* * * * *
Reason #23 why I sometimes wonder how I even have a job
“How hard can it be to email a webpage?” asked Smirk.
“Very hard,” I said.
“Why do you insist on using 80s technolgy?”
“Technically, mutt [1] was written in the 90s, and can handle attachments.”
“Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrg!”
I started using the Internet in the late 80s, back in a time when sending
files via email was frowned upon, and every computer on the Internet was a
true peer to every other computer on the Internet [2]. And yes,
intellectually, I understand that time has moved on and we've regressed to
walled gardens of mediated digital experiences [3] and people never think
twice of emailing Microsoft Office to themselves so they can work on the
Johnson Account at home (and least you think I'm engaging in a bit of
hyperbole with Microsoft Office, I'm not—I handled the technical support call
for just that situation a few years ago).
But it still just doesn't feel right to send files via email.
Anyway, I've tried using more modern email clients [4], and I found them all
slower than the text based email client elm running on a 32MHz (megaHertz)
computer. But given that elm is no longer being maintained, I've upgraded to
the slightly slower (if a bit more featureful) text based email client mutt
[5] (which is okay, because I'm running it on a 2.6GHz (gigaHertz) computer).
And in order to keep the speed up (especially given the size of today's
emails—I mean, do you realize how big Microsoft Office is these days?) I read
the mail directly on my server. That has two benefits—one, I don't have to
suck down huge emails over a slow Internet connection, and two, I can check
my email from any computer without being forced into using some horrible
excuse of an email client over the web.
That means, technically, I don't check my email on my local computer here,
and therefore, it's a bit difficult to actually send a webpage. In fact, for
me to send a file via email, I have to upload it to the server, and if I'm
doing that, I might as well put it in a web-accessible location and send a
link via email. This also means that yes, things that most people would
consider “trivial” (like mailing Microsoft Office) aren't “trivial” for me
(and let's not even discuss sending me Microsoft Word documents … ).
[1]
http://www.mutt.org/
[2]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2008/04/02.1
[3]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2008/11/13.1
[4]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2005/12/01.1
[5]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2006/06/07.2
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