WebApp Consulting

Mutt is a powerful text-based email client. It is used mainly by system administrators and/or those who work remotely in terminal sessions. I wanted to try mutt as an email client for my daily work. And after a week of use I don’t want to return back to Apple Mail.

I have two email accounts and a dozen of aliases. In my configuration together with mutt I use the following applications:

• fetchmail – to retrieve messages from different email accounts
• dropmail – to filter and to save received messages locally in maildir format
• msmtp – to send messages using smtp servers
• mairix – to index and search emails
• emacs – to edit new messages and replies
• aspell – to spell check messages
• lynx – to view html attachments

The result is a small, powerful, and flexible email client. I can name a few inconveniences though:

• It takes time for mutt to parse big maildir boxes (during startup and when changing boxes only).
• There is no simple way to view another email (in a separate window) while you reply to a message. As a workaround you can keep another instance of mutt running just to view emails.

In overall mutt fits very well in the way I manage my daily emails.

I’ve been building many wordpress themes recently. And my code generators background suggested an idea for a wordpress theme generator.

Many wordpress themes found online have flaws in several areas:

• invalid HTML and/or CSS
• no support for widgets
• theme is easily broken with unusual content
• the license doesn’t allow you to modify the theme

And a theme generator can really help to resolve those issues.

The idea is simple. Put some wizard dialogs that ask for a layout, size, color scheme, header image, icon set — and generate a complete wordpress theme. Sure, it is not something new. You can find several implementations with Google. But I want to make it professional. Backed by a full-featured code generator and spiced with some advanced features (such as Analytics and AdSense) such generator may become quite popular.

If it happens that your hosting server (GoDaddy hosting for example) doesn’t provide tools to manage your account effectively, don’t be satisfied with that. You shouldn’t complain neither. Instead, go and install your own on-line tools.

PHP File Manager is one of such tools. It consists of one PHP script that you can upload to your server and have fully featured file manager running on-line. With it you can upload, copy, move, delete, compress, uncompress files on your server. You can set permissions, edit configuration files, check server info, and even execute system commands on your server. Quite impressive! And it’s open source and absolutely free. Make sure that only you can access your tools by installing them in password protected folders or assigning an URL that is hard to guess.

Once you have one running, don’t stop. Analyze your servers features, compile a list of items you miss much and go find a replacement you can install yourself. Tools for managing email accounts, domains, databases, server logs and statistics – everything is possible.