Category ‘Personal’
Webmail done right
I recently bought a (gs) shared hosting package at mediatemple.net. I’m not going to talk about their system now, but about their webmail client, which is provided by @Mail, their mail server. The @Mail web interface comes in 4 variations: Simple (which is plain HTML), Simple with AJAX (which is how most other webmail interfaces work today), Advanced for IE6+ (please, don’t ask me to comment on this one) and Advanced for Mozilla.
When I logged in using the Advanced for Mozilla interface I noticed something in the address bar: .webmail/parse.php?file=html/english/xul/xullogin.html&XUL=1. XUL? Wait… I’ve heard this before… A quick lookup at Wikipedia confirmed my thoughts: XUL is the XML User Interface Language, the Language the Firefox layout (i.e. XUL defines where the Home button is) is written in. But what does that mean for a webmail client? The answer is easy: It’s a hell lot faster than HTML + JavaScript, actually it’s running at the native speed of your browser, which is pretty amazing. The XUL interface also takes advantages of features your OS can do for you: The menus and lists are rendered by your OS and even sorting is done at native speed - awesome.
However, it’s still getting better: PGP built-in right into your webmail client! Unfortunately it seems you can’t upload your own key or download your private key after you generated a key using the webmail interface, but I’m sure we’ll see some improvements in the next version(s) of this software.
If you have a Firefox Browser at your hands, make sure to try the @Mail-Demo at http://demo.atmail.com/index.php
Jing
Jing is a small application allowing you to create screenshots and screencasts up to 5 minutes - nothing revolutionary here. The new thing is, that Jing is capable of storing these files at either screencast.com, Flickr, a custom FTP server or your local hard drive (or network drive) and inserting a link to the file into your clipboard. This way you can share screenshots with your mates over IM or Email almost instantly.
After installation Jing docks to your screen edges and reveals it’s features on mouseover. Jing makes it super-easy to take screenshots and share them, once you’ve tried it, you’ll like it. Jing also comes with a screenshot/-cast history that allows you to delete old files to save some space. However, there are two downsides:
- You’ll need to register with screencast.com on first startup even if you don’t intend to use it
- You can’t create multiple FTP accounts (e.g. one for temporary files and another one for files you’d like to post in your blog and store permanently)
Jing is available for Mac and PC at http://www.jingproject.com/
Cool gadgets on my desktop
I often use my computer in the late evening and even when I turn my screen brightness down my eyes hurt after some hours. However, I don’t like to keep the whole room lighted, so I got myself some gadgets: Magic Eggs, a ripoff of the well-known Oggz. Magic Eggs are 9,5cm tall eggs glowing in slowly changing colors. Using LED technology and an integrated rechargeable battery they provide up to 8 hours of colored light. I’m just charging them first time, so I can’t test whether their batteries really last eight hours, but I will test this…
Update: The eggs last even longer than eight hours - I had them running throughout the evening and the night for a couple of times now and they were still not empty more than 10h later when I woke up. Awsome!
Because they are battery-powered, they are portable - I love positioning them across my desk.
I ordered my Eggs from leds.de and it took them quite a while to ship them - seems they ran out of stock.
Oh, and here’s what you’re all waiting for: Images. More to come soon.
Oggz by amitp, released under cc-by-nc.
Update: More images in the full view of this post.