Don’t answer spam, and don’t send out spam.

Keep your signature under five lines and use the signature separator “– ” (dash, dash, space).
Email signatures can be a great way to communicate to your target audience a little bit about yourself. Generally, email signatures are used for contact information, in case someone wants to get in contact with you outside of email. Other email signatures might include some art, or fancy font, or just an abstract representation of something completely off the wall. Whatever the case may be, there are a few things to keep in mind with email signatures.

First, keep your signature short and concise. No one wants to see a lengthy signature, width or length. A good rule of thumb, is to keep the length under five lines. When email signatures get lengthy, they begin to distract the reader from the message. Especially if loud colors and font sizes are used in an HTML signature. Remember, it’s the subject of your email, not what’s in your signature, that is most important. So, keep the signature light, small and concise. You can use really anything in your signature. That’s up to you. It can be contact information, such as cell phone or business fax, it could be a random quote you cherish, or something abstract. I use the first 5 generations of the glider from John Conway’s Game of Life. It’s plain text, it’s not noisy, and it’s only 3 lines. Plus, I always get at relpy every so often, asking what the signature means. Great conversation starter.

Second, when using signatures, it’s important to use the signature separator, which is been standardized as “– “, or “dash, dash, space”. Most email clients that I’m aware of will prepend this to your signature by default. However, if you are unsure, check your email settings or preferences to make sure this is set appropriately. The reason for this, is some mailing list managers will trunk signatures out of view, so the body of the text is the only thing visible. Some mail clients can be setup in this manner as well. Because it’s the body of the text that is important, and not the signature of the one sending the mail, many people just prefer to have their client chop the signature entirely. By making sure “– ” is in configured correctly, you are being considerate to those who wish not to be bothered by the noise a signature can create.

Do not attach unnecessary files, keep attachments small, and don’t attach proprietary formats.
On technical mailing lists, email attachments are generally frowned upon. The reason being, is that usually the message can be conveyed without an attachment. If a screenshot is needed to help clarify its meaning, then there are many free image hosting services that would be appropriate for displaying the image. Then, a simple reference to the URL of the hosted image would be provided in the mail. This keeps the email itself light on used bandwidth for those reading your message.

The biggest complaint of email attachments is the size of the attachment. My mother will send me videos she finds hilarious, emotionally moving, or whatever. These videos are usually 10-20 MB in size, so I get to sit for a few minutes, waiting for my email to load, because the attachment is downloading. Rather, if she would provide a URL reference to the video online, I could parse the email much faster. So, if you must provide an email attachment, try to keep the size to a minimum. Zip it up, if necessary, to help decrease the size. I understand this is not always possible, but a good rule of thumb, would be to keep attachments to under 100 KB. This would mean that the email would load up for most people in a second or two. Even those who are still on a dial-up account, the message could be received in 30 seconds at the worst.

Lastly, don’t assume that I have a license to view your attachment. While Microsoft Office might be nearly ubiquitous on most computers, sending a DOC or PPT file is usually in bad form. Instead, use standards-based formats, such as PDF, HTML or plain text. I once received an email that contained an XPS attachment. I literally had no clue what that was, and I did not have a program to open it. Going to the Google Machine, I found that this is an “XML Paper Specification” format designed by Microsoft to be the “PDF Killer”. I found that it was exported from Microsoft Word 2007, and I needed Microsoft’s XPS Viewer to view the utility. But, that utility is only available for Windows operating systems, and at the time, I was using my Debian GNU/Linux laptop. Long story short, I couldn’t open the file. So, I had to reply to the sender of the email to please send me a PDF version of the attachment, as I had no ability to open an XPS file. I was polite, and in return, he was polite is accommodating my request.

Keep the width of your message under 80 characters.
This might sound like an odd netiquette rule, but wrapping your message at 80 characters makes it easier for the recipient to read your message. In fact, the psychology department at Witchita State University did a study on this very thing. Which is better for reading text? Long columns of text or shorter columns? The results of the survey showed that people could read faster with greater accuracy and have better comprehension with two-column justified text than three-column (too short) or one-column (too long).

Translating this to email, people don’t want to read lengthy columns of text. When you wrap your text to a shorter justification, but not too short, as the study shows, it’s easier for the reader to comprehend what you’re talking about, and they can read through the text quicker. Major publishers know this as well. Pick up your favorite novel, and count the number of characters on a single line. I have a paperback copy of Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, and each line is wrapped at exactly 60 characters. I have another paperback copy of Macbeth, by Shakespeare. Each line wraps at exactly 50 characters. Looking through all my novels, I’m actually struggling to find a book that has more than 85 characters on a single line. The Debian System, written by Martin Krafft, wraps at 85 characters.

The standardized accepted practice for email, is to actually wrap your email text at 72-75 columns. This gives enough room for others to reply to your message, which will usually prepend the two characters “> ” to your original message, and still keep the length of the mail under 80 characters. As would be expected, Microsoft Outlook seems to struggle with this when writing emails initially, but can be configured to wrap at 80 characters for replies.

I’m subscribed to a great deal of mailing lists. Twenty-nine, actually. I receive upwards of nearly 200 personal emails per day. Not only personal email, but work mail too. In fact, with work, it approaches 500 per day. Above that, I spend A LOT of my time writing email. I’m not saying this to come off as some sort of expert on the subject. Rather, I know what bothers me with email, as well as what bothers others. I’ve seen this discussion over and over on mailing lists and even personal email. So, here’s what I would say would be a sufficient list of “email netiquette”.

My target audience is specifically those who are on technical mailing lists. However, I feel these netiquette rules can also apply to personal and corporate email as well. Here’s a brief summary. I’ll expound on each individual item later in the post.

1. Use plain text (preferred) or HTML
2. Top-post only when forwarding. Bottom-post otherwise.
3. Trim your replies.
4. Keep you signature under five lines, and use the signature separator “– ” (dash, dash, space).
5. Do not attach unnecessary files, keep attachments small, and don’t attach proprietary formats.
6. Keep the width of your message under 80 characters
7. Use a client that sends threading headers.
8. Reply only to the necessary people (don’t abuse CC: or “reply to all”).
9. Be short and concise. Don’t ramble (stay on topic).
10. Break up your paragraphs.
11. Use proper spelling, grammar and punctuation (avoid CAPS).
12. Don’t answer spam, and don’t send out spam.

Use plain text (preferred) or HTML.
Most email conversations I’ve ever seen have never needed to be composed in HTML format. There was no need to embed an image to clarify the topic, format text to emphasize meaning, or use a fancy layout to enhance the message. Granted, corporations such as Amazon, Bose, Newegg, and others will send HTML email, completely formatted like a web page when a customer makes a new purchase, and they wish to send a receipt or tracking information. Personally, I think all that extra bloat is just that- bloat. The critical information is the text, not the images or layout. In fact, whenever I see an HTML email, 99.99% of the time, it could have been composed in plain text, and same meaning would have been conveyed.

The first problem with HTML email, is not everyone is using an email client that is capable of parsing HTML cleanly, or even at all. Plain text is the universal format. Every email client can parse plain text. Second, most cases of HTML email I’ve seen add a great deal of bloat to the size of the message. Especially when people add background images to “personalize” their messages. It’s unnecessary, and when I have seen these “personalized” messages, they’re not done cleanly. They’re throwbacks to the 1990′s when no one knew how to properly design a web page, so they just look hideous. Do you and everyone else a favor, and ditch the fancy fonts, background images, and animated signature.

However, with that said, I understand that there is a time and place for HTML email. There are times when you need to compose a table, which plain text will not display accurately. There are times when using a bulleted list, italic or underlined words are necessary. There’s a time to sparingly use color. Sometimes, embedding images into the mail can add to the message the author is trying to convey. I don’t have any problem with this. After all, composing an email document is just that- a document. It’s word processing. There is a time and place for HTML email, and I accept that. Its need is usually rare, however, so plain text will probably suffice in most cases.

On a side note, one piece of netiquette that really doesn’t deserve it’s own subject, but can fit well here, is to avoid embedding URLs in the text. Instead, make reference to the URL with footnotes. For example:

Please refer to the documentation [1] for help on configuring your printer. Release notes for the software might be helpful with configuration as well [2]

[1] http://example.com/printer/docs/
[2] http://example.com/printer/release-notes/

You can put all of your footnotes at the bottom of your message, or you can interleave them, as Debian usually does with their weekly news.

Top-post only when forwarding. Bottom-post otherwise.
When reading English, you read left-to-right, top-to-bottom. Email threads are the same way. When you join a discussion, you expect to read the question first, followed by the answer. Blog comments, web forums, BBS, IRC, Facebook, Identi.ca threads, on and on. People read top-to-bottom naturally to follow a conversation. Not bottom-to-top. However, for some strange reason, reading the answer first, followed by the question has become acceptable in email. I’m not sure how this happened or why we continue to put up with it, but this is perhaps one of the most disturbing aspects of email threads. Case in point:

A: Trim the message, leaving appropriate context, then reply below.
Q: How should I reply to email then?
A: No.
Q: Should I include quotations after my reply?
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in email?

I blame Outlook users and people who use web-based email such as Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail, etc. for this gross perversion of the Internet. Some reasons top-posting sucks:

• Top-posting is lazy. Just because your client puts some extra carriage returns before the original text, and starts your cursor at the top, does not mean it’s acceptable. Press your delete key a few times, then press CTRL+END to get your cursor to the END of the message, and start typing there. We’re talking 3-4 keystrokes for appropriately replying to email.
• Top-posting is arrogant. Top-posting means that I want to read your reply first, before I get the full context of the message. It means the reply should be heard, before the argument. In spoken conversation, we would call this interrupting. Your message (spoken or written) is far more important than what you’re replying to. It’s just plain rude.
• Top-posting also encourages email bloat, with message, after message after message beneath the reply. I’ll cover trimming your replies in the next section.
• Top-posting generally means that the person relpying has not read the thread, or possibly even the message they’re replying to. In my experience in the world of email,

However, there are times when top-posting is appropriate, or at least acceptable. When forwarding emails to another individual, it’s generally a good idea to tell the reader know what you’ve forwarded before they start reading the message. If they read the message first, and you had put your message text beneath the forwarded email, telling them what the message is about, it would be provide no benefit. So, top-posting when forwarding is certainly appropriate.

Top-posting is also acceptable in corporate environments, where the culture is to top-post (usually, because of Outlook). If you were to bottom-post all of your replies, you might throw off your readers who are expecting to see your reply at the top of the message, and not the bottom. In such an instance, you would be the scourge of everyone else, making for a possible uncomfortable working environment.

Lastly, top-posting a reply can be acceptable when you want to add information to the thread before you begin adding your reply. Things such as a warning of your tone, adding a new person to the thread via CC:, then summarizing the thread before the reply, or giving information about your reply before hand would be appropriate. So, while top-posting is generally discouraged in replies, there are a few times when it’s okay. However, try to keep bottom-posting your replies the default behavior.

There’s even an RFC that addresses appropriate posting style. RFC 1855.

Trim your replies.
Trimming your replies means to leave only the appropriate context that you are replying to, cutting extra cruft out of the message. This is another problem with top-posting, that I briefly mentioned above. When people top-post, they leave every reply in the thread in the message. The more people top-post to the message, the longer, and longer the message gets, adding a great deal of bloat. When people don’t trim their replies, they remind me of pack rats- people who continually store stuff in their house, even though they’ll never, ever see it or use it again, they have to have it “just in case”. Their house gets cluttered wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling with crap. Not trimming your replies is similar in nature.

Let me give you some examples, so you can clearly see what I’m talking about. I’m subscribed to the Chromium Discuss mailing list. Due to the topic of the mailing list, many people are big Google users. As a result, many are using Gmail as their primary account. Not just using the account, but using the Gmail web interface. By default, the Gmail web interface will put a couple of new lines before the thread you’re replying to, and place your cursor at the top of the message. So, as you can imagine, just about everybody top-posts. It’s not 100%, however, as few people, such as myself, use an external client such as Thunderbird or Evolution, which encourage bottom-posting by default. So, the mailing list sees a mixture of bottom-posting and top-posting, with more top-posting than bottom.

Here’s an example of a thread about someone having trouble setting their router password with the Chromium browser. Everyone in the thread top-posted, and did not trim their reply. So, the email message grew and grew in size. Everybody’s inbox is being wasted, due to the inconsideration of all those top-posting, because of the massively redundant data.

Further, imagine someone just joining the list for the first time, and this message is the first one their receive as a new member to the list. They have to read the message in a convoluted upside-down top-to-bottom, bottom-to-top manner to get what is going on with the thread. Top-posting, as mentioned previously, is not appropriate, and should not be tolerated on mailing lists.

Now, let’s look at an example of someone who trimmed their reply. Here is a reply about not updating the release calendar for Chromium. The subject tells the reader what is initially being discussed. The author trimmed the reply, leaving appropriate context for his reply. The context was that the calendar will be updated “tomorrow”, and his reply with “Thank you”. All the necessary information is there, and if a reader were to just join the list, and this was their first email, they would know enough about the thread, without having every message present.

As with top-posting, not trimming your replies is lazy, and again, it’s rude. Some people don’t have the hard drive space you might, or the bandwidth to pull down such a noisy message. Cutting out the cruft, leaving the relevant pieces in, is considerate, polite and logically sound. Do you, and everyone else a favor, and trim your replies.

First, I like the command line. I like minimalist function and design. It’s always pulled me in. So, this solution is a command line solution. With that said, the command line doesn’t work well for viewing images, does it? This can be problematic for RSS feeds. I understand this. However, since using Newsbeuter for the time I have, I’ve found that I read a lot of blogs that are 100% images, and when push comes to shove, it’s adding a lot of noise to my RSS signal. As a result, I’ve removed a great deal of those feeds, and haven’t missed them. Again, going back to minimalism, I read fewer feeds now, and the signal is much, much higher. However, the link to the RSS feed is in the post itself, so you can follow the link from Newsbeuter to the browser of your choice if you wish. This will be the minority of the time for myself.

Second, this solution is not only using Newsbeuter, but also Mutt. Really, any mail client will work, but I like Mutt, so I’ll be using it in the solution here. Further, we’ll be tying Reader and Buzz together to make a few things work. But, everyone hates Buzz, right? Well, I don’t. I love the tight integration it has with Gmail and with Reader. Yeah, the design is lacking, that’s for sure. And some of the keystrokes are completely bass-ackwards compared to reader, and can cause problems with Gmail. However, because of the integration, and the reply-by-mail feature, which we’ll take advantage of here, you’ll find you won’t miss your Google Reader much (unless you absolutely have to view images in your feeds).

With that said, let’s begin. First, you need to install Newsbeuter 2.2 or greater and an mail client (Mutt, as already mentioned, will be used here). After installing Newsbeuter, you need to configure it to sync with your Google Reader account. Here’s what I set in my ~/.newsbeuter/config:

# setup google reader sync support
urls-source "googlereader"
googlereader-login "username@gmail.com"
googlereader-password "my-password"
googlereader-flag-share "S"
googlereader-flag-star "s"

Make sure you read the documentation about the Google Reader support. Now, fire up Newsbeuter. After authenticating, you will notice that it has populated your feeds, and you can start pulling down the updates to unread items. Here’s a screenshot of my Newsbeuter “home”:

You now have access to your starred items, your shared items, popular items and people that you follow (what others are sharing), but not the comments. That’s okay, we’ll cover how to get access to that in a second. However, if you have access to your starred items and shared items, how do you share or star an item in Newsbeuter? This is done through flags. Newsbeuter has a flagging system that allows a custom categorization of feeds by the user. The flag must be a letter, ether uppercase or lowercase, A-Z and a-z. You set the flag by pressing “Ctrl-e”, then entering the flag you wish to set. Now, you’ll notice that in my config, I have two options that are for flags: “googlereader-flag-share” and “googlereader-flag-star”. If I press “S” for my flag, then it will share the item. If I press “s” for my flag, then it will star the item. Test it, then log into the Google Reader interface to see it work.

Now, when I would share items, they usually were shared with a comment to encourage discussion with those who are following me (or anyone who can read the shared item). However, in Newsbeuter, there is no way to comment on a flagged item directly. Further, when you read items that your friends share, and they have comments with them, how do you add your own commentary? Well, I have a solution, but it doesn’t involve Newsbeuter. Rather, it requires that you use Buzz and an email client.

With Buzz, you can add your Google Reader shared items as a connected page. This means that whenever you share an item on Reader, it will show up as a new item in Buzz. Further, Buzz will send you an email of all the items you’ve posted to your wall, as well as your items that have been commented on. When you receive the email, the body of the message might be something like this (text copied and pasted from Mutt):

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:59:49 -0700 (PDT)
From: Aaron Toponce <z12dhj4psprvstctz23vcxg5wleozbfi104@gmail.com>
To: Aaron Toponce <aaron.toponce@gmail.com>
Subject: Buzz from Aaron Toponce

[-- Autoview using /usr/bin/elinks -force-html -dump ''/tmp/mutt.html'' --]
   [1]Aaron Toponce – Google Reader   Aug 31, 2010
   [2]Man Already Knows Everything He Needs To Know About Muslims - [3]Aaron
   Toponce's Friends' Facebook Links
   [4]Man Already Knows Everything He Needs To Know About Muslims
   Source: [5]www.theonion.com
   [6][IMG]
   SALINA, KS—Local man Scott Gentries told reporters Wednesday that his
   deliberately limited grasp of Islamic history and culture was still more
   than sufficient to shape his views of the entire Muslim world.
       I seem to recall that in earlier times it was only the court jester
   who could get away with speaking unwelcome truth to power. Perhaps that is
   why comedy often forces us to see things about ourselves we don't want to
   see.
   –––––
   Reply to this email to add a comment to this post.
   Link to this post:

http://www.google.com/buzz/115784859563110525602/BaqgGreVqdT/Man-Already-Knows-Everything-He-Needs-To-Know

References

   Visible links
   1. http://www.google.com/profiles/aaron.toponce
   2. http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1068226280&v=wall&story_fbid=124010764315178
   3. http://www.facebook.com/posted.php
   4. http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-already-knows-everything-he-needs-to-know-abou,17990/
   5. http://www.theonion.com/
   6. http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-already-knows-everything-he-needs-to-know-abou,17990/

Notice the “From” address. It’s a long unique string that gives you access to comment on the post directly. As mentioned in the email, all you have to do is reply to the email, adding your commentary, and it will be posted as a comment on the shared item. You’re actually commenting on a Buzz post, not a Reader post, however, because you tied Reader and Buzz together, they become one and the same. Also, Buzz is smart enough to strip signatures and attachments from the reply, so your email signature and S/MIME PGP attachment will also be stripped. Just make sure you trim your email appropriately, so you’re not adding anything irrelevant to your comment (trim everything out of your reply).

Go back to Reader, pull up the shared item, and notice your comment on the post. Of course, you can comment on others shared items by sharing it first (the “S” flag for me), then replying to the mail sent from Buzz. When Buzz gives the ability to be notified of everything that your friends are posting, then you shouldn’t have to share it also. However, I usually reshare what others have shared, so this isn’t a show-stopper for me, even if it is less than perfect.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention Newsbeuter’s tagging feature. In Google Reader, I have separated my feeds into folders. However, when I sync with Reader, it seems all my feeds are in one massive “river of news”. I don’t like this, and wish the folders were preserved. Well, with Newsbeuter, it is through tags. When in the main window, press “t” and it will take you to your “tags”, or folders as Reader would call it. At which point, you can read only what specific topic you’re interested in. However, I do know that Google Reader supports tagging beyond their folders. I don’t know of a way to apply Reader tags inside Newsbeuter.

I’ve been actively involved with the service since July 2, 2008, which means I’ve been on the service now for three years. In my opinion, it has trumped Twitter by leaps and bounds in terms of features. But, with these features has come uncharted territory, much of which is getting heavily abused. After being involved with the service as much as I have, I’d like to address some points that I would think should be common etiquette when using Identi.ca. All of these items have to do with group tags, or the ability to send messages to a group that you belong to using the exclamation point “!”.

DON’TS

1. Don’t use group tags on “retweets/redents”. When “retweeting/redenting”, strip any and all group tags from the post, and replace them with the hashtag “#”. Nothing is more annoying than seeing the same post posted to the group six, seven or eight times. Once is enough. Further, navigating to http://identi.ca/tag/foo will show all posts about “foo”, both hashtags and group tags.
2. Don’t post off-topic with group tags. When sending a message to a group, make sure it meets the groups rules for staying on topic. Don’t abuse the tag, because you think it’s semi-related to the topic at hand. In other words, don’t send messages to the Linux group and the Arch Linux group, when the post is entirely about Arch Linux. Chances are high most people in the Arch Linux group are in the Linux group as well.
3. Don’t abuse the number of group tags. We all know that GNU and Linux are married at the hip, but that doesn’t mean every post to the Linux group needs to go to the GNU group as well. When you start adding three, four and five group tags to your post, you’re just spamming as many groups as you can, to reach the widest audience, when the fact remains that many people are likely already in most of the groups your spamming. Try to keep your group tags to one or two. Any more than that is just spam, it’s annoying and I for one will block you, especially if you’re a repeat offender.
4. Don’t use the group tag if the person you’re in conversation with is not using it. Use the hashtag “#” instead. The problem with only one party using the group tag, is half of the conversation is available to the group, and if the conversation is highly active, it’s considered spam. If a reply thread has been carrying on during a discussion, people can navigate to the web interface, click the “in context” link and read the relevant discussion. There is no need to keep sending your replies to the group. However, if everyone in the discussion is using the group tag, then feel free to keep it going.
5. Don’t use the group tag and the hashtag for the same word in a single post. You only need to use the tag once. Using the group tag again or using a hashtag on the some word as the group tag doesn’t provide any extra functionality. When people navigate their browsers to http://identi.ca/tag/foo, or click on the hashtag “#foo”, they will see “foo” group tags and hashtags. So, having it once in your post will reveal it to that query. Any additional tagging on the same word in the same post is just silly.

DOS

1. Do use group tags to post relevant questions, stories, links or HOWTOS from the Internet. It’s always great to see a good article that I didn’t have in my RSS feeds that someone posts, and is usually worth of a “retweet/redent”.
2. Do use group tags interweaved with your post. In other words, while appending group tags at the end of your post is fine, using them as words in your post is even better. Same can be said for hashtags. Make them work with you in the post, rather than anchors at the end.
3. Do use the group tag sparingly. While you might be a member of the “listening” group, and your posts are strictly on topic, sending listening updates every 5 minutes might start to piss people off, and you could get blocked, and/or removed from the group.
4. Do use the recycle unicode symbol for “retweets/redents”. Although nothing to do with group tags per se, lots of posts to group tags are reposted. Using “RT” or “RD” is sooooo 2006 Twitter. Using U+2672 ♲, U+267A ♺ and U+267B ♻ seem to be most common. Plus, it saves you a character in your 140 character limit.

I’m certainly no expert on microblogging, nor am I any authority on Identi.ca. However, I have noticed that when these unwritten rules are violated, it usually ends up in pissed off people and a less-than-pleasant experience.

Then, while working for Guru Labs, I was on the road with Christer, another guru, and he was using it rather intensively. After dinner one day, and heading back to the hotel, he called me over to his room to hack on some stuff for our classes. In the meanwhile, he was go, go, go on Twitter (back then, they rocked it hard with a Jabber bot. They’ve since ditched the bot, and as a result, my interest in using it).

Him: “Dude, you need to get on Twitter. It’s a lot like an IRC room. Just post something, and people following you will likely reply if it’s interesting enough.”
Me: “So, I just tell people I’m having a burger for dinner, or that I’m about to take a shower, and people are supposed to care?”
Him: “Would you post that in an IRC channel?”
Me: “I guess not.”
Him: “Here’s the thing: start following others that you would be interested in keeping up-to-date with, like those in an IRC channel. They’ll likely start following you in return, especially if they know you. Eventually, you’ll have enough people to start a conversation with. Then, post something, and see if replies come back in. You know, stuff like what you would read on Techdirt, why the latest random distro sucks, etc. You know, stuff you care about that others can relate with. The conversation will just follow.”

He was right. I started following people first that I already knew personally. Mostly, those in the Ubuntu community. Then I started finding others that I didn’t know too well, but knew that their nerd level was on par with mine. As I started following others, people started following me. Then, the test- posting something. I don’t recall what I posted, as I ended up deleting my account in favor of Identi.ca (which I re-opned later, but lost my nick, my posts, and those I followed), but I’m sure they were awkward.

Then it hit me. When I found cool posts online, I usually shared the URL with an IRC channel I was in. Instead, I started sharing that link on Twitter. Sure enough, it would usually garner a reply. Then, a conversation would ensue. Before long, I “got it”. Twitter was nothing more than a platform for casual, off-the-cuff conversation. It wasn’t about what I was eating for breakfast, as much as it was discussing current topics, trends, fads, and such that I and my followers were interested in. As Christer mentioned, it was just like IRC, except rather that starting a conversation with a very limited set of people, it was being broadcast to anyone who could see my public profile, and people could subscribe to that feed if they liked what they read. Further, it was nothing about what I was eating for breakfast. Instead, it was all about having conversations with people I wouldn’t normally converse with.

Of course, if you know your Twitter history, you know it finally found its fame when celebrities started using it. People wanted to get closer to celebs. Celebs want to get closer to their fans. Then TV stations, news, weather, and just about anything and everything hit the Twitter trend. And rarely, since I’ve been on it, do I see people broadcasting what they had for breakfast. I see hurricane updates, earthquake news, when and where my favorite music artists will be, discussions, arguments and flames over some certain technology and on and on. Twitter has been the biggest platform for discussing the World Cup. Follow your favorite sports team, player and stats. Check out http://hashtags.org, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. It’s really quite remarkable.

So, it never ceases to amaze me those who don’t understand the technology, or the Luddites fighting against it, keep saying “I don’t care what you had for breakfast”. Is it really hard to understand how to use a microblogging service? Let me guess. You probably don’t have a Facebook account either, right? Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying everyone should jump on the social bandwagon, but if you aren’t using the service, because you think it’s nothing but vain, self-proclamations and promotions, then it’s clear you don’t “get it”, just as I didn’t back in 2007.

There are a number of reasons why Twitter, Identi.ca, Facebook, and other microblogging platforms will be successful over and over:

• Keeping in touch with those you care about
• Getting caught up on the latest news
• Looking for a social outlet beyond your current lifestyle
• Using it when other methods of conversation would fail (maybe you’re a mute)

Sure, as with any service, there are those that abuse it, and people who have used a microblogging platform knows that there is some noise to come along with it. But, when you learn how to use the tool effectively, it’s rather trivial to filter out the noise, and get a high degree of signal.

I use it entirely for conversation and news. I am an IRC junkie, and hang out in far more channels than I would care to admit. I do it for the social conversations, as well as support and providing support. Identi.ca and Twitter are that for me. A place to converse when I want to converse. It’s a place for news, when I’m in the mood to keep up-to-date (along with RSS and email. No, I don’t watch TV). I’ve even used it to get deals when travelling and scheduling appointments with friends. Heck, I recently became a ham radio operator for similar reasons.

So, to each their own, but if your problem with Twitter is not caring what people have for breakfast, then it’s clear that you don’t know what you’re talking about and you haven’t used the service. But then again, unless I ask, I’m likely not interested in your opinion anyway. I definitely won’t try to “convert” you.

First, my ZSH prompt was already developed from the outset with that in mind. So, no additional hacking has been needed on that. There are some elements that I’m not too terribly excited about. I don’t care for the dark blue directories on a black background, and I don’t care for the yellow character devices on a white background. Using the Tango scheme for gnome-terminal makes both of those scenarios much more tolerable. However, I do have additional items that I want to put in my prompt, but that will be for a later post. Also, my GNU Screen hardstatus line also needed to be compatible. This wasn’t that big of a deal, as I only needed to apply some colors to a few elements. Hhere’s a couple screenshots showing both black and white backgrounds, and how the ZSH prompt inside looks in each. Note the GNU Screen hardstatus line is at the bottom of the terminal.

From Desktop Screenshots

From Desktop Screenshots

Second, my Irssi theme also needed to work well with both. As I’ve already blogged before, I was really, really impressed with the madcows theme. However, I didn’t care for a few elements, so I started hacking it, making my own changes. I’ve tried keeping the true nature of the theme, while still adding my own style. The theme was already largely compatible with my ZSH prompt colors, it just needed some adjustments here and there, before I was totally satisfied. Further, it looked like crap using a white background, so this needed some hacking as well. I think I’m overall happy with the result, although I’m sure I’ve missed many things (like DCC, or CTCP), so there’s likely much more hacking to go before it’s perfect. However, for the general day-to-day chat, it’s 95% there. Screenshots for both backgrounds below:

From Desktop Screenshots

From Desktop Screenshots

In a nutshell, the themes are compatible with xterm-color support on most terminals. Mainly, I’m using bold and normal weights on red, green, yellow, black, white and blue. Anything else takes the default color of the terminal itself, whether it be the foreground text or the background. So, as long as your TERM variable is set to “xterm-color” or something better, you should be okay.

This post wouldn’t be complete without the source for you to try it out. Here’s a compressed tarball for giving it a shot, and reporting anything you find in the comments, if you like.

Cheers!