Mailman mailing list backup script

I’m sure there are some of these around already, but I have written a script to back up your Mailman mailing lists. It dumps the member roster and list configuration into separate text files, zips them up, emails them to you, and cleans up after itself.

The script is called mailmanBackup.py, and its syntax is pretty straightforward:
Usage: mailmanBackup.py listname <recipient> [<sender>]

If sender is not specified, the recipient is used as the sender. The recipient can also be a comma-separated list of email addresses.

Typical use would be to place a helper script like this /etc/cron.weekly:

#!/bin/sh
/usr/local/bin/mailmanBackup.py listname [email protected]

mailmanBackup.py is available under a CreativeCommons-Attribution license.

MySpace and its shit-ass design

Sean Bonner rips into MySpace, calling out its poor usability (far, far too many clicks to do anything). Sean was inspired by Evan Williams’ analysis of how MySpace gets so many page views. Evan was in turn building on Mike Davidson’s analysis. Mike’s characterization of MySpace as an “Unnecessary Click Factory” is spot-on.

Oh, and Mike also shows you how to make a profile that looks anything but shit-ass. Well done!

Memory shopping

Rich: Oh… another thing… what memory does the Macbook take? I was thinking about getting a single 512mb memory card (simm… dimm… whatever they’re
called these days)

Paul: DDR2 PC2-5300 667 MHz wooha.

Rich: I’m guessing ‘wooha’ isn’t a technical spec. :-) But with all the Korean OEMs you can never tell.

My daily WTF

The Daily WTF is a great source for humorous (and sometimes unbelievable) technical blunders.

About six years ago (before PEAR and such), I wrote a simple OO wrapper around PHP’s mail() function. I haven’t really touched the code, but I did slap a CC license on it last year.

Today, I got this email:

From: DANIEL CROWE <[email protected]>
Date: June 29, 2006 8:05:59 am PDT
To: ######@paulschreiber.com
Subject: PHP MAILER SCRIPT: BY PASS SPAM FILTERS

Hello Paul Schreiber,

I saw your name in phpclasses.org forum. I Humbly want
to know if you can write a php mailer script that can
send bulk mails and bypass spam filters. This is
needed to send bulk mails and delivers directly into
recipents inbox directly.

Do contact me back to [email protected].

Hope to read from you soon.

Daniel

I’m not sure how to answer this one. As Mark-Jason Dominus explains:

Some questions are logically nonsensical because the querent thinks they know more than they do. A lot of these have the form “How do I use X to accomplish Y?” There’s nothing wrong with this, except that sometimes X is a chocolate-covered banana and Y is the integration of European currency systems.

Blueberry muffins

Ingredients

1.75 cups flour
0.75 cup sugar
1.5 tsp. baking powder
0.5 tsp. baking soda
0.75 cup orange juice
0.25 cup oil (canola)
1 egg
1.5 cups blueberries

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Combine dry ingredients in bowl. In a separate bowl, beat together orange juice, oil and eggs—use a fork or wisk.

Combine all ingredients. Stir in berries. Put in muffin pan (2/3 full).

Bake 25 to 30 minutes.

Sending email from cell phones

With my old Nokia 6340i, sending email was as easy as sending a text message — you selected Messages > Write e-mail in the menu, entered the email address, subject, text, and off it went.

When I got my 6620, I was disappointed to find out that feature had been removed. Sending an email now required:

  • configuring the phone for GPRS (which is different for Cingular customers who, like myself, are former AT&T customers than for “regular” Cingular customers)
  • entering my email address, SMTP server, username and password
  • paying 3¢/KB (yes, per kilobyte)
  • … and waiting quite a while for the message to go through.

My friend Arthur tipped me off to a much better solution last weekend. Simply send a text to 0000000000 (ten zeros) with the first word being the email address of the recipient, and the email will go out lightning-fast, and you’ll only be charged the text message rate.

(keywords: cingular at&t sms text message cell mobile wireless email)

Update: Simon notes that this works on Cantel Cantel AT&T Rogers Cantel Rogers Cantel AT&T Rogers AT&T Wireless Rogers Wireless and passes along this handy tip sheet.

I found a FAQ for Cingular subscribers as well.